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Landmark Layouts
Inspiring–should make us all strive to do better.
Interesting how the older layouts built by the masters seem to have that thing whatever it is.
The modern layouts seem to lack whatever that thing is.
Where and just what is the flare that seems mssing on a lot of todays new layouts.
I have to agree with out Australian co-hobbyist, John Busby.
Many of the classic layouts such as the Gorre and Daphetid and the Delta Lines were freelanced layouts suffused with their builder’s personalities, individualism, and, in many cases, sense of humor. They truly emphasized the fun in model railroading.
Most of the layouts featured today are seem so focused on protoype as to be soulless and, in fact, share a corporate “look” that makes them pretty much interchangeable constructions that give no hint as to the personalities of their creators.
I think it would be appropriate for Model Railroader to begin a series of articles that could be to the modern era what Frank Ellison’s “Art of Model Railroading” was to the early days. It could be called “The Style of model Railroading”.