Modern Image - is the phrase outdated?

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hello all,

 

I quite like the phrase "modern image" precisely because it's so all encompassing. I don't know why - probably because I was 2 in 1968 - but steam trains just don't do it for me. Knowing a show has lots of "modern image" means it's worth going, for me. Whether BR blue, or sectorization, or privatisation, it'll be colourful boxes that I like, and ithat is all I need to know.

 

If I need a more exact description for any given layout then usually it's easy enough to find the rough date or location it depicts.

 

I feel we may be looking for a (re)solution to a problem that doesn't exist!

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

One of the major difficulties in any research is when the writer never thought about any future audience, and therefore did not use a recognisable dating system among other guides to comprehension of the time of writing.

 

A date or date range will be far more helpful, both now, and potentially in future.

[JZ]

Modern Image = last 10 years

[truffy]

I don't know why - probably because I was 2 in 1968 - but steam trains just don't do it for me.

Strange. I was 4 in 1968, and steam trains do do it for me. And for my wife and, considerably younger, daughters. It's something to do with the smell and cinders. In fact, when we travel between Tenterden and Bodiam on the K&ESR we deliberately time things to avoid the diesel if at all possible.

 

Modern Image = last 10 years

And in 10 years' time? The image has changed!

Edited November 16, 2013 by truffy

[Tim H]

"Modern Image" was a phrase that made perfect sense in 1970s, but makes no sense at all in 2013. But older modellers whose interests are firmly fixed in the steam age are going to keep using out of force of habit regardless of what the rest of us think.

 

Its continued use in magazines or exhibition programmes ought to be discouraged, though.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I think that when C J Freezer, who is generally regarded as having coined the phrase, was talking about "Modern Image", he was referring to the whole new infrastructure of our railways.The clean-lined CLASP style of station buildings, the new power signalboxes with colour light signalling, the sparkling new 25kVac electrics with their OHL knitting, air-braked freights, heavy duty flatbottom rail etc etc.

 

It wasn't so much a specific period, but a modernisation of the whole railway scene. 

 

Thus many places would still be in the "Old Image", perhaps further down the same line, but of the same period.

[JZ]

 

And in 10 years' time? The image has changed!

It will still be the last 10 years. ie 2013-2023

[298]

What about electric layouts?

 

Shildon-Newport anyone?  Tyneside electrics (someone needs to build and use those nice Judith Edge etched kits for EB1 and EF1)

 

They're nice, but has anyone actually built an exhibition layout featuring Shildon electrification...?

[Horizontal]

No - But I've built the 1955 E68000 Tyneside Motor Parcels Van in '0' scale! - BTW, is that 'Modern Image'? :-D

Edited November 16, 2013 by Horizontal

[Kenton]

 

Let's dump the term completely. It's meaningless anyway these days.

 

Quite the contrary.

 

I understand some folk disliking the term but it still has a very valid place.

 

The problem is that it has different meaning to some than others.

 

I used to use the term very much to describe anything post-grouping, as that was modern. Then I used it to describe diesels. Then used to define anything of the unit types. It's meaning has evolved as I have grown older. What is modern now is not what was modern then. What is modern now just didn't exist then.

 

What I don't see is a derogatory term - unlike the term "kettles" which is simple name calling and just in the same vein of light mockery as "diseasles" or "oil cans". All really no worse than referring to a particular class by a nick name.

 

As for splitting up eras - I don't really like it as the periods make no sense. They are more defined by sales categories than by actual events. I just can't see an era of a couple of years and another of over 50 years.

[Clive Mortimore]

Despite Cyril Freezer saying to me that my 1960s diesel depot layouts were true "Modern Image" layouts, I find the term overly used to describe all diesel and electric model railways. I recently went to an exhibition where the list of layouts on the guide had MI next to the layout name. Was this so the "real", whoops I mean steam modellers could advoid them. Why do we still need to have this steam v diesel thing going on. It is all model railways.

 

It is quite simple to say the time period, railway(s), and if need be geographical location. No need for a fancy title.

 

 

So from now on I model "1960s British Railways Eastern Region".

Edited November 17, 2013 by Clive Mortimore

[truffy]

It will still be the last 10 years. ie 2013-2023

And in those terms it means nothing, which was my point really. From a relative perspective it might mean something, but in absolute terms it would mean little.

[Tim H]

I can'r see any more recent "dividing line" than the end of steam. The *entire* motive power fleet of British Railways changed in the space of ten years. Ptivatisation has seen a lot of new trains replacing older ones, but there is still a lot of BR built stock from the 70s and 80s on the network; even some Modernisation Plan locomotives survive in niche usages.

[Pete 75C]

I remember watching a fairly crude but busy layout at a show in Croydon years ago. Class 47s in blue and green ran alongside LNER Pacifics. I asked the operator when and where it was supposed to be set and his reply of "I dunno really" was refreshingly honest!

[Bernard Lamb]

I would have thought that the term "modern image" would apply to the period after the "modernisation plan".

1955 in my history book.

I would expect younger people to have been brought up with a different critical date.

Nothing wrong with the term itself, the problem is it means different tings to different people.

Bernard

[The Bigbee Line]

I thought that the term 'modern image' came from the time that most established 'scale modellers' produced a GW branch line.  No howls from the crowd please.  This was thought to be the norm.  If you liked anything else you were looked down on.  There were others that modelled SR, LMS, LNER are the associated BR regions.  Indeed lots of ordinary models just had a selection of the RTR available.  If you modelled diesels you were considered a heretic.  I can remember "Sundown and Sprawling" in Railway Modeller and drooling over the various scratchbuilt diesels.  Anything with Southern Electric was heaven indeed.

 

So to me "modern Image" is a historic term from the 1980's, if you model up to date stuff it is "Now"

[Trevellan]

Where I now live "Modern Image" involves 75 year-old trains. Should I be confused?

 

While I understand the OP, in my view life's too short to worry about things like this. Invoke Rule 1...

[Fenman]

I would have thought that the term "modern image" would apply to the period after the "modernisation plan".

1955 in my history book.

 

The wonderful 1967 film by Geoffrey Jones, Rail, was commissioned by British Transport Films to show the then-new "modern" railway: blue electric locomotives on the WCML and BR's new double arrow symbol, efficient multiple units, and light, modernist (sic) architecture like Coventry station, all clean and fast.

 

In the event, Jones spent the first 13 minutes of the film having a love affair with the "old" Victorian railway, all romantic steam engines and soaring gothic architecture, and only the last 2 minutes in a blizzard of speeding blue trains. For me, those 2 minutes of film represent "Modern Image": a fixed point in time.

 

The film is available on a beautifully restored DVD produced by the BFI, Geoffrey Jones: The Rhythm of Film, which also includes his Snow and Locomotion.

 

Paul

[grahame]

A few things occur to me;

• If the 'steam era' can be named after the motive power type why not the 'diesel and electric era' - it's only common courtesy? The particular period within it can be named as such, as suggested by many.

• Sometimes I find 'modern image' (like 'rivet counter' and probably 'kettle' to steam enthusiasts) a little irritating as if it's condescending, confrontational and disrespectful. It's unnecessary to be so inconsiderate and to continue with its use.

• Surely modern means of 'now or current' and image means 'in its likeness' - historic dated diesel or electric models aren't meant to look modern so why call them that?

G.

[truffy]

The difference is that while 'rivet counter', 'kettle', and 'oil can' can only be derogatory, or at least condescending, I really don't think that's the case for 'modern image'. It's just simply a not very descriptive term.

[kevinlms]

Let's dump the term completely. It's meaningless anyway these days.

 

D&E (Diesel & Electric) does the job much better.

 

steve

Not really as D&E 1950s style has NOTHING in common with D&E 2010/s style. Trains are different, track rationalisation, many lines haven't seen a freight train or even a locomotive for decades now.

[grahame]

The difference is that while 'rivet counter', 'kettle', and 'oil can' can only be derogatory, or at least condescending, I really don't think that's the case for 'modern image'.

 

 

Not really IMO - I guess it depends on how, and the intended, use. 'Sometimes' - as I mentioned in my post - 'modern image' comes across as sneery and derogatory (at least to me) and consequently I find it a little offensive and unnecessary. And the use of 'kettle' could be considered to be endearing rather than derogatory, and/or not intended as such.

 

However, I agree that it is also not a very descriptive term.

 

G.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I think we can all agree on the term "model railway".

 

Hang on though, there aren't any moving trains on that model over there, so is it a diorama? And that large Hornby Dublo set up on a board without any scenery, is that a train set?

Edited November 17, 2013 by Western Sunset

[Guest 40-something]

Not really IMO - I guess it depends on how, and the intended, use. 'Sometimes' - as I mentioned in my post - 'modern image' comes across as sneery and derogatory (at least to me) and consequently I find it a little offensive and unnecessary. And the use of 'kettle' could be considered to be endearing rather than derogatory, and/or not intended as such.

 

However, I agree that it is also not a very descriptive term.

 

G.

My friend who is not a fan of diesels and thus loves steam loco's refers to them a kettles in an endearing way (he does call diesels 'boxes' in a less than endearing manner!)

[Pete 75C]

Maybe I'm over-simplifying things, but just 2 phrases have served me well over the years:

1) Steam

2) Modern Image

They cover everything. Each to their own though, which is I guess what this thread is about. Just don't sign me up to anything that involves changing the way I think....