Last week we were delighted to welcome an enthusiastic group of Yr 7/8s from Linslade Middle School in Leighton Buzzard. All members of their Model Railway Club, the students had a fabulous day exploring the village, learning about our model railway and discovering how we build and animate our models.
Their first point of call was the signal box where one of our engineers gave them a talk about the history of the model railway and how we run it and maintain it today. The students were full of questions and made full use of the opportunity to quiz our experienced and knowledgeable staff. Next stop was the Ed Shed to find out how our models are created. With the help of our half built display model, they learned about the materials used and went away with lots of ideas as to how they could enhance their own layout back at school.
The students went on to hear about the variety of mechanisms used in the village to create movement in our models and then they had the opportunity to “have a go” themselves and create their own moving model using a selection of resources including levers, pulleys and cams. Supervising teacher, Tracey Shenton commented that the visit had really sparked their imagination and cemented their club’s idea of combining commercial and handmade creativity.
Practical model making workshops can currently be offered to small groups of up to 15 pupils as part of Bekonscot’s Education Programme. On completion of our new building in 2021 we will be able to extend this offer to class sized groups of 30 pupils.
