Hi everyone, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts as to whether it would be helpful to think in terms of genres when approaching model railroading. This is, of course, a widely established practice in literature, movies, and other art forms (eg. westerns, rom coms, horror, sci-fi, action-adventure, etc.), and it seems to be helpful not just in describing a particular taste or style, but in evaluating what works and what doesn’t. In short, a technique that works well in one genre may come off all wrong in another.
What got me thinking about this was a recent discussion in which several posters objected to some advice given in an MR article about achieving realism in a layout. While some people had reasonable quibbles with specific points made, others just sounded more generally defensive, or even offended, as if the author had told them their own modeling efforts were all wrong. It’s not the first time I’ve seen such a fuss, in MR or elsewhere in the hobby, when someone suggests taking an approach that others haven’t taken.
To put it another way, when someone writes or speaks about how to achieve greater scenic realism, operational authenticity, or whatever, people sometimes feel they’re being told what they ought to be doing, when in fact the writer’s intent is usually to say “If you want to achieve X outcome, here are some tips on how to do it”.
On the plus side, establishing genres would make it easier to talk about techniques for success in different styles of modeling, without passing judgement on the styles themselves. For example, what type of track plan is better: point-to-point , or “spaghetti bowl”? The answer is, it depends on your genre. Use point-to-point if you’re doing an Operations or Realistic Trainwatching layout, and spaghetti bowl if you’re going for Fantasy World or General Public Entertainment. Yes, people’s feelings will still
