“It's the romance of the steam engine,” says David Moorhouse.
I’m quizzing David, a member of The Warley Model Railway Club, about what inspires grown men to spend hours in the attic playing with model trains – the ultimate boys’ toys.
Nearby, a man is hunched over a miniature railway set in the middle of the room, sanding smooth a rough wooden border.
The sound of hammering fills the air and a swarm of men, aged 40 to 70, are scattered around a series of train sets busying themselves with various tasks ahead of the biggest event of their year.
This industrial unit in Oldbury is the largest base of any model railway club in the country and its 200 members from right across the region are busily preparing to put on one of the biggest model railway exhibitions in Europe, which opens today at the NEC.
“I’ve always been interested in trains ever since I was a little boy,” says David, who now lives in Bournville but grew up in the North-east.
“My parents’ house overlooked the Stanhope and Tyne Railway so I could always hear engines and see diesels going past my bedroom 24 hours a day.
“I suppose it was like a form of brainwashing.”
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Despite endorsement from celebrity train fans including Pete Waterman, Johnny Cash, Peter Sellers, Phil Collins, Roger Daltry and Rod Stewart (who claims being on the front page of Model Railroader is more exciting than adorning the cover of Rolling Stone) the hobby of railway modelling has suffered image problems, roundly branded the domain of nerds and loners.
Looking around the Warley club base, it seems less populated by loners and more a masterclass in teamwork, but the demographic is overwhelmingly male and over-50.
“I’m a younger member of the club, in comparison to some of the organising committee,” says David, 53.
“Am I the first woman to have ever walked through this door?” I ask.
He laughs before telling me proudly the club does have one “lady member”, a signal engineer from Stafford, and the group are so proud of her that her picture adorns their promotional material in what looks like a attempt to get other women involved.
“Ladies are absolutely welcome,” says chairman Alf Fantham. “I just don’t know why we haven’t attracted more.
“We have a reciprocal arrangement with an annual dolls house show where we take a stand to their show and they bring a stand to ours.
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“The ladies come to our stand and look at the scenery and they really appreciate it.”
But the modelling clubs have yet to see members swap from modelling dolls’ houses to trains, or vice versa.
“The general profile of modellers,” says Alf, “is that they come into modelling aged 12 or 13 and then all of a sudden they spot girls.
“They go off, get married and have kids and then in their 40s, when they get a bit more time, they come back.”
Alf, aged 72, has no problem with railway modelling’s trainspotter image. That’s how he got into it in the first place.
“I was a train spotter, then a plane spotter, then a modeller,” he says proudly.
“I had always had an interest in railways and after the war train spotting was the in thing. So as a youngster I’d stand on the platform taking numbers.
“I suppose the natural progression was to model railways.”
But what is the attraction of trains?
“They’re alive!” Alf enthuses.
“They’ve got a smell of steam and oil and smoke, and if you could bottle that I swear you could sell it.”
He adds: “With model railways, you’ve got to look at it as an art form. It’s a three-dimensional picture.
“It’s not just about the train, it’s about the scenery that train is running through, getting the proportions perfect so that when somebody looks at it, it looks just right.”
Upstairs, the club has a well-stocked lending library and, next door, a reference library, with dusty tomes dating back to the early 1900s, where modellers can research every minute detail of their construction.
“Occasionally we’ll build something that’s an exact copy of something in the real world, whereas this thing,” says Alf, pointing to a nearby model, “was born on the back of a fag packet.
“But even if it’s something from your imagination the context still has to be correct.
“So if it’s a track based in the West Midlands there’s no use having thatched cottages next to it.
“The structures, like bridges and clock towers, determine where and when that railway is.”
To the uninitiated, at first glance the industrial unit appears a mish mash of train tracks, all roughly the same.
But, across this grown-ups’ playground, with closer inspection you can spot nods to the local landscape, including a miniature version of Stechford station, a track named “Lee Bank” and a scale replica of the school at the Black Country Museum.
David is showing off a track that was commissioned by Virgin Trains to show off their crosscountry and Pendolino trains when they were first introduced.
They whizz around the track past a little brick building with a tiny billboard on its wall carrying a retro advert from the Milk Marketing Board.
It’s these little details that bring the sets to life.
The signage on a model of a Jewson’s warehouse has been changed to read “P Howells & Son” after member Peter Howells who worked on the set with his boy.
On the grass embankment tiny men overlook tiny horses.
Cradling a house in his hand, which took him four weeks to make, David, a graphic designer, says: “This is a chance to make your world perfect.
“We don’t have any scrap or litter in this world,” he smiles.
The hobby is an amalgamation of art, craft, technology, history and science. But touring the unit, sharing jokes and laughs across the tracks, it’s clear that whichever aspect first attracted each member, they come back for the camaraderie.
“For me, it’s about the social side,” says Alf.
“Look around and you’ll see lots of different people with different abilities.”
He points to the man who is still sanding, saying: “Ian is a carpenter by trade.
“I worked for BT so wiring is no problem for me.
“And then we have the heavyweight mob,” adds Alf, nodding to a burly bloke who has been lugging pieces of kit through the doorway.
“Everyone brings different skills to the party and we can use them all. That’s what makes it so good.”
He continues: “When people find out you’re into model railways they say, ‘You don’t play trains, do you?!’
“And I say ‘Yes! You play golf or football, so why shouldn’t I play trains?’
“People sometimes view this as a kids’ thing – a purely childish pursuit.
“Have they got a point? No, I don’t think they have.
“Chasing a little ball round for hours on a Sunday is perfectly acceptable for those people.
“So I say, yes, we play trains. We play trains and we fully enjoy ourselves!”.
• The Warley National Model Railway Exhibition is at the NEC on November 23-24. For details visit
• Warley Model Railway Club can be contacted via the website at