Small things lead to big business
Simon Eccles
Friday, December 18, 2020
Christmas is coming and a lot of kids will be lucky enough to be given a model railway, still a popular hobby even in these days of PlayStations and smartphones. Big kids like model railways too, and it turns out that this year they didn’t want to wait for Christmas.
The printing industry has suffered from the Covid-19 crisis along with everyone else this year. There’s no playing down the terrible human and economic costs. But on the lighter side, one of the unpredictable effects of the spring lockdown was an immediate run on stocks of Metcalfe Models & Toys’ flatpack printed card kits of model railway buildings. Online stores sold out, so did any remaining hobby shops, and social media was awash with model railway enthusiasts excitedly reporting that they’d found a stash in obscure corners of the web.