Peter Snow's model railway

Listening to the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning I was surprised, any shocked to hear a new report on the 100th anniversary of the Model Railway Club in London. The running order for the show says:

0742
Britain's first model railway club was set up four years ago. John Humphrys celebrates the anniversary by playing on Peter Snow's train set.

You can listen to the report here.

Needless to say the BBC had to find a "celebrity" angle on the story and since Jordan wasn't available, Peter Snow did the job. It was even filmed so we can see what he gets up to:
Film of Peter Snow's model

Now if I were to be picky, I might suggest that some ballast wouldn't go amiss and those station buildings could be upgraded to SuperQuick, however Mr Snow is obviously an operational modeller rather than a model making one. No problem with this - he's built a layout that looks like it would be great fun to operate !

After Peter's trains, the interview carries on with Tim Watson from the Model Railway Club who brings a bit of gravitas. He pointed out that there at least 100,000 people (an underestimation in my opinion) interested in the hobby in UK and that Warley a couple of weeks ago saw 18,000 of them come through the doors in a couple of days. It was nice he was able to point out there are different aspect to the hobby too.

Best of all at no point did either the words "anorak" or trainspotter" find their way into the text. It's not a big thing but a prime time mention on arguably the countries most important radio programme is pretty impressive. If only the politicians who listen (and they all do) would realise that we hold the key (from an O gauge Hornby model) to the future happiness and prosperity of the nation...