hassle as it required manpower and expenditure so he decided to create a permanent museum of miniature railways insteadsince dismantling the layout was no longer necessary we could embark on a more detailed work a hall was constructed in 1991 and the present layout was created which was opened to the public on april 1 1998 recalls ravi joshi six months after the museum was opened his father passed away since then we have made some changes in the infrastructure the system is now electronically controlled but the basic layout remains the same he says though the museum gets occasional visitors joshi does not see the younger generation inclined towards train modelling my father actually wanted to promote this hobby in india which is why we created the museum somehow it is not working on the scale we had wanted says joshi with a tinge of sadness in his voicejoshis factory soudamini instruments makes static train models which he has supplied to switzerland australia and the indian railways but of late he says they havent seen many buyers also it is not economically feasible to manufacture themthe problem lies with the lack of a hobby culture in india feels joshi here a hobby is believed to be something we do up to school or college while abroad it is pursued for a life time until this culture permeates in india an initiative like ours is not going to grow muchjoshi a phd in computer science from pune university who grew up playing with his fathers railway models cites his own experience to illustrate the importance of a hobby modern railways cover nearly all branches of science civil engineering architecture model making machining electronics etc the sort of thing you can learn in a hobby