Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Hellingly in a partwork

When you buy the first issue of a partwork for the gift strapped to the cover, do you ever look at the magazine contained in the package?

If you do, and you have signed up for "Your Model Railway Village" and stuck with it to issue 36, you'll find 4 pages on my model of the Hellingly Hospital Railway.

It seems that while many ignore the printed part of the package, in truth it's worth a look. I was approached to write this piece so there is some effort being put in to provide quality content. It was, I admit, something that hadn't crossed my mind but nice to know.

I don't know for certain what people who received Issue 36 find attached to it, although the instructions contained within the pages would suggest some cobblestone sheet to be used around the station.

As well as this and my piece (which looks very nice) a couple of pages delve in to the price of travel in the age of steam. Third class and workman's fares are covered and I suspect that for the market this publication is aimed at, this will be interesting information. Hard-core enthusiasts might scoff, but we were all beginners once .

Nice to see an honest assessment of the photo accompanying the third class information. The happy travellers are described, "However the people in this scene look happy to be in third class, perhaps because the photograph was taken for publicity purposes by the GWR!"

Who says marketing is a new thing?

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