Model trains hit the buffers as youth fail to get on board

ONCE many a child’s favourite pastime, model railways are now the provision of ageing rockers, train buffs and retirees – but the singular hobby could be nearing the end of line as its adherents grow older.

Two of the linchpins of the model railway community – a-long running exhibition and one of the oldest modelling shops in the country – are to close, with both blaming the ageing profile of enthusiasts and a decline in the numbers of new fans taking part. Warley

Model Railway Club (WMRC) has announced that the national exhibition it has run for the past 30 years is to close, with the one held at Birmingham’s NEC in November 2023 the last to take place. Club officials said the organisers and volunteers who have run the show are now getting too old for the job.

At the same time, Hatton’s Model Railways shop in Liverpool, which has been open since 1946, is to shut its doors permanently.

The shop, set up by Norman Hatton after he was demobbed from the Army at the end of the Second World War, went on to become one of the country’s preeminent modelling outlets, expanding into mail order and website retail supplies for model railway enthusiasts.

Announcing the end of the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition, Nigel Smith, 62, its manager, said: “This will be disappointing to many people including visitors and exhibitors alike. However, we are an ageing membership and we have to be realistic about what we can deliver in the future.

“Many of our existing team have been involved for over 30 years and would like to retire gracefully".

Steve Flint, 69, former editor of Railway Modeller and a member of WMRC charitable trust, said: “The hobby is alive and well at grass roots level, but the commercial boom period of recent decades has probably run its course, having been slowed by the effects of the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and the ever-increasing age of enthusiasts.” He added: “The tick of the demographic time bomb is getting more prominent, as the next generation of younger enthusiasts required to take over the staffing and running of such prestigious events does not seem to be materialising.”

Steve Scott, 70, a trustee of the WMRC charity, said it was getting harder to find new, younger members to revive the organisation. He said: “The way youngsters play virtual reality games, sitting down with something like model railways is not something they want to do.”

The owners of Hatton’s have also decided to shut-up shop – despite having an annual turnover in excess of £16million in recent years – owing to a drop in customer numbers and increasing running costs.

Mr Hatton’s late son Keith and his daughter Christine, now 61, took over the business when their father retired in 1998, expanding the business into online sales. But even that was not enough.

In a statement Hatton’s said: “Changing market conditions have had a large impact on the business, we have seen this in declining customer numbers, changing customer demographics and supply chain disruption.”

It added: “Increased cost of compliance has become a large factor. Brexit, GST [Goods and Services Tax] and other operational costs of running an international business have all increased dramatically over the past few years.”

Recent TV interest in model railways appears not to have been enough to save either Hatton’s or WMRC’s exhibition. Music producer Pete Waterman is to present a four-part Channel 4 show on model railways called Little Railways & Big Names later this year, alongside Holland, James May and Francis Rossi.

This follows Channel 5’s Great Model

Railway Challenge series in 2018.

Sir Rod Stewart has also been a vocal proponent of the hobby.

Sir Rod Stewart has spoken fondly of his model train collection