Prototype Railway Modelling - an article by Tony Wright

[AngryMeerkat]

Me too. Your second example would FOR ME be utterly pointless. But if others enjoy thier hobby that way thats great.

Thats the thing with a hobby like this, what might seem a completely clear cut arguement from one point of view seems comletely wrong from another. I am sure you think someone wandering around brum photographing man-holes and drawing up etches or measuring kerbstones is not your idea of fun.

Jim

 

I think it is perfectly acceptable for somebody to do as you say, as for some people "getting it right" is the only thing that matters. But these same people almost certainly started in the hobby with a 'train set' and watched basic trains go round and round. They then built a small 'layout' to wet their feet in landscaping and adding detail. Only after all this did they go on to build what is now seen as an amazing layout.

 

Yet these same people criticise those of us following the same route they took into the hobby? The 'lowly TMD' is probably the easiest way into proper layout modelling where you can try different things, then move up to layouts like your own excellent representation.

 

For us to see those we aspire to emulate calling our learning route out to be simplistic and to be avoided is the exact opposite of what esteemed members of this hobby should be doing to encourage new members and the improvement of current members.

 

Mark

[Peter Bedding]

Templot (now free) can wrap a prototype plan onto a curve or into a corner, as a design guide for your track plan. So you can get the essential "essence of place" in a much smaller model space.

 

Here for example I started with a 25" scan of Corfe Castle, and loaded it as a normal track plan picture shape: 

 

 

If anyone wants to try it, the original image file in the Gallery is 300dpi and 1:2500 scale:

http://85a.co.uk/forum/gallery/46/original/46_131232_230000000.png

Thanks to Neil Berrington.

 

The intention was to fit it into the corner of a room, and this is the result, now ready to have the remaining tracks aligned over it:

 

 

 

This is a 2-stage process. First to straighten out the original running line, and then to wrap it onto the desired curve.

 

Here's another one -- Crewkerne on an S-curve:

 

 

 

Obviously it would need a few changes -- unless you have a curved goods shed to hand.

 

 

Martin.

 

Thereby proving that computers do have their uses.

 

PB

[10800]

 but the four you have cited were extraordinarily good at it because they had done the homework on the 'flavour' and authenticity aspects.

 

PS I hope Gordon Gravitt does not read this as at the last count he is still alive!

 

Point accepted!  The 'were' was referring to the layouts (Ditchling Green, Pempoul etc) rather than the man.  Clumsy me!

[Guest jim s-w]

I think it is perfectly acceptable for somebody to do as you say, as for some people "getting it right" is the only thing that matters. But these same people almost certainly started in the hobby with a 'train set' and watched basic trains go round and round. They then built a small 'layout' to wet their feet in landscaping and adding detail. Only after all this did they go on to build what is now seen as an amazing layout.

 

Yet these same people criticise those of us following the same route they took into the hobby? The 'lowly TMD' is probably the easiest way into proper layout modelling where you can try different things, then move up to layouts like your own excellent representation.

 

Hi Mark

 

Thats true and while like Andy i dont like TMD layouts either i would still look at a new one hopefully without predujuce. If they happen to fit my clone of a layout idea of what they will be then so be it but i wont know until i look. Theres always one that will surprise isnt there. However if you took your layout to a show and it was everything i didnt like about TMD layouts so i move on that doesnt mean its bad, it just means i dont like it. Not that my opinion should matter one bit anyway as its your layout, it has to be what you want.

 

I am under no illusions that everyone in the world will instantly fall in love with my slice of grotty birmingham. Some might like it, some might thing it a massive waste of time and effort, some might appreciate it but still not like it anyway and thats perfectly fine. Hopefully they will move along to something that does interest them leaving a gap for someone who finds it worth watching.

 

I did have a train set when i was a kid but switched to p4 at 15. Since then i have been involved in several exhibition layouts but actually, aside from my test plank, BNS is my first ever layout. The idea of building a layout i wasnt actually interested in as a practice never occurred to me to be honest. I just practice on the plank and the main layout, the thing is dont be afraid to start again if something doesnt work.

 

Cheers

 

Jim

[New Haven Neil]

I'm only allowed to express the law at my work....but I think Andy should be allowed to voice an opinion AS Andy, as well as his work alter ego - after all, he is a modeller too.  Provided he makes the distinction, what's the problem?

 

However, I get the feeling TW will be reading all this pleased with his work, he has stimulated discussion, which IMHO is what he was doing in the first place.  Heaven forbid we should all be the same, then ECML layouts would be as repetetive and boring as a GW BLT or a Depot, sorry TMD.

[ScRSG]

As a member of the group who built "Alloa",  (see it at the Glasgow show next month) I am firmly in the "if you have the space, then build a prototype location" camp. Yes, it involves lots of research etc. but isn't that another part of the hobby? I do believe, however, that it does make you build things, as on Alloa all buildings, signals, pointwork etc. had to be scratch built and this is what gives it it's individuality. true you don't have to make up the track plan, figure out how it is signalled etc because the information is all there, although trying to figure out how certain movements would be done and signalled is all part of the fun.

 

I agree, however that space is a major factor, any prototype location takes far more space than we would ever imagine, especially main line operation.  I have recently done research on what may be the next layout for our group, and again it will be a model of a specific prototype and will be of some length. From information I have had I have built what would be a simple crossover but using the full scale size pointwork, in this case "D12's" This crossover alone is about four feet long! (in 4mm) So it is difficult to reproduce that in the limits most of are forced to work under. Thes are large exhibition style layouts that very few of us have the space to build at home. I still believe that such layouts are inspirational, I know they have been for me and the other members of our group, Stoke, Biggleswade, Retford et al and we are extremely lucky to have found suitable space over the years to fulfill our ambitions.

 

We are currently helping complete a layout based on a fictitious location, but very much in the mode of a specific area and hence the type of building, track layout etc are of a common theme related to that area. So, following the prototype in this way I also find quite appropriate. While this layout is still quite large in terms of a potential home layout in a bedroom or such like, it does give the idea that smaller layouts can be built with an understanding about how your favourite company would have gone about it, to produce the right "feel".

[bluebottle]

Templot (now free) can wrap a prototype plan onto a curve or into a corner, as a design guide for your track plan. So you can get the essential "essence of place" in a much smaller model space.

 

Here for example I started with a 25" scan of Corfe Castle, and loaded it as a normal track plan picture shape: 

 

 

Obviously it would need a few changes -- unless you have a curved goods shed to hand.

 

 

Martin.

 

Of  course, if your prototype has the rugged terrain of the Pennines to contend with, such expedients are less unlikely...

 

 

Ex L&Y goods shed, Halifax (from Google maps)

 

Gordon

[Fay Singpoint]

The "branch off a branch" with a small terminus  is an old chestnut , and generally a bit unprototypical 

 

Hardly unprototypical   ... Bodmin General, St Alban's Abbey, Exmouth are past examples and Bourne End is a current example.  There may be more.. 

[Kenton]

There is I believe no objection to the personal perspective - as that expressed by others in this topic.

 

However expressing that perspective as TW has done in an appointed to-be-respected position is quite different. Unless it was deliberately intended to antagonise.

 

Don't get me wrong; there are good TMDs out there but there are also some that have little affinity to any form or example of a prototype, portray nothing other than a generic stage on which to sit some RTR locos (preferably with sound lights and no weathering ) when with a little imagination the time and money invested could have built something which would please the owner for years rather than months.

 

My bold emphasis - this is just the point which is not available to many. The suggestion is that those who build such a layout should not do so, and not present it simply because it offends the sensibilities of the highbrow of the hobby.

 

As for sound and lights - is that saying that all DC layouts are to be damned for not being up to "your" standard? I don't really believe you mean that, but the suggestion is there.

 

As for weathering. I have seen very little, even on top-notch layouts, that meets with my approval. There are some good attempts but the vast majority IMO should not be claiming the job done. So I would rather see the loco straight from the box being enjoyed for what it is, regardless of condition or modification.

 

I fear we are at risk of generating a generation of hobbyists who are given a complex simply because they are at a certain stage of the hobby, and perhaps one they may never be able to afford, or be inclined, to move on from.

 

The hobby has a wide range of skill and talents - there is room for everyone.

[Ravenser]

I don't have any problem with anybody following their hobby however they wish. But there are certain types of layout that has been done to death and yet we still see examples in magazines and at exhibitions, sometimes in multiples of almost identical examples. I recall one show I went to where there were about 6 or 7 almost identikit terminus layouts. All diesel period (mostly 1980s), all Peco code 100 track (badly laid and ballasted with bright red rust paint on the rail sides - ugh!!), all RTR stock and locos, all having loco hauled 3 coach trains running alongside multiple units, all with resin bought buildings, all with an arched retaining wall down the back with a half relief row of shops/houses/buildings along the top, all with the obligatory street full of "out of the box" road vehicles. They even all had the fiddle yard at the left hand end!

 

There are a couple of exceptionally well modelled diesel depot type layouts around and they are so good that they make the rest look exactly what they are, somebody very much taking the "quick and easy" route and deciding that they only way thay can have all their locos on a layout in a small space is to model a depot using off the shelf stuff.

 

As for operation, has anybody ever built a shed layout that was interesting to operate or to watch operating? OK, you can have an odd coal/fuel/ash wagon movement. I spent a deal of time at real sheds in the 70s and the operation was, well, boring. Light engine arrives, light engine leaves and after that you are struggling. At shows, you often see locos just being moved aimlessly from one siding to another, just to stave off total boredom.

 

So unless there is something exceptional in the quality of the modelling (which is unusual as they are usually all straight out of the box stuff), or the design or the presentation, such layouts usually leave me cold.

 

But each to their own, if that is what people want to build and others want to look at, good luck to them, just don't expect me to enthuse about them!

 

Tony 

 

 

I'm not a great lover of the TMD layout because the normal TMD layout models something that didn't really exist (the handful of TMDs based on an actual prototype stand out - but you are not going to produce a model of Toton , or even Colchester...) - at least chocolate-box GW branch lines really did exist in some numbers. However I do understand why such layouts are built . They are display dioramas with movement for people who have built up large collections of locos and want a layout to show them on without the distraction of rolling stock or train working.

 

That said, if you feel the need to build one , I do think there is no need to use code 100 anymore. Peco have removed the main remaining justification by providing code 75 concrete sleeper flexible track: everything made in the last 20+ years will run on code 75

 

 

As far as modern image termini are concerned , 1980s Scotrail Highland termini were at one point becoming a little cliched, precisely because the prototypes ran with 3-4 car trains hauled by class 37s and therefore offered loco hauled trains in small spaces. Nobody makes a class 37 kit, very few people will look past the Bachmann range for Mk1 and Mk2 stock  , or be able to finish a Comet or Southern Pride kit in blue/grey to the same standard, and adding the successor Sprinter units adds to variety - nobody does a kit for those either, and the current absence of underframe detailing castings for 156s is a slightly sore point in this quarter . So RTR is pretty inevitable if you model that subject, though again I agree that code 100 isn't necessary 

 

Buildings along a road parallel with a railway below in cutting with retaining wall is common on the prototype in urban areas (the first 15 miles out of Liverpool St is nearly all like that, for starters), though I agree it's often done rather crudely - it's the almost inevitable bulk order of Metcalfe terraces that is becominng a touch grating , though I accept that such terrraces are very common . The problem is more that the Metcalfe kits aren't that great - the white card edges are very prominent and intrusive - and a bit of care , discretion and judgement (plus a felt tip or watercolour to touch in those edges)are needed to get a decent result

 

As the owner of a small terminus with a fiddle yard on the left , and a single track fuelling point in front screened from the FY by brick arched retaining wall (Scalescenes) I suppose I'm as vulnerable as most to criticism , though derelict and isolated sections of viaduct and retaining wall are common enough around urban termini, and there's no road or buildings on top.

[LNER4479]

Great discussion.

 

I happily admit to being a prototype ‘junkie’ but would not for one moment suggest that such an approach is somehow superior in any way.

 

What I enjoy from the hobby is the holistic approach to creating an impression of ‘the railway’ that achieves the illusive aura of believability and – if I can dare to use that as a measure of ‘success’ for a moment – then I think a might-have-been can be a hit just as much as a prototype can be a miss.

 

Is it not perhaps the case that some are put off the prototype approach for fear of someone subsequently pointing out ‘it was never like that!’? If so, then perhaps there’s some false logic going on here because I contend that the might-have-been approach requires equal care devoted to the setting, infrastructure, trackwork, signalling, rolling stock etc in order to convince. To quote an example in Tony Wright’s article, the late Peter Denny’s iconic Buckingham layout is a might-have-been, yet great care was taken to ensure all the above aspects were ‘correct’. To have had a fleet of steel bodied mineral wagons or the roads crowded out with motor vehicles would have destroyed the illusion of the pre-first world war Great Central Railway.

 

But lets have fun as well. A previous layout of mine was a mainline 'Thomas the Tank' layout. But I did my research thoroughly, reading the original stories, studying the map of the area.....  ...ouch!..

[Ravenser]

Hardly unprototypical   ... Bodmin General, St Alban's Abbey, Exmouth are past examples and Bourne End is a current example.  There may be more.. 

 

 

I did say generally and they are certainly not typical . Bodmin was more of a double terminus , and I'm unaware of a second line at St Albans Abbey .The problem is more having a second micro-terminus, reached only from a small terminus . There was no second micro-terminus reached from either Bodmin General or Exmouth . You ended up at Sidmouth Jnc or on the North Cornwall line

 

Cromer/Sheringham and Bourne End/Marlow are geniune modern examples,  but the first is a reversal on a through service, and the second is I believe only a seperate shuttle part of the time.

 

The concept of the larger terminus as a reversal point , with some short-workings terminating there and perhaps a little token freight or a unit stored over night as well, seems more fruitful than the "sub-branch off a branch" : in a modern context it's easier to explain that part of the line has been closed . Other examples are Battersby Jnc and Bere Alston , though there's not a great deal at either, in terms of operation/traffic or town. Battersby is at least a crossing point, but the "small terminus" is both not small (it's Whitby) and a very long way away. You couldn't add Whitby as an additional station to a layout focussed on Battersby...

 

I think the first "branch off a branch" may have been on Peter Denny's Buckingham Mk1 in 1947 but on subsequent versions of the layout , the Leighton Buzzard branch started from a junction station part way along a major branch , not from the terminus - and that is a much more usual situation 

['CHARD]

I think it is perfectly acceptable for somebody to do as you say, as for some people "getting it right" is the only thing that matters. But these same people almost certainly started in the hobby with a 'train set' and watched basic trains go round and round. They then built a small 'layout' to wet their feet in landscaping and adding detail. Only after all this did they go on to build what is now seen as an amazing layout. Yet these same people criticise those of us following the same route they took into the hobby? The 'lowly TMD' is probably the easiest way into proper layout modelling where you can try different things, then move up to layouts like your own excellent representation. For us to see those we aspire to emulate calling our learning route out to be simplistic and to be avoided is the exact opposite of what esteemed members of this hobby should be doing to encourage new members and the improvement of current members. Mark

 

Like I said, for me (and I suspect many others) the TMD layout was a rite-of-passage, and probably still is.  No-one's suggesting that this rite of passage shouldn't happen, but it's a bit like my first daubings as a child 'artist.' Sure, parents gush over these infant masterpieces, but they're really just a by-product of the learning process, not fully-formed pieces of great merit.

 

I would also like to think that I did my TMD phase with plenty of prototype inspiration, and I resolutely only ran WR blue diesels on it: privatisation's eye-boggling spectrum was only a glint in a witch's eye at that stage.  The point is, I was learning, it was a stepping-stone and not an end in itself.  And I think on here we basically do encourage and nurture the newbies.

[Andy Y]

However expressing that perspective as TW has done in an appointed to-be-respected position is quite different. Unless it was deliberately intended to antagonise.

I wouldn't use the word antagonise as that's not the intention; provocative would be a more appropriate label for any intent hence starting this topic.

As for weathering. I have seen very little, even on top-notch layouts, that meets with my approval.

In opposition I could then say that this sentence looks down on others more than anything TW or I have said. It may help folk if they could see an example of your own to qualify the point. As you say "The hobby has a wide range of skill and talents - there is room for everyone. "

My bold emphasis - this is just the point which is not available to many.

I wouldn't want to be misrepresented; what I actually said was:

when with a little imagination the time and money invested could have built something which would please the owner for years rather than months.

Meaning that the funds and hours could be deployed more creatively; after all some of the most inspiring content here is where creativity and imagination is used rather than money.

[Brian D]

The sort of "prototype" layouts that appeal to me are the big ones like Peterborough North and Grantham (Streamliner years) - both of this "parish", Stoke Summit, Liverpool Lime Street etc.  But I have neither the space or resources (and arguable the skills and time/patience) to replicate anything on this scale.

I think this point (these points?) will push many enthusiasts, especially those working on their own such as myself, down the imaginary location route, taking inspiration along the way from Buckingham and other outstanding "imaginary" locations.

I was fortunate pre-retirement to work for a railway company and although, not directly involved in permanent way engineering, I was also fortunate to learn a little about this fascinating subject relating to "305 mm scale".  As I have mentioned before more than once on RMWeb, virtually every roundy-roundy exhibition layout that I have seen exhibited should really have check rails on their curved track if we are talking "prototype" because the curves are of insufficient radius for the safe prototypical passage of locos and stock - they are also invariably without cant.  Also of course, 00 is actually narrow gauge being 8 and half inches too narrow.  All of these p-way deficiencies exist but the track supports exquisitely modelled locos and stock and all other infrastructure is generally modelled with great accuracy, especially buildings.

So, time to sum up my ramblings.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, if you have time, space, patience, resources, etc go "prototype" but don't do any curves unless you can accommodate prototypical radii and cant.  If you haven't go "imaginary", which is where I'm going  .

Regards,

[The Stationmaster]

I'm not a great lover of the TMD layout because the normal TMD layout models something that didn't really exist (the handful of TMDs based on an actual prototype stand out - but you are not going to produce a model of Toton , or even Colchester...) - at least chocolate-box GW branch lines really did exist in some numbers. However I do understand why such layouts are built . They are display dioramas with movement for people who have built up large collections of locos and want a layout to show them on without the distraction of rolling stock or train working.

 

That said, if you feel the need to build one , I do think there is no need to use code 100 anymore. Peco have removed the main remaining justification by providing code 75 concrete sleeper flexible track: everything made in the last 20+ years will run on code 75

 

 

As far as modern image termini are concerned , 1980s Scotrail Highland termini were at one point becoming a little cliched, precisely because the prototypes ran with 3-4 car trains hauled by class 37s and therefore offered loco hauled trains in small spaces. Nobody makes a class 37 kit, very few people will look past the Bachmann range for Mk1 and Mk2 stock  , or be able to finish a Comet or Southern Pride kit in blue/grey to the same standard, and adding the successor Sprinter units adds to variety - nobody does a kit for those either, and the current absence of underframe detailing castings for 156s is a slightly sore point in this quarter . So RTR is pretty inevitable if you model that subject, though again I agree that code 100 isn't necessary 

 

Buildings along a road parallel with a railway below in cutting with retaining wall is common on the prototype in urban areas (the first 15 miles out of Liverpool St is nearly all like that, for starters), though I agree it's often done rather crudely - it's the almost inevitable bulk order of Metcalfe terraces that is becominng a touch grating , though I accept that such terrraces are very common . The problem is more that the Metcalfe kits aren't that great - the white card edges are very prominent and intrusive - and a bit of care , discretion and judgement (plus a felt tip or watercolour to touch in those edges)are needed to get a decent result

 

As the owner of a small terminus with a fiddle yard on the left , and a single track fuelling point in front screened from the FY by brick arched retaining wall (Scalescenes) I suppose I'm as vulnerable as most to criticism , though derelict and isolated sections of viaduct and retaining wall are common enough around urban termini, and there's no road or buildings on top.

I think that is an important point - capturing the prototype feel of the railway, what it looks like and how it works.  Some find it easiest to do that by copying a particular location, others can do it (eg Treneglos, or BCB - and many others) by capturing the essence of railway and not bottling it but building it as a layout that looks as if it had copyied a real place.

 

I think the problem with the currently over-worked diesel depot layout theme is that many of them don't do that - they are 'reproducing' something which doesn't exist in a way that doesn't make railway sense.  Now folk are perfectly entitled to do that, of course they are because it's their railway etc.  But once you've seen one diesel depot that's getting it wrong you might not be too enamoured of seeing another.  In contrast look at a couple of steam depots - another emerging theme but with both, say, Haymarket Cross (fictional location) and York (real location but only a tiny part of it modelled) there is an air of believability in the way thing are laid out and can be seen to be capable of being worked.  A lot of the diesel depots simply don't have that air of believability about them I'm afraid - and over the years I worked at several, and they've all closed apart from one which will be going soon.

[DaveF]

I suppose I've built a lot of layouts over the years, but the most enjoyable to operate was a model in n gauge using the track plan of Morpeth, slightly shortened, including the Blyth and Tyne and operated to the 1984 timetables - I was fortunate enough to find copies of both freight and passenger working timetables at an exhibition and was able to sort out the local coal workings by spending a lot of times watching the real ones, checking the times and seeing how the various moves were performed.

 

But the second most enjoyable is my 0 gauge layout, Oxton, a tiny terminus (13'x2') including fiddle yard, a terminus set in a place for which I have written a history of how it came to be ( http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/3514-oxton-in-0-gauge/ ).  I worked out a timetable (by simply drawing a graph) using the 1922 working timetable for Lowdham, which would have been the junction to ensure connections, then fitted the goods trains and workings to the  colliery which would also have been served by the branch into the gaps.

 

For me, any layout I build has to be believable, even if it diverges from prototype practice for space limitations.

 

But its just a hobby, when I go to friends who have a totally different approach to their modelling I can still enjoy "playing trains".

 

David

[Kenton]

I wouldn't use the word antagonise as that's not the intention; provocative would be a more appropriate label for any intent hence starting this topic.

 

Antagonistic is definitely the way TW's article was to me. Though I do see your points in the OP as being more thought provoking. I don't mind your points in generating the discussion - as it has certainly done that. What annoys me far more is the article and even more that that the person (you can tell I am not a fan) making the points as if he were some god of railway modelling and having those aired (sponsored) by a reputable magazine.

 

In opposition I could then say that this sentence looks down on others more than anything TW or I have said. It may help folk if they could see an example of your own to qualify the point. As you say "The hobby has a wide range of skill and talents - there is room for everyone. "

 

I am not saying that no one should weather something to the best of their ability - if they wish to. Just that weathering should not be held up as a must have for every modeller. I know this is OT slightly. But I personally do not like any weathering so would not dream of attempting it - let alone placing it in public domain or suggesting that others must weather or not be adequate modellers. This was implied in your statement. Calling for examples of my weathering is as daft as me calling for examples of someone's efforts in fields of modelling that they do not do, (boats, aeroplanes, etc) especially as my view on the subject is well known on the forum.

 

I have no problem with others weathering - just do not imply that it is correct, or that not-weathering is in some way deficient.

 

The fact is weathering is a very subjective subject - indeed most of this topic has exposed just how subjective the whole world of model railways actually is.

 

As said above. I am as happy with a GWR BLT, an out of the box TMD, (even with Code 100, although I personally don't like it), I am just as happy with a perfect representation of the prototype, with operations as they were on the real railway. I really don't care what anyone does as long as they get some pleasure out of it. I do care about someone telling me that my feelings about railway modelling or that my attitudes to it (or those of others) is somehow wrong. That is even more antagonistic when voiced as the gospel according to TW et al.

 

It is enough to make you want to build a 6ft straight out of the box 'nowhere' TMD (in Code 75 of course) just to thumb up the nose of who look down on others for such things. But I don't have the time.

[James]

The interesting thing is, it seems, much of the subject of location (either prototypical or ficticious) is based on the overall appearence. What's never mentioned, I suspect through modellers' own ignorance or so as not to cause offence, is that operation is, with a few exceptions, pretty poor. This seems to be one of the biggest gaps in the knowledge of modellers. Even when a prototype provides the locations and types of all signals there, it doesn't mean the builder knows what they all do and how movements should be handled.

 

Since I started work and gained knowledge and experience, I have found a shift in what impresses me and which layouts I favour. Ones operating prototypically are in the minority - layouts such as Halifax King Cross, where they look superb and are operated in a very protoypical manner are sadly few in number.

[Guest jim s-w]

Weathering should be how it is in the real world. By that i mean, with a few notable exceptions you shouldnt really notice it the majority of the time, just as in the real world you dont. A train will stand out either because its really dirty or its really clean. Thats when your attention is drawn to it.

 

For me a good model is one that is actually unremarkable. It has no real highlights but equally no real lowlights. Everything is there but nothing stands out, things like lamp-posts are accurate but, like in the real world during the day, you are aware of them, but you dont notice them.

 

Cheers

 

Jim

[Peter Kazmierczak]

If a model is railwaylike, that is what matters to me.

 

The most influential layout for me was (and still is) John Charman's Charford. I've never seen it in the flesh, but what made it stand out for me was two fold:

• it looked like a real railway
• it was operated like a real railway

This comes from it having a real sense of time and place. Nothing special, just an ordinary everyday scene - in this case the south western section of the SR in the post war period.

 

There was a warmth about it. It wasn't perfect (though much better than I could achieve). There were compromises; things wern't exactly to scale all the time.

 

But it captured that elusive railway atmosphere.

 

It had a humanity to it and appeared something achievable and attainable.

 

 

But each to their own. If you enjoy your modelling, at whatever level, that's all that matters in the end. If you can influence others to improve their efforts, so much the better.

[BlackRat]

But each to their own. If you enjoy your modelling, at whatever level, that's all that matters in the end. If you can influence others to improve their efforts, so much the better.

 

Over the last ten days or so I thought I was going to lose both my wife (to an awful illness) and my best mate (he was a hostage in Algeria).

 

As it turned out, both were fine in the end, but our good news is someone else's bad.

 

Lets face it, its a hobby and I couldn't agree more with the above, more so now  than ever.

 

Lifes far to short and far to fragile, and I really cant believe now, with all that's going on that we are actually getting bent out of shape over things.

 

It really, REALLY  doesn't matter does it.

 

Just enjoy what YOU do, because at the end of it all, that's all that really matters.

[Guest jim s-w]

Sorry to hear of your worries blackrat and what you say is of course true.

 

None of it really matters, layouts, rmweb, new releases etc. But you can say that about anything if you widen its context. For example model railways are important to me but widening the context if i were to die tomorrow, my entire existance really wouldnt have mattered on a national level, or a regional level even. Wider still and the whole existance of my entire family and everyone i knew probably didnt matter on a global or historical scale.

 

The point is, look wide enough and nothing really matters, however this is a model railway forum, it exists for people to discuss model railways. Here it does matter, at least a bit to some people.

 

Cheers

 

Jim

[2ManySpams]

Well said that man (Black Rat).

[BlackRat]

Jim, what matters to us all is that what you do makes YOU happy, it's certainly not for anyone else to dictate who does what, or what you should or shouldn't be doing.

 

perhaps on a global scale as you say re your family but of course they matter to YOU, and that's the important bit isn't it?

 

If we go down the line of being either dictated to or told what to do within a hobby ( and after all, who speaks for us, apart from us as individuals) or what we must or mustn't do, then it ceases to become a hobby.

 

I enjoy what I do, I enjoy helping others out and into the hobby but if there's no pleasure then there's no point.

 

And that means different things to different people.

 

We all bring something to the table.