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What will happen to historical/prototypical accuracy once everyone who lived in that era is gone?


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In reading the "Unscientific, not guaranteed to be representative, age versus modeled era" poll, it was found that the majority of RMWebbers are within the 50-70 year old age group. That made me think of the future; there will become a time where a model railway exhibition will be filled with 1950s/1960s BR steam/diesel layouts but nor the builders of the layout or the visitors to the exhibition will have lived in that era. Obviously the same could be said of the umpteenth GWR branchline layouts.

 

What will happen to the standards for historical accuracy when the source of information will be in books/internet rather than listening to people's memory? I would think that it would be very difficult to find out answers to questions when I won't be able to ask someone with first hand knowledge on RMWeb, especially since I live across the pond.

 

Not to be foreboding, but the day will come.

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People manage pre-grouping with a degree of accuracy now alongside people who build a simple roundy roundy without scenics.

 

It won't be any different in the future, those that want historical accuracy will seek out the necessary imagery and reference material to portray the scene as best they can.

 

I am not sure really how accurate most model railways are, most now are a flavour of a time with their owner's wants and needs added on to create a unique recipe.

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People manage pre-grouping with a degree of accuracy

 

But how do you know how accurate they are without the first hand experience of people who were there?

There are many instances of modellers building layouts of differing periods who thought they had got it right by using available references, only to find out at exhibitions from people who lived in the area or who worked for the companies involved that they were in error in some large or small way.

Jamie's Lancaster Green Ayre springs to mind, he found a lot of gaps of knowledge filled when the layout was actually exhibited in Lancaster.

The internet and available books and photographs aren't the be all and end all of research, that's why I model the period I was actively involved in, and my own memories, notes and photo's fill in the blanks.

 

Mike.

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Accuracy will depend on how much time and money the model railway builder will be prepared to invest in researching his or her era and location.  Its as true now for the "recent" past as for models set 25, 50, 75 years ago.  Most people only have a vague recollection of anything that is outside their core areas of interest and provided anachronisms* are avoided, the further you get into the past, the more reliance will rest on evoking the atmosphere, even with the most accurate model railway.

 

Colours are a problem as everyone perceives colour in a different way, verbal descriptions are at best only a loose guide as is most colour photography. Individual physical models of locomotives, rolling stock, buildings and track layouts of specific locations are a different matter as it is possible to consult and examine plans, photographs and relics, though even there interpretation of sources** is often required.

 

In the end, modellers will put in the effort required to achieve the effect they desire and let Rule 1 cover the rest.

 

 

* For example, wristwatches and television aerials in period dramas. Or the wrong sort of locomotive pulling up in the wrong sort of station ...

** Guesses based on probability or even possibility.

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It seems one major problem in the future will be the lack of old photographs. Talk to older people about some local event and they may bring out some old photo album which shows some detail not previously noticed. Now that photographs are mostly stored on some sort of electronic device, when that dies the pictures disappear. In the future there will be a considerable lack of detail about early 21st century life.

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But how do you know how accurate they are without the first hand experience of people who were there?

There are many instances of modellers building layouts of differing periods who thought they had got it right by using available references, only to find out at exhibitions from people who lived in the area or who worked for the companies involved that they were in error in some large or small way.

Jamie's Lancaster Green Ayre springs to mind, he found a lot of gaps of knowledge filled when the layout was actually exhibited in Lancaster.

The internet and available books and photographs aren't the be all and end all of research, that's why I model the period I was actively involved in, and my own memories, notes and photo's fill in the blanks.

 

Mike.

I've no problem with that.

 

Its rather like some software development methodologies, where you create a "working model" and repeatedly present it to clients for evaluation and refinement.

 

"Write about what you know" is a piece of advice given to would be authors and, in a way that is what modelling your personal experience is similar to.  However, "what you know" also includes the research required to attempt to recreate, to a greater or lesser degree, something outside your own personal experience.

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And, if you aren't 100% confident about something, don't fix it down too firmly.

 

Murphy's Law states that as soon as you do, better information will come your way.

 

I was involved with a prototypical layout on which we needed to model a small bothy in the shed yard. It only ever appeared near the edge of photographs and there was some confusion as to its exact position and appearance. We began to think there were actually two but one was always, however improbably, just out of shot. Eventually, we discovered, from a retired driver, that there was only one but that it caught fire a number of times and, when repaired/replaced, wasn't necessarily put back whence it had come. 

 

John

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...What will happen to the standards for historical accuracy when the source of information will be in books/internet rather than listening to people's memory? ...

 Without being too gloomy about it, the flakiness of memory is well established. Of common railway memories it starts with family belief that some past railway employee in the family drove the Flying Scotsman, and spirals wildly out of control from there.

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It seems one major problem in the future will be the lack of old photographs. Talk to older people about some local event and they may bring out some old photo album which shows some detail not previously noticed. Now that photographs are mostly stored on some sort of electronic device, when that dies the pictures disappear. In the future there will be a considerable lack of detail about early 21st century life.

 

Oddly enough I find photographs and information to be far more widely available now than it was a few years ago, in part due to the internet and electronic devices.

The local school has a web site on the history of the town and in particular on former pupils. The local history society does the same as does the local museum. They all publish books and keep hard copies. One of the London universities has recently catalogued the past activities of it's sports club and medals, certificates and photographs can now be located with ease. Various groups and individuals are archiving documents, often keeping copies in more than one location.

To give an example. I have an interest in a particular regiment that went to Singapore in WWII. I obtained a photograph from a chap in Australia of a member of the regiment who was at school in my town which I gave to the school for their archive. I also enquired about an OS map of Singapore and the curator of the museum out there emailed and asked if I wanted the 1938 or the 1940 edition. It  was sent electronically and I had a copy printed. It did cost a fair bit.

In my view things have never been better when it comes to access to historical records. Just make sure that you find a safe home for what you have.

Bernard 

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I think that one of the hindrances to historical accuracy in the future is the plethora of seamless image editing programs that are available to everyone now. It might well be beyond the skill of the average person to determine whether a photo or video has been altered / enhanced or not thereby making it impossible to judge the accuracy of what they are seeing.

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The essence of this question was one of the prime reasons the Historical Model Railway Society was established in 1950. It is also the reason why specific societies were established such as the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Society and DEMU.

 

I appreciate these approaches are a compromise and first hand experience is best but we do not all have first hand experience. There is no substitute for research; primary sources are best such as those memories and working documents but books, photographs, maps etc are next best. After all is it better to make mistakes than to do nothing?

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Given nobody alive saw Railways in the 1880s we have a lot of knowledge about the operation of at least some of the companies then running them. The general enthusiasm for railways is at least as high today as any time in my 66 years of life, so I expect the body of knowledge, in books, photographs and online will enable modellers in 50 years time to operate an early British Railways era layout well enough to pass muster. 

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What will happen to the standards for historical accuracy when the source of information will be in books/internet rather than listening to people's memory? I would think that it would be very difficult to find out answers to questions when I won't be able to ask someone with first hand knowledge on RMWeb, especially since I live across the pond.

 

Not to be foreboding, but the day will come.

 

 

As a cynic, I can only reply that everyone in the distant future will consult Wikipedia and its imitators; the contents therein will become undisputed fact. 

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There is plenty of good documentary evidence in books written by those who were there and/or who interviewed people who were, with variable degrees of professionalism.

 

Over the years, most such material has been peer-reviewed so we know which titles are definitive and which more "anecdotal".

 

John

Edited by Dunsignalling
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For me, the question goes to the heart of "what is a model?". I think it's a representation, not a miniature facsimile. And therefore inevitably impressionistic, to a greater or lesser degree.

 

The discussion made me think of the problem from the other end - archaeologists have to reconstruct things from, in some cases, near-zero evidence. They are masters of interpretation, speculation and extrapolation. Inevitably what is produced is wrong (although anyone who has visited the magnificent reconstruction at Knossos also knows how enjoyable "wrong" reconstructions can be).

 

A running gag on archaeological excavations is that any unidentifiable metal object is routinely (if tentatively) described as a piece of "horse harness" since that's impossible to argue with. Other unidentifiable objects are frequently described as being likely to have a religious significance of some sort (the famous prehistoric "Venus figurines" were always described as this, until a maverick anthropologist came along and asked why people didn't think they might be children's toys. That same academic then went on to ask why people assumed these mostly featureless figurines were female when they might just as likely be images of vastly obese men with pendulous breasts...).

 

Reading that back, I'm now worried I've given the Freudians too much to go on.

 

Back on topic, I already encounter significant gaps in the knowledge base: eg, for the M&GN there is only the vaguest evidence as to whether or not a planned extension to Austin Fields in the centre of King's Lynn got as far as the track-laying stage (or, if it did, whether or not any trains ever operated over it) in the brief period between construction starting and the M&GN instead building the "King's Lynn avoiding line" (which, if I may say so, was a very shrewd decision on their part...).

 

Paul

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Even memory is fallible- I have seen a posting recently (on another site) where someone was swearing blind that he had work a train of loaded 100t tanks behind a steam loco in 1965. He even went so far as to quote the loco identity. However, said tanks were only delivered a couple of years after steam had ended, and the loco had gone into preservation.

As in any form of research, don't rely on one source, and if sources are at variance, try and work out why.

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As someone who is attempting to capture the flavour of somewhere that is over 100 years away in time and also in another country, ravaged by war and political, social and economically changed beyond all recognition, I can tell you it does require some dedication.

However, as has been suggested, now that so much is available on the internet, it is not impossible.

Glaring mistakes may happen but only a very dedicated and learned historian or student would be able to point out such things.

I remember helping to exhibit Bob Harpers GW broad gauge layout set in c.1870 or so and asking about a petrol lorry that was placed on his layout that was clearly fifty years too young - his answer was that it was to show that most people didn't notice it as it was simply "old", the fact it was way out of time period escaped most folk!

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Another example of 34C's cases of flakiness, on more than one occasion at an exhibition, I have been told by members of the public that they remember the station from back in 19xx.

While the layout is based on broad practice of the time, you don't have the heart to tell them that the location is purely fictional.

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It seems one major problem in the future will be the lack of old photographs. Talk to older people about some local event and they may bring out some old photo album which shows some detail not previously noticed. Now that photographs are mostly stored on some sort of electronic device, when that dies the pictures disappear. In the future there will be a considerable lack of detail about early 21st century life.

 

I really don't agree. While lots of photographs will no doubt be lost when a device (or the owner) dies, plenty are kept in many different ways and if only 1% of the photographs taken this year survive it will still be far, far more than would have been taken overall in a year in, say, the 80's.

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Some 20-25 years ago, I attempted to bridge this gap in respect of pre-grouping ex-LSWR S&C. After detailed research I produced a number of dimensioned drawings, accompanied by drawing office information, and published them by courtesy of the SWC. I invited expert criticism and correction! 

 

post-30054-0-55856100-1516711322.jpg

 

post-30054-0-20448700-1516711499_thumb.jpg

 

It's still on record should anyone need it, though my memories have since been damaged by Parkinsons Disease.

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But how do you know how accurate they are without the first hand experience of people who were there?

 

Even people who 'were there' get it wrong.

 

To give an example from another modelling genre, despite the fact that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of people who saw her, no one seems to able to agree exactly what colour the USS Arizona was painted on 7th December 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour.  Ship modelling forums have hosted massively heated arguments over the years...

 

John

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A couple of points arise.  The first is the hostility meted out to those who would photograph today's railway by some staff and so-called security personnel - knuckle-dragging goons, perhaps -  on stations.  The result is that some of what has happened in the last few years has gone unrecorded.  Those who come after us will not thank them.

 

The other is that mistakes are made in print and if not corrected are perpetuated by being taken as gospel.  Let's just say that not all the letters I send to magazine editors are printed.

 

Chris

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Back on topic, I already encounter significant gaps in the knowledge base: eg, for the M&GN there is only the vaguest evidence as to whether or not a planned extension to Austin Fields in the centre of King's Lynn got as far as the track-laying stage (or, if it did, whether or not any trains ever operated over it) in the brief period between construction starting and the M&GN instead building the "King's Lynn avoiding line" (which, if I may say so, was a very shrewd decision on their part...).

 

Paul

 

 

I sympathise with your frustration, especially as my Dad lived for about 20 years (interrupted by wartime service) in a house which backed onto the M&GN in Lincolnshire, and yet he could tell me very little about the day to day operation, locos, stock, etc., even though he was a trainspotter of sorts; (he only wrote down the *names* of locos he saw!?!?).

 

Cameras and film were considered a waste of good money in his family, and a hobby was just a way for his parents to get him out of the house for the day. 

 

At a tangent to that, but as an example of the OP's worries; can anyone give a date when the first 2x20s ran on a summer service to Skegness? I know there is a lot of info from the late 70s and 80s when enthusiasts discovered them, but when did they start?

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