Youth Training Scheme

It's just a picture of some wires being soldered onto circuit boards, nothing significant going on here you might assume.

For me, at least, there is some significant, because these solder joints were done by my 13-year-old son - under the supervision of Himself - and a very neat job he's made of it, too don't you think?

You don't have to read many discussion forums or comments on social media posts before you come across someone opining that the model railway hobby is 'dying' or is going to.

And it's fair to say that if you glance around at the average exhibition you won't fail to notice there is a clear demographic.

I'm not sure the hobby is as doomed as some people would have you believe.

I doubt it will be as widespread and mainstream activity for young people as it was perhaps was for a couple of decades, but very few things are these days because there are so many leisure activities available.

At our annual club show which is a relatively small event in a large town, the vast majority of the people who come along are families with children.

They still like 'toy trains'. (I use the word intentionally)

What is important, I believe, is that model railway clubs make an effort to 'reach out' - to use a current buzz phrase - to be 'inclusive' (buzz, again) , and to actively encourage teenage modellers to experiment,  to learn, and yes, to make mistake and errors too.

At our club by son and his friend are building a 00 terminus layout, with help from the dads (and granddad).  

They came up with the concept, presented it to the committee as a project, and the club is funding it.

And that's how it should be.

Oh, and back to the picture.  I should have explained.

They're more frog juicers for the standard gauge fiddle yard on Minffordd.

Over the course of the show in Glasgow we discovered a lot of the point motors are not 100% reliable in always closing the point blades to switch the current, so we adding these onto every turnout in the hope that will solve the problem.