Thank you so much for making this programme available. I had just the last nine minutes of this on VHS from when it was first shown.

Hope you've enjoyed watching the program, today its 39 years since the program first aired on Channel 4.

I was in a pinch finishing my layout one night. I needed some long grass so I used the hair off of my nutsack. Worked 👍🏼

I had this on VHS when i was a kid in the early 2000s, I may still have it buried somewhere. given this was filmed nearly 40 years ago, i wonder how many of these layouts still exist today. sadly all the older/elderly modellers will no longer be around, but hopefully some of their work still is. it's mad just how much went into it back in the 80s. that setup at 38:50 was amazing. I think DCC has taken as more out of the hobby than it's added. I think the manual aspect of analogue adds big element to the hobby and keeps you engaged. you're not just watching the trains on the layout, your managing every aspect of the layout on a level that DCC does not give you. It just seems allot more tangible and you have to think about the next move before you do it.

Felt a bit like reading the Railway Modeller in the 60s and 70s when I was a teenager. Luckily, I now have have my own layout in the garden. Great film, just shows how much fun model trains can be. A lifelong hobby for so many.

Excellent, thank you for showing this

We had this on tape when I was a kid but it was partially recorded over. Never saw the first 10 minutes, until now. Always wanted to build a layout but one thing or another stopped it. But I have a chance now.

I met Bob Symes at his house in Guildford about 1961/62. He had built a working diesel hydraulic in “0” gauge, I think he was also building a a diesel electric as well. There was a live steam locomotive running as well that day. Semi-retired in Picton, South Island, New Zealand.

I remembered having this on VHS as a teenager in the mid 2000s, it was given to me from an old friend of my maternal grandma whose brother was interested in model trains. I thought it was pretty cheesy as it was 80s television. Bob Symes seemed like a friendly old chap and very enthusiastic. Some of the layouts I see on this show really inspired me to create something like them, but unfortunately I do not have the time, money or skills to make such a project. However I am happy with just modelling with basic techniques regardless of how unrealistic and imperfect they might make my layout look. After all, if you aren't enjoying the hobby then why the heck are you still doing it?

Love it❤

CHILTERN GREEN N & 2mm finescale layout. ( 8:00 - 11:50 mins). A virtually exact scale replica of the real station on the old Midland Mainline out of St. Pancras. Built by The Model Railway Club. (The Worlds Oldest). The four track line on the layout was "N" Gauge for the outer two tracks (the fast lines). But laid to 2mm finescale for the inner two tracks (or Slow/cum freight lines). Although all the track used 2mm Society finescale rail, & was of course all scratchbuilt. Indeed this is the only layout I have ever seen that correctly copied "Permissive Block" working. Permissive Block was abolished by BR around 1968. Permissive Block (no passenger trains allowed) was for freight only, during off peak periods on the Slow lines only. So the semaphore signals, all of which were fully operational on the layout, were left in the clear position during Permissive working. So freight trains could follow one another purely by line of sight. At a maximum 25mph, with the order they had to stop short of the train in front by 200yds, if the train ahead stopped ! The Luton Hoo (ex GNR Dunstable to Hatfield branch) was added a couple of years after the layout first appeared at Exhibitions. The layout was sold to Oakhill Manor (near Shepton Mallet) around 1988 which was open to the public. However due to a total lack of understanding by the buyer, that out of the box N gauge models could not be used. The layout only lasted a few weeks on show. Sadly it was effectively destroyed by the clumsy teenagers employed to operate it. As they had absolutely no experience of Model Railways.

Betamax. 13 years old. Christmas Ferreoro Rocher and a few stolen nips of Bailey's. Am I the only one who enjoyed the choir at the intro?

1985? I had this on vhs when I was in my teens early/mid 2000's. This does bring back memories lol.

I wonder how many of thease people are still alive or what they are up to now?

Series like these showcasing fantastic layouts and basic/ top level modelling skills would do more for the hobby if we're aired on TV today rather than the awful great model railway challenge which in my opinion was a series that almost mocked the hobby.

In 1984 I thought Hornby was incredible. How wrong you can be