In the real world I cannot ever recall...

[john new]

On 15/04/2023 at 13:49, MarkSG said:

 

It seems to me that this is a classic example of the four square grid. I'm not sure how well this is going to work using code formatting, but let's have a go...

 

        A         B
   +--------+--------+
   |        |        |
 1 |   A1   |   B1   |  easy to know
   |        |        |
   +--------+--------+
   |        |        |
 2 |   A2   |   B2   |  hard to know
   |        |        |
   +--------+--------+
     easy     hard
      to       to
      fix      fix
   

 

The point is that column A refers to things that are easy to get right, while column B refers to things that are hard to get right. And row 1 is things that are reasily observable (or discoverable without specialist knowledge), while row 2 is things that require specialist (or, at least, not immediately obvious) knowledge to know.

 

What we're talking about here are things in cell A1 - easy to know, and easy to fix. Unless it' a pure "train set" layout (and that has its place, I'm not knocking it), there really shouldn't be anything in that category, at least on an exhibition layout (at home, of course, Rule 1 is the only rule there is).

 

By contrast, B1 (easy to know, hard to fix) contains most of the things that we accept as a necessary compromise on a model. Static passengers that never get on or off a train. Big plastic couplings. Frozen water. Static vehicles. Trees that don't respond to the weather. Weather. Etc. Some modellers make a greater effort to address these than others, and some are more amenable to being fixed than others (we can manage three link couplings if we want to, and moving vehicles are doable. I've even seen a couple of examples of realistically modelled flowing water). But there will always be visible compromises in any model railway. The very nature of  the thing makes it unavoidable.

 

To be honest, though, I think it's cell B1 that has the greatest potential for debate. That is, things which require at least a certain amount of specialist or non-obvious knowledge to be aware of, but that are easy to get right if you do know. A classic example of that, which I see a lot of at exhibitions, is farms, fields and farm animals - there is, often, quite a lot of that which is anachronistic on layouts, usually for the simple reason that most people aren't particularly familiar with farms to begin with and even less so with how they have changed over the years. But if you do know, it's easy to get it right.

 

As for cell B2 - hard to know, and hard to get right - I think that things like headcodes fall into that. Knowing that you should have them is probably an A2 issue, but knowing you should have them and getting them right is definitely in B2.

 

Excellent summary of the issues.

[john new]

On 16/04/2023 at 14:36, Bri.dolan said:

Grass between tracks on main line areas depots and sidings 

areas I’ve seen were oily dirty lifeless areas while in use 

unless abandoned or very rarely used and ready to be removed 

 

regards 

 

Brian 

Or in the contemporary scene the converse. Example Carlisle.

[iands]

Re Tunnels with a low profile top and something different above, does Stansted count? 

[AY Mod]

14 minutes ago, iands said:

Re Tunnels with a low profile top and something different above, does Stansted count? 

 

Only if you model an airport over it. I've seen that done too.

[Not Jeremy]

Excessive use of forced perspective?

 

i think this might be Father Dougal's attempt..

 

[ejstubbs]

Far be it from me to query a thread started by one of the actual Mods, but isn't this topic just a variant of the long-running - and still running - Prototype for Everything Corner thread?

 

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by ejstubbs
Typo corrrected

[MarkSG]

2 hours ago, iands said:

Re Tunnels with a low profile top and something different above, does Stansted count? 

 

That's not really a tunnel, it's just a long bridge 🙂

[Jol Wilkinson]

26 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

Far be it from me to query a thread started by one of the actual Mods, but isn't this topic just a variant of the long-running - and still running - Prototype for Everything Corner thread?

 

Perhaps there should also be an "Excuse for Anything" thread.

[Oldddudders]

3 hours ago, john new said:

And a part of Heathrow. Can’t remember full details but they were using a then new to UK (IIRC the Austrian) tunnelling method. The stabilising effect didn’t work properly for preventing subsidence impacting what was already above.

Yes, mis-engineered NATM was the culprit. Unfortunately for the contractor, whose name I cannot quote with certainty, their site-hut was photographed by New Civil Engineer magazine, falling into the hole.... I was working with BR's most senior civils at the time, and there was general horror at the incompetence. Within a couple of years, the same firm was being allowed to purchase chunks of the BRIS (British Rail Infrastructure Services) portfolio.

[Flying Pig]

38 minutes ago, ejstubbs said:

Far be it from me to query a thread started by one of the actual Mods, but isn't this topic just a variant of the long-running - and still running - Prototype for Everything Corner thread?

 

 

 

 

Possibly it has become that but I thought the message of Andy's OP was "don't build models of things that are impossible and avoid the vanishingly rare by better observation of the prototype".    Maybe people would rather build weird models first and search for excuses afterwards though. It seems an odd way to go about things to me.

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Flying Pig

[Michael Hodgson]

Not a church, but there is a good reason for not trying to put big buildings above a tunnel

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjQ_umX-8T-AhWeTaQEHVoEARUQFnoECA0QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.publishing.service.gov.uk%2Fmedia%2F547c8fb940f0b60241000157%2FR032014_140213_Old_Street.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0vu4ZsSwVq_I-GIKV8bn-H

[DaveF]

I've just been looking at the second of George Dow's trilogy "Great Central" and came across a piece about building the London Extension through Nottingham  It has relevance to some of the comments about buildings over tunnels.

 

"Victoria Street Tunnel was difficult to construct because the foundations of houses were near its roof.  Indeed some houses had to be underpinned with timber while the tunnel arches were turned beneath."

 

The Nottingham Daily Guardian reported "Whilst boring beneath the premises of the Joint Stock Bank in Victoria Street the crown of the arch burst through the basement floor just where the  safe was."  The Great Central Railway ended up erecting a new building for the bank.

 

In the old Cross Keys Inn on Byard Lane the workmen accidentally broke into the cellars hewn out of rock and helped themselves to the stock.  This also happened with the Dog And Partridge Inn on Parliament Street.

 

I think these events make some of the layouts mentioned earlier look entirely prototypical (tongue in cheek).

 

David

Edited April 25, 2023 by DaveF
typo

[Nearholmer]

Personally, I’m a bit baffled by this obsession with replicating “the real world”. It’s not as if it’s a place without flaws down-sides, and outright unpleasantness, whereas a miniature fantasy land can be entirely free from difficulty and bad bits.

 

Reality: a place often best escaped from.

[ejstubbs]

7 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

there is a good reason for not trying to put big buildings above a tunnel

 

I'm pretty sure that the developers of this site in Edinburgh knew damn well that there was a four track mainline railway fairly close beneath their feet:

 

 

ISTR that when they were drilling & driving the piles (in pre-Covid days - construction work was stalled for a long time when the pandemic hit) they provided a neat outline of the tunnel's route.  Which is why I'm pretty sure that they knew where it was.

 

I'm actually thinking that, when it's completed, the view over the wall from outside Starbucks might look a tad improbable in respect of tunnel roof depth at that point vs size of buildings plonked on top.  (That wall is actually just too tall for even a six-footer like me to get a good view over it, but you can stand on the stone plinths at each end of the bicycle racks to get a better look!)

Edited April 25, 2023 by ejstubbs

[Flying Pig]

8 minutes ago, DaveF said:

I think these events make some of the layouts mentioned earlier look entirely prototypical (tongue in cheek).

 

Modelling subsidence is tricky though.

[Buhar]

10 minutes ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Modelling subsidence is tricky though.

You've not seen my tracklaying when I tried wood fibreboard for sound deadening.

Alan 

[Michael Hodgson]

1 hour ago, Flying Pig said:

 

Modelling subsidence is tricky though.

Wooworm in the basboard?

[MarkSG]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Personally, I’m a bit baffled by this obsession with replicating “the real world”. It’s not as if it’s a place without flaws down-sides, and outright unpleasantness, whereas a miniature fantasy land can be entirely free from difficulty and bad bits.

 

Reality: a place often best escaped from.

 

Yes, a lot of our model railways are essentially fiction, even if they're based on a real location. But there's plausible fiction and implausible fiction.

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Not a church, but there is a good reason for not trying to put big buildings above a tunnel

When the original Bullring Centre was being built in Birmingham, they dug right down to the tunnel arches and built back from there.

 

[eldomtom2]

3 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

Yes, a lot of our model railways are essentially fiction, even if they're based on a real location. But there's plausible fiction and implausible fiction.

Personally I'd like to see more deliiberately implausiible model railways that intentionally don't represent the real world. Fantasy railway modelling is a rich and underexplored vein.

[Bucoops]

35 minutes ago, eldomtom2 said:

Personally I'd like to see more deliiberately implausiible model railways that intentionally don't represent the real world. Fantasy railway modelling is a rich and underexplored vein.

 

The Northern Rail model?

[woodenhead]

7 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

 

The Northern Rail model?

More realistically TPE - only money for one TPE set from Accurascale - no worries the real company only has one in use too.😁

[Chris116]

On 24/04/2023 at 16:39, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

Therapy will be available, sun, sea, sand and,,,,,,,,beer!

 

Mike.

Skip the first three and make mine a cider!

[The Johnster]

9 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

Yes, a lot of our model railways are essentially fiction, even if they're based on a real location. But there's plausible fiction and implausible fiction.

 

And each of us has our own personal and individual definition of where the delineation between the two actually lies...

[DK123GWR]

I'm quite sure I've never seen a Rivet Counter Detector Van in the real world...