Roamer: It’s a wonderful scaled-down world of miniature railways

There seemed to be hundreds, if not thousands, of model trains in the church hall, some running on extremely life-like railway layouts.

The little engines sped through mountains, forests and stations, past fields, farms and meadows and over country roads on rustic bridges.

And they’ll return next Saturday, March 15, with “a large selection of stalls and other memorabilia”, fair organiser Chris Hill told me.

More details shortly, but first, some ‘model railway context’!

There’s an International Model Railway Day every year on December 2, doubtlessly celebrated by superstar singer Rod Stewart whose expansive and expensive model railway covers 1,500 square feet of his luxury Beverly Hills mansion.

Singer songwriter Neil Young keeps his 230-metre track in a huge barn and Jools Holland’s vast layout includes a London-Berlin route.

Frank Sinatra reportedly had $1m worth of model trains, a hobby shared by other celebrities like Roger Daltrey, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins and Ringo Starr.

Acclaimed record producer/songwriter Pete Waterman is said to be one of the UK’s foremost railway modellers and broadcaster Anne Diamond is one of the few famous female hobbyists.

The world's oldest working model railway, built in 1912, is in the National Railway Museum in York, England, and Britain’s biggest train layout, Heaton Lodge Junction, has over three miles of track!

Hamburg’s Miniatur Wunderland (Miniature Wonderland), one of Germany’s most popular tourist attractions, is probably the world’s largest layout with around 1,230 train engines, 12,000 wagons and carriages, about 4,300 houses, roads and bridges, 10,000 vehicles, an airport with 50 model planes and around 290,000 little human figures throughout!

And finally, putting model-making into context, one of Northern Ireland’s most famous writers regarded his first encounter with a scaled-down model as a profoundly life-changing experience!

Along with The Chronicles of Narnia, one of Belfast-born C S Lewis’s best-loved books is Surprised By Joy, first published in 1955.

In it, Lewis writes about his elder brother’s model landscape “on the lid of a biscuit tin” planted with moss, lichen, twigs and flowers “so as to make a toy garden or a toy forest.”

Lewis describes his brother’s little model as “the first beauty I ever knew” though he was too young to fully appreciate it.

“But it soon became important in memory,” he adds, “as long as I live my imagination of Paradise will retain something of my brother's toy garden.”

Whilst moss, twigs and lichen are still used in today’s model railways, the Lewis brothers’ toy garden has been overtaken by technology!

“Using electrolysis to make grass is quite popular,” Chris Hill told me, “the electrolysis lifts the synthetic material up, so that it stands on end, like grass does.”

I researched this further! It’s called ‘static grass application’, applying static electricity to green-coloured nylon or polyester fibres to make them stand up, just like in a field!

And Chris’s club uses a state-of-the-art, electric, 3-D printer which makes tiny plastic people, or lampposts, or little park benches.

Next Saturday’s Cooke Club fair will have “a large selection of stalls,” Chris told me, “and there’ll be a wide variety of model railway, diecast vehicles and other memorabilia.”

The Club’s own Cooke Colliery layout will be displayed, along with other layouts and hobbyists’ stalls.

“There’s a block kit, like Leggo, but not quite the same,” Chris explained. Called ‘The Weee Duck’!”, they’ve a NI police land rover kit, various trains and H&W’s famous yellow cranes.

“And Belfast Toy and Treasures will be there” he continued “they do lovely antique signs, station names and things like the old Bovril advertising signs. And there’ll be modelling books and magazines.”

And what is 40-year-old model-railway enthusiast Chris Hill looking forward to?

“There’s always the joy of the trains going round in the massive landscape and people watching and wondering how it’s all made, all the intricate details, all the different things shrunk into miniature, and the kids peering over the top trying to see what’s in the background making it all work.”

Full information about next Saturday’s entrance-free fair is on Cooke Model Railway Club’s Facebook page.