MAYBE it’s their exquisite perfection, all those tiny details recreated by human hand.

Maybe it’s the opportunity they offer frustrated control freaks – yes, the trains can run on time.

Whatever the reason, there must be something to explain why, after angling, model railways are Britain’s second most popular hobby.

Derek Purkis runs Bournemouth Model Railway Centre on Holdenhurst Road. Surrounded by more than 5,000 trains, with all their attendant wagons, carriages, tracks and accessories, he can attest to the hobby’s popularity.

“We’ve been here 40 years,” he says, “And we get enquiries and calls from all over the world.” Right on cue his phone rings and it’s a customer from Canada who must have risen at stupid o’clock in order to catch Derek while he’s open.

He knows exactly why people love model railways. The youngest of five, his brothers dragged him round the country, trainspotting during the 1950s.

“The love of model railways tends to come from a love of real ones,” he says. And then there are the skills involved. “Hand skills, electrical skills, mechanical skills; how the thing works.” And, of course, artistic skills.

Some layouts really are works of art, featuring everything from hand-made trees (“It can take a week to do a good one”) to booking halls, gantries, working signals – Derek and his assistant make their own which have got very favourable ratings in the trade press – graveyards and buildings on fire. “The new technology means you can have sound and false smoke,” he explains.

Flipping through the trade press you soon realise that authenticity is the Holy Grail of rail modelling. There is a double-pager on how a chap re-created a derelict toilet block, complete with broken guttering, moss and weeds growing from the roof. And all on something smaller than a Macdonald’s’ burger box.

The more you take the time to look, the more wondrous these little worlds are. Some, says Derek, are re-creations of a real location.

But real or not, it’s the attention to detail that delights. For the cack-of-hand there are the most amazing accessories; everything from kits for creating authentic brickwork, plastic water, ploughed fields, hedgerows and churches, to teeny-tiny figures.

These represent everything from pensioners sitting on benches to skateboarders, commuters, wedding groups, escaping criminals, naturists (yes, you can see all the details).

Surrounded by all this does he ever feel like the lead figure in Gulliver’s Travels? “I feel exactly like that,” he smiles. And he’s in good company. Rod Stewart aside (“His layout is incredible, all skyscrapers, very American”) famous modellers include Eric Clapton, Winston Churchill and Pete Waterman. Derek says Kylie’s old songwriter, who now sells model trains, will chat freely about the hobby. “He makes lovely models and even has his own repair shops but talk to him about music and he doesn’t really want to know.”

Waterman credits model railways with saving his sanity after he was plunged into grief following the death of his son. But even he is not immune from the bane of modellers’ lives, the constant mickey-taking by those who just don’t get the hobby.

“I’ve got two daughters and they just think railway modelling is daft,” he says. Why People Laugh at Railway Modelling is the 64,000 dollar question on forums, too.

As one contributor puts it: “I think we just have to accept defeat and realise no matter what, we are going to suffer scorn and jokes.”