For some reason, I’m not quite sure.
[:D]
I am not quite sure either.
I sort of “protolance”. I like the B&O and all incarnates {C&O, Chessie, CSX}.
But I also like the PRR locos with Majestic raised Belpaire Fireboxes!
And I like D&H {mine and MOH’s initials}.
I don’t “model” a certain piece or section of B&O {and incarnates}, but I DO enjoy their equipment. So it is loosely based on that.
I don’t model a certain year, because I change out stuff to run the various incarnates I want to run.
I don’t model a certain area, i just built a layout to fit my {small} space I have.
So Freelance it is! SO Protolance it is!
It’s NOT totally a “it’s my railroad and I’ll run what I want to” as I DO try to stay true to the era of locos i am using by changing out a few buildings and stuff. And I DO try to stay with the basic parameters of the RR. I was ecstatic to find that the B&O actually GAVE PRR “trackage rights” over certain tracks! So I CAN run my PRR stuff too!
The D& H is just some folly really, but I am getting serious at collecting their stuff!!!
So what do I model? whatever i feeel like, so I guess i am a bit rogue!
I jsut ENJOY the hobby MY way!
[8-|]
Right on! It is a hobby, after all, something we all do for fun, right?
Since people are saying they "freelance’ or “protolance”, does anybody have a definitiion as far as what that means.
I can look freelance up in the dictionary?
What is “protolance”?
Yes, the word has been around since the Middle Ages…literally “free lance”, a lancer whose services could be bought as a mercenary soldier. In recent times, it normally is used to mean someone like a writer who isn’t a regular employee of a magazine or newspaper etc. but submits pieces from time to time.
In model railroading, it’s been used for decades to describe someone whose model railroad represents a ficticious railroad, rather than re-creating a real one. Many great early modellers like Frank Ellison and John Allen were ‘freelancers’, with fictional railroads serving fictional towns and cities, but done realistically.
“Protolance” is, as far as I know, a word Tony Koester made up in his MR column. I’m not sure exactly how to define it, but it’s apparently like freelancing only more tied to a particular railroad or type of railroad, and incorporating more real locations.
Tony Koester and many others use the term “Proto-freelanced”. Model Railroader magazine recently posted these definitions on their Facebook page:
A “freelanced” model train layout is one that’s built and designed to the owner’s whims, either not modeling a particular railroad or modeling a fictional one created by the builder. “Proto-freelanced” means the layout is based on a real railroad, but the builder takes liberties with track arrangements, structures, operation, and the like. Most layouts, to some degree, fall into this category. “Prototypical” layouts are as close to reality as the builder can make them, following vintage photos, prototype track plans, and historical rolling stock lists to model a snapshot of history.
Since many folks do exactly this, I’m not sure how it would be considered “rogue”. Just one of many ways to enjoy the hobby.
I have always been a non-conformist. What others find wildly exciting and popular I often say 'Meh," to. To me, the hobby is a personal introspection. It must evoke emotions and memories for ME, not for others. So, I do it my way.
That’s not to say I expect wholesale acceptance of what I say, do, or show here. I recognize that many will not agree with everything about my path in the hobby. I know they see things that I have done that would not be common or even accepted on a given railroad, or I describe procedures and get results that they wouldn’t dream of doing themselves, maybe even for very sound reasons that I haven’t learned yet.
But, as Sammy Davis Jr. said, I gotta be me. On my layout, it’s my way and my highway.
Crandell
In building my first layout I free lanced it to incorporate significant industries and retail related businesses in my locale that I can relate to. One area on the layout brings immediate recognition to those who see it, but the rest pleases me as well…
Also I have locos and hoppers that are used by a local shortline. The owner of a glass sand mine owns the shortline. I will have a mine and the shortline that services it are as far as it goes for my modeling it. My neighbor did see the shortline hoppers at a Corning Glass plant in Indiana.
My area was / is serviced by the B&O, C&O, CSX, PRR, and the Winchester & Western. All are represented on the rails.
Also I wanted action running the trains so I have a double main with crossovers located separately so the trains can change tracks and two reversing loops so they can change direction as well.
Admittedly to do this I had to make some sacrifices, one of which is the layout is mostly flat except in the mine area.
Having fun doing it
Bob
For NS fans it has a mainline 8 miles to the East.
Harry, I like to think my models are the prototype! There is no other railroad, of any size, called the Flint Hills Northern Railway Company, so therefore it is the prototype. If anybody else builds a model of an FHN locomotive, that is a model, with mine being a prototype. (See the definition of the word “prototype”.)
After all, model railroaders were the first to come out with plastic boxcars… [:D]
Protolance steam logging northern CA near Mt Shasta 1911.
Peter Smith Memphis