Vandalised Model Railway Show

[Claude_Dreyfus]

As some may be aware, there was a club in the UK whose exhibition was subject to vandalism on Friday night - a number of layouts and stands set up for the exhibition the following day were completely destroyed when 4 kids broke into the exhibition hall and ran amok. Fortunately they triggered and alarm, and the police arrested them at the scene.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-48326572

 

Not covered in the article are some truly heartbreaking backstories, including the guy with terminal cancer who's hand built locomotive was wreaked, chances are he may not live long enough to repair it.

 

The club have been stoical in dealing with the situation, which has shown not only a bad side of humanity, but also the good, as the hobby is rallying around in support of the club and the modellers involved. A just-giving site was set up, with the target of reaching £500 pounds...when I last saw the site, they had raised over £17,000!

 

From a personal level, I have organised shows before and this is something any club and exhibitor fears. It is an awful situation, hopefully some good may come out of it.

[Martijn Meerts]

That's just terrible. Really all I can say...

 

[Yavianice]

The donation page is here

 

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/market-deeping-mrc

 

now at 23,000 pounds

[Lina_Blue]

The destruciton is infeasable. ...

[kevsmiththai]

I do a lot of shows in the U.K and do worry sometimes about something like this happening. The organisers should be insured to cover the cost of the exhibits and usually ask for the value of the layout and rolling stock in advance, BUT, it doesn't cover the years of work in creating the layouts. Public venues like schools and sports halls aren't that secure if some mindless imbeciles decide they want to get up to mischief.

 

I have done a show where one of the organising club members slept in the hall on a camp bed to guard the exhibits!

 

My heart goes out to the club. It is every exhibition managers worst nightmare.

 

Kev

[katoftw]

So not cool.

[cteno4]

Very sad to hear. We always have a little fear of that at shows but it sadly is part of doing public shows to take a little risk for the big payoff, but when it happens it can be tragic like this. Most places these days though we don’t leave trains overnight as one small rolling bin of them can easily be two or three thousand dollars and easy to slip off with...

 

there can actually be a fair amount of retail theft at our local train shows. I use to fill in to help one vendor watch the booth some when his wife Was not there. Basically he just wanted me watching everyone very obviously more as a deterrent than catching anyone. He said he rarely caught folks but when someone was not obviously just watching he would get hit.

 

our shows only do liability insurance these days as rates have gone up a lot and it’s hard to get the value evaluations for insurers to want to cover on a temp basis.

 

glad to see the support was there to help them rebuild! Shouldn’t have happened in the first place though...

 

jeff

[Yavianice]

1 minute ago, cteno4 said:

there can actually be a fair amount of retail theft at our local train shows. I use to fill in to help one vendor watch the booth some when his wife Was not there. Basically he just wanted me watching everyone very obviously more as a deterrent than catching anyone. He said he rarely caught folks but when someone was not obviously just watching he would get hit.

 

It is actually quite alarming to see how much theft there actually is. In Europe vendors often use tape, cases, or elastic rubber bands to avoid people from handling more than 1 item at a time. Shows are also always warning of pickpockets. I also recently encountered fake hobby train stores online with all the items you could ever want, even those are obviously fake with non-existent addresses or complete lack thereof.

[cteno4]

Not quite that bad here, being on the watch seems to stop most of it.

 

on a good note in 15 years of doing shows here we have never had any theft or vandalism.

 

jeff

[Kamome]

This is just so mindless. I appreciate the gofundme page is doing well but it will not replace the time and devotion these modelers have given to their hobby. 

 

I hope those involved are suitably punished and that other venues take note. My Japanese family members were horrified that this sort of thing happens. I’m embarrassed to be British at times like this.

[JR 500系]

This is absolute madness.... Why would anyone wanna tear up those beautiful works of art just for fun? Luckily they were arrested. I hoped they get a good lesson ruining someone's years of painstaking work...

[Pauljag900]

Absoloute madness,the big question is why? I just don’t get it!

they ll probably tell you they did is coz they were bored or did it for a Laugh.

And knowing the justice system,,depending on their age they ll probably get a slap on the wrist or picking up litter for a couple of weeks.

Nobody knows,other than those of us in the hobby of course,realise just how much work and money goes in to doing what we do,not to mention the fact that a lot of stuff is simply irreplaceable.

compete and utter Arseholes! I clearly hope I’m wrong on their punishment and they get what they deserve!

 

[ChibiNippon]

On 5/20/2019 at 5:51 AM, Pauljag900 said:

Absoloute madness,the big question is why? I just don’t get it!

they ll probably tell you they did is coz they were bored or did it for a Laugh.

And knowing the justice system,,depending on their age they ll probably get a slap on the wrist or picking up litter for a couple of weeks.

Nobody knows,other than those of us in the hobby of course,realise just how much work and money goes in to doing what we do,not to mention the fact that a lot of stuff is simply irreplaceable.

compete and utter Arseholes! I clearly hope I’m wrong on their punishment and they get what they deserve!

 

Apparently the answer to "why" was "Vodka". 

 

https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/23/model-railway-vandals-were-group-of-teenagers-drunk-on-vodka-9664233/

 

The mother told MailOnline: ‘It took them by surprise and a mixture of alcohol and stupidity took over. To say their behaviour was silly is a massive understatement.

 

Silly. SILLY? I know you Brits are the masters of understatement, but silly is not a word I would've used in this situation.

[maihama eki]

While it is great to see the outpouring of money in support of this, the years of effort in the creation can never be replaced. I don't think people outside the hobby can appreciate the skill, time, and effort that it takes to do this hobby.  I can really sympathize with the modelers that lost their work.  I lost years of HO modeling when a wild fire destroyed our neighborhood in Colorado in 2012.  That was very tough.  I really thought hard about not getting back into the hobby, but I just enjoy the creative outlet too much.

[Khaul]

On 5/20/2019 at 8:49 PM, JR 500系 said:

This is absolute madness.... Why would anyone wanna tear up those beautiful works of art just for fun? Luckily they were arrested. I hoped they get a good lesson ruining someone's years of painstaking work...

 

I wonder what the penalty for wrecking a train show would be in Singapore. Life in prison? 

[cteno4]

Teen warped reality field meets alcohol = disaster

 

ive learned most teens live in a warped reality bubble. It’s almost like a schizophrenic world where in their reality all these incredibly stupid things in the common reality make absolute sense to them in the warped reality bubble they are in. Must be some odd final stages of brain development that causes it. It is frightening to watch and consequences can be horrid at times...

 

jeff

[Pauljag900]

7 hours ago, ChibiNippon said:

Apparently the answer to "why" was "Vodka". 

 

https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/23/model-railway-vandals-were-group-of-teenagers-drunk-on-vodka-9664233/

 

The mother told MailOnline: ‘It took them by surprise and a mixture of alcohol and stupidity took over. To say their behaviour was silly is a massive understatement.

 

Silly. SILLY? I know you Brits are the masters of understatement, but silly is not a word I would've used in this situation.

There’s probably only their mothers who would use the word silly.

it was a senseless,mindless act of vandalism and should be treated as such.

[bill937ca]

Are they likely to be treated as adults in court?

[Kamome]

That’s very unlikely. They’re still minors and as mentioned, people outside of the hobby wouldn’t always appreciate the time taken to create something like this. The courts are more likely to look at the monetary loss and being minors, they will probably get off with a slapped wrist. 

 

More fitting would be for these boys treasured belongings, (games consoles and iPhones etc..) to be destroyed. The only difference is those can be replaced easily.

 

“He’s writing a letter to say he’s sorry”

 

As if if that makes up for 25 years of work being destroyed.

[ChibiNippon]

14 hours ago, Kamome said:

“He’s writing a letter to say he’s sorry”

 

As if if that makes up for 25 years of work being destroyed.

That wasn't a few thousand pounds of product being destroyed. It was someone's life, and life's work. I'm sickened to know that they're just going to get a slap on the wrist, but there's also likely nothing you can do to a 16yr old to make them understand the depth of the damage they've caused. 

[EdF]

It's why legally there is a delineation between minor and majority.  There is literally biochemical brain changes still happening in the teenage brain that limits consequence assessment.

[EdF]

I will add that that shouldn't exclude civil liability. 

[Alejandro_SCL]

 

in contrast to the unfortunate news, a happy update from a person who participates in a Chilean model railroad page (Mr. Bill): 

 

"You might recall the item on here about the model raiiway show in England that was vandalized by a group of youths just before their annual show. Well, four were caught and awaiting investigations, but yesterday, on the BBC news that had a piece which showed that the show was now up and running again in a couple of weeks time. When it was first reported the Club aimed to try and raise £500 to try and recover their costs, but the British public have been so generous they have raised £105,000 instead (including £10,000 from Rod Stewart).

They intend to donate large sums to charity for sports for the disabled which is a very good cause. They were also inundated with replacement items, not that that can replace many buildings which were smashed beyond repair. The Chairman of the Club was nearly in tears yesterday because of the generosity of the club that is railway modelling."

[chadbag]

On 5/29/2019 at 7:22 PM, cteno4 said:

Teen warped reality field meets alcohol = disaster

 

ive learned most teens live in a warped reality bubble. It’s almost like a schizophrenic world where in their reality all these incredibly stupid things in the common reality make absolute sense to them in the warped reality bubble they are in. Must be some odd final stages of brain development that causes it. It is frightening to watch and consequences can be horrid at times...

 

Specifically at around the age of 15-16.  A guy I know teaches High School and he told me he had recently been reading up on adolescent behavior and development and had been wondering why the kids in his classes did so many stupid things, apparently without realizing there  are consequences.  It turns out, the brains of around 15-16 year old kids are going through a phase of development that mirrors the 2-3 year old brain development -- just another round.   And this phase is supposedly the one where the brain learns to puts A + B together to get C, but when actually  going through this phase, C is not always the answer they get.  In other words, this phase is where they learn (2-3) or re-learn and further develop (15-16) the ability to realize consequences that come from actions and to use that knowledge in moderating or "planning" their behavior.

 

My friend said that reading about this really opened up his eyes to his students' behaviors.

 

----

 

As an aside, at least in the US, the legal guardians (parents in most cases) of minors are the ones legally responsible for the behaviors of minors.  Your kid does something stupid, YOU are responsible for making it good, for the restitution.  I would assume the UK has similar laws in place, seeing as the US common law system/tradition was derived from the British common law system/tradition.  In that case, they should figure out what the total economic damage was, including the time / labor put into the creation of the displays/models etc. and assess the parents with a bill for the restitution of the crime.  The parents were not monitoring their kids' behavior, nor their access to alcohol (in the UK that is age 18, with exceptions for "home" drinking -- I assume monitored by a parent, or for age 16-17, at a table service meal at a licensed establishment when the alcohol is purchased by an 18+  (based on an internet search).  

 

The parents should be responsible for the cost of restitution, and the cost of restitution should take into account the labor to create/re-create it at some acceptable commercial rate.  (Yes I realize that does not totally take into account the emotional and time-investment put into this but that is hard to measure and using some form of create/re-create labor cost is probably about the best you will do). The bill should reach very large numbers when taking that all into account.  And the court/government etc, should highly publicize the cost and that the parents are responsible and emphasize the parents' responsibilities in monitoring (and raising)  their children.  None of that will happen, but it should.

 

[cteno4]

I taught high school for a year to help put my old teachers at my old high school. I watched all of this day to day and nice to see when they start to turn that corner and can calculate reasonable future consequences to their actions. Also a ton of friends in the last decade dealing with their teens. Amazing how great upbringing can come undone by this phase that can hit hard bit of the roll of the dice. It is that future consequence that’s a bit virtual the older development is dealing with. The early one is one of direct and pretty physical event consequences. Later one is more like executive decision making on a mor theoretical outcome level. The behavior I keep seeing is they sort of seem to exist in this reality bubble where the conveniences are not there or are totally out of whack with the consequences in real reality that is hard for the rest of us in the real reality to relate to.

 

jeff