Peter Snow with his layout

Bonkers? Or just eccentric? :-)

Given that Peter Snow probably isn't short of a few bob, I thought the layout itself was a bit of a disappointment.

Holy crap!...He looks dead old now.

-- The Zero ST

Difficult to tell from the short clip but it looks like he likes to watch the trains go by for relaxation as much as anything and that the setup falls between Train set and true Model railway. Nothing wrong with that approach IMHO but it contrasts with the approach P Waterman who has invested a lot of money into his. Ok he is probably more wealthy than P. Snow but I suspect that both are /were time short more than anything. One has as simple private layout the other has a large model railway but could not hope to achieve it without assistance from others. I have to confess that at exhibitions much as I admire the skill of many modelers and their masterpieces, one of those Train Sets assembled from Hornby Dublo or Tri-ang Railways products with multiple trains whizzing round making a racket can be more entertaining. I've never gone to the next stage myself(apart from getting an Every Ready tube Train) and assembled the train set from the Catalogue cover I never had but reckone a few people have done . Having done it I wonder if it was what they expected or an anti climax.

G.Harman

He's a collector and train runner, a lot of those around.

Who _is_ Peter Snow? And why does John Humphrys not take model railways seriously?

Wolf K.

Peter Snow was a news reader although he progressed to doing the election results shows and other 'advanced' news stuff. As to John Humphrys ... he is just a television journalist so do they take anything serious?

I'm not sure that the word "just" should be there. After all, Blair avoided being interviewed by him on the "Today" programme, and Brown wasn't happy being in the hot seat, either.

As for the railway, it looks as though it's all his own work..., but then so's mine.

He has also moved into presenting history programs, especially military history, mostly with his son Dan, and seems to have morphed himself into a "TV Personality". To be fair, the programs are usually enjoyable.

His remark about "nailing it all down" made me smile, had an image of him hammering the track down with a 1 lb claw hammer.

As someone else suggested, he does not make the mistake that many other interviewers make, that of letting politicians answer the question they wanted to be asked instead of the one they were actually asked. I can see why they are all rather nervous of him. IMO, this can only be good for democracy.

Thanks to the OP for drawing our attention to it.

David

That sums it up very well. I lost interest in trains whizzing around after a few years and found my niche was in buildings, scenery and the permanent way. In a way, it presaged my career as a civil engineer, when I got paid for designing and building things rather than financing it out of my pocket money!

There seems to be a big difference between Britain and much of mainland Europe in terms of taste. Britain tends to favour what you might call the Pete Waterman approach, with lots of creative input and sometimes some outstanding modelling skills, whereas mainland Europe tends to favour operating ready to run models with more toylike buildings and scenery - the Peter Snow approach. ;-)

He's a very good interviewer, heard his interview with labour leader the other day - Humphreys pinned him down neatly, with Clark this am it was all very matey with jokey bits but again pushed for answers to questions Clark didnt want to answer.

Heard the original broadcast with Peter Snow, thought Humphreys did very well, bit of fun, bit of serious but never a hint of mockery.

Cheers, Simon

Me too, theyre great fun, but not what I want to build. My favourite was one with the bobbing giraffe under the bridge - watched that for ages.

Cheers, Simon

Bruce wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

"It's my layout ... " :-)

You mean that's not how it's done?

My track is mounted on cork roadbed that sits on 1/2" fibre ceiling tile on top of a plywood baseboard. Conventional track pins aren't long enough to get a firm hold on the plywood. At a sewing and crafts shop I found some 1 1/8" dressmaker's pins that were just the right length to push firmly into the plywood with a hammer and nail set, without buckling. A touch of matt black paint makes the shiny heads almost invisible.

I know some people don't like track pins, but they'll do until such time as I get around to ballasting and gluing the track into place - if ever.

Exactly. If he wants to run an HO CPR diesel alongside a Eurostar, then let him!

It comes to all of us eventually...

I very often find him rude, but then the interviewees probably deserve it.

MBQ

How timely; Snow on the railway.

MartinS wrote in news:k_ELo.23$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe17.iad:

Absolutely not mate, it's a 4lb lump hammer or nothing.

That wasn't my point. It was just a very basic (albeit large) layout that didn't seem to fit the person. It seemed quite cheaply done, lacked any real attempt at scenery and surprisingly, for someone whose attention to detail was almost legendary, there wasn't any detail.

It isn't a "model railway", because it doesn't attempt to model anything. Even calling it a "layout" is slightly kind, because it is basically two double track ovals. I'd call it a "train set" and I have seen *many* more impressive train sets than this one.

I had known for some years that Peter Snow had a model railway. Perhaps my expectations were set too high, but I expected something which had more effort put into it than this.

This isn't to criticise Peter Snow, and you're right: It's his layout. It just isn't what I expected.

I winced almost as much as John Humphrys did when Snow (appropriately) waxed lyrical about the wonderful sight of trains passing in front of a crude winter background scene that had big gaps at the joints and was even peeling off at the edges. But it's his layout. ;-)

Hilti Gun. Doesn't matter how hard the base board is,just use the appropriate strength cartridge. You could fix direct into an rsj and save all that wood warping problem. Ideal in the garden.

G.Harman