Is Overseas Modelling Interest Declining?

[jjb1970]

I don't find an anti-continental bias on  RMWeb, I think people tend to join threads on subjects they're interested in and ignore the others and there is nothing at all wrong with that. To be honest there are whole sections of RMWeb I never read. The actual anti comments (as opposed to disinterest) is something I found in clubs and at exhibitions.

 

Maybe I'm odd, but on exhibitions and different stuff, when I do go to exhibitions and when I read modelling magazines it is invariably stuff that I've never really taken an interest in and which is unfamiliar which grabs my attention. Basically if I just want to see stuff I like and am really interested in I can stay at home with my own models and see stuff that is closer to my own heart than what somebody else is doing. I love finding some weird and wonderful obscure subject that I'd never even heard of being modelled, it is invariably much more interesting than just seeing what I already know.

[Andy Hayter]

 

 

I think the split in PECO's magazine content eons ago into RM (UK) and Continental M'lr may have been a partial contributor as you have to go out of your way today to see overseas content where it used to be a mix. Even this forum splits out the non-UK content by topic unless you choose to view mainly by latest posts. Obviously UK will be the majority interest but by shifting the overseas coverage into an even smaller niche it is self serving as out of sight becomes out of mind.

 

 

 

 

.............and dare I say it perpetuated by BRM which has become de facto Modelling of Railways of Britain. 

 

And yes I know the ranks were broken with the Garvett masterpiece Pempoul, but are there truly no other British built foreign based layouts of a quality equal to those currently gracing the pages of BRM?  Or is it just that such skills are neither recognised nor appreciated? 

 

 

In the past I think that the Constructor perhaps got the balance just about right - although some might say a bit too much non-UK - and in the end this folded, so maybe the interest balance that they showed was indeed not right.  

[whart57]

Are we talking of a drop in interest in Overseas Modelling among British modellers or a drop in interest of non-British prototypes generally? I subscribe to the Dutch language "Rail Magazine" and the quality and variety of the layouts published by them has risen markedly over the last ten years or so. The efforts of Artitec have also made modelling the NS a lot easier and as they are still regularly bringing out stuff they must be selling what they have. My occasional perusals of Model Railroader and French and German magazines don't give me the impression that Americans are losing interest in American prototypes or the French and Germans in their own railways either.

 

So I presume we are talking of a fall in British modellers taking on overseas prototypes. One reason might be the sheer variety of British locos now available off the shelf in OO. It has to be a pretty obscure prototype if it doesn't appear in the catalogue or back catalogue of one of the manufacturers. Prototypes like the LNWR or SECR which were once only possible for kit builders can now be contemplated by those who make the sign of the cross when confronted with a soldering iron. I can well imagine that has resulted in modellers, tired of an endless fare of West Country branchlines, to look at the British scene anew

 

I would also contend that British modellers of the overseas prototypes fall into two categories, those who have some commitment to a particular prototype and those who just want to try something different. At least we don't get the Ashburton-im-Steyertal type of layouts anymore, but the pages of CM do often contain a small layout of a less usual European prototype, Portugal or Italy say, where the builder starts by saying "I saw a such and such on the stand of Boxshifters-R-Us at a show and thought it would make the basis of a new layout". Perhaps these are the modellers now put off by the falling pound against the euro or distracted by the increased range of British outline models.

 

Regarding CM I do hope it survives and doesn't go the way of other magazines. However I do chafe at the insularity of the other mags. Brexit happened years ago as far as the British model railway press is concerned. We have magazines that only look at British outline models and other magazines, now one other magazine, that looks at the rest. For PECO publications it probably makes sense from an advertising revenue point of view to split RM and CM but what is the excuse of the other magazines to present a Little Englander view of the world?

[steve1]

It's not just BRM. When was the last time you saw anything non U.K. in MRJ? There is finescale 3.5mm, it's called P87.

 

steve

[298]

.............and dare I say it perpetuated by BRM which has become de facto Modelling of Railways of Britain. 

 

And yes I know the ranks were broken with the Garvett masterpiece Pempoul, but are there truly no other British built foreign based layouts of a quality equal to those currently gracing the pages of BRM?  Or is it just that such skills are neither recognised nor appreciated? 

 

 

You're right, there isn't one.....

 

....there are probably dozens (and if you compare the effort to produce everything for Pempoul then it in a league above everything else) but the problem I see from flicking through BRM in Morrison's is they seem to use a lot of "image processing" that doesn't happen with RM or CM, what you see is what you get instead of seeing something at a show and wondering whether it was the same layout.

 

Another perceived issue is apart from Japan and N, most ranges have an accurate scale/gauge ratio and so there is little in the way of a finescale movement to improve RTR. Some also have realistic couplings that work out of the box. But there is always room for improvement and where do these people think the RP25 wheel profile came from?

[jjb1970]

I think we have to be careful about making sweeping statements that a lack of interest in overseas models means a person is some sort of little Englander. That might be true in some cases, it is probably much more because people like to model what they are familiar with and the British network have been self contained for most of its history. I'm not sure British modellers are any more small minded than those from anywhere else really. If people are interested in British trains and restrict their modelling to British trains then that say's no more about their view of the world than a liking for British cheese or Cumberland sausage in preference to French cheese and bratwurst. Magazines print what they think their readers want.

[steve1]

It's also true that US mags, Model Railroader certainly, only very rarely feature anything non US. More parochialism?

 

steve

[jjb1970]

In my experience most people in any country are rather parochial. That is not the same thing as being xenophobic or with a problem about overseas countries.

[Pacific231G]

The American hobby does seem to be particularly insular at least insofar as their magazines are concerned and when they do feature British or other European modellers' efforts (including Rod Stewart) it's usually because they're modelling American prototypes. There is a reasonable contingent of American modellers who choose overseas prototypes but I don't think I've seen any of their work in Model Railroader - which isn't to say it hasn't ocassionally appeared..

 

Railway Modeller spinning off Continental Modeller is interesting as in France, Loco-Revue spun off narrow gauge rather than non-French modelling with Voie-Libre some years ago. Voie Libre is notably international with a fair number of British layouts featured and they do produce an English langiage version of it which suggests that narrow gauge modellers are more internationaly minded in their choice of prototype. So far as the mainstream is concerned  a quick skim through layouts featured Loco-Revue over the past five years revealed about a dozen based on foreign prototypes. Predictably, the largest number (4) were of US prototypes and the rest were a spread that included two representing the British Isles (one BR one Ireland)  I suspect though that there are more French modellers working in OO9 than in OO, possibly because of what is available commercially.

 

I do wonder how easy it will be in a few years time for British modellers to take their layouts to exhibitions in Europe and vice-versa without a lot of customs hassles, carnets etc. That would badly hit shows like ExpoNG . 

[PaulRhB]

If you went to a show and saw my uk layouts would you assume that's all I'm interested in modelling, if you went to another and saw my Harz layout would you assume I only model foreign stuff?
There's a small percentage who object to foreign stuff but then they probably also object to too many GWR branch lines at a show as well. CM nicely fills a niche and both its circulation and resource file are healthy. Modelrail didn't really give their continental edition a chance with just an annual copy that focused heavily on the German Toyfair. I find the two CM editions a bit cataloguish too and only tend to buy the Second month with the NG focus unless the couple of layouts in there are particularly interesting.
I like the random collection of stuff in CM and I suspect it's those with similar eclectic interests that are interested at shows. We always seem to want to categorise groups and define them like a big company marketing a product when all it needs is enough interest to make it viable.
Bemo are doing Om purely because the boss wanted to so he set a minimum that they needed to make it viable and it has taken five years to work up to a mainline loco after testing the water with wagons and a shunter. They are working to a completely different criteria to Hornby who have to show shareholders a decent profit.
As long as that enthusiasm stays driving parts of the hobby we will continue to serve niches and get interesting shows.
Like we see on here and in life generally a vociferous minority will always try to tell us how we should do things when it's already working quite well

[whart57]

I think we have to be careful about making sweeping statements that a lack of interest in overseas models means a person is some sort of little Englander.

 

Well I was talking of the magazines, not their readers. PECO responded to the growing interest in overseas prototypes not by including it among the British layouts in RM but by spinning off a new magazine. That was Freezer and the editorial team thinking "our readers won't be interested in that foreign stuff". Mind you at the time RM's idea of "foreign" was anything north of the M4. Freezer was also the one who decided all that internal combustion stuff needed a separate definition in case it sullied the purity of mainstream Big Four modelling.

 

Today though there is that attitude among the magazines that "our readers won't like it" towards overseas prototypes. This month's piece on modelling beach scenes in one of them covers the "English Riviera" very well, but would it have hurt to include a bit on the French Riviera? St Tropez is after all on the coast line from Nice to Cannes. I don't think most modellers are as narrow minded as the magazine editors think they are, and I would hope that no modeller of the British scene would sneer at the excellent series in CM on modelling flaked paint and plaster just because the underlying subjects are French. Though I doubt many are even aware of that series of articles because it appeared in that ghetto of CM.

 

As for modelling what we are familiar with, do we really? You need to be in your late sixties to have any familiarity with British steam, approaching your centenary to remember the glory days of the Big Four.

[jjb1970]

Well I was talking of the magazines, not their readers. PECO responded to the growing interest in overseas prototypes not by including it among the British layouts in RM but by spinning off a new magazine. That was Freezer and the editorial team thinking "our readers won't be interested in that foreign stuff". Mind you at the time RM's idea of "foreign" was anything north of the M4. Freezer was also the one who decided all that internal combustion stuff needed a separate definition in case it sullied the purity of mainstream Big Four modelling.

 

Today though there is that attitude among the magazines that "our readers won't like it" towards overseas prototypes. This month's piece on modelling beach scenes in one of them covers the "English Riviera" very well, but would it have hurt to include a bit on the French Riviera? St Tropez is after all on the coast line from Nice to Cannes. I don't think most modellers are as narrow minded as the magazine editors think they are, and I would hope that no modeller of the British scene would sneer at the excellent series in CM on modelling flaked paint and plaster just because the underlying subjects are French. Though I doubt many are even aware of that series of articles because it appeared in that ghetto of CM.

 

As for modelling what we are familiar with, do we really? You need to be in your late sixties to have any familiarity with British steam, approaching your centenary to remember the glory days of the Big Four.

I'd agree with much of that, but the publishers do still provide a dedicated magazine for overseas modellers and there is still that magzine for overseas railways (Today's Railways?). Modern Railways still has its overseas news round up and does international articles. And the US magazines Trains and Model Railroader are still distributed over here. So things could be a lot worse. The fact that these magazines are still published indicates that there is more interest in overseas types than we might think. Personally I'd love to see the other magazines include more overseas content but I guess their readers need to badger them. I'd also like to see international coverage be more global. Even in those magazines that specialise in overseas railways are really about North American and European railways. I like Asian railways and they are woefully under acknowledged here. Then again if people wrote articles or offered to send in news reports then things could change. Since I'm not inclined to do that I can't complain too much.

 

On familiarity, it's true that many model steam despite having been born after thw end of mainline steam. However they are familiar with the UK landscape, architecture, stations and will have more familiarity with British steamers than those of other countries because of TV shows, magazines, preserved railways, museums, peer knowledge etc.

[whart57]

I like Asian railways and they are woefully under acknowledged here. Then again if people wrote articles or offered to send in news reports then things could change.

 

Well you are responding to someone who has had seven articles on Thai railways published in CM (and another in preparation) ..........

 

My concern is with the future of CM. Were PECO to pull the plug then apart from not being able to earn a bit of funding for my layout I worry that none of the other railway modelling magazines would step up and cover overseas railways.

[whart57]

On familiarity, it's true that many model steam despite having been born after thw end of mainline steam. However they are familiar with the UK landscape, architecture, stations and will have more familiarity with British steamers than those of other countries because of TV shows, magazines, preserved railways, museums, peer knowledge etc.

 

Are they though? In the 1930s Colonel Stephens took on the Ffestiniog railway (which by then also included the Welsh Highland), and it caused him a major headache. It was a foreign operation really compared to his other lines and I reckon he would have had much fewer problems if he had taken on a Dutch steam tram operation. That would have seemed far less foreign. Yet in our minds the Ffestiniog and other Welsh narrow gauge lines are as British as Swindon and Crewe and those Dutch steam tram lines, which look almost identical to the Wisbech and Upwell, are foreign. Railway Modeller and the others would not hesitate printing an article on a good Wisbech and Upwell layout, they wouldn't touch a piece on the NTM which ran standard gauge roadside lines in Friesland with the same Toby the Tram style locos, carriages with end steps and mainline goods vehicles tagging along. RM would chuck it across the office to the CM desks but the rest would just spike it.

[PaulRhB]

Well you are responding to someone who has had seven articles on Thai railways published in CM (and another in preparation) ..........

 

My concern is with the future of CM. Were PECO to pull the plug then apart from not being able to earn a bit of funding for my layout I worry that none of the other railway modelling magazines would step up and cover overseas railways.

I don't think there's any immediate danger of that, remember when it was only bi-monthly? CM is a very useful shop window for Peco.

When Andrew decides to retire replacing him will be far more of a challenge as his contacts in the industry and knowledge are immense.

[jjb1970]

Well you are responding to someone who has had seven articles on Thai railways published in CM (and another in preparation) ..........

 

My concern is with the future of CM. Were PECO to pull the plug then apart from not being able to earn a bit of funding for my layout I worry that none of the other railway modelling magazines would step up and cover overseas railways.

Good for you! (and I mean that, it isn't sarcasm). I think magazines do rely on contributors and staff writers, if those contributors and writers are primarily interested in NA or European railways then that's what will get published. I'd love to see a lot more on Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian etc railways but I have to confess that I've never felt motivated to actually write any such articles myself.

[jjb1970]

Are they though? In the 1930s Colonel Stephens took on the Ffestiniog railway (which by then also included the Welsh Highland), and it caused him a major headache. It was a foreign operation really compared to his other lines and I reckon he would have had much fewer problems if he had taken on a Dutch steam tram operation. That would have seemed far less foreign. Yet in our minds the Ffestiniog and other Welsh narrow gauge lines are as British as Swindon and Crewe and those Dutch steam tram lines, which look almost identical to the Wisbech and Upwell, are foreign. Railway Modeller and the others would not hesitate printing an article on a good Wisbech and Upwell layout, they wouldn't touch a piece on the NTM which ran standard gauge roadside lines in Friesland with the same Toby the Tram style locos, carriages with end steps and mainline goods vehicles tagging along. RM would chuck it across the office to the CM desks but the rest would just spike it.

A fair point, but I think narrow gauge is another niche and I suspect narrow gauge modellers are much more open to overseas forays.

 

If we consider mainline steam, British designs were quite distinctive (although the Dutch railways seem to have been closer to British designs aesthetically than to their Euro neighbours) and people feel a familiarity with the sort of land scapes and stations you'd want if modelling mainline big 4 or BR steam.

 

My own interests are linked to those countries I've spent time in, it goes beyond that however as it is not just spending time and being familiar with a country but also to some extent falling in love with it. If I'd spent time in Japan and other Asian countries and hated the experiences I suspect that I'd not have developed an interest in their railways. For example, I've really got no interest in Brazilian railways or Egyptian railways despite both countries having well developed railway systems and some quite intensive operations. I love Italian railways and part of that enthusiasm derives from a love of Italy.

 

Another point is availability of models. If shops sold a good selection of overseas prototypes alongside Hornby, Bachmann etc then it might hook a few. Clearly overseas models are readily available in the UK but most shops I visit are British outline only, and most of those that dabble in overseas do just that, dabble. I suspect the reason for having a token overseas presence is to let customers know they can order Fleischmann, Roco, Marklin, Rivarossi, Bachmann US or whatever. Of the big three box shifters, Kernow doa reasonable selection of overseas prototypes, Rails and Hattons offer overseas S/H but very limited new overseas (although Rails now seem to be stocking Rapido NA outline). Again, that is probably in response to customer demand and shops will stock what they think they will sell. Those UK shops that do offer a good selection of overseas types (such as CM, the Hobby Shop, Gaugemaster, Scograil etc) tend to offer very good service and are competitive with buying on-line from overseas vendors after you account for postage costs in my experience.

[whart57]

Good for you! (and I mean that, it isn't sarcasm). I think magazines do rely on contributors and staff writers, if those contributors and writers are primarily interested in NA or European railways then that's what will get published. I'd love to see a lot more on Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian etc railways but I have to confess that I've never felt motivated to actually write any such articles myself.

 

Well it paid for my DCC system ;-)

[whart57]

A fair point, but I think narrow gauge is another niche and I suspect narrow gauge modellers are much more open to overseas forays.

 

If we consider mainline steam, British designs were quite distinctive (although the Dutch railways seem to have been closer to British designs aesthetically than to their Euro neighbours) and people feel a familiarity with the sort of land scapes and stations you'd want if modelling mainline big 4 or BR steam.

 

My own interests are linked to those countries I've spent time in, it goes beyond that however as it is not just spending time and being familiar with a country but also to some extent falling in love with it. If I'd spent time in Japan and other Asian countries and hated the experiences I suspect that I'd not have developed an interest in their railways. For example, I've really got no interest in Brazilian railways or Egyptian railways despite both countries having well developed railway systems and some quite intensive operations. I love Italian railways and part of that enthusiasm derives from a love of Italy.

 

Another point is availability of models. If shops sold a good selection of overseas prototypes alongside Hornby, Bachmann etc then it might hook a few. Clearly overseas models are readily available in the UK but most shops I visit are British outline only, and most of those that dabble in overseas do just that, dabble. I suspect the reason for having a token overseas presence is to let customers know they can order Fleischmann, Roco, Marklin, Rivarossi, Bachmann US or whatever. Of the big three box shifters, Kernow doa reasonable selection of overseas prototypes, Rails and Hattons offer overseas S/H but very limited new overseas (although Rails now seem to be stocking Rapido NA outline). Again, that is probably in response to customer demand and shops will stock what they think they will sell. Those UK shops that do offer a good selection of overseas types (such as CM, the Hobby Shop, Gaugemaster, Scograil etc) tend to offer very good service and are competitive with buying on-line from overseas vendors after you account for postage costs in my experience.

 

Yes but you are talking of what individual modellers do, not magazine editorial policy. Magazines are supposed to be interesting reads and to be interesting they should provide variety. To me MRJ is the most boring model railway magazine ever, and usually contains the most boring layouts around. Why? Because it is basically the same each month. Now I know part of it because I think life is too short for MRJ's ultra finescale obsession but I think that it is also that concentrating on the fine detail means the overall effect is ignored. It's like Rembrandt reproducing every hair of Captain Banning-Cocq's moustache but just washing emulsion over the rest of the canvas. That would be no masterpiece.

 

But too often I put the other magazines down with a feeling of "I've seen that before". Well most months in fact. They really could do with broadening their horizons.

[Pacific231G]

So far as magazines are concerned, I've had the slightly surreal experience of three of my articles about French railways being published in French model magazines. I know of at least two layouts by French modellers inspired by them.( I met one of these and its builder at a large show in Lille a few months ago and it was very satisfying to see my idea turned into a far better model than I could ever build) 

 

I agree though about the ghettoisation. Just looking just at two of my own articles that were first published in CM, it occurs to me that with different stock, signals and higher platforms, Paris-Bastille (sadly no longer with us) and its operation could just as easily be a very compact and busy commuter terminus in London or Glasgow but few modellers of Britain's railways looking for such a station will likely have seen it unless they're on RMWeb. Similarly, Dieppe Maritime had more in common with Weymouth Harbour than anything else in France with the major plus that main line express locos worked the boat trains down the harbour branch and even shunted them. An imaginary British ferry port could easily be based on Dieppe but few British modellers know anything about it. 

 

Peco does at least publish CM and I commend them for that but, of the other publishers in recent years, it was only the slightly niche magazines edited by Chris Ellis (Scale Model Trains, Model Trains International etc) that covered British and overseas prototypes and models with equal enthusiasm. The situation was once far better and both MRC and MRN ran articles about models and layouts based on overseas prototypes fairly regularly. I'm looking now at a folder of MRNs and its successor Model Railways containing some inspiring articles by the late Dennis Allenden on his superb scratchbuilt late nineteenth century French locos and rolling stock in O scale. There are equally gifted modellers around these days (though we sadly lost Richard Chown last month) including several working in P87 but, apart from Pempoul, you wouldn't know that from reading MRJ 

[justin1985]

I've been collecting Swedish N gauge for a long time, mainly because I'm in love with the landscape, and plan to build a layout or modules at some point. In N gauge, particularly, it is a case of buying one off short runs of appropriately liveried "generic" items or the handful of dedicated models, as and when they appear.

 

I did enjoy Model Rail International for the few issues that were published, but I've hardly ever bought CM. I think what I preferred about MRI was the prototype information - which rarely seems as prominent in CM. I rather like the sound of the French Loco-Revue/Voie-Libre division - I think there is certainly something in the narrow gauge being more inherently international angle.

 

I think my perspective on exhibitions has changed since I've been more regularly going as part of an operating team. If I was just browsing an exhibition hall as a general punter, I'd tend to focus much more on the layouts that corresponded with my interests, but as an exhibitor - able to wander around between "shifts" operating or at opening or closing time, I found myself much more drawn to layouts in respect of their simple quality, not their subject. I'd never have said I found US outline particularly attractive, mainly on an aesthetic level, but at both Warley and LFRM this year I think US HO layouts were amongst my favourites!

 

Justin

[Talltim]

 

I agree though about the ghettoisation. Just looking just at two of my own articles that were first published in CM, it occurs to me that with different stock, signals and higher platforms, Paris-Bastille (sadly no longer with us) and its operation could just as easily be a very compact and busy commuter terminus in London or Glasgow but few modellers of Britain's railways looking for such a station will likely have seen it unless they're on RMWeb.

 

Which issue was your article on Paris-Bastille in?

[Pacific231G]

Which issue was your article on Paris-Bastille in?

 

Hi Tim

It was in the February and March 2011 editions of Continental Modeller and a French translation of it with a few changes appeared in the July and August 2013 editions of RMF. Though I'd been fascinated by the terminus since coming upon it shortly after closure during my first visit to Paris, it was a paper by the Est railway's senior traffic engineer in a professional journal describing how they'd increased the very cramped station's rush hour capacity that really inspired me to research it and then write about it.

P.M. me if you want to know more.

[Talltim]

It was this photo that arousedmy interest. I'll hunt out the CMs

https://www.flickr.com/photos/loose_grip_99/2200784065/in/photolist-dbxUz4-4mtAqR-8UXNv8-4mzuXP-4mzv6G-4mvs4p

[rockershovel]

I don't believe there is any particular bias against European locations or prototypes, as such.

 

However there is definitely a lack of familiarity with them, among British modellers. On the other hand, the British generally have a quite detailed view of "America" as they see it. It isn't necessarily correct, often includes things which are largely fictional, and has a strong tendency to conflate, equate and confuse things which are long distances apart in space or time; but it is a quite detailed mental image which is widely understood.

 

This is particularly true of On30, where hippogriffs like the "Colorado logging Forney" stalk the broad, sunlit uplands and wagon trains pause outside rail depots. The fact that most UK modellers modelling "American outline" lack familiarity with the vast American landscape, isn't really the issue; they DO have a generally perceived mental image with varying degrees of trade support, at affordable prices, so they embrace it.