Future of the hobby

[NIRCLASS80]

There certainly is a stigma with model railways and interest in railways in general in Ireland yet when I worked in England I often got into conversations about them with workmates and found more and more of them had an interest.
 I think with so many of them going to preserved railways for a day out also made them question how it all worked.  Although that maybe an engineering thing!

[minister_for_hardship]

1 hour ago, NIRCLASS80 said:

There certainly is a stigma with model railways and interest in railways in general in Ireland yet when I worked in England I often got into conversations about them with workmates and found more and more of them had an interest.
 I think with so many of them going to preserved railways for a day out also made them question how it all worked.  Although that maybe an engineering thing!

With the UK there's a latent sense of pride that they practically invented them, here they're still looked upon in some quarters as being a bit foreign. 

I do think in some of the younger generation, when they see a well done exhibition model railway there's a "that's cool" respectful reaction rather than pointing and sniggering at "toy trains" and their operators (sic.)

[jhb171achill]

They have every right, I suppose, to be proud of inventing them, but there's a bigger cultural issue, very very evident when dealing with railway enthusiasts (in my case over the last fifty years) on RPSI May Tours, IRRS groups, etc etc.

Quite simply, there is a massively greater interest in, as a result of acceptance of, general industrial history (including railways) in Britain and specifically England, than here. It is not seen as "nerdish" to be interested in railways over there to anything like the extent it is here. So, they will invent railways, they will invent model railways, etc etc.

The fact that this is so, unfortunately, feeds into the crassly ignorant narrative amongst many in Ireland, that railways per se are somehow "British" or "colonial", and are thus not worthy of any attention beyond closing them. As those here will know, as anyone with even the slightest inkling of railway historical knowledge here will know, this is utter nonsense, and very contemptibly so too. But it's there.

The other matter is of course that until the 1960s, the whole of Ireland (bar Belfast city) was largely a rural economy, with something like 80% of people living on, working, on, or otherwise involved in a predominately rural lifestyle. Thus, even if the warped and ignorant narrative of "the brits built all the railways" was not there, the fact is that we were not an industrial, machinery-appreciating nation, so interest in such things was way down the scale.

I travelled on my first RPSI tour in 1970, and my first May Tour in 1978. I worked on all of them bar three from the very early 1980s until 2019, and was set to do the same in 2020 but for Covid. In almost all of those years, a typical tour train had 8-9 coaches (I think 10 at least once), of which one was the diner, another the guard's van, another the bar car. That left 5-7 vehicles full of people.  And full they generally were - virtually every single seat occupied. I looked after the seating plan for many years, so I'm well aware who was on it. So I can state with confidence that virtually never would the entire clientele from all corners of this island have filled one coach.

Let that sink in. Every year.

Add a handful of others; Phil the Welshmen, two Glasgow regulars, an American gentleman who came 22 years in a row, and virtually ALL the rest were ENGLISH. That is some showing. Bear in mind that while Irish people the length of this island whinged and complained that it was too expensive, our English friends were more than happy to cough up, DESPITE add to their costs a flight or ferry here, several nights in hotels in Dublin, Belfast and wherever the tour was on the Saturday night. Raffle? Sure! I'll take twenty tickets, says the Englishman. Irish enthusiasts would mumble "oh, I'm a bit short of change"...

This sounds stereotyped, but it's 100% true.

In reality, our English friends kept the RPSI going at a time when there were no cash-cow Santas. The May Tour was the piggy bank for decades. As treasurer, I knew to plan the entire year's finances around what profit the May Tour made. It is quyite simply no exaggeration to say that the RPSI would NOT have financially survived but for the May Tour profits of the 1980s and 1990s. We therefore owe the existence of main line steam in Ireland in this century to the specifically English supporters of this tour over a 20 or 25 year period. Again, let THAT sink in. Sounds like a big generalisation - but it's not. It was stark.

Then we also had the benefit of groups like "The Syndicate", Irish ex-pats over in Blightly attending events there to raise funds for preservation here. All went into the big financial pot, which - had it run empty - would have seen Whitehead become a scrapyard.

I recall one English gentleman who himself travelled on the May tour for years, approaching me in the bar car when I was working there. "Pint of Guinness", says he. I obliged, pulled him his pint, and said "£1.40", which was the price then (yeah, I know...). He gave me a tenner. "Stick the change in the pot!" he said, so it went to what was then a No. 4 fundraising drive. £10 was significant then - I do know that I had just moved into a new 4 bed detached home and it cost about £40k. A brand new family car would have been about £3500 at that time.

I could regale the assembled company here for hours with similar stories, but the bottom line is this. We do, and should, take our lead from what happens in Brexitstan, as they did invent much of this, and did, do and will lead the way. We have our own stuff now, thanks to Saints Murphy & IRM, etc., but the association of the latter with Accurascale makes perfect sense given the above - and, indeed, illustrates it.

So on the day that English tourists in Benidorm are perhaps a little quieter than usual, with Spain having won 4.12 to 3.09, I say that it's just as well that railway enthusiasm and railway modelling is somewhat less of a "niche nerdism" on the Neighbouring Island than it is here. And long may this continue, and long may we, here, try to educate our own indigenous public and get them to be a interested in a little more of our own RICH industrial heritage.

 

Edited July 15 by jhb171achill

[Horsetan]

1 hour ago, jhb171achill said:

They have every right, I suppose, to be proud of inventing them, but there's a bigger cultural issue, very very evident when dealing with railway enthusiasts (in my case over the last fifty years) on RPSI May Tours, IRRS groups, etc etc.

Quite simply, there is a massively greater interest in, as a result of acceptance of, general industrial history (including railways) in Britain and specifically England, than here. It is not seen as "nerdish" to be interested in railways over there to anything like the extent it is here. So, they will invent railways, they will invent model railways, etc etc.

The fact that this is so, unfortunately, feeds into the crassly ignorant narrative amongst many in Ireland, that railways per se are somehow "British" or "colonial", and are thus not worthy of any attention beyond closing them. As those here will know, as anyone with even the slightest inkling of railway historical knowledge here will know, this is utter nonsense, and very contemptibly so too. But it's there.

The other matter is of course that until the 1960s, the whole of Ireland (bar Belfast city) was largely a rural economy, with something like 80% of people living on, working, on, or otherwise involved in a predominately rural lifestyle. Thus, even if the warped and ignorant narrative of "the brits built all the railways" was not there, the fact is that we were not an industrial, machinery-appreciating nation, so interest in such things was way down the scale.

I travelled on my first RPSI tour in 1970, and my first May Tour in 1978. I worked on all of them bar three from the very early 1980s until 2019, and was set to do the same in 2020 but for Covid. In almost all of those years, a typical tour train had 8-9 coaches (I think 10 at least once), of which one was the diner, another the guard's van, another the bar car. That left 5-7 vehicles full of people.  And full they generally were - virtually every single seat occupied. I looked after the seating plan for many years, so I'm well aware who was on it. So I can state with confidence that virtually never would the entire clientele from all corners of this island have filled one coach.

Let that sink in. Every year.

Add a handful of others; Phil the Welshmen, two Glasgow regulars, an American gentleman who came 22 years in a row, and virtually ALL the rest were ENGLISH. That is some showing. Bear in mind that while Irish people the length of this island whinged and complained that it was too expensive, our English friends were more than happy to cough up, DESPITE add to their costs a flight or ferry here, several nights in hotels in Dublin, Belfast and wherever the tour was on the Saturday night. Raffle? Sure! I'll take twenty tickets, says the Englishman. Irish enthusiasts would mumble "oh, I'm a bit short of change"...

This sounds stereotyped, but it's 100% true.....

The other undercurrent that I detected years ago, and it's not just in railways, is that in Ireland there's no problem supporting something, but not if people have to pay for it.

[LNERW1]

I’m confused, has my topic been merged with another?

[BosKonay]

4 minutes ago, LNERW1 said:

I’m confused, has my topic been merged with another?

A collection of topics about the future of the hobby have been merged into this one.

[jhb171achill]

9 minutes ago, Horsetan said:

The other undercurrent that I detected years ago, and it's not just in railways, is that in Ireland there's no problem supporting something, but not if people have to pay for it.

100% - that's precisely what I (and others) experienced in over half a century of involvement in preservation finance and fundraising. the difference between the openness of mind and generosity of wallet of (again, specifically) the English - could not be more of a contrast to the attutude of the vast, vast majority here.

[Horsetan]

3 minutes ago, jhb171achill said:

100% - that's precisely what I (and others) experienced in over half a century of involvement in preservation finance and fundraising. the difference between the openness of mind and generosity of wallet of (again, specifically) the English - could not be more of a contrast to the attutude of the vast, vast majority here.

....which may also mean that "a nation once again" is likely to be a very long, long way away. 

[minister_for_hardship]

38 minutes ago, Horsetan said:

... in Ireland there's no problem supporting something, but not if people have to pay for it.

Or, cynical hat on, if there's an angle they can make money out of it.

[Horsetan]

8 minutes ago, minister_for_hardship said:

Or, cynical hat on, if there's an angle they can make money out of it.

Nowadays, I think they call that a "side-hustle"....

[skinner75]

1 hour ago, Horsetan said:

Nowadays, I think they call that a "side-hustle"....

Used to be called 'cute-hoorism'

[Georgeconna]

20 hours ago, jhb171achill said:

There's not much information to be given out, as there are now only three freight flows in Ireland, and two of them are just containers; Dublin - Ballina and Waterford - Ballina. Plus Ballina - Waterford timber.

Even when the Taras were running, thery frequently ran out of path (i saw them daily passing my window), so even armed with official times, you'd have been left standing half the time!

 

I had that too back in the 80's! Class stuff.