Modern Image - is the phrase outdated?

[Taigatrommel]

I really wonder what place DEMU has seeking a change of terminology for their sub-segment of our hobby when their members still proudly brandish "no kettles" mugs?

[truffy]

They cover everything.

While at the same time mean nothing

[truffy]

@Lifeboatman: What's there to disagree with about that? You divide everything into 'steam' and 'modern image', but steam goes from pre-grouping (and earlier) though to BR late crest. In and of itself, it means nothing. I am genuinely puzzled.

Edited November 17, 2013 by truffy

[Pete 75C]

Don't be puzzled. We disagree, that's all... What works for me means nothing to you. As I said, I probably over-simplify things but it's worked for me so far...

[Pete 75C]

:no: Can I assume you disagree with me too?

 

 

[bmthtrains - David]

I rarely see the term used these days, though this thread did make me think as I used it for the name of my own 3D printed design business Modern Image Models.

 

I guess it was helpful as a phrase as a kind of short hand to tell people simply from a name whether to expect steam or diesels on an exhibition layout. Useful when all you had was a leaflet with names and maybe a scale on it. Nowadays though you can see or photos and videos of a layout on a show website, or just google it, so you usually know in advance exactly what to expect. Maybe this has taken some of the magic away from shows? As we have more information available, I think the term is dropping away as it's no longer necessary in many cases.

 

For my business, I used the phrase as it does need a shorthand - in a marketing sort if way it was important to have a name that quickly encapsulates what I offer. Modern Image Models seemed to work for what it rules out more than what it includes - you won't find any steam on the website.

 

I would generally say I am a contemporary modeller as my layouts and stock are progressively moving into the future with me and reflect near enough today's world. If I were modelling a fixed period however, I would either use a term like Blue Period or Network Southeast to place it in history. For anything post 1997 a date is probably best as simply saying Privatisation is too big a period.

 

That being said, if I'd called my business Contemporary Image Models, it just doesn't have that ring to it...

 

David

[jonny777]

I find the actual thread question to be rather amusing, as for me "Modern Image" was associated in the 1960s with a much older generation of modellers. It seemed to be used by them as a mild insult to anyone who dared to have diesels or electrics on their layout.

 

"Oh, this is a 'Modern Image' layout Claude; we can shove that at the back of the magazine/exhibition hall".

 

It seemed even more quaint to me in the early 1970s, when any model railway that incorporated green diesels was termed "Modern Image" even though some of those diesels had already gone to the scrapyard, and the rest had been re-painted into blue livery.

 

In an ironic twist, it appeared to me that later in the 1960s a similar age group of people who turned their noses up at anything "Modern Image", were the ones who were keen to bulldoze St Pancras and replace it with another Euston-style concrete monstrosity.

 

I have now used the phrase four times more in this post, than I have ever done in the rest of my life.

Edited November 17, 2013 by jonny777

[truffy]

:no: Can I assume you disagree with me too?

I rated the wrong post then removed it. Mea culpa.

[Philip Jackson]

currently the term "modern image" only seems to apply to the current week. I've got post privatisation stuff that was out of date only a few months later but still looks fantastic (grand central HST, Stobart Rail class 66 etc). My planned layout is of a fictional preserved line so pretty much anything goes

[Steven B]

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....

 

 

Where does Tornado (one of the newest locos on the network) or something like a GWR railcar fit in? One's diesel powered and was withdrawn in the 1960s, the other's steam powered and less than ten years old. Each of the Big Four were experimenting with diesel and electric power in the 1940s. Does this make the LNER petrol railcar, the LMS twins or a SR 2-BIL steam image or modern image? What about the BR ran VoR that was steam operated until sold off in the 1980s (complete with BR Blue and double arrows)?

 

To my mind, "Modern Image" describes a short period in railway history around the time that the WCML was electrified together with the new stations, locos and trains that went with it. Give that the upgrade started before the end of steam, it's firmly stuck in the transitional era.

 

The best way to describe a layout is to simply quote the location and date (exactly or approximatly as appropriate).

 

Happy modelling.

 

Steven B.

(Late 1980s sectorisation, NW England).

Edited November 17, 2013 by Steven B

[newbryford]

I really wonder what place DEMU has seeking a change of terminology for their sub-segment of our hobby when their members still proudly brandish "no kettles" mugs?

 

hi Rich,

Maybe they've been to the NEC where kettles aren't allowed.................... behind layouts?

 

 

 

 

 

Going back on topic - DEMU aren't seeking a change of terminology - the discussion was prompted by Clive Mortimore in the DEMU magazine and I wanted to take it to a wider audience.

 

Cheers,

Mick

p.s. not all DEMU'ers are anti-kettle steam. I used to run most of the mainline approved steam on my layout in the 1990's. Tornado is currently on my to-do list.

[Clive Mortimore]

One of the many things that prompted me to write my short piece for the DEMU magazine was an exhibition manager editing my blurb for a show guide from "A steam age diesel depot" to a "Modern Image layout" because people would understand that it was a diesel layout if it was labelled "Modern Image".  For some reason "Diesel Depot" did not give an indication?

 

Someone who models a layout that is not diesel or electric orientated does not have state it is a steam layout only it is a layout based on the Great North and South Joint Railway in British Railways days. No exhibition managers would alter that description to "Soot and muck image" so that non steam modellers would have an idea that it was not a diesel layout.

 

As for transition period wasn't that when the Midland changed from green to crimson lake, no second thoughts from Johnson embellished liveries to Deeley's renumbering and simple lining, or when Stanier shook up Derby and placed it in the then modern world. 

 

Keep it simple, time period, railway and if needed location.

[grahame]

I really wonder what place DEMU has seeking a change of terminology for their sub-segment of our hobby when their members still proudly brandish "no kettles" mugs?

 

Two 'wrongs' don't make a 'right', and I don't recall it being announced as official DEMU policy - the thread was started by an individual posing a discussion point. Not really sure what DEMU has to do with it - surely the term has interest to all modellers and wider implications.

 

G.

[steve1]

Two 'wrongs' don't make a 'right', and I don't recall it being announced as official DEMU policy - the thread was started by an individual posing a discussion point. Not really sure what DEMU has to do with it - surely the term has interest to all modellers and wider implications.

 

G.

Absolutely correct Grahame. I think Rich has misunderstood the discussion, at NO point is it mentioned that this is an "official DEMU policy".

 

As an aside, Gareth Bayer (I think) wrote an editorial in Rail Express some while ago also trying to do away with the term.

 

steve

 

steve

[The Stationmaster]

There's nothing at all wrong with the phrase 'modern image' although there could be a problem in working out what it means (e.g 'modern image in the 1960s means something different from 'modern image' in 2013).  So it always needs to be qualified I think by a reference to period, e.g. '1960s modern image' or '1990s modern image' etc if you want to use the phrase at all.

[Happy Hippo]

I've tried to give up using the term but fail miserably.  Anything after 1840 being modern image.

 

I just try to target the correct decade:  ie early 1960s, or straddle them ie 1990s to 2005.

 

I was modern image once, but then I cut my hair

 

Regards

 

Richard

[coachmann]

You're paddling through life minding your own business when someone coins a brandnew buzzword 'Modern Image'. Everyone adopts it and carry on with thier lives. But the years pass and one day someone on a website says, "Hey, isn't that phrase outdated?"  ..."Yay man, it wasn't invented in our back garden!", and so a group on unknowns dream up something to suit their generation. The years continue to pass, as they do, until someone sat on a rock on Mars exclaims, "Hey, isn't the phrase we've been using since way back in 2013 outdated? The Universe is suddenly alive as this message is beamed between Mars, Pluto, Earth and Uranus...." I've been looking through some bluephase simulated cheeseblocks of me old great great grandpa's magazines and they used a wizzo of a phrase in the 1960s pre-DCC. They called it Modern Image". It was an instant success though no one knew why because they then wondered what a railway was.....

Edited November 17, 2013 by coachmann

[Ravenser]

One of the many things that prompted me to write my short piece for the DEMU magazine was an exhibition manager editing my blurb for a show guide from "A steam age diesel depot" to a "Modern Image layout" because people would understand that it was a diesel layout if it was labelled "Modern Image".  For some reason "Diesel Depot" did not give an indication?

 

Someone who models a layout that is not diesel or electric orientated does not have state it is a steam layout only it is a layout based on the Great North and South Joint Railway in British Railways days. No exhibition managers would alter that description to "Soot and muck image" so that non steam modellers would have an idea that it was not a diesel layout.

 

As for transition period wasn't that when the Midland changed from green to crimson lake, no second thoughts from Johnson embellished liveries to Deeley's renumbering and simple lining, or when Stanier shook up Derby and placed it in the then modern world. 

 

Keep it simple, time period, railway and if needed location.

 

I suspect the problem may have been the phrase  "steam age diesel" , which does look odd and to me suggests something more like a County Donegal railcar or the Ivatt Co-Co, not the 1960s..

 

I can't help wondering if "1960s ER diesel depot" would have made it through unchanged 

Edited November 17, 2013 by Ravenser

[Suzie]

The meaning of language changes with time, it happens all over. There is now discussion in the art world that 'Avant garde' no longer means looking forward but is an actual era from some time in the past. It has gone from being a description to being an entity merely by the passage of time. The words have not changed but the meaning has. Anyone describing their art nowadays as avant garde is going to be immediately dismissed as old hat regardless of how the phrase translates literally.

 

In the same way modern image has gone from being a phrase encompassing anything that was not the tedium of ancient history at a time when I was younger and ancient history was anything over ten years old, to being a phrase describing in my mind the British Railways modernisation (1955) to BR blue era (1980ish) mainly used by those old enough to remember the earliest part. Like the grouping era it has a timespan of around twenty five years. The sectorisation and privatisation which followed was such a marked change in attitude and appearance that it is hard to be able to describe it using a term which has already become dated but was still describing the current in 1980.

 

As well as the language, how people use it and context says more about the people using the term than the term actually means in most cases. I know that my published in Railway Modeller brother in law will use the term only in a derogatory sense to mean anything that is not a GW BLT, and I know people who are a little ignorant of history who will use it to describe anything without outside cylinders, but I know who they are and what they mean. When the words are written down and read by a wider audience the context becomes less clear, and perhaps its use needs to be considered very carefully.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Suzie

[Fenman]

The meaning of language changes with time, it happens all over. There is now discussion in the art world that 'Avant garde' no longer means looking forward but is an actual era from some time in the past. 

 

Indeed: architecture has had Modernism, then post-Modernism, and now neo-Modernism. I wonder what comes next?

 

Paul

[Ozexpatriate]

Modern Image - is the phrase outdated?

 

Yes. Designs that date back to 1950 are not modern. It has become an anachronism.

 

Having said that, it's not the worst anachronism out there.

Edited November 17, 2013 by Ozexpatriate

[richard brown]

I asked my brother who is not a model railways person what would he expects to see if I said a modern image lay out and he said "Anything which is ran on the main line at the moment" then I showed him the model magazine I had and I said "show me br blues he showed me a cep in br blue then I said privatisation he showed me a class 66 in fright line green" so we don't need modern image we just need easy description of what the layout is.

 

Richard

['CHARD]

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

 

As my signature bears witness, I kinda take Bernard's comments above as my starting point, finesse them a bit, put them through the wringer, and add a garnish of sweet irony, to get my perfect blend of what I model as I define it 'Modern Image.'

 

Beeching did a whole lot, including presiding over the introduction of Rail Alphabet, all sorts of standardisation, plus of course the real theatre of the Transition Era. 

And that's why I'm delighted to be modelling his Modern Image as it existed by 1968.  Flawed and ragged.  Steam Age in all but traction, with dischordant pointers to the future.

 

I know Death Steam is such an aquired taste it's avoided by most, but for me it provides the richest and most poignant canvas to paint.  That I'm choosing to do it on a doomed secondary main line just adds to my sense of emo-masochism.

 

The rest of the world can do, say and deride the phrase however it likes.  For me, I'm turning it into the window 1967-69.  In the high street, it was Blue Hymek Freightliner train sets.  It's a marketing term frozen in a snapshot of time.

[Dagworth]

I think I'm going to refer to Ravensclyffe as "The Age Of The Train"

 

Andi

[truffy]

Indeed: architecture has had Modernism, then post-Modernism, and now neo-Modernism. I wonder what comes next?

Baroque. It's the circle of life.