The organisers of the Warley National Model Railway Exhibition have decided that it will not be returning for the foreseeable future.
The exhibition was run in 2023 at Birmingham's NEC and was another successful event with thousands of visitors.
Volunteers run the exhibition, but organisers have looked at the current market conditions and their ability to deliver such a huge exhibition and have decided that they will cease holding an exhibition at the NEC for the foreseeable future.
Nigel Smith the current Exhibition Manager says: “This will be disappointing to many people including visitors and exhibitors alike. However, we are an ageing membership and we have to be realistic about what we can deliver in the future. Many of our existing team have been involved for over 30 years and would like to retire gracefully”.
Alan Turner, the interim Club Chairman said: “When our club decided to create the Warley National exhibition it was primarily to create a showcase for our wonderful hobby. I believe we succeeded in doing that. We are amazed that our exhibition has remained the premier exhibition in the country for thirty very successful years. Many of the organising team have been part of that team since the very beginning. We thank all of those who have supported this exhibition over the years whether as organisers, stewards, exhibitors, traders or just visitors; we couldn't have done it without you. Warley club is in very good health and has plenty of exciting plans for the future.”
Steve Flint, former Railway Modeller editor and WMRC member added that although he was disappointed to see the end of the Warley National Model Railway Show at the NEC, he felt it was a
carefully considered decision by the members.
“The hobby is alive and well at grass roots level, but the commercial boom period of recent decades has probably run its course, having been slowed by the effects of the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and the ever-increasing age of enthusiasts.”
He said that it would be folly for an organisation like the Warley Model Railway Club – itself a charitable organisation – to continue taking further financial risk in the current climate.
“Moreover,” he added, “the tick of the demographic time bomb is getting more prominent, as the next generation of younger enthusiasts required to take over the staffing and running of such
prestigious events does not seem to be materialising. Hence, it is time for Warley Model Railway Club to step aside with pride, having had the privilege of promoting this great creative hobby to the nation at the NEC for over thirty years with the full support of hundreds of volunteer enthusiasts, manufacturers and retail traders.
In the 1960’s an N &C Keyser kit for an OO terrier loco was around £5 or a week’s wages for me. Now for a week’s wages you can buy a RTR terrier in O gauge. So I don’t think prices have risen that much, but the choice available has expanded considerably. In many ways I think the market has been flooded with too many models, mostly available by on line ordering. Hence the reduction in physical model shops, in common with every other high street shop. The NEC is a very convenient location with good transport links. But I have to say I’ve never been!
Warley was too big, and too expensive. I see kids interested in the hobby but only where they can run things from their phones. And the technology for that is all quite new.
I won’t miss Warley. My fear is that now other shows will put their prices up or conversely will follow suit.
Carefully advertising and pricing of events and organisations will help. Plenty of young people re volunteering on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and elsewhere.
The NEC doesn’t help matters by their huge charges.
There are plenty of sports halls around that can be used, usually with good parking facilities.
People just need a bit of lateral thinking and “thinking outside the box”
Yes, fully agree – the NEC has priced events like Warley out of their calendar. I’m sad to see the Warley show end but I won’t miss the NEC as a venue. I’ve seen more events in recent years where a model railway exhibition has been combined with a sort-of mini gala at a heritage railway – if the railway has the space, this seems like a good way to benefit both. I’d certainly like to see more of these.
You just have to go online now and find everything you want and need to do with trains from train simulation games to building your own layout from track to the type of background you want . Yes it’s a hobby that has become a victim of a ever changing world, technology has vastly improved and getting better and I’ve noticed how expensive the hobby has become now . Going to a exhibition is becoming a thing of the past,
Sad but true , the world is a lot different now and Technology is getting better every year . You just have to go online now and find everything you want, from virtual realty model layouts , build your own model train layout including track , train , station. Everything you want also train games . The last time I went to a model Exhibition I seen this for myself, the vast drop in numbers and ageing exhibitors.
This is unsurprising; the world is changing and the hobby is shrinking. Sad, but we always knew it would happen.
Sort of the same problem here in the U.S.. Model railway clubs here cannot afford to have a club layout because super high rent prices. And if a club does rent a place to have a layout the owner decides to sell the building and the club gets tossed out.
Sadly, model railways is fast becoming a hobby for the rich. Add the extortionate car park charges levied by the NEC, I don’t blame the (ageing) organisers calling it a day. With Hattons closing as well, are we looking at the end of the hobby?
No. There is far more to the hobby than Hattons and Warley.
Being in my mid 80s and brought up with analogue I find that DCC & Sound are above my capabilities, track laying, making up buildings from card kits, setting up the scenery well within my state pension but new rolling stock is definitely out due to the cost, as many subscribers have said manufacturers and model shops have to be careful otherwise they will be like Hattons & Warley, long may model railways live on.. .
Hattons to close, and now Warley it seems. I have had little involvement with either, but a keen modeller nonetheless. As with anything, we must “cut our cloth” accordingly. I have no model shops within a twenty mile radius and am reluctant to go mail-order. Thus, I have a shopping list for when our local exhibition is on, and am more inclined to visit the smaller shows for product to keep my angle of the hobby active. I have modelled railways in some shape or form for almost sixty years, and I am particularly enjoying my spare time about my pastime. The moral is I guess, if you need it, you will find a way to obtain what you want. What can’t be helped is the age discrepancy, certainly the teens coming through who, as rightly pointed out have no interest beyond their phones. Their problem, eventually….
Blackpool is about 20 miles from Grimsargh and there is an excellent model shop on Devonshire Road.
What a shame Warley closing, but if you look at the exhibition over the years the greedy nec have raised prices, like car park £20!!!, admission £20-25 not blaming Warley for that they have to recoup some money somewhere??, go to somewhere like Doncaster or Milton Keynes free car park even free event guide!!, it comes down to plain greed of the nec, every year the seating areas got bigger as less small traders couldn’t afford the attendance fees!!?, the hobby is dying, partly due to the cost of models, a loco I bought 10 years ago, was £75, now it costs £180 some kids carnt afford it so go back to their xbox games and laptops!!, I’m embarking on my retirement layout and so far it’s cost me over a thousand pounds just for track and wiring!!, I blame the Chinese!!, well why not ??, nearly2 years to buy a loco and now trouble round Yemen and red sea !!, it’s getting a stage now that I won’t order models just in case I’m dead before they deliver it!!,
It isnt just Model Railways, many other community activities are struggling due to lack of people coming through; i am active in several areas but I would mention Amateur Dramatics – groups are shutting at a great rate due to ageing demographics.
Im very sad that anyone really thinks anything other than general social changes are causing this particular problem.
Money isnt it in model railways theres a huge second hand market out there. That market is the biggest threat to the sustainability of manufacturers.
I have been going to my local model railway show for many years and over that time it has gone from filling an area the size of a football field down to the size of a squash court. The latest one only had seven layouts, but these where all of good quality and all the exhibitors had plenty of time to chat, but there was few traders. The price of some of the new models (Hornby) are eye watering and the hobby has gone from being cheap as in pocket money purchase, to one where you need to use your credit card. I had a layout that was a simple out and back that ran around 3 walls of the spare room with a total run of some 56 feet of track, I would hate to think how much that would cost to build now.
I hear where you’re coming from with regards to cost, but think it’s a matter of perspective. I have been interested in all forms of modelling since my early childhood when I received an Airfix tank transporter from Farther Christmas before I was 9 years old. In my mid-teens (1973) I had progressed to 1/12 scale Fourmula One cars from Tamiya. They were £35 and took a lot of saving up for. I started work in 1975 for the grand sum of £20 a week. An adult in my field was on £50 a week. You can buy the same cars, brand new, for around £110. My point is, in 1975, it would take and adult two weeks to pay for a kit, today it takes a day. I wonder what the purchase price to earning ratio would be for Hornby today?
I appreciate why Warley Club may have decided to call it a day – risks and ageing team. Would a commercial organisation be interested to hold a national exhibition, maybe at another venue?
There’s a more important demographic time bomb ticking that’s going take out more and more facets of our culture.
How can aspects of the past be celebrated and depicted when an increasingly large sector of the population have zero connection to that past? Indeed they are constantly reminded and taught to hate and repudiate it.
What kind of nation do we have then? None at all obviously.
Doomsayer indeed. You are entirely incorrect in your assertion that “an increasingly large sector of the population have zero connection to that past” and that “they are constantly reminded and taught to hate and repudiate it.”
Neither is true – young people have many and varied connections and express them in many way. not, perhaps, the ways you experience but they are different. They are not younger clones of you. The future is always different from the past and just as you have different attitudes and experiences to your grandparents, so do young people now.
Moaningand writing people off is not a good look; accept the change and undertsand that nothing is permanent
The NEC is simply too expensive as a venue reflected in the cost of entry and car parking which this time put me off attending, especially when added to the travel costs from the North East, and I know of many others who came to the same conclusion. Compare that to GETS which was packed, in fact uncomfortably so.
Yet both Warley and Hattons essentially give the same reason this week for throwing in the towel.
I don’t get it – with new manufacturers, Accurascale, KR, Sonic, Cavalex and Revolution to choose a few, spotting the right time to enter the market with product that simply flies off the shelves, even on pre-order, and giving the old guard a run for their money, not that the old guard aren’t also releasing a plethora of new models, the suggestion essentially of a dying hobby, changing demographic, etc, simply doesn’t wash.
I have a 1960’s Model Railway News and an editorial said almost the same thing then!!!
So according to Sam my local shop here in Sutton Coldfield Hobbyrail doesn’t exist nor do the Sutton Coldfield Railway Society and Bournville Model Railway club Exhkbitions and others!
Sutton Coldfield Railway Society still exist meet at St James Church Hall Mere Green Road – previously at Holy Trinity Church Centre.
Warley may be too big now and too much of a financial risk. Couldn’t it be downside a bit. Perhaps in a large hotel or council large halls. Just have to cut the expo cloth to the money available. Got to keep the interest going rather than raise the white flag
Very sad but not unexpected. The entirety of the railway heritage and modelling sector has benefitted for years from skilled engineers who retired early on excellent final salary pensions, who had plenty of a) interest, b) time and c) money. No one from my generation born in the 70’s has anywhere near the time or money to devote to these things, even if we do have the interest. I won’t be able to afford to retire ever. Taking over from these guys who are giving it all up is going to be very tough indeed
Absolutely spot on, in my opinion. I am 54, have worked as a professional all my adult life, and yet, due to a divorce (sadly a very typical experience these days), and the effects of COVID, Brexit, cost of living crisis and so on, am not in good financial health. My partner and I find ourselves with a huge mortgage, required in order to sustain quite a large family in a decent-sized family house, and despite both of us earning middle-income salaries, find ourselves with precious little disposable income or free time. I envy those baby boomers who were able to retire at 60, with plenty of time still ahead of them. No chance of that for me. I do have the luxury of a final salary pension scheme to look forwards to, but that won’t be enough to allow to me fully pay off our house. I’ll be working for a very long time yet and will probably downsize once some of the family fledge.
It’s not so much the financial aspect although that of course determines whether s further exhibitions can be staged but the ability of the Warley club to physically put on such a prestigious exhibition with an ageing membership. With the announced demise last weekend of a major retailer, trading conditions at the moment are difficult. In addition the steeply rising cost of models is getting beyond the pocket of the average modeller taking the cost of living into account.
Demographics are one cause, though I see many clubs with members under 60. However, the majority of those have families and jobs, which restrict their own ability to contribute to things such as running their club, or organising events like Warley.
Whilst I have never been to Warley I do support more local model railway exhibitions along with my own family
This is precisely the time to promote this fascinating hobby!
This hobby has all the components to give pleasure to individuals and groups alike.
Whether one runs an oval train set or a complex , highly detailed model railway the joy is the same!
Seems like there is nothing a mild mannered British enthusiast can do anymore!
We’re being replaced by politically correct terrorist groups!
How do you get from a model railway club to politically correct terrorist groups in one short paragraph?
A country tearing down its staues and rewriting its history to make certain favoured groups c’comfortable’ will have no problem dispensing with more mild facets of the culture – model railways, heritage railways.
again, more nonsense.
Nothing is being rewritten. What we are actually doing is acknowledging what really happened. We have stopped pretending that slavers and those who invaded and terrorised countries are in some way lauable.
the past is not a cosy victorian picturebook and the fact that people want to spout the ignrant nonsense of yesteryear is evidence of just how little history they know
“Politically correct terrorist groups” – what??
Perhaps if model railway clubs encouraged younger people to get involved most of the membership wouldn’t be over 50, I have 2 teenagers both interested in the hobby and with layouts at home but model railway clubs won’t allow them to join or be involved.
I don’t know where you live but there are regulations safeguarding the protection of young and vulnerable people. In Scotland where such people attend school or clubs or church, those in charge of youngsters. All supervisory people (teachers etc) must hold a Disclosure Certificate to show they are suitable to work with these groups. I’m assuming that the club your children tried to join don’t have a. suitable adult. One way round this regulation is for you to attend the club with your children.
There are ways of involving and recruiting younger members. The Railway Photographic Society organised a ‘Young Railway Photographer of the Year’ competition (YRPOTY) to do just that. It was open to entrants up to age 25, the youngest being eight years old and the overall winner was eighteen. Three of the category winners were invited to join the RPS because of the quality of their work, and have also had articles and photographs published in the railway press. A second YRPOTY Competition is being organised to coincide with the 2025 200th Anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway sponsored by the NRM and others.
One impediment to attracting younger members is the lack of necessary practical skills of the kind most of us learnt in a bygone age. skills no longer taught in school or elsewhere. I know of other cases of the younger generation (late teens and early twenties) joining the Modelling and Heritage hobby, so they are out there, we just need to find and encourage them.
That is such a shame, Steve. Why can’t they join?
I’ve been to Warley every year for quite a few years but the accommodation costs in Birmingham are now unaffordable, even in the cheapest hotel I could find.
Inevitable! And totally unrealistic to suggest that it could be a viable proposition in the foreseeable future. Like radio control model flying and some other hobbies it is not where the youth and younger adults of today are at. “Tec” has sucked everyone’s money and everyone’s children dry. End of story.
It’s in our clubs constitution that junior members are to be encouraged and we got 2 so far after been going a year.
The cost of the hobby, time, space those are all important factors, unwelcome and elitest attitudes at the door, youth do not want to engage when they are faced with barriers, they just go and do something else. My son would love to build model railways but the cost is extortionate. He is finishing school and will go off and do an apprenticeship as a locomotive driver on standard and narrow gauge and will hopefully one day drive steam , just a different train set!!!
I’m in my late 70s, I have 3 small,n gauge layouts which due to lack of space I seldom get out.
My complaint is this.
Very expensive model locos, carriages, track.
I spend as much time trying to find faults as running trains.
Most people live in matchbox sized houses these days and,haven’t got the room for a layout.
The drive for more and more fine scale realism has forced cost up.
Once,the trains gone round a few times on,the track what do you do then?
Most children prefer computer games .
On a flat screen tv you can have cgi sea battles, tank battles, air battles,
I saw a party of children on the severn valley railway, they were not interested in the railway they were looking at their phones.
It was great while it lasted but the world has changed .
Peter, your comment what to do with the trains after a few circuits of the layout leaves me thinking that it is not yourself who is the enthusiast, railway modeler.
If you are, it would seem.you are not getting out of the hobby what you should.
Do you run your railway as prototype practice. If you do, are you aware of prototypical workings. For most modelers, the enjoyment comes from emulating the real thing. An example would be to run a freight train into the sidings and ‘shunt’ the wagons to the appropriate places, being a goods shed, cattle dock, oil terminal or what you choose. The incoming wagons, if any, would be parked in a siding whilst those to be removed would be collected then the incoming wagons shunted to their appropriate place. This is a modeling operation that can be carried out at leasure as time allows.
I am in my mid 70″s and am perfectly happy with the highly detailed models on offer. Having had to build from kits locomotives I have wanted has been great fun and very interesting too. This started over 50 years ago for me, and we all wanted the trade to produce better models. Now they do, and while we think the locos are expensive, just study how many parts go into just one! Few can build such fine models that are available now, and in the past decades, those who lacked the skills to build what they wanted, might get someone to do it for them. The problem was that a professionally built model would cost you more than the rtr locos cost today.
As for maintenance, most of today’s locos are easy to do for the majority of us.
When cost is a consideration, the Internet is a great place to seek out quality used models as well as your nearest .odel shop. I, and a lot of us, ( the reason for this page), are in our twilight years and have many years experience of the hobby, which usually means a lot of stock to sell when we no longer can enjoy it.
Peter, I hope my words here will stoke your enjoyment in hobby and keep that interest alive.
Wishing you happy modeling.
This is Ridiculous
Are you volunteering to help? I do in my own organistaion but I live in Canada so can give no help to Warley.
Ridiculous in what way? Do you volunteer your time to put the event on?
Very sad news. I have attended this, as part of a long w/e in Birmingham, most of the years it has been held. Well organised and a great annual event. It will be sorely missed by myself and I’m sure thousands of others
It’s an expensive day out by time you have travel costs.over priced parking and extortionate entry fees just to save cash couple of quid..sad times for the hobby
We in Canada never fail to be amazed that Brits are always complaining about the cost of these things. We had members complain about our huge G1MRA show at Bicester in 202 2 saying “What happened to meetings where the entry was £2 and for that you also got a free cup of tea and a bun”. Incredible!
Demographics.
I said that I would no longer be on my club’s committee after the age of 80.
Those taking jobs on are in their 70’s, we don’t have club members under 50.
The future looks rather bleak, but you never know.
Can’t comment on Warley but my boys (school age) showed interest in a local club and were made very welcome, but they meet every Tuesday daytime. With lots of other social things it’s tricky though to get involved in a club at a regular time each week, but at least early evening would be doable for those working or at school.
Demographic timebomb indeed….I have been to so many model railway shows ( and indeed railway preservation events ) in recent years with friends of a similar age and we have noticeably been ‘The Kids’ …..despite being in our late fifties…..!
First Hattons, now this. Not good.
Yes two set backs this week. Let’s hope the hobby continues albeit changed. However at £200 + for a new loco without DCC or sound is something the manufacturers are going to have to look at if they want to survive!
So sad to hear about Warley Model Railway Exhibition coming an end, I was so looking forward in going this year until I saw it on Facebook.
What a joke so this is a shambles there no model shop in Birmingham full stop and now this . So the nearest show in my area in Worcester was nec .but now we have to go to Stafford instead which is far