WMD - Woody's Modelling Diary: Cost of living pressures

With a lot of talk at the moment about the cost of living rising there is no doubt that model railways can be expensive. Some of the recent released model locomotives can easily be in the region of £150 to £250. For that you do get a very well detailed model that is almost, what is termed as museum quality. Unless you are a highly skilled modeller it is unlikely that you will get anything better. However that is a lot of money in most peoples terms. Add to that a train for it to haul and even if you only have room for three coaches it is likely to add another £100 to £120. A six coach train can easily add up to £250 to £300.

Here at WMD we need to be cautious in purchases with the watchful budgetary eye of Mrs. Woody keeping monetary matters in hand. So I do keep a look out for bargains. One example is that I have slowly been building up a collection of British Rail Blue era coaches as I have a few diesels from that era of the 1970s into the early 80s. I do have room for six coach trains on my layout so I was pleased that over the past few months I have managed to put together a rake of 6 Mk2 coaches for just over £40! Three were bought via eBay for about £25 including postage and three at last weekends Bingham Model Railway Club exhibition for £6 each from the club sales stand. What I have will never be classed as a Museum Quality Model. They do, under close scrutiny, show their age, wear and lack of detail finesse. But that is the thing. Under close scrutiny. On most layouts, including mine, they will be wizzing by at speed (hopefully!) so the chance to closely examine whether the electric generator has the proper belt modelled in the correct place or that the toilet window is located slightly to one side of where it should be is somewhat superfluous. There is an old saying - If it looks OK from 6 feet which is the normal viewing distance for layouts, then it is OK!

They do require a bit of a clean and fettling and perhaps one or two wheels require replacing but overall just over £40 works for me - and hopefully Mrs. W!

It is very nice to have the latest detailed models and I do have some myself, but don't write off old models. Most will give years more service and still look good from that 6 foot distance! Keep an eye open for those bargains and railway modelling can be a reasonably cheap hobby.