Picking up the baton again
Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2019 2:38 pm
Hi All,
I’m George, and I’m getting back to model railways after 5 decades. My father was a train enthusiast (real world) and a very good scratch modeller. Until the age of 15, when I discovered girls and folk music, I was a pretty fair scratch modeller myself, building mostly battlefields and so forth. I have been looking for some way to connect with Leo, my 5 year old grandson as, due to chronic rheumatoid arthritis, I can’t do the ‘normal’ granddad stuff like rough and tumble, chasing, and ball games. I was much impressed by ‘The Great Model Railway Challenge’, and as I can still design and build models, I thought that would be perfect for me and my Grandson to do together.
My priority, model rail wise, is to make a model layout with lots of things that he can help with, and can help run when it is built. I’ve settled on a kind of Steam-punk version of a World War 1 scene, based on the ‘alternate’ version of the war as portrayed in the film ‘The Great Martian War 1913-1917’. His father was a soldier, shot through the lung in Afghanistan (survived), so I thought this was very apposite -he won’t realise it, but he will be learning about the job of a soldier and the workings of railways as we go along.
As things have moved on a pace in the last 50 years, and as there is such a bewildering selection of, well, everything, I will probably be looking for a fair amount of help.
So, that is the story so far. Now, I just have to wait until Santa visits to start the ball rolling...
I’m George, and I’m getting back to model railways after 5 decades. My father was a train enthusiast (real world) and a very good scratch modeller. Until the age of 15, when I discovered girls and folk music, I was a pretty fair scratch modeller myself, building mostly battlefields and so forth. I have been looking for some way to connect with Leo, my 5 year old grandson as, due to chronic rheumatoid arthritis, I can’t do the ‘normal’ granddad stuff like rough and tumble, chasing, and ball games. I was much impressed by ‘The Great Model Railway Challenge’, and as I can still design and build models, I thought that would be perfect for me and my Grandson to do together.
My priority, model rail wise, is to make a model layout with lots of things that he can help with, and can help run when it is built. I’ve settled on a kind of Steam-punk version of a World War 1 scene, based on the ‘alternate’ version of the war as portrayed in the film ‘The Great Martian War 1913-1917’. His father was a soldier, shot through the lung in Afghanistan (survived), so I thought this was very apposite -he won’t realise it, but he will be learning about the job of a soldier and the workings of railways as we go along.
As things have moved on a pace in the last 50 years, and as there is such a bewildering selection of, well, everything, I will probably be looking for a fair amount of help.
So, that is the story so far. Now, I just have to wait until Santa visits to start the ball rolling...
