I've just been reading a pile of Model Engineers from the 1950's.
It appears that EVERYBODY (well, every model engineer) built at least one person-hauling model locomotive, and that every ME club had (or aspired to) a circuit.
Even some induividuals had a garden track to run their locomotives (note plural) on.
Further every club had regular activity, setting up track at fetes etc, and hauling kids for charity.
So what happened to all that ... stuff ?
BugBear