“Model railways”, someone once told me, “are a lot like breasts. They’re meant to be there for the children, but it’s always the men who want to play with them.”
Well, though I’ve always liked and admired them, they’re not something I ever went in for very much myself. Model railways, I mean.
It must be much more fun these days, though, since I gather you can get engines with cameras in them, giving a driver’s-eye view of your carefully-constructed world. I’d love to see one of those in action!
But, lest you should think that model trains are purely frivolous, Tom Scott’s latest video shows that they can have serious uses too.
Now that must have been great fun to build! And, as Tom mentions, and as some of my colleagues in the Computer Lab discovered a few years back, users exhibit a lot more engagement with something if there’s likely to be a physical crash when they get it wrong or lose concentration. Even if that crash only involves a model, it’s a great deal more compelling than a simulator on a screen.
I don’t think, by the way, that I’ve ever seen one of Tom’s YouTube videos that wasn’t worth watching. Subscription definitely recommended.
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