Is the model more fascinating than the prototype?

[Crankpins]

Now here's a question to debate, are you more attracted to a model than you are to a prototype. I think I am... Is that wrong or do you also view the model in the same light?

 

Nick 

[rob D2]

Can't control the real world !

[HLT 0109]

I'm with you Nick.  Growing up in the 50's, steam trains were the norm and just a means of getting from A to B.  We enjoyed the sounds but trains were unavoidanly grimy, stations were draughty and near where I lived, most of the scenery was pretty drab (emphasis on drab rather than pretty).  Nevertheless, my brother and I enjoyed our Triang trainset which grew every year as we spent our Christmas money.  With a model, we can replicate the grime or not as we wish but it doen't come off on us (if it's done properly), we can usualy eliminate the draughts and we can create what scenery we wish to see.

 

When it comes to preserved railways, I like to think these are just large models.

 

Harold.

[Physicsman]

I enjoy the model more than the prototype only due to it being much more conveniently located. If I lived next to an S&C station I'd be riding the real thing all the time.

 

The model has also inspired my acquisition of knowledge about the real thing. That has then improved the model.

 

So for me, it's a circular, positive feedback, with the model probably just coming out ahead.

 

Hope that makes some kind of sense!! 

 

Jeff

[Guest 40-something]

Im not particularly interested in the real railway, past or present.  I like looking at photos of the real thing from the 60's and 70's but much prefer the modelling side of things

[bluebottle]

Well, if I had a time machine to take me back to see the real thing, I wouldn't give a hoot about whether or not Hornby are going to put proper hand rails on their "Cock o' the North".

 

Gordon

[Padishar Creel]

Hallo,

I tend towards bluebottle's view (if I've understood it correctly). I was fascinated with railways when locos pulled coaches. I witnessed the last days of steam but my dominant memories are of the BR Blue days and enjoyed the diesel/electric period still with the older infrastructure. They were real trains and THAT was fascinating.

There are still a variety of real trains where I live (locos and coaches) and my favourite sight is a BR101 or BR120 pushing a 12 coach IC towards the North. However looking at the multiple unit dominated world of modern railways the fascination is almost non-existent.

I am now more fascinated with models that reproduce my memories of the real thing from back then.

 

Make sense?

 

Es grüßt

PC

[Castle]

Hi All,

 

My way into this hobby (and indeed rekindled my interest) was through the prototype. It is a total fascination with the real thing that lead me to volunteering at 81E and it is that fascination with 12" :1' that leads me to want to recreate it in miniature. They both have deep interest for me so it is a dead heat for me!

 

I do both hobbies to unwind and be part of something challenging and rewarding outside of daily life and the important thing for me is not which one is best but that I enjoy myself and that, at the end of the day, is the most important thing surely?

 

All the best,

 

Castle

[Guest jim s-w]

The prototype is research the model is production. Both entirely different but interesting in thier own right.

 

As an aside ive had a lot of people kindly say they love my model but hate its prototype.

 

Cheers

 

Jim

[BigAndy]

I think it all depends on your view of the hobby in general.

 

I think of Model Railways as moving/staionary art in 3D. If you think along the lines of how many genres there are in the Art world and all the different artist that represent those genres, you can assosciate it with the Model Railway world.

 

Artists such as Salvador Dahli who worked in surrealism could never be described as fine artists yet the likes of John Constable are. Both were/are greatly appreciated and respected thoughout the Art world - but both styles are entirely polar opposites.

 

What I'm driving at is that some modellers are quite content and happy with their view of the world as they see it through their models, therefore finding the modelling world far more interesting than the real world, however, modellers such as Jim Smith-Wright, Kier Hardy and various others could be described as Fine artists within the model railway world and what you look at via their work, is a represention of the prototype but in miniature.

 

Hope that makes sense!

[APOLLO]

Is the model more fascinating than the prototype?

 

For me, looking at the current scene, yes defineatly. I allways have a browse around the cabinets when visiting Hattons in Liverpool, and I sure do like the modern image up to date models - they look superb - I resist temptation however, 1966-68 steam / green and a bit of blue for me (thankfully, there are currently some fantastic bargains on early blue Bachmann diesels & coaches at the shop).

 

The prototype (WCML) runs past my house. Apart from the rampant vegetation and awfull pallisade fencing, not very fascinating to me these days (but we have an occasional "head turner" !!).

 

Back in 1966 it was the other way round - especially if you modelled with Tri-ang TT !.

 

Brit15

[woodenhead]

The thing with the model is that you control the intensity of traffic, you remove all the gaps when nothing is happening. Standing or sitting watching the real thing always involved voids when not a lot was happening and as time has gone on those voids have got longer certainly if your interest is loco hauled.

[t-b-g]

I feel exactly the same as APOLLO. In the 1970s my time was equally split between looking at real railways and building models. I have lived right next to the ECML since 1974 and spent many happy hours at Doncaster, York and Retford, as well as travelling all over the country to see the last of the Westerns at Reading, the WCML electrics at Carlisle and on the old "Rover" tickets going round Scotland for a week behind 26s and 27s.

 

My interest in real railways ended when the last Deltic was withdrawn and nowadays a barely glance up at the main line unless something going by makes a strange noise. A constant diet of 91s, 66s, HSTs and the shorter DMUs (I haven't even bothered to find out what they are called) that people like Hull Trains use.

 

So my hobby is now 100% model and nil for the real thing.

 

I get to run Claughtons, Compounds, Jersey Lilies and Pom-poms and many other types of long gone locos and can recreate scenes long gone and which I never saw other than in photos and odd bits of black and white film.

 

The more I look at the modern railway, the more unnattractive I find it.

 

I went onto Stainforth station a few weeks ago, just before it got famous! I wanted to see what it was like after a 35 year gap. In the 1970s it had a lovely GCR signalbox on the platform, a nice waiting room with a roaring fire and semaphore signals, as well as goods yards, locos stopping to shunt in the yards and it was a nice place to spend a day during the school holidays. You could sit and wait to hear the bells in the signalbox and that alerted you to look out for the signals to see which way something was coming. There was a huge variety of loco types from 20s up to Deltics. Now it is like a high security prison, with no facilities other than a bus shelter and a couple of seats. Functional and economical it might be but attractive and capable of inspiring me to model it (as I wanted to do in the 70s - no room then) it certainly isn't.

 

So an individual model of a loco or wagon may appear attractive but the overall scene does nothing for me.

[Rugd1022]

The prototype is research the model is production. Both entirely different but interesting in thier own right.

 

As an aside ive had a lot of people kindly say they love my model but hate its prototype.

 

Cheers

 

Jim

 

Interesting point there Jim regarding peoples comments on the layout - New St always seems to disappoint when I go there (work or play), yet when I'm away from the place I have some very fond memories of it...!

[Ozexpatriate]

Is the model more fascinating than the prototype?

Now here's a question to debate, are you more attracted to a model than you are to a prototype. I think I am... Is that wrong or do you also view the model in the same light?

That's three questions?

I had to come back to this topic after thinking about it.

Is the model more fascinating?  No.

 

The prototypes I am drawn to the most are gone - though often their legacy remains.

 

My fascination stems from the fact that you can't see Sir Felix Pole's railway company in operation,

 

or a Dreyfus Hudson backing onto the 20th Century Limited after the third rail electric that pulled it out of NY Central Station comes off,

 

or the Oregon Electric Railway (powered by clean hydroelectricity) taking university students across the Willamette River on the Boone bridge on their way from Portland to the agricultural school in Corvallis in 1912

 

or a Four Motor tram waiting for a QGR PB15 to traverse the fiveways at walking pace behind a flagman on it's way from the Gabba to Albert.

Am I more attracted to the model? Umm, yes!

The model is more tangible. Creating (or planning/dreaming about) the model, (as the case may be), or even possessing a nice model, gives more immediate pleasure than learning about the particulars. One increases the pleasure and interest in the other. As someone else posted - it is circular - there is a harmonic resonance between the two.

[DaveF]

I always enjoy modelling, I can fix the location, period and timetable to suit myself.

 

But there is still nothing to beat being by the lineside (or at a pleasant station) on a fine day watching (and photographing) trains going by.  If there is a quiet period then as I was originally a biologist I'll happily spend time looking at the local plants and animals.

 

When I was young some of my best days out (except for sailing) were at places like Grantham and Derby watching steam and later on the new green smelly things - which I eventually learnt to like and continued to photograph in the days after 1968 when so many lost interest in railways.

 

David

[HLT 0109]

Having a second bite at the cherry - the research is certainly fascinating and an essentail part of creating a fulfilling model.  So I guess it is the prototype that is fascinating but I am more attracted tto the model.  Both are interesting.

[coachmann]

I was an avid linesider until 1964 and modelling developed thereafter because I folk paid me. Being trackside with a camera saw me through the 70s, 80s and 90s but things reversed a few years back. I'm now modelling the early 1950s and only go trackside to see steam. Is the model more fascinating that the real thing? To me no, but then again modelling has its uses if only to recreate miniatures of things we will never see the like of again.