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Connectedness, Concern, Contradiction and Conclusion


Maurice Hopper

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I have recently been honoured by having an article entitled “Slow Modelling - an alternative way forward” published in the Model Railway Journal (No. 274, page 276).

 

This described some of the recent changes in my modelling practice and the relationship between modelling and wellbeing, but it did not really get to some of the underlying problems.  The original, first draft, of the article included what might be seen as more contentious comments about the natural of railway modelling as we are confronted with a radically changing world.

 

I have posted some of the originally text here.  I hope this makes sense without the article as published.  The original pieces of text are in italics.  I am sorry this is a rather longer post than usual!

 

Firstly, some addition comments on the relationship with models having used the article to outline the importance of scratch-building that gives a strong degree of connectedness with models made.

 

“For many modellers of my age the desire for connectedness is not new. This connectedness often focuses on a nostalgia for the dying days of steam and is supported with a wider range of very high standard ready-to-run models of a then ever before. However, ironically these models have little connection with the audience and are produced by people for whom they are culturally alien. The ‘craftsmanship’ may have been done on a computer or even directly scanned from the original, but the owner of such an item has no real relationship with the model. Technology has produced a model ‘for us’, but it is not a model made ‘by us’ or ‘from us’. Technology has reproduced a piece of the past and presented it to us in the ‘now’, to support our connectedness with the past.

 

“The act of purchasing and possession, of ownership, is more abstract than the act of making something.  We surround ourselves with artefacts that are produced remotely, often of materials that are not sustainable and in working conditions that might be considered as less than desirable. Indeed, there might be a similarity between our knowledge of the model railway factories and what was always said (but often untrue) about city children, that they did not know where milk came from.  However, for many of us the desire for instant gratification far outweighs less assured and more distant rewards to be found in scratch building.  What really counts is the process; the process of working materials into the artefact by way of taking our hands and brain cells for a walk.  In so doing one changes the relationship between oneself, the materials and the process to make something that is ‘of you’ and not just ‘of your list’. (Or should that be ‘off your list’?)”

 

 

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The canopy at Axminster.  I have always liked these fairly bold canopies found on many of the old LSWR stations west of Salisbury, often in association with a station buildings designed by Tite.

 

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Laser cut LSWR station canopy in 1/64th scale.  Of course there is no commercial model version of the canopy in any scale let alone 1/64th.  So I went for a little laser cutting project for this.  It could have included the roof flats and the skylight surrounds, but that would be over the top (sorry about that!), so it was just the valance that was laser cut.  This seemed important as the repeats of the up and downs and the curves would be very hard to achieve with the necessary level of consistency when working by hand.

 

 

Secondly, for a great deal longer than many, part of the function of being a geography teacher, I have been aware of what has been going on in the global environment.  This awareness, which developed from the 1970 onwards (Yes, the early evidence was there as long ago as that!) has lead to an examination of how to proceed in what will most likely be the last decade (hopefully two) of my life.  This paragraph raises wider issues about the nature railway modelling, nested as it is at one end of the spectrum in the toy industry and at the other in model making.

 

“For some years I have been increasingly concerned about the human fascination for injection moulded petroleum based plastic and the way this fascination, or perhaps I should say addiction, is passed on through contents of the average child’s brightly coloured toy box. (Although I hear that Lego are going over to bioplastic.) It is also a concerning to look at the environmental impact of modelling as with so many other products. This is not just about the materials used, but the whole pyramid that imports of finished models stand on, dodge chemical industries, industrial pollution, international shipping (a very dirty industry), packaging, production energy, etc.  It’s no good saying that we do not need reduce our carbon-foot print while China continues to pollute.  We exported our (the UK’s and our individual) carbon-foot print industries to China, a shedding of responsibility that seldom seems to be mentioned in the media.  But then the media does little to improve the understanding of economics, trade and the environment.”

 

While it is easy to write such words, it is not so easy to act upon them.  It is all too easy to hypocritical in comments on this topic…  to offer “do as I say” advice rather “do as I do”.  Actions speak louder than words.

 

“Indeed the last year has seen some fast action with the introduction of a far reaching rationalisation programme applied to my modelling projects. Dr Beeching would have been proud to see those with a low return (measured in fun, creativity or challenge) being cut back and the rapid disposal of redundant equipment would have gladden his heart. There are siren voices warning against such quick and decisive action... while others greet me with what are you selling today! With just a few final items on eBay and some esoteric bits being offered to more specialist markets the clearance is nearly done. Interesting that one of my eBay customers was someone who helped operate my Cornish opus - St Juliot, at RailWells some years ago.

 

“But as I type these last words, I hear the bang of the carriers van door and by the time I get to the front door there is a parcel with my next set of laser cut plywood baseboard components! These are made to my design, but the cutting out would now be beyond the capabilities of my recently refurbished workshop, which is now more of a studio. Indeed, I would have designed them differently if they were not to be laser cut. I can still take short cuts and perhaps I have to settle for being ‘selectively concerned’ about the impact of my modelling. The reality is that we are drawn into modern production systems and that resistance can only be limited… whatever the scale!  at sixty nine I may need to take some short cuts to produce even the smallest of projects.  The fact that these boards are circular with a width of 100mm and a centreline radius of 571.5mm, automatically limits the size of one’s project.”

 

There is, of course, a paradox or contradiction here. What to do with the ‘stuff’ one already has and would really like to keep?  My collection of German (German by both prototype and manufacture) 1/160 scale (N Gauge) has nowhere to run.  It was purchased for sentimental reasons and I would like to make a little layout, using one of these test tracks and some extension materials remaining from previous projects.  As mentioned above, this design was originally made for a friend but was developed with a view to marketing these simple and rather useful items.  However, this idea has not been followed through, partly as it only encourages further modelling developments.

 

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Klein Holtzapffell

This layout developed out of the idea of a circular test track base to carry a circle of Peco Number 4 set.  With the rolling stock from the original Holzapfel layout to hand, felt the need to have somewhere to see it run.  This circular formate has the great constraint of size limitation, so greatly reducing the potential amount of material required to complete a layout.  The missing, forth board between the tunnels will carry a simple fiddle yard with four fixed roads in the middle and two 'traverser points' at each end.

 

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‘Arkade Tunnel’

Made on baseboard already laser cut, using extruded polystyrene off-cuts already purchased.  The tunnel mouth by Faller has been recycled from the original Holzapfel.  The only new purchase seen here has been the Faller foam ‘arkade’, which was a cheat to get the retaining wall built quickly.

 

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Now called the Kapelle Arkade, the chapel has been recycled from the previous layout, while the walls are finished off with some copping stones cut from art-board card off-cuts, as are the cable throughs.  The white Plastikard is not the most appropriate material for the inner retaining walls of the little under-bridge, but it was to hand from the scrap box.  This will be hidden when the stone retaining walls are put in place once the bridge design has been finalised…. Stone arch or girder?

 

 

But this questioning is only part of a series of actions:-

 

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This is the left hand end of St Juliot in 1/64th scale.  The track is the most resent offering for bullhead track from the S Scale Society, with the centre line being the through road.  The van has a resin cast body; the bicycle is a Southwark Bridge etch and the basket on the platform is a piece of white-metal produced for 7mm.  Apart from those items, everything was scratch built or hand made mostly with off-cuts and recycled card.  The trees and the grass pose a bit of a problem but care has been taken to keep the waste (overspill) materials from these operation in the waste bin rather than being washed down the sink.  These sorts of micro fibres are able to escape the waste water treatment plants and end up in the marine environment….  Along with the fibres from fleeces and other recycled ‘plastic’ clothing!!  The whole layout has been passed on several times and is now probably being recycled into some other configuration.

 

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Draft plans for Mellstock Intrinseca.  The boards and some track are made for my one large project.  However, since this picture was taken the thing has been scale back a little more to give a much greater sense of space and to reduce the the amount of materials required for the project to be completed.  But it is all scratch building, so should keep me busy for a while…..

 

Conclusion

 

While some will no doubt thick my words here are rather extreme, I am of the view that some modellers (perhaps I should call them ‘glazed box openers’) are rather more extreme.  I recently came across a layout which included multi-storey fiddle yards with capacity for 140 sets of coaching stock.  Whatever is the point?  They probably require more space to store the empty boxes than most people have for layouts.

 

However, such extremes become more balance when one starts to to live by the creed of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The most important of which is Reduce…  Such an alternative approach has also caused me to think carefully about the role of exhibiting.  Having switched from exhibiting layouts transported by road, I proved to my satisfaction that it was possible to take layouts to exhibitions by public transport.  I have now got to the stage where I feel exhibitions are just a means of encouraging dissatisfaction and of the initiation of new plans and further consumption.

 

While the quality of finish of a scratch built model may not compare with the very best of the those resource consuming mass produced items, the benefits to the modeller of producing something of your own with your own hands far outweigh the short-term adrenalin rush of buying a glazed box or receiving an order from a bespoke model supplier.  Increasingly, it is also of benefit in much wider, if very small, way in the future management of our environment and our resources.  Is railway modelling very high on the list of human activities that can be sustained in a future society concern with these issues and a world with a more equal sharing of resources? 

 

I rest my case!

 

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Hi Maurice, 

 

I very much enjoyed your article in MRJ and welcome your additional material here. I was relieved to see that I am not alone in the thoughts i have been wrestling with recently about the state of our great hobby. The adrenaline rush of acquirement does seem to have usurped the gentler reward of building a world of your own, through your own skill and imagination over time. Our hobbyist selves align more closely with our everyday, consumerist selves.

 

The high fidelity of the models produced by the big manufacturers have perhaps dulled our skills of observation in that we assume all the detail is there, thus we don't even need to look at the real thing. What inspired me most as a kid was seeing Lima diesels, tweaked by their owners using etches and whitemetal castings, the presence of which even then I knew pointed to the modellers love of the prototype and were like monuments to their skills (or simply enjoyment) of observation. Also, the level of detail on the locos today on a layout tend to sit in sharp contrast to the quality of the layout itself (often not for lack of skill, but as you say a person's skills cannot often match up to the perfection of injection mouldings) thus wrenching us from the suspension of disbelief. 

 

I see your point about exhibitions encouraging dissatisfaction. I find some layouts are simply showcases for the amount of consumption that has occurred, particularly demonstrated by the amount of DCC sound Diesel depots on the circuit. Perhaps I am just jealous though!!

 

Many thanks for sharing. 

 

Dave

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I admire Maurice's work and also St Juliot from a distance [ I was in Canada at the time he showed it]. He is really sharing his philosophy of modelling, an area we don't go to very often. 

 

I tend towards a modelling approach of thrifty frugality, recycling, reusing and drawing on material which would otherwise be wasted. Not exclusively, I do buy things and models too! Most of my work is in 7mm scale, standard or narrow gauge. Recently I paid $5 for enough mounting board off cuts from a picture framer to keep me in thick good quality board for a long time.

 

A few years ago I came across a layout under construction with an entire terrace of 7mm scale houses etched from brass. This appalled me, just because you can, should you? Etched brass used to be high cost,for locos , stock & accessories you couldn't make in precision small quantities any other way. 

 

Etched metal, like 3D printing and plastic moulding, has an environmental footprint. There are alternatives. Those terrace houses and other projects could have been just as well lasercut in MDF, ply or card from the same design package rather than etched metal. Silhouette cutters and their like have their uses too. Handbullding or manufacture has it's place too. I have friends who build locos and stock from card in 7mm scale.

 

We balance the costs in time, money, opportunity and environmental impact with the gratifications or returns  in speed and quality of results. Maurice shares his age, I am 10 years younger but also I think about the level of ambition of what I can do and complete. You can't recycle time!   Using digital technology intelligently to reduce the detailed repetitive work we used to do seems to make sense..

 

Finally, do we wish to be creative designer-makers or assemblers of pre-made products? Satisfaction may be gained from either, but Maurice and a number of us will tend towards the former, there is a hybrid area in the middle, and the model railway production/retail industry is in the latter category. I suspect it was ever thus.  Enjoy what you do, but think of the legacy. Good models are worth recycling.

 

David

 

 

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Dave and David,

 

It was with a degree of trepidation that I opened my blog this morning, wondering how this post would have gone down, especially so after the rejection of the original, robust text by the MRJ.   One suspects even the MRJ has to look over it shoulder to see what the advertisers opinion of such a piece would be, let alone the assumed opinions of it readers.  (Rather amusing that the reply panel I am typing in has below it an advert for 30% off Hornby locos ... while stocks last.  Do they know something we don't?)

 

I very much appreciate your comments and the time and thought used in making them.  I especially like the concept that 'hand work' modellers have been usurped by the increased availability of commercial productions and that these have degraded the observational element of the process.  This has much wider applications (far outside railway modelling) for the autonomy of the individual, often swept along in the rush to consume.  Perhaps there should be another R in the three Rs - Resistance!!   Resistance, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

 

Dave remarks about the 'display diesel depot' layouts, to show off high levels of consumption and questions if this is just jealousy.  It is interesting how the word jealousy is used as a means abuse about those who think there is another way to enjoyment beyond simple conversion of wealth into material consumption.  I have an older relative who spends a great deal of time 'flying the world', but while I would love to see some of the places to which he travels, I do not feel the aged should be 'burning up' the atmosphere!  This is not jealousy, even though I could not afford such a hobby, but it is laced around with a certain degree of sadness about the lack of awareness of his actions.... although I belief he is well aware, but is driven to the course of actions by another!!

 

David, if only we could recycle time!  It is really good to find there are others out there who are thinking of cutting there cloth to be more suitable to the time available... whatever that is!

 

And you remind me that it is the process and the quality of the outcome that is important.  We need to hold on to our creativity while paying due regard to the impact of the process.

 

Again thank you both for these comments.   They are quite enough to justify my making the blog post.  .... and the MRJ missed out on some interesting correspondence.

 

Kind regards     Maurice

 

 

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Very thought provoking articles in MRJ and here.

To my simplistic, and maybe oversimplified , view, many of the problems you mention are a by-product of an attempt by the human race to buy what cannot be bought, time, which as you quite rightly mention is the one thing that cannot be recycled.

I have posted previously hereabouts on the "I want what I want and I want it now" aspect of our, and probably many other, hobbies, which leads us in the medium to long term to the problems you elucidate.

The biggest issue is finding a cure for the malaise, is there one even?

It is something which concerns the whole world not just model railways, and we all know how well global problem solving goes!

 

Mike.

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Hi Maurice,

 

I relate to your discussion about jealousy and must say i mentioned that with my tongue in cheek! I agree it is a term thrown at those with oppositional views to the norm of consumerism and individual gain. 

 

Perhaps this has played on my mind more recently due to the election season but we won't go there!!!

 

Many thanks again for your writing. 

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Aren’t we really talking about envy? Jealousy is about me guarding my things from you: envy is about you wishing you had them...

PS The evidence of overusing resources was present all along, well before 1970. What was lacking then - and still is now - is the across-the-spectrum political consensus required for climate control to become a sine qua non for any party hoping to win an election. President LB Johnson was made aware of this issue circa 1967/8, and was reportedly horrified not just by the prospect of resource depletion, but also the realisation that any party putting the issue (and the long term survival of the USA let alone the planet) was going to be wiped out at the next election. Easiest way to change attitudes is to tax products based on their total carbon footprint, to include distribution as well as manufacture. (It is possible to do this.)  But which country is going to be prepared to do that? Who wants to put a tax on airline fuel? (All those cheap holidays suddenly become far too expensive. Airlines already fill up wherever fuel is cheapest, and carry literally tons of extra kerosene around to reduce the cost. To them. Not the cost to the environment.)

The thing is, this isn’t that simple. Not taxing aviation fuel was probably the single most enduring feat of the Breton Woods conference. International commerce requires cheap international travel, and cheap international exchange of goods. Tax aviation fuel, and we return to a more localised production based on what is available in the neighbourhood. Which leads to a different form of constraint on resources, and ultimately means less international trade. And less international trade means more wars...

Either way, human overpopulation results in high mortality rates: war, pollution or famine. Take your pick. The fourth horseman is going to be busy!

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41 minutes ago, Regularity said:

Aren’t we really talking about envy? Jealousy is about me guarding my things from you: envy is about you wishing you had them..

PS The evidence of overusing resources was present all along, well before 1970. What was lacking then - and still is now - is the across-the-spectrum political consensus required for climate control to become a sine qua non for any party hoping to win an election. President LB Johnson was made aware of this issue circa 1967/8, and was reportedly horrified not just by the prospect of resource depletion, but also the realisation that any party putting the issue (and the long term survival of the USA let alone the planet) was going to be wiped out at the next election. Easiest way to change attitudes is to tax products based on their total carbon footprint, to include distribution as well as manufacture. (It is possible to do this.)  But which country is going to be prepared to do that? Who wants to put a tax on airline fuel? (All those cheap holidays suddenly become far too expensive. Airlines already fill up wherever fuel is cheapest, and carry literally tons of extra kerosene around to reduce the cost. To them. Not the cost to the environment.)

The thing is, this isn’t that simple. Not taxing aviation fuel was probably the single most enduring feat of the Breton Woods conference. International commerce requires cheap international travel, and cheap international exchange of goods. Tax aviation fuel, and we return to a more localised production based on what is available in the neighbourhood. Which leads to a different form of constraint on resources, and ultimately means less international trade. And less international trade means more wars...

Either way, human overpopulation results in high mortality rates: war, pollution or famine. Take your pick. The fourth horseman is going to be busy!

 Yes you are correct, envy is the correct word for this. 

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Back to modelling, and thanks to Maurice and others who have shared their thoughts on this. Nearly 3 years ago I was gathering information on the East Fife Central [Lochty Branch] with a view to a modelling project. With the help of a few on this forum I got enough information on the Goods Offices used to model one, and spent Christmas making it. 

 

Ian Futers beat me to modelling Lochty, but the building is temporarily sited on the microlayout I built in Canada, now used for demonstration/testing, and as a backdrop for a Heljan 05. The building enabled me to model the contrasting sand coloured brick facings, marked out and cut from straw coloured paper. It was tedious to do, but there was learning, value and enjoyment in the process. Not a great model, but a pleasing one. 

Prototype photo by Ian Kirk.

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On 12/11/2019 at 08:27, Maurice Hopper said:

Dave and David,

 

It was with a degree of trepidation that I opened my blog this morning, wondering how this post would have gone down, especially so after the rejection of the original, robust text by the MRJ.   One suspects even the MRJ has to look over it shoulder to see what the advertisers opinion of such a piece would be, let alone the assumed opinions of it readers.  (Rather amusing that the reply panel I am typing in has below it an advert for 30% off Hornby locos ... while stocks last.  Do they know something we don't?)

 

 

Kind regards     Maurice

 

 

 

As the editor of the MRJ which published Maurice's excellent article I would like to pick up on a couple of points.

 

Firstly, the original text was not rejected, it was edited. As I said to Maurice I wanted readers to read it and in its original form it was too long and attempted to cover too much ground. It was an editorial decision to do this and whether it was the right one or not is for others to decide but I was keen that Maurice's article was included alongside the piece by Richard Ellis on Midland in Bristol and the editorial I penned.

 

Secondly, the notion that  MRJ was looking over its shoulders at what its advertisers might think, (or readers come to that) is just nonsense. A quick glance at any of the 270 odd MRJs to date will show that the RTR manufacturers have never advertised in its pages. If anything, an article championing self reliance and making things would be welcomed by those that do advertise.

 

Thirdly, and most importantly, I rejected the basic premise of much of the argument. The notion that the use of plastics or other petrol based products is bad is simply wrong, its their single use that is the problem. If anything we should be encouraging modellers to make things from plasticard as its carbon footprint in terms of manufacturing it is many times smaller than that of card, paper or MDF which consume enormous amounts of energy in their production. Equating a single use plastic bag which ends up shredded and polluting our oceans with a plastic model which will hopefully last decades is a false comparison.

 

For those interested, have a look at this article 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/mar/31/plastics-cardboard

 

regards Jerry

 

 

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Back to slow modelling...

 

Radio 4 has a fascinating (sometimes, sometimes not so) series called "Only Artists", where one artist chats to another about their different disciplines.

A few weeks ago, Tracy Chevalier (novelist, "Girl With a Pearl Earring") visited the ceramicist ("potter") Edmund de Vaal. During this exchange, he made a tea cup for her on the wheel with some hand finishing. As he commented when handing it to her, it wasn't just the clay, nor the cup, that he was handing over, but 50 or 60 years of experience in making these things.

 

Worth visiting, if you like that sort of thing.

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I have not looked at this for a while, so here is a collective response.  Again many thanks for the comments made on what is hardly a mainstream modelling topic.

 

Westernviscount and Regularity

Jealousy... Envy?  or perhaps more unpleasantly - Greed.

 

Dava

I like the Good Office.  I have just recently come across a series of tiny layouts made by someone in Japan that display modelling skills but are not really big enough to operate.  They really caught my eye ... see below for more of the 'Japanese connection'.

 

.... and Jerry

Firstly, thank you for publishing the article in MRJ and to make it quite clear to others, it was edited by me at your request.  Perhaps my comments here were ungracious.  A case of who writes the history!!

 

Secondly, I am encouraged by your response in relation to the MRJ’s publishing policy.

 

Thirdly, we may have to differ here.

 

Plastics, single use or longterm use, are mostly a ‘by-product’ of the petrochemical industry. This industry is based on raw materials that increasingly would be best left in the ground if the global economy is going to be able to control the rise in temperatures over the next two decades to a level that is sustainable for future generations.  That we have, over the last 130 years or so, developed an addictive dependence on fuels and other products, including plastics, of the ‘fractionating column’ is no reason not to start carrying out an analysis of how such materials should be used.  There are uses of plastics that are extremely valuable, for example in the medical world, but there are many uses that are much less so.  Perhaps a true analysis of prioritising our use of these products over the next few decades needs to be part of the process of ‘fossil fuel energy cold turkey’.

 

Cardboard, is a product of a carbon capturing cycle - tree growth - and therefore seems to have a more sustainable longterm future. 

(As for Guy Watson and has carbon budgets; I realised some ten years or more ago that he had a very successful and cleverly marketed business that was probably beginning to miss the point.  To be overtaken by a Riverford artic on the A30, taking veg-boxes from Devon to ‘the market’, suggested to me that he had lost the ‘local’ element in his environmentally aware business plan.  His products may be organic, but his distribution is not necessarily green.  But no doubt it would have been too difficult to set up market gardens closer to his markets, as a result of the tyranny of the land price market that puts land for food production beyond the means of food growers as it is inflated by housing developers.  The economic distribution of land-use is something this country has never really got to grips with and is a great failing of my own geographic academic discipline, which has always trailed behind history in understanding our culture.)

 

Additional comment….

 

We are discussing concepts at very different scales.  The amount of materials used, even across the whole railway modelling community, is a very small part of total global material consumption.  If we are making ‘head of a pin’ analysis, it is only at the level of reducing individual consumption that we, as individuals, can begin to make a difference.  (There are a few countries that are moving towards a more collective view.  The Dutch P.M., Mark Rutte, has just announced a reduction of the national speed limit from 110 to 100kph to reduce exhaust gases….   And the NS, a 95%+ electrified railway has been running on green, renewable, non-fossil fuel electricity for over 2 years.)

 

I will, as in the way of “Ikigai - The Japanese secret to a long and happy life”, continue to view my modelling and indeed the rest of my life through a changing prism, with a questioning of purpose in both the use of materials and the nature of activities.  I need (and this is a very personal comment) to build ‘resilience’ about what I am doing and get rid of the things that make me fragile.  If that includes some aspect(s) of modelling then so be it. 

 

The aged proponents of Ikigai are able to live an environmentally balanced existence, through gardening - including growing their own food, social activity across all age groups, physical exercise and meditation.  Not a bad way to live, especially as many of them contribute to the cluster centenarians living in northern Okinawa.

 

Probably enough said on this.... at least by me!

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On 20/11/2019 at 10:13, Maurice Hopper said:

Cardboard, is a product of a carbon capturing cycle - tree growth - and therefore seems to have a more sustainable longterm future. 

Interesting conundrum. The problem with cardboard and paper (which can use other forms of cellulose, such as old cotton) is not the sustainability of the raw material (easy enough to plant replacement trees) but the environmental footprint of production, which for first use materials is something like 4 times that for "plastic", at least in terms of shopping bags. (http://www.allaboutbags.ca/papervplastic.html) The extra volume and weight of the materials used is also a factor, and sees paper bags costing more in shipping, and also having a larger environmental impact in terms of waste. They also don't always last as long.

 

Not sure how that translates to materials used for modelling directly, but feeling (self-?)assured about reducing one's environmental impact by using card and wood bought new is questionable. If the materials were produced for other purposes - anyone else remember John Ahern's references to cardboard cartons? - then fair enough, but as the plastics we use are largely a byproduct of what would otherwise be waste materials from the oil refining industry or possibly leftover off-cuts from more "worthy" manufacturing, then I am not sure that using Evergreen polystyrene (my preferred manufacturer) is really doing a great deal of damage, compared to say driving to an exhibition, which I know you no longer do so all kudos to you! But what about the polystyrene you are using in your lightweight baseboard construction? Was that waste, or bought specifically? (We know each other well enough, I hope, for you to take that as a prompt for reflection and discussion rather than as a jibe!)

 

To follow Ikigai, you would need to produce your own wood, card and paper using waste heat and your own hard work, which is not what I think you are aiming for? The ultimate execution of this philosophy would be to not build a model railway at all, merely imagine it in one's head; we all do that already!

 

I am all for environmental awareness, but I think we need to concentrate ourselves on where we can make major changes to our lifestyles, rather than inconsequential ones that appear to be a grand gesture.

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