I guess I model the way I wi***he world was. The community on my layout is more like Mayberry on the Andy Griffith show. Need I say more…
Tracklayer
“Do you model the real world, or the way you wi***he world was ?..”
Yes.
Say more
i model both
I model the world the way I would like to see it as interpreted through the drawing skills of a 12 year old.
Due to modest modeling skills my result frequently doesn’t match the vision, but that’s OK because the vision isn’t real anyway. As long as it results in my running trains, it is fine with me.
[:)]
I model a fictitious area of Western PA in the 90s. I view model railroading as the closest we’ll probably come to a time machine. ( My apologies to anybody named Marty McFly) It’s rather fun how we can set our layouts in the past, present, or if you’re imaginative enough the future.
Aggro, don’t take this the wrong way, but if you’d seen some of the layouts I have over the years you might well have asked this question yourself.
I’ve seen a Jurrasic Park layout that consisted of nothing but a jungle and dinasours with a train running around it, to an alien invasion layout. So not everyone models the “real world”. I guess it boils down to each to their own…
Tracklayer
My world, My way… Anybody that complains better be wearing Kevlar…[:D][:D][:D]
I’d like my scenery to look as real as possible, but I’d have to admit that the “rail density” on my layout is completely unrealistic. Real trains don’t run in a circle, but I just don’t have the room for anything else.
So, let’s say “realistic, yes, but real, no.”
I buy these graffiti decals and stickem on my cars…
no I dont…maybe I might…
I have Mickey Mouse as an engineer…
I agree with Mr. Beasly, Realistic Yes. Real, No.
In terms of it representing a prototype place.
1 part of my new layout (2/3 of it) will accurately protray my hometown. 1/9 of it will represent Maynard, MA, a mill town. I know the mills by memory, and its only 4 mi away, but this is a place where I won’t go accurately. I’ll model a semi-generic mill that has the signature features of that mill: the clock tower and the river docks. Then, the other 2/9 will be completly fictional, representing the towns of Daddy Valley, Hillside Junction, and Helihill.
I all mixed.
I third Mr. Beasley. Realistic yes. Real nope. Not one for weathering, my world is very clean [:)]
Nick
I think I do a combination of what life was like as a child in the 50’s and the way I would like it to be. Simple, friendly and colorful.
Terry[8D]
Like in the song “If I ruled the world” I DO rule my world, it begins in 1954 (my target year) but continues to the present depending on how I feel and what trains I want to run that day. Though I ws 7 in 1954 I already had a good idea that things were NOT AS THEY WERE PROPORTED TO BE. But in my little corner of the world (another song) they are, or can be made better through pleasant hard work. Always better.
Doug, in Utah
I model the world as it was, subject to a few added idealisms.
I don’t have a large space so I’ll probably end up with more compressed in less space than normal. I will try to make all the structures and scenes believable and improve on them over time. As for the graffiti and extreme weathering, I will depict road grime from use, but if I drove my truck into a weighstation looking like a lot of the rolling stock that’s out there i would be shut down in an instant. It has always bothered me that my favorite railroad (the New Haven) let it’s rolling stock become a laughing stock with no money to keep up appearances let alone proper maintinence. Not in my world thank you. J.R.
I model the real world, to the best of my abilities.
(Having said that, I imagine the forum’s numerous cod philosophers will now appear in droves to dispute that statement - piuya![}:)] )
Cheers,
Mark.
In the area of my short-line automobiles never caught on. We provide comfortable reliable passenger and LCL freight service and we do all the maintenance. Taxes are low because the money is not eaten up building and maintaining ribbons of asphalt. I could go on and on about the advantages of a no automobile society but the biggest plus is I would never have to deal with an irate owner wanting to know what we did to make their brakes fail when we put in that headlamp in six months ago.
My prototype went out of business in 1936. I am modeling it in the 1950’s. The line rose about 200 feet in elevation from it’s Cincinnati terminal to it’s Georgetown end point. I say that compressing 75 miles of track into less than 70 linear feet makes that elevation change insignificant. (I chose to ignore the fact that all the change was in the first 10 miles)
It’s my world and welcome to it.
I try to keep it as real as I can for the year I model (1920’s). But the town is fictional, as is the railroad.
Excellent choice! Old New England mill towns have a great combination of terrain, architecture and history.
For those unfamiilar with Maynard, the main “old mill” building was originally renovated for the headquarters of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) which was once a dominant force in computing (PDP-11, VAX machines.) The same building is now the headquarters of Monster.com, I believe.
Semi-realistic, the exception is the SP never got merged, it will run on forever, When new protypes come out they will get painted as SP. Already have a BLI ac-6000 in SP, lucky for me BLI painted one in SP. [sigh]