Building the same layout as someone else.

[Flying Pig]

As most layouts don't go to exhibitions, don't get published in the press and don't even have social media accounts, what the owner calls them is the owner's business.  And if they want to copy another layout, then fine - designing a layout isn't everyone's favourite part of the hobby.

 

[Tony Wright]

1 hour ago, AY Mod said:

 

Many years ago, there was an interesting small scale model, possibly 1mm:foot ( @Tony Wright may recall better), by a Wolverhampton MRC member with very recognisable card models of full trains that moved on belts. I think it included the underground lines. That's as close as I have encountered, unfortunately.

Good afternoon Andy,

 

The builder's name was Norman Clarke, who, very sadly, died young. He built 'Scene in London' in the '70s, at the same time Wolverhampton MRC started, and the layout was always of interest at our first few shows. 

 

Not only were there moving trains on belts, but marching bands as well! 

 

A memorial cup was awarded each year to the best in show as a recognition of Norman's work (he also built some of the structures for Fordley Park).

 

I have no idea what happened to his creations. 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[john new]

16 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

There have been other Borchesters including an RM railway of the month based on plan 24L in "Plans for Larger Layouts" . I think Frank Dyer (Borchester Town and Market) always wrote for MRC and one has to remember that, in those days before the internet, if you subscribed to one magazine you could be in complete ignorance of very well known layouts offered in the others so modellers coming up with the same name  might be doing so entirely independently. I knew nothing about Frank Dyer's work until comparatively recently. 

 

I can remember being very frustrated that Mike Bryant included a lot of photos of his 4ft x 2ft layout in his "Modelling in TT-3" book but no plan to tell me how he's done it. My father and I took Railway Modeller and I had absolutely no idea that a complete step by step series of articles by him on building the "pint pot" layout had been published in MRC in January-June 1958. Had I seen those I might well have made far more progress in TT-3 than I ever did.  

It is also a major name in a long-running radio serial (The Archers). 

[Neil]

 

I've had a few copies or inspired by versions of my layout Shell Island, which I've been totally happy about. I regard it as a bit of a complement and the builders were kind enough to acknowledge where the notion or their starting point came from. Another of my layouts very obviously inspired a modeller with a major section of his layout and while I know it shouldn't, it did rankle a bit that it wasn't credited. Yes I know it's a bit shallow and I open up myself to accusations of vanity but it would have been nice, polite even to acknowledge it.

 

From the other side of the fence ....

 

2 hours ago, PMP said:

.... Making or copying the same thing has occurred a couple of time I can think of. One was the Mill on the East Suffolk Light railway, both Bob and Iain commented that the direct copy was a bit odd, but I don’t think it bothered them. .....

 

Now I know the modeller who built this and he's a lovely bloke and a talented model maker. Many years ago he said he found the formulating ideas part of the creative process difficult which is why he would take inspiration from the work of others which he liked. This was many years ago, before the days of social media where it's now easy for us to get in touch with our peers and easy for us to share ideas.

 

[Buhar]

3 hours ago, t-b-g said:

Two tracks to Buckingham

I prefer these more imaginative names (Gresley Beat, Hills of the North) as opposed to using just the station (usually). Little Blytham could be "Bottom of the Little Hill".

Alan 

[The Johnster]

Build whatever you want and call it whatever you want, so long as you get fun out of it.  My advice, if you choose to model a prototype that has been already done, or a popular track plan, would be to design and build it yourself from the baseboards up from your own research, taking as little lead as possible from the existing models beyond a general awareness of them, but I do not wish to influence your interpretation of Rule 1.  

 

I'd respectfully suggest some general principles, however.  Be aware at the planning stage of how far you can reach from the edge of your proposed baseboards, and take consideration of how effectively you can operate it with the operators available; as a lone wolf, I find my busy South Wales BLT enough of a challenge to operate to a timetable to keep it intersting and satisfying, but not too challenging or tiresome.  And keep within your budget; I never buy locos or stock I don't really need, and can assure you absolutely that none of us here would ever consider doing such a foolish thing...

 

That last sentence may possibly be mildly facetious.

[rob D2]

There’s loads of layouts I’d love to copy - a lot of them BR blue and by people like Mr Futers and Mr Gibbons ( RIP).

If I ever got round to it they’d be fairly crap copies - which puts me off as I’d taint the legends 

[F-UnitMad]

2 hours ago, Neil said:

I've had a few copies or inspired by versions of my layout Shell Island, which I've been totally happy about. I regard it as a bit of a complement and the builders were kind enough to acknowledge where the notion or their starting point came from.

Guilty as charged, M'lud, although my O Scale layout inspired by Shell Island looks nothing like it beyond the trackplan, more or less. But the simplicity of said plan, and the idea of exchanging trains between B.R. & a Private railway, were the real inspirations that I took from your classic layout, and acknowledged at the time.

If I could've captured a similar sense of space, I would have, but that was never going to happen with O on a board just 12inches wide!!

[rob D2]

15 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

Guilty as charged, M'lud, although my O Scale layout inspired by Shell Island looks nothing like it beyond the trackplan, more or less. But the simplicity of said plan, and the idea of exchanging trains between B.R. & a Private railway, were the real inspirations that I took from your classic layout, and acknowledged at the time.

If I could've captured a similar sense of space, I would have, but that was never going to happen with O on a board just 12inches wide!!

It’s flattery I think, which I don’t see any issue with . Shell island is on my “ legends “ list because it is so artistically well done and it was one of the first layouts that said to me - you don’t have to cram every inch with track to create a sense of place 

Edited March 16 by rob D2

[Pmorgancym]

On 14/03/2024 at 17:13, Peak said:

Can I build the same layout as someone else? Lets say that I was building an OO gauge layout of Paddington and someone else was doing the same, would that be fine?

If it's for exhibition rather than personal use you will have to purchase a license off the original.modeller or you could find yourself in serious legal trouble.

[Dagworth]

8 minutes ago, Pmorgancym said:

If it's for exhibition rather than personal use you will have to purchase a license off the original.modeller or you could find yourself in serious legal trouble.

If someone tries to sue me for copying their model of Ipswich I'd tell them where to go as I'm copying the GER, the LNER and BR, not anyone else's model of it.

 

Andi

[Jim Martin]

On 14/03/2024 at 18:28, Hibelroad said:

I was at the York show some years ago and rather surprised to find what appeared to be a copy of the MRJ Inkerman Street layout in 4mm scale. I asked if it was copied from Inkerman Street but the operator at the time was rather non committal and largely ignored me. However there is something to be said for copying what you know works, no need to reinvent the wheel. 

I don't recall this - I don't go to that many exhibitions - but I do recall one bit of Inkerman Street-related "copying". The passenger train was a three-coach set of LMS stock; but instead of a set of three 57' coaches (I could be wrong about the exact lengths: I'm not an expert on LMS coaches) it was modelled as one of a rare batch that included a single 54' coach. Within months, one of the kit manufacturers had introduced that exact set. It might even have been advertised as "the Inkerman Street set", or something like that. As I recall, there was a mildly peevish paragraph about it in MRJ at the time, complaining that they'd been trying to do something a little different from the norm; and now it was the norm.

[Pacific231G]

7 hours ago, BoD said:

My brain fog may well be kicking in but, at one time,  wasn’t there a competition organised for ‘Minories layouts’.

There was, it was in 2007 (the  plan's anniversary) and was organised by DEMU but that's not what  I'm remembering.

That competition, defined "Minories" layouts as a terminus with three platforms in seven feet and, as far as I recall, entries included Birmingham Moor St. in scale four (which I think won), Ripper Street and a couple of others.  The year I remembered was  2017 (so the 60th anniversary) and there were three or four layouts at Alexandra Palace much more closely based on CJF's actual Minories plan with the characteristic 'diamond' arrangement of crossovers.  Hallam Town was the 2mm scale example but I'm not sure what the others were except that one was 3mm scale and another was 4mm scale-  possibly Tom Cunnington's  EM Minories (GN) 

Edited March 16 by Pacific231G
updated after going through photo files

[Rob McM]

I'm continuing work on my 'final' model, a District Railway interpretation of Minories, a plan by C J Freezer and at the other end an interpretation of Bossington, again owned by Oxford MRC. Surely, Minories was designed to be a basis for modellers: Bossington has a beautiful simplicity with operational interest. These are tried and tested plans so are worth the effort, however, much of what goes into the final result will be individual.

[t-b-g]

3 hours ago, Buhar said:

I prefer these more imaginative names (Gresley Beat, Hills of the North) as opposed to using just the station (usually). Little Blytham could be "Bottom of the Little Hill".

Alan 

 

I agree entirely. I always thought " Half term at Ditchling Green" was a wonderfully evocative title for a layout. As was "The little long drag".

 

I have never been creative enough to come up with anything that good!

[john new]

1 hour ago, Pmorgancym said:

If it's for exhibition rather than personal use you will have to purchase a license off the original.modeller or you could find yourself in serious legal trouble.

I doubt Brunel will sue!

 

[Peak]

On 15/03/2024 at 20:36, F-UnitMad said:

Has anyone ever built a model of Paddington (the station, before any comedian pedants say anything!!) apart from the Ranelagh Bridge stabling point? Of which, I'm sure, there have been several over the years.

On the Facebook group, Realistic Railway Modelling, somebody is building Paddington as it was in the 1950s.

[Peak]

When layouts are built and they are through stations like Doncaster, they build a loop so the trains can come out the other end. How do they deal with that when modelling terminus stations?

[t-b-g]

A friend of mine built a layout based loosely on Paddington many years ago. He didn't call it Paddington as it was very much modified to fit the location. He sadly passed away before it was properly finished but I did take this snap of it in an "under construction" state.

 

[t-b-g]

1 minute ago, Peak said:

When layouts are built and they are through stations like Doncaster, they build a loop so the trains can come out the other end. How do they deal with that when modelling terminus stations?

 

Either the lines go on to a fiddle yard or reversing loop to allow the trains to be returned, or they go on to a larger railway system (like the one I illustrated above), with perhaps another terminus station at the other end. 

[rob D2]

15 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

A friend of mine built a layout based loosely on Paddington many years ago. He didn't call it Paddington as it was very much modified to fit the location. He sadly passed away before it was properly finished but I did take this snap of it in an "under construction" state.

 

Looks good , but very “ loosely “ I’d say 

[t-b-g]

Just now, rob D2 said:

Looks good , but very “ loosely “ I’d say 

 

It was very loosely! The other end of the line was based on Henley on Thames and a train running at a scale 60mph took about 12 minutes to get from one end to the other. There were a total of 12 stations on the layout, large and small. It required around 200 locos to work the timetable. With that amount of layout to build, plenty of corners were well and truly cut.

[PMP]

2 hours ago, Pmorgancym said:

If it's for exhibition rather than personal use you will have to purchase a license off the original.modeller or you could find yourself in serious legal trouble.

A dose of reality needed here.

 

As far as I’m aware no model railway has ever been established legally as a copyrighted work of art, instillation or design/artefact.
 

So if someone wants to copy my layout, and even use the same name, I’d have to take them to court at my expense to establish that I owned the copyright for that design and exact dimensions of my  ‘artefact’. It would probably come under a work of art, but until someone pulls the trigger on it, and pays for a legal opinion as to what it should be copyrighted as we don’t know.
 

A court would then decide if my claim was valid and if any infringement has occurred and what financial penalties might be levied, if any, and if I’m entitled to recover any of the costs of bringing that court action. Anyone who wants to copy another modellers work really doesn’t have anything at all to worry about.

[Chris M]

Now there's a thought, would it be possible to copyright a model railway as a work of art? According the the government guidelines - 

You automatically get copyright protection when you create:

original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work, including illustration and photography

 

Whoever first put a bus on a bridge could be in for a big windfall!

 

It could well be that anyone publishing videos of layouts at exhibitions and receiving revenue for same without first asking permission of the layout owner could be breaking copyright rules. Thinking about it why should someone  receive money for simply videoing other peoples artwork? Whoops, I seem to have gone off piste.

Edited March 16 by Chris M

[PMP]

3 minutes ago, Chris M said:

 

It could well be that anyone publishing videos of layouts at exhibitions and receiving revenue for same without first asking permission of the layout owner could be breaking copyright rules. Thinking about it why should someone  receive money for simply videoing other peoples artwork? Whoops, I seem to have gone off piste.

If the layout is being exhibited in a public space, and there’s no restriction on recording within the entry T&C’s, the content creator has nothing to worry about. If the layout owner want to protect his copyright, don’t exhibit it or publish it.