Looking for something else I stumbled across the linked site below. That was several hours ago. It disvcusses the evolution of 'model engineering' and the development of 'model railways'.
Miniature railways and cultural microsms - railway modelling in Britain, c.1900-c.1950
Ralph Harrington BA (Lond.), MSt (Oxon.), DPhil (Oxon.)
formatting link
Interesting on several levelsRegards
Mike