hughconway

This is a very good point, and one which I think applies equally to some depot type layouts - far too many "special visitors" compared with the prototype. However, as you say: it's their model and so they can run what they like. I guess though that we all have to strike a balance between reality in its purest sense and entertainment as reality for many areas of the real railways (just as in the rest of life) can be extremely dull for most, if not all, of the time.

Hi all, As a long term reader but infrequent poster I have stumbled upon this thread and feel compelled to resurrect it as I am considering modelling a fictional preserved-line/Network Rail junction based on Dunmow station in Essex. It is fictional because Dunmow has long gone and was never preserved however Colne Valley Railway and Wakes Colne station (just a few miles on down the same mainline (GEML) if you came from the Braintree direction!) do follow this prototype. Having read the many and varied points of view so far expressed I am now feeling disheartened as it seems that if I choose to use only the best RTR stock available with the rationale that these are preserved items then my layout will have less worth than if I had modelled Dunmow as per the 1950s prototype which would mean kitbuilding all locos and stock as none is available in RTR form. The research into the location is the same, the attempt to accurately and realistically model the infrastructure (albeit with some changes to reflect the split into a Preserved line next to a Network Rail line) etc. are the same as if I was modelling the 1950s prototype but the stock running on it will not. For the Network Rail line I plan to run a Class 156 which is the same as is currently used prototypically on the Wakes Colne line. Whilst I am inspired by layouts such as Jim's P4 New Street, is it really the case that all layouts should attempt to 100% accurately and authentically model a prototype location and any that do not are less worthy than those that do? What I think is more likely but which has not come over completely in the posts above is that making a trainset is fine and great fun but trying to justify it as somehow 'real' is not. Ultimately, everyone will have their own view on what is real and/or realistic (much based on expert experience of the 12":1ft railways) but surely tarnishing all preserved-line models with the trainset/unrealistic brush is unfair and risks becoming unnessarily elitist (something which this forum by and large is not!)? What are others' views? Thanks, Hugh

Oh dear!