Rhiw at Fareham model railway exhibition

photo: Jol Sargent

The last couple of weekends have been a compare and contrast game: Scaleforum is serious and naval-gazing, the punters are very much in the mould of the typical modeller - middle aged and male. Mrs F. asked why people were staring. It was suggested that it was because she was probably the only prototype version female in the room. Looking around I could see that there were at least two cut-and-shut rebuild versions in my immediate vision.

Fareham, in this weekend just gone, dumps you straight into the reception class with a bump. You could count the modellers on one hand the rest are family groups with an abundance of Ommpa Loompas. Having a fairly high mounted, front operation layout has its disadvantages here and has no rabbits to count. I've noted in the past that this sort of show favours the pretty, low mount, rear operation beast. Not for them, but for me - small child approaches, points, Mummy drops down to child level, CF gets the deep cleavage view right down to breakfast time. However with the front op' I move straight into teacher mode and hand the controller to any passing ten year old who stops for more than a minute. At first they reel back, but pretty soon they are reading the sequence, changing the signals (where I forget) and easing back to uncouple without any problems at all. After all it's sub-PS3 intelligence so they should find it easy, but if we don't let them, then they won't join the club.