Building the same layout as someone else.

[adb968008]

If someone wants to licence my layout i’m all ears…

 

(This is KX, Euston, Paddington and Waterloo combined, “London Padeusterloo cross” quite a revolutionary thought, even

 if I do say so myself.

 

Yes that is a DB BR01 in the top left, and a San Francisco Muni tram in the top right.. you only live once… that 01 goes well with mk1’s.

 

😀

Edited March 16 by adb968008

[Nearholmer]

Possibly my ultimate layout would be a model of a model (so there!), and it would include Paddington (well, a station named Paddington), since it would be pretty much a replica of Paddington to Seagood, the fairly ginormous 0 gauge layout built by Gilbert Thomas before and during WW2, and described in his book of the same name. Due to the annoying absence of huge sums of money, an immense space, and near infinite time, this will not happen.

 

PS: actually, I think I would have to rebadge it as Waterloo to Seagood Central, and have different trains, because I never could understood the GWR.

 

 

 

Edited March 16 by Nearholmer

[DCB]

Come to think of it my ideal layout would be a copy of an existing layout, the Sea wall scene at Pendon,  with nose to tail summer Saturday  passenger services 

[Flying Pig]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

PS: actually, I think I would have to rebadge it as Waterloo to Seagood Central, and have different trains, because I never could understood the GWR.

 

Or Victoria to Seagoon (a thinly disguised Bexhill-on-Sea).

[Pmorgancym]

Amazing that I have to say this, but the suggesting that you had to pay a license fee for copying an existing layout was firmly tongue in cheek...

[Pacific231G]

45 minutes ago, DCB said:

Come to think of it my ideal layout would be a copy of an existing layout, the Sea wall scene at Pendon,  with nose to tail summer Saturday  passenger services 

Or just bulld a model of the actual sea wall the Pendon scene is also a  model of! 

[St Enodoc]

12 hours 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.

Irisville and Castle Lorraine (RM June/July 1966) was the one I remember. As the years have passed, I've wondered whether it was in fact a spoof (the models were drawn along by pegs glued to recording tape and the author's name was A K G Pegg...).

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, john new said:

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

Frank Dyer chose the name before The Archers started but I know of later models that include stations at Ambridge, etc.

[St Enodoc]

5 hours ago, t-b-g said:

 

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!

The North Devonshire Railway was pretty good.

 

Anyone remember the massive N gauge Wardleworth Lines?

 

The best I've managed is The Mid-Cornwall Lines (see below...).

[Chris M]

7 hours ago, DCB said:

Come to think of it my ideal layout would be a copy of an existing layout, the Sea wall scene at Pendon,  with nose to tail summer Saturday  passenger services 

Market Deeping club clearly copied Pendon's model of Teignmouth but they cunningly called it Dawlish so nobody would notice.

 

[Colin_McLeod]

So who is going to build a model railway the same as Minature Wunderland?   😁

[Chris M]

9 hours ago, DCB said:

Come to think of it my ideal layout would be a copy of an existing layout, the Sea wall scene at Pendon,  with nose to tail summer Saturday  passenger services 

I based my layout firmly on the Dawlish Warren end of the sea wall so it cannot be seen as a copy of the sea wall at Pendon. Nor is it a copy of, or even inspired by Holiday Haunts, no, not at all. Also there is no connection whatsoever between this layout and John Allison's N gauge sea wall layout back in the 1960s.😉

Update: John Allisons layout was in an RM article in May 1971 called watching the trains go by.

 

If anyone wants to do another sea wall layout they are most welcome but we will have to agree royalties first.

Edited March 17 by Chris M
update added

[Hibelroad]

It’s very difficult to come up with a truly original idea for a layout, I would argue that Peter Kirmond has managed it with his York layout but other than that layouts are variations on a theme, roundy roundy or terminus to fiddle yard. But each one is unique, non are exact copies but they draw inspiration from what others have done. If I want to make an exact copy of Copenhagen Fields at home and call it Copenhagen Fields then there is nothing to stop me ( apart from infinite time, skill and modelling ability). However if I were to exhibit or publish it then it would be a very different matter. Everyone will have favourite layouts and grand schemes to replicate them at home but in most cases the end result (if it happens at all) will be a N gauge shunting plank called Danish Meadows. 

[jcm@gwr]

8 hours ago, Pmorgancym said:

Amazing that I have to say this, but the suggesting that you had to pay a license fee for copying an existing layout was firmly tongue in cheek...

An emoji/emoticon would have made that clear!

[Adrock]

This is an interesting (and timely) topic for me as I have procrastinated for years on building a layout as I have struggled to find a prototype location on the Cambrian that I can fit in my available space. I’ve recently been through my old stock of ~-100 RM magazines from the 90s and 2000s and the layout that inspired me as a kid was the late Chris Klein’s Boduan Junction. I’m going to be building a layout in the same place at the same size (a garage) and so he had clearly been through a design / compromise process of making a track plan and associated features that he wanted to model fit in the space available. 
 

id spoken with Chris for years and he knew how much I’d loved his layouts. It may be that I end up building something very similar. The bit I wouldn’t do tho would be to call it Boduan nor perpetuate the backstory he had created so well. So is the above “plagiarism”? I know Chris was flattered when I said my previous layout had been inspired by his works. 

[F-UnitMad]

9 hours ago, Pmorgancym said:

Amazing that I have to say this, but the suggesting that you had to pay a license fee for copying an existing layout was firmly tongue in cheek...

 

15 minutes ago, jcm@gwr said:

An emoji/emoticon would have made that clear!

Some of us 'got it' the first time round 😉

The total-sense-of-humour-failure "dose of reality" serious response to it was almost as funny. 😁

[PMP]

9 hours ago, Pmorgancym said:

Amazing that I have to say this, but the suggesting that you had to pay a license fee for copying an existing layout was firmly tongue in cheek...

If you’d been told seriously by a clown at an exhibition that ‘You can’t take pictures of my layout, it’s my copyright’, as I have, and similar in other circumstances, the suggestion isn’t that far fetched😊

 

Thinking about it the exhibition and layout was mentioned on here, it had ‘no photography’ signs displayed on it, probably 5-10 years back. Caused some discussion then!

Edited March 17 by PMP
Add para

[PMP]

18 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

 

Some of us 'got it' the first time round 😉

The total-sense-of-humour-failure "dose of reality" serious response to it was almost as funny. 😁

No sense of humour failure at all. If you do photography regularly in ‘public  spaces’ as I have done you get some most peculiar imaginary laws and rights being explained to you by assorted members of the public, and in previous threads here.

 

Having recently started flying a drone, the experience is quite similar, to the extent one flyer I’ve heard of takes business cards with him with the pertinent laws printed that he hands out to ‘experts’!

[PMP]

44 minutes ago, Adrock said:
 

id spoken with Chris for years and he knew how much I’d loved his layouts. It may be that I end up building something very similar. The bit I wouldn’t do tho would be to call it Boduan nor perpetuate the backstory he had created so well. So is the above “plagiarism”? I know Chris was flattered when I said my previous layout had been inspired by his works. 

Chris was a really nice bloke, I can see the point in perhaps not naming it Boduan, but if someone has come up with a plausible back story why not use it? If the plan is to exhibit it it would give you the opportunity to mention the inspiration he provided.

 

I’m thinking of a early noughties version's of Abersoch in N/FS, as a test piece. I visited there, pic above, last week, partly driven by Chris’ writing and modelling. If I do it any show or published account, would undoubtedly include a significant tip to his inspiration.
 

If a modeller took an Rice or  Freezer plan and built it as published any back story is I think, just as important. As mentioned by @Neilsome people haven’t got that back story generator in their skill set, so it’s no issue to be inspired by someone else’s. It is a hobby at the end of the day! 😊

[Nearholmer]

Topologically, the fewer turnouts your layout contains, the greater the probability that it is exactly the same as someone else’s.

 

Once when getting over the flu, so bored and lazy, I tried to work out a mathematical formula to define the number of topologies that could be created with a given number of plain turnouts (treating all turnouts as bifurcations, not considering L, R, Y etc, but considering ‘flow’, so not treating them as simple nodes). After about an hour, I fell asleep, so still don’t know the answer. Does anyone?

[St Enodoc]

10 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Topologically, the fewer turnouts your layout contains, the greater the probability that it is exactly the same as someone else’s.

 

Once when getting over the flu, so bored and lazy, I tried to work out a mathematical formula to define the number of topologies that could be created with a given number of plain turnouts (treating all turnouts as bifurcations, not considering L, R, Y etc, but considering ‘flow’, so not treating them as simple nodes). After about an hour, I fell asleep, so still don’t know the answer. Does anyone?

42.

[DaveF]

I think if anyone wanted to build a copy of layout of mine I would be flattered rather than annoyed.  It would simply show me that I have made something at least one other person liked.  However I haven't exhibited for a long time so not many people see what I build.

 

As for photography even back in the days of film it never bothered me if people took photos of my layout as long as the flash didn't go off in my eyes.

 

I get the impression that some people take themselves far too seriously.

 

David

[woodenhead]

6 hours ago, Chris M said:

I based my layout firmly on the Dawlish Warren end of the sea wall so it cannot be seen as a copy of the sea wall at Pendon. Nor is it a copy of, or even inspired by Holiday Haunts, no, not at all. Also there is no connection whatsoever between this layout and John Allison's N gauge sea wall layout back in the 1960s.😉

Update: John Allisons layout was in an RM article in May 1971 called watching the trains go by.

 

If anyone wants to do another sea wall layout they are most welcome but we will have to agree royalties first.

Who will you be paying them to?  😄

 

These two just popped up on my feed:

 

 

And this one a couple of days back

 

Edited March 17 by woodenhead

[Chris M]

27 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Who will you be paying them to?  😄

 

These two just popped up on my feed:

 

 

And this one a couple of days back

 

Those are all Dawlish, mine is Dawlish Warren. So I’m in the clear for royalties. ☺️

[Flying Pig]

17 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Who will you be paying them to?  😄

 

These two just popped up on my feed:

 

 

And this one a couple of days back

 

 

Looks like there's a business opportunity here.

 

Slightly miffed that your model railway been copied without your permission?

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