Do Freelancers drive away people? Maybe possibly in the respect that many freelancers will kit-bash or scratch-build differently styled motive power or rolling stock or whatnot; and newcomers may look upon this, try their hand, find they cannot do it the first time, and leave the hobby. Would I be correct to assume that this goes on? It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it happened from time to time; but I would think that most people would understand that when you enter a new hobby, you do not magically hone the skills necessary to do everything.
On the flip side; prototype modeling may drive away people not wanting to be binded to any certain aspect of model railroading.
In my opinion; if you limit the hobby to strictly prototypes and “model like you are supposed to” according to Mr. or Mrs. ‘Don’t Worry About It’, that seriously limits the creativity in The World’s Greatest Hobby. The World’s Great Hobby is such because of the amount of creativity it can inspire, and the almost unlimited amount of ways to pursue ones way or preference of modeling. This hobby has it’s place for Prototype modelers and Freelance modelers; and I would think that they both should be able to intertwine with one-another, just like we do here on the forums.
I respect the opinion that What-If Imagineers such as myself may indeed drive away people…But killing the hobby? I believe it not.
Discuss please; I would like to know what others think about this issue…
And since “Don’t Worry About It” apparently at least browses these forums, I would like to know his or her opinion on the matter as well, and elaborate from the guestbook comment left.
Someone is jealous of your work. Get over it and go do some more freelancing. Some people have a need to sound important(troll). If you are bored and just want to discuss with others ok, but what you do is important to you. That is the important thing to remember.
I model 1890 with tender drive 4-4-0s that have plastic construction with details I added… Ialso have DCC decoders in them. Some old timer told me it was a waste of time and money. I should have Brass 4-4-0s.
“You can have a car in any color you like as long as it is black.” I painted mine powder blue, but I did leave the name tag on the front. I wonder what Mr Ford thought about that.
I also have a trestle going across Yellowstone Canyon with Yosemite Falls in the backgound. I like it. What else matters?
I don’t think freelancers drive away modelers or kill the hobby. However (this just my opinion and no disrespect to any here on this forum is intended) I often wonder how many wanting advice on how to get started, come on this and other forums and after all the different answers, advice is given are actually bewildered and never do, because of all the different opinions and such. 99% of the advice I’ve noticed is right on “top shelf” advice, but there are so many different ways and areas of modeling that, not knowing the person asking, can that person pick the right answer or advice that he needs? Some may be satisfied with a sheet of plywood with a Lionel basic trainset on it while others won’t be satisfied until the have all the bells and whistles so to speek. Now with this said, I also believe that if someone loves trains, they will have them, no matter what is said here. Freelanceing- would I do it? No, but then I don’t belittle those that do. The modeler has only him-herself to please. Ken
Scott, have no fear…freelancing as you call it, will have minimal impact of this hobby if any at all. Just take cars for instance, many people love cars, some can build them from scratch, or remodel old cars, soup them up etc. Has that ever stopped the majority of car lovers from buying and loving hot rods or sports cars because they did not have the mechanical ability, tools, or even desire to build their own car? Absolutely not, and it won’t effect this hobby either.
Just keep on enjoying what you do Scott, your excellent at what you do, and it is YOUR life good buddy.
Once upon a time I was taught that, if I couldn’t say anything constructive, I shouldn’t say anything.
The first of anything, model or 1:1 scale, is a freelance design. Everything of the same design that comes after copies a prototype. Looked at that way, if nobody ever freelanced anything we still wouldn’t have chipped flint tools to butcher whatever got dragged back to the cave by the club- and rock-armed hunters.
IMHO, people who want everybody to do things THEIR way are a lot more likely to drive people away from the hobby.
I rather think that, in The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, Robert Heinlein got it right:
“A ‘critic’ is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased - he hates all creative people equally.”
Of course, even critics create ‘something.’ Hopefully, they flush the can when they’re finished.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - largely freelance)
Here we go again. I see this thread going the way of Tracklayer’s thread from last weekend. I won’t be surprised if this gets into a squabble early on.
Man, I really wouldn’t worry about it. Obviously a troll. Probably a kid (seriously…who uses the word “dork” after high school?). Totally jealous. Ignore it. In fact, if it was me, I’d delete this thread here because I wouldn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing that I even read their useless diatribe, but that’s your call.
IMHO, what really drives away people from the hobby is 1) cheap equipment that doesn’t work very well. Train set stuff, IOW. 2) the skills required to build a model railroad. Some people just don’t have 'em, and don’t want to learn 'em. 3) a lack of knowledge of prices & value. IOW, newbies take one look at a BLI steamer at $400 and gasp…meanwhile there’s a perfectly good Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 for under $100, or a P1K diesel for $75, or an Athearn BB for $55.
Free lancers and prototypers are near the bottom of the list of reasons why not to be a model railroader. Pure rubbish, IOW.
Why on earth would what one person does with their own layout drive anyone out of the hobby? What an absurd idea. If a person does not like fully freelanced models, how could their very existence somewhere else, pictured on the web, deter that person for pursuing their own interest within the hobby?
I don’t like Conrail blue diesel locomotives. If I see another one on some Conrail fans layout I think I will quit model railroading.
I don’t like cheap plastic rolling stock with talgo mount horn-hook couplers. If I ever see a post on the MRR forum where someone has fun with their RR and uses this rolling stock successfully I am going to walk away, I just can’t stand it.
What kills the hobby is too many jerks running around telling people they are wrong? I had a jerk in my guestbook tell me I was modeling On30 wrong because it looked too prototypical and it wasn’t really “true On30”. Go figure. He also went off that I was also not a “real” modeler because I used Bachmann RTR. I went to his website, if his work was that of a “real” modeler, I am glad I am not a “real” modeler. His work was dreadful.
Never listen to the jerks, they know you are having fun. They are like a bad spouse and want to kill all your fun. Do what makes you happy.
Elitist “my way is the only way” attitudes can be found in virtually every area of leisure or business endeavor. It should come as no surprise therefore to see it in this hobby as well. The notion that non-prototypical modelers are responsible for the decline of the hobby’s popularity is ludicrous - just consider how many people on this forum credit their start in this hobby to childhood toy train sets that were far from prototypical. Maybe Thomas the Tank Engine is a modern equivalent. The progression towards modeling with greater fidelity to the real world is something that often occurs over time, as skills, cash, mentors, products, and time permit.
It seems to me that the decline in the numbers of active model railroaders can be attributed to a dozen different factors, but IMHO, those who seek to make this hobby exclusive, rather than inclusive, deserve their share of the blame. There’s a world of difference between being a mentor / educator, and being a criticizer / condemner. My personal feeling about this age-old question of prototype versus freelanced is “to each his own” - I have no trouble at all appreciating the creativity and efforts of modelers who model differently than I do. I hope that most of us share that sentiment. Cheers.
No! It’s buttheads like that who drive people away from the hobby. Once upon a time they used to say flex track and pre made turnouts would kill the hobby. How many newbies do you think we’d have if everyone had to start out hand laying their own track and counting rivets.
I think younger modelers would get bored REAL fast if they couldn’t use their imagination.
Sadly, being anonymous on the web allows people to say all sorts of dreadful things just to be mean and hurtful. It doesn’t mean anything. There is no way that anything that you are doing is hurting the hobby. Tastes in modeling vary considerably. - Nevin
Not too long ago, Freelancers were the norm in the hobby, and prototype modelers were the “oddballs”. Look at the model railroad pikes that are household names (well at least house holds with model railroaders in them) - Gorre and Daphetid, Virginia and Ohio, Granite Mountain, Alleghany Midland, Utah Belt, and Utah Colorado Western just to mention a few. All are freelanced pikes and I don’t think that they have driven a single person out of the hobby. Quite the contrary. They have served as inspiration for more than one generation of model railroaders.
In years past, kitbashing and scratch building were a fact of life. There was just not that great a selection of RTR locomotives, rolling stock and structures to be found. If you wanted something other than what Athearn, Atlas, or MDC were offering, you were pretty much left to your own resources.
Of course as interest in prototype modeling became more popular, people were asking, “Are prototype modelers killing the hobby?”[(-D]
Given the plethora of RTR equipment, ready made flex track, etc, I would say that, regardless of whether you model prototype or freelance, it has never been easier to get started in model railroading.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, “the report of model railroad’s passing has been highly exaggerated”.[swg]
I have said it before: he who pays the piper…and since I pay, I call the tune. If someone else offers to pony up, I still call the tune. When they won’t pay unless it is done their way, our partnership is dissolved. My way, or the highway.
I am serious. There is only room for one top railroader in my household, and Barb said I could be it.
Hasn’t it all been said already? People who leave mean-spirited remarks, the skulkers, are cowards, and have what we call “issues”. Let them live in their skins, and you live in yours.
Where would this hobby be if one person out of 1000 hadn’t figured out a new way of doing things all along? DCC is an obvious example, but how about the marvels of layered foamboard, or even strips of cardboard slathered in plaster…it is ingenious!
Even though I have lived a life committed to principle, convention, courtesy, and other norms that make life more predictable and safe, I have never been one to tow the party line. I don’t like group-think, as odd as it may sound after that last sentence, and I try to find another path most often. Sometimes I have to scurry back to the beaten path, and other times I find exhiliration and discovery.
And finally, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
At some point in my life I stopped worrying about what other people think and started concerning myself with what I can do successfully. Works for me, afterall, I’m the one that is going to have to do it.
The way I look it, and maybe some of the veteran modelers could chime in, but I dont think in the history of model railroading, has it EVER been as easy to jump into the hobby as it is today.
In this day and age, most people have lack of time, (i.e. non-retired folks) and most likley could be the most daunting aspect of MR’ing.
So much RTR stuff avaviable, Loco’s, rolling stock, scenery, track, structures, etc.
Wealth of knowledge easliy avaible that wasnt 10 years ago. (The internet) 10 years ago, if you didnt know someone or could find others, you were out of luck. Now, you can hop on the net and talk to a guy 4000 miles away like he wasnext door neighboor.
And, before you jump in and try and play the RTR card, keep in mind, that’s how I got started. And now I have my own fllet of custom painted loco’s, scratch built buildings and have mastered making my own trees. And, judgeing from my club and all the public non-railroad events our modualr club sets up and displays, I am not alone.
For every person who looks at something freelanced and says “I can’t do that”, someone else says “Hey that looks neat, I gotta learn to do that”. The first group watches TV all the time, the second group does stuff.
I wouldn’t worry about it, do your thing and share it with others as you can.
Do Freelancers drive away people? Maybe possibly in the respect that many freelancers will kit-bash or scratch-build differently styled motive power or rolling stock or whatnot; and newcomers may look upon this, try their hand, find they cannot do it the first time, and leave the hobby. Would I be correct to assume that this goes on? It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it happened from time to time; but I would think that most people would understand that when you enter a new hobby, you do not magically hone the skills necessary to do everything.
On the flip side; prototype modeling may drive away people not wanting to be binded to any certain aspect of model railroading.
In my opinion; if you limit the hobby to strictly prototypes and “model like you are supposed to” according to Mr. or Mrs. ‘Don’t Worry About It’, that seriously limits the creativity in The World’s Greatest Hobby. The World’s Great Hobby is such because of the amount of creativity it can inspire, and the almost unlimited amount of ways to pursue ones way or preference of modeling. This hobby has it’s place for Prototype modelers and Freelance modelers; and I would think that they both should be able to intertwine with one-another, just like we do here on the forums.
I respect the opinion that What-If Imagineers such as myself may indeed drive away people…But killing the hobby? I believe it not.
Discuss please; I would like to know what others think about this issue…
And since “Don’t Worry About It” apparently at least browses these forums, I would like to know his or her opinion on the matter as well, and elaborate from