rail exhibition

That is surprising (to me at least). I suppose that the childhood interest doesn't have to include model railways, just railways in general. I have one modelling friend who didn't have a train set, but was a spotter. I think the key here is nostalgia. Railways is one of those things which sort of gets into the blood.

Either way, you are in a much better position to judge this than me.

Adrian

Adrian Bradshaw wrote:-

I always thought train set sales reached their low point in the early to mid

1970's? No Triang, no Playcraft, no Airfix, no Mainline, just DCM-Hornby. The only set I saw advertised (outside the model press) was the Flying Scotsman (and later the tilting train) and that was in a Green Shield Stamps catalogue.

kim

I think they were relatively much more expensive. I am also rather better off than my parents were when I was a child.

So I am not at all amazed.

Mark Thornton

"Mark Thornton" wrote

My first train set and controller (Hornby Dublo *Duchess of Montrose* passenger set) cost my Dad over a week's wages back in 1954 - and he was reasonably comfortably off. Now a similar set would be less than half a week's wages for someone on average earnings.

John.

As others have related, the Hornby Dublo I accumulated between 1950 and

1960 was sold or given away after I left home. I bought most of it out of my own pocket money/paper round (I worked for my Dad!). It's only in the last ~8 years I've had both the time and the disposable cash to get back into the hobby, with modern models of the late steam era.

Let me sway the conversation in another direction.

My children are into trains - very hard to take I might add cynically.

However I tried to purchase a stamp album in Sydney for Christmas for them. The type I had as a kid whereby you soaked the stamps and slipped them into slots on a cardboard background. Then you wrote the country names above them neatly.

Not one major store I went into stocked a stamp album. None stocked a serious train set.

Most stocked DVDs and video games though. Maybe I am old fashioned but are our major chain stores unwillingly keeping our hobby in the background.

Andrew

Andrew Robson wrote:-

IIRC model railways are a slow moving product with a relatively high mark up whereas most chain stores these days are only interested in fast moving/low margin products. They prefer if these are backed by saturation TV advertising which is very costly for a specialist model manufacturer.

(kim)