Emerging Ideas

[Disclaimer:  This is highly opinionated.  You've been warned.]

If one was to turn around and look backwards over the prior 75 years of model railroading there are both memorable layouts and inspiring individuals which stand out in the halls of time.  Many pioneered new approaches, techniques, or styles.  They built things people hadn't thought of or didn't think were possible.  What they all have in common is that they stand head and shoulders above the average model railroader.

I've wondered what it was that made the difference.  Many a person has trucked down to the local hobby store and come home with a bag of track and cars in plastic wrap with visions of floor-to-ceiling trestle bridges dancing in their head, only to find it didn't quite turn out like that.  Instead they ended up with scenery that was all the same color of bright green scenic foam and track ballasted with monochromatic light gray ballast.  And shiny plastic boxcars, glistening in the light.  It was flat, boring, uninteresting, and ultimately uninspiring.

Surprisingly though, even those who try and avoid that deer-in-the-headlights look towards model railroading still end up with something reminiscent of the bright green scenic foam everywhere, unintentionally so.  I think I'm in this group.  It's easy to start out in one's head with a great picture of what it should look like but then find the result anything but that.  How is it that those stand out individuals and layouts broke away from the pack?  How did they break free of the disease of common-ality?

There are a number of seasoned model railroaders on forums, email lists, and blogs who complain whenever a company comes out with a new RTR product.  I always thought this was a little silly, and that they were just crusty old guys who liked doing things their own way, stuck in a time warp 30 years old.  I made an interesting observation this past weekend however which began to evolve my opinion on that:  On those stand out layouts (and I'm talking about layouts in the caliber of Carrabassett & Dead River or Pelican Bay Railway & Navigation Co.) when viewing those layouts it's really hard to identify commercial products on the layout.

Have you noticed that most On30 layouts look like Bachmann advertisements?  I don't mean to pick on On30 because I'm sure HOn3 with Blackstone filling the shelves isn't far behind.  The Coast Line RR by Troels Kirk is a good example... hang on, let me qualify, Troels is an amazing artist and has accomplished far more than I have as a model railroader... but back to my point: scenes on the Coast Line RR that do not have trains in them look far better than the ones which have the same Bachmann Forney or Shay as everyone else's layout.  Even if that engine is dressed up in a paint job of weathering powders it's still very recognizable as Bachmann.

Every time I see that same 2-4-4 forney I instantly recognize it as "Bachmann!" when it should be thinking "Coast Line RR".  And that right there, the fact that we all mentally recognize commercial products as a toys in the real world not as a model in a captivating, character-filled world, is what I think separates the average model railroad from the stand out.  Creating a layout should be about convincing the viewer of a fictitious model world and anything which distracts from that we should be passionate about removing, including the recognition of commercial products.

I'm pretty sure the marketing departments of model railroad manufacturers sure want you to believe that buying everything they sell with give you that dream layout.  I'm calling farce on that right now.  Model railroad manufacturers are important, we would be much worse off without them, but are we leaning on them to do the modelling for us instead of using their products as a jumping off point?

Also, I know from experience that it's a lot easier to take the path of least resistance when it comes to doing things, and quite frankly opening the box on a HOn3 Jackson & Sharp passenger car, perfectly laser cut and painted, is sure an amazing experience over struggling for 4 weeks to build one, only to have it be a little less than perfect.  But only a few days, perhaps even hours pass before I'm thinking, "Should I buy another one of those?"

But here's the thing, that path -- the path of buying lots of off-the-shelf equipment then using it exactly in the form it comes out of the factory or dropping some weathering powders on it and calling it done -- does not seem to be the path of those stand out individuals and layouts who have shaped model railroading history.  In fact, most of those layouts are so masterfully done that it almost looks like everything is scratch built.  But really, that can't possibly be the case. There's only a fixed amount of time in a day.

The point remains however, nothing looks store bought.  Once I realized this I started flipping through back issues of various train magazines I had sitting around and what I saw confirmed this revelation big time.  Maybe those old guys weren't as far off as I thought?  Maybe I need to spend less time shopping and more time building?

But this is hard: I started building.  It's slow.  It takes patience.

Maybe that's good?  Maybe slowing down lets me take time to think things through?  Maybe having patience develops more appreciation for my work?  Maybe in the long run, building it myself turns out to be more satisfying, maybe it evolves a layout from a business production to a personal investment?

Maybe our whole value system for model railroading has been distorted?  Where did I get the idea buying RTR was "OK" because I was really "modelling operations not individual cars"?  Oh that's right, from a book "Model Railroading from Prototype to Layout" which was published by.... wait a minute -- the publisher of that book makes their living off of product ads.

And then a manifesto emerges.

As a model railroader, I prefer...

...models I built over models I bought.
   ....models that work over models that are scale/prototype accurate.
      ....a smaller but built layout over a larger planned but unbuilt layout.

So hey, I started picking up old projects.  Ones I had abandoned.  Ones that I stopped because they were hard.

And hey, I made lots of mistakes.  Some of them were pretty small.  Like this one, I had to cut out pieces so the wall would fit flush against the chassis.

Other mistakes were bigger.  Like the fact that the roof framing AND the jig to make it are a whole scale foot too long.  /facepalm

But hey, in the end, I'll eventually figure out and get a lot better at building.  Then I'll have a skill I couldn't have bought on a shelf in some hobby shop.

"Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working"
  -- Pablo Picaso