Celeb Railway Modellers

[thos]

From what I have seen of celebrities I wouldn't swap places with them for quids.

I'd like to have made my stash so that I could produce the music I'd want to produce - setting up my own record label when my old label dropped me - i.e. Peter Hammil not Vicki Beckham.

[Pete Mc]

Somewhere else on this forum is a thread entitled getting the young involved.Now my point is this,a lot of the famous people who have been spoken about in this thread are around our ages so don't really appeal to todays youngsters,that and the fact that people are too busy with their instant fixes of gaming on consoles and mobile phones and whatever else they use.

In years to come when todays yoof have no musical heritage,this point is very contentious in my opinion and as I'm the uncle of 3 kids,2 being teenagers who love this stuff called gangsta rap,I feel that in five,ten or fifteen years from now there will be nothing they can recall with fondness in this respect.People will try and experiment with things with which their idols are actively interested in.

The thing is,if more people knew how cool the stars who are into model railways are or were,then it might not be viewed as such an anorachy type of hobby.Consider this if you will,thirty years ago if you had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 and played games on them,you were a full fat geek.Today it is considered normal to have a video gaming platform of one form or another in a house containing youngsters and not geeky at all.The video games industry has grown to be one of the largest areas of the entertainment industry over the last couple of years,so if it transpires that a few of todays so called popstars or whatever they consider themselves is found to be a secret model railwayist,then thw world might snigger a bit,certainly the more narrow minded ones will,but someone somewhere will take note and have a bash,even if its a rubbish one at first.

What this hobby really does need in my opinion is a leg up from people who are passionate about their interest in model trains,so more peole take it up and allow the industry to flourish.

At the moment that is down to us and sometimes it feels like trying to push water uphill.My nephews,one of which is 7 and the other is 15,the younger one has been to my house and played with my layout with me for hours.His older brother on the other hand thinks I'm sad.And we had a conversation and did a comparison of what skills it takes to build a layout.His hobby is football and video games incidentally,he's crap at football and only an average video gamer so when we made comparisons,have a guess which came out on top for skills count.

But to him,model railways are sad and his opinion reflects the views of a majority of his generation.Until a few stars confess to a model railway interest from their generation this is how it will remain,regrettably.

I know this has moved away from the thread subject a bit and I apologise for this but as I have said,if more famous people came out of the closet with their model railway hobby,we may even be seen as a tiny bit cool,somehow I doubt it though.

Pete

[OwL]

I think David Cameron and Justine Greening must be big fans of model railways because they treat the real UK network like one big 'Thomas the Tank Engine Train set'!

[Sprintex]

Somewhere else on this forum is a thread entitled getting the young involved.Now my point is this,a lot of the famous people who have been spoken about in this thread are around our ages so don't really appeal to todays youngsters,that and the fact that people are too busy with their instant fixes of gaming on consoles and mobile phones and whatever else they use.

In years to come when todays yoof have no musical heritage,this point is very contentious in my opinion and as I'm the uncle of 3 kids,2 being teenagers who love this stuff called gangsta rap,I feel that in five,ten or fifteen years from now there will be nothing they can recall with fondness in this respect.People will try and experiment with things with which their idols are actively interested in.

The thing is,if more people knew how cool the stars who are into model railways are or were,then it might not be viewed as such an anorachy type of hobby.Consider this if you will,thirty years ago if you had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 and played games on them,you were a full fat geek.Today it is considered normal to have a video gaming platform of one form or another in a house containing youngsters and not geeky at all.The video games industry has grown to be one of the largest areas of the entertainment industry over the last couple of years,so if it transpires that a few of todays so called popstars or whatever they consider themselves is found to be a secret model railwayist,then thw world might snigger a bit,certainly the more narrow minded ones will,but someone somewhere will take note and have a bash,even if its a rubbish one at first.

What this hobby really does need in my opinion is a leg up from people who are passionate about their interest in model trains,so more peole take it up and allow the industry to flourish.

At the moment that is down to us and sometimes it feels like trying to push water uphill.My nephews,one of which is 7 and the other is 15,the younger one has been to my house and played with my layout with me for hours.His older brother on the other hand thinks I'm sad.And we had a conversation and did a comparison of what skills it takes to build a layout.His hobby is football and video games incidentally,he's crap at football and only an average video gamer so when we made comparisons,have a guess which came out on top for skills count.

But to him,model railways are sad and his opinion reflects the views of a majority of his generation.Until a few stars confess to a model railway interest from their generation this is how it will remain,regrettably.

I know this has moved away from the thread subject a bit and I apologise for this but as I have said,if more famous people came out of the closet with their model railway hobby,we may even be seen as a tiny bit cool,somehow I doubt it though.

Pete

Personally speaking, and not having any kids through choice, I'd say it was a complete waste of time trying to get them interested in the first place. Model trains were considered just as weird and geeky when I was a teenager in the 80's as they are now, and probably always will be - it's uncool. That didn't stop me coming back to it at the age of 39, and as we see now on this very forum plenty of people get into it later in life for the first time, and so will a proportion of todays teenagers when they get a bit older.

Why not just face the fact it's a mainly adult's hobby with a sprinkling of younger blood, because that's the way it's been for at least the last 30 years 


Paul

[lesmond]

I'd have to agree - we've also no kids, but I do have three nephews (aged 20, 10 and 5 (the last one was somewhat of a surprise to my sister in law; not helped that I laughed for almost 2 weeks when I heard she was expecting)).

None of them have ever shown any interest in their uncles various railways at any points in their lives. I reckon this would be about right. They do have interests, the oldest likes to drink a lot, the middle one loves ice hockey, and the youngest currently thinks he is a ninja.

Model railways, or indeed model making of any kind, has always been seen as a bit of a "geek" activity, and probably always will be. There will be some youngsters who will take it up, enjoy it, and keep at it for life, some will try it and not like it, most will have no interest. This seems to apply to most hobbies. Anything that can be done to encourage interest is to be applauded, though.

[EtchedPixels]

Rod Stewart claimed that getting his layout in the big US modelling magazines was his biggest moment. So he's a railway modeller who happens to have a day job in the music business

Alan

[moogle]

Consider this if you will,thirty years ago if you had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 and played games on them,you were a full fat geek.

Model trains were considered just as weird and geeky when I was a teenager in the 80's as they are now, and probably always will be - it's uncool.

Wow! 

I was the 1st kid at our school to get a Commodore 64 and I was into model railways then, and have been ever since.

I've was a MEGA GEEK all that time and didn't know it! 

I noticed on, and according to, the Wickedpedia list that we have a celeb on here, our very own EtchedPixels! 

[Lawrence]

I had to solder the componants in for my first computer - a ZX81 kit  and seem to have spent most of my life surrounded by the damned things and trains to varying degrees, I am a fat, fool geek then 

[Claude Dreyfus]

Not sure if too many would have heard of Rudolph Kempe.

He was a German orchestral conductor who lived between 1910 and 1976, most notable for his recordings of great German orchestral works...his Richard Strauss orchestral works are still - in my opinion - their seminal recordings. He died just a year after taking over the BBC Symphony Orchestra, therefore robbing the British public of a greater understanding of this master...

He was, not least, a model railway nut, particularly into German H0 

On a similar theme, Antonin Dvorak was also a railway fiend...but he was a little early for modelling.

[Newportnobby]

Not sure if too many would have heard of Rudolph Kempe.

He was a German orchestral conductor who lived between 1910 and 1976, most notable for his recordings of great German orchestral works...his Richard Strauss orchestral works are still - in my opinion - their seminal recordings. He died just a year after taking over the BBC Symphony Orchestra, therefore robbing the British public of a greater understanding of this master...

He was, not least, a model railway nut, particularly into German H0 

On a similar theme, Antonin Dvorak was also a railway fiend...but he was a little early for modelling.

I have certainly heard of Herr Kempe, and also rate Richard Strauss's Death & Transfiguration one of my favourite classical pieces. Of course, Dvorak created a New World in railway parlance but not in N as it wasn't about then

[Gordon]

I was under the impression that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was an enthusiast. We chatted briefly about it when I collected my DofE gold award from him in 1977 and he certainly sounded like more than a 'Thomas' novice!

I always wondered if Jean-Michel Jarre was a railway enthusiast as a number of his instrumental works include sounds from (presumabvly) SNCF passenger trains and freight yard sounds.

This fact once helped me win a Chiltern Radio competition (the only time I've been moved to phone in to a radio station) but the DJ got me going by challenging listeners that he could answer "any music question" and get it right. You won a bag of radio station goodies if he couldn't answer it!

I asked him "which Jean Michel Jarre work includes the sound of a French passenger train passing at speed" - and he had no idea so I won!   

[hairygit]

Noel Edmonds is apparantly quite into model railways. He has been a frequent visitor to the model shop on St Davids Hill in Exeter for many years, the owners will never divulge what he buys, even what scale

[Newportnobby]

Noel Edmonds is apparantly quite into model railways. He has been a frequent visitor to the model shop on St Davids Hill in Exeter for many years, the owners will never divulge what he buys, even what scale

Is his layout called "Crinkly Bottom"