I have been, like most people, the viciim of criminals. It is a disruptive and unethical behaviour that seeks to benefit the criminal at the expense of the victim(s) and of the society that they have tried to build and sustain with their mutual respect and trust. Crime destroys trust and mutual respect. It therefore is deletrious to civilization. We don’t want the Hobbesian life that is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
I can’t honestly think of a good reason to want to include that unsalutary aspect of life, and to spend the money and time representing it, on my layout. For one, it would give me no pleasure. I have no interest in it. Secondly, at present my interest in the hobby lies in the railroading and in placing a credible railroad in a credible setting. I enjoy running and imaging the trains. I don’t want to deviate substantially from those aims. While I am aware of unsavoury undertakings and their evidence in the world around me, I don’t feel the need to have them included in the far more appealing aspects of life in railroading or in host cities and towns.
I model an era where it was considered desirable to run the railroad tracks down Main Street in most smaller towns. Living within walking distance of the tracks meant not having to own horses and buggies or wagons - an even more expensive proposition in those days than a car is today. It was the ability to use a car to commute that freed people from having to live near town, and near railroad tracks.
In the 19th Century, railroads did not bring crime any more than any other rough occupation. And from what I can figure out, there always was a part of town those with means and the self-control would abstain from going to.
My layout focuses on the part the railroad plays in life in 1900. I don’t have extensive side scenes away from the railroad. And the railroad was viewed as a positive in 1900.
About the closest I will come to modeling crime would be sounds from a bar or tavern at the docks to be contrasted with an open air revival service near the logging camp. Both were regular parts of life in that era.
“I have been, like most people, the viciim of criminals.”
First I must completely agree with your view on today’s subject.
I do find your opening statement to be very interesting, as my experiances of being a “victim” have been extreamly minimal in 53 years. Neither my home or car has ever been buglarized/stolen, I have never been assulted or robbed on the street, and only a few times had personal posessions stollen when left “unattended” at my work on construction sites.
I did once have to run off some would be burglars from my yard at gun point one night, but no harm was done and the police quickly rounded up the criminals who had burglarized several nearby garages/sheds.
Sheldon, I would counter by asking if in the next few days you found yourself dwelling a bit on the event on your yard. Did you find yourself ruminating a bit over, say the next two nights, finding that you had any difficulty sleeping or getting to sleep? If your natural response to this incident was in any way intrusive, you most certainly were victimized by what I would term a 'first intrusion."
But, suppose you were to deny any effect on you. How about on your wife? And if your wife admits today to being troubled by that event, I would conclude that a married couple were then both victimized. When my wife ails, I am troubled. I’m quite sure you are as well.
I don’t deny its effect. But my moral view is that I have every right to defend myself, my family and my property. An idea once considered the norm, fell under threat for a while, but that is quickly returning to be the morally and legally supported view in this country as many states are passing laws reafirming these rights as outlined in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the US Consititution.
My point is, in my view, that if you feel completely powerless than the negative effects are much more emotionally damaging.
Even here in liberal Maryland, you come in my home, or corner me elsewhere on my property, with intend to do harm, I am free to use deadly force to defend myself. Several states have passed laws clarifing that citizens can even “stand their ground” and defend themselves, and others, in public.
Interestingly these are the states with the lowest crime rates.
Almost all the crime we watch on the evening news here, is drug related - dealers killing dealers, etc. If you take Baltimore’s 350 person a year murder rate, deduct those people involved in criminal activity, the murder rate quickly becomes the same as t
I know there are many, many things I saw and heard as a kid that I know now were off color or adult in nature, but being a kid, it didn’t register as such. A nine year old might think a naked person on a layout is funny, but they’re hardly going to be scarred for life.
As for your wife, tell her to grow up. It’s a half inch tall poorly molded piece of plastic.
BTW, I think the perfect “crime scene” for a modern layout would be to have the local cops hassling railfans on a sidewalk or overpass hear a yard.
I am not going to model any major crime on my layout. I may have a still, which I had on my previous layout, and may have a traffic stop or camp of undesirables by the tracks, but that’s about it.
I think the lack of crime being modeled on our layouts comes from the fact that model trains had their start after WW2 when Lionel became affordable and popular. The Christmas train displays in the department stores were to attract kids and their parents, and of course sell those trains and accessories. Everything in those displays were geared toward having fun and the enjoyment of children.
Since our model railroad roots originated there, I submit that we model the idealistic world as we saw it as children while watching the trains running through the miniature wonderland that was created by the department stores.
These roots were further propagated by model railroad clubs that hold open houses during the Christmas holiday season. These layouts model trains in their ideal setting where no crime exists, because it would be insensitive to introduce crime to the children who are there only to have fun, and not enter into the reality of the real world just yet.
Very good point, Elmer. Our hobby always extends an open invitation to our youth, and portraying the unseemly side of life just offers it a dignity I don’t think it deserves.
I have 25 years in law enforcement. Crime usually happens in seconds. You might model a crime scene to photograph for a diorama, but do you want to run your trains past that scene day after day?
What kind of crime happens near the right of way? Mostly theft. perhaps a scene where a boxcar or auto carrier is being broken into and your railroad police are responding might be an interesting vignette. Of course in the real world, the railroad police are spread very thinly. A traffic stop would be easy to model and I think Woodland Scenics even makes a ready made scene for that.
You could model a “red light” district near the right of way or if you are modeling modern times you could even model people selling drugs on the street corner in your ghetto next to the tracks. But in real life, most crime takes place out of public view and only lasts a few seconds. And after it’s over, you usually can’t tell anything happened there.
You could easily model this crime that happened in East St Louis IL yesterday. It’s a good example of the kind of serious crime you find in an industrial area near the tracks: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_5355c6dc-37e5-5004-bc76-abb3ca48f343.html The question is, why would you want to? This is a serious crime and a tragedy, do you want something like that on your layout in the interest of realism?
Personally I’ve seen crime and violence up close, I have participated in the violence in the line of duty and cleaned up it’s aftermath and it’s not something I care to represent on my layout when it is built.
I would consider modeling a traffic stop, a red light district with little ladies of the night , a night club with a 1/87 scale wise guy getting out of his car but I would draw the line at the scene of a murder or other violent crime. Those crimes happen too fast really model and it’s just not what I am into model railroading for.
One aspect of the hobby that both helps and hinders us is the concept of selective compression…in which any given scene is reduced and compressed so that it looks plausibly real without actually having EVERYTHING of reality in it. I’ve chosen to leave certain aspects of reality out…like crime…profane graffitti, and slums. I prefer to accentuate the more uplifting aspects of humanity in my modelling…like clean modern structures…reasonably well dressed people… well looked after homes…etc. By applying weathering my models still look like the real thing…after all…I’ve been watching trains for years and haven’t yet witnessed a mugging or a murder…
I do not plan to have a crime scene on my layout. I am in the hobby to get away from the nasty bits of the real world when I can. Even though things like the red light districts are given a wink and a nod they still represent a brutal way of life. As someone already said, I choose to ‘selectively compress’ the realities on my layout.
As for the nine year old’s reaction to a nude in the window, I would suggest that over reacting to that sort of thing might do more harm than good. It is highly unlikely that it will cause any more than a giggle and a blush.
Caveat: I don’t have a square centimeter of scenery, so these are, “When, as and if,” mini-scenes.
Police box - have to have! The political poster board is blank, no election scheduled. (Each candidate gets a 300x400 mm space to make their case during the campaign.)
Pot still in a cabin a little way away from the smaller mine - those three families can’t really make enough from their underground activities.
Some young (?) ladies in cocktail dresses around the entrance to the stand bar. (The upstairs windows are shuttered.)
Billboards on the ‘down’ passenger platforms advertising the ‘Music Hall’ in Minamijima, with back views of topless dancers with fancy headdresses. (The Music Hall is a legitimate business.)
As for the ‘problem’ of people without clothes, in rural Japan the public bathhouses were ‘segregated’ (at General MacArthur’s insistance) by painting a black line down the wall, across the floor, right through the middle of the tub and on up the other wall. The Japanese don’t have the panic reaction to nudity which we can trace to our Puritan forebears. (I challenge anyone to prove that any baby was ever born wearing a diaper.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan pretty much as it really was in September, 1964)
My layout is set in rural Japan in the late 1950´s, so I don´t have the need to include an urban crime scene for added “realism”.
If I had a different theme I still would not include such a scene. Crime, though unfortunately very much a part of our daily life, is the ugly part of it and I see no need to include this in my little world, unless there is a touch of humor with it, like Ray´s still in the woods.
My focus is on trains and not on gimmicky scenes around it.
Does anybody remember an ad in either Model Railroader or (more likely) Railroad Model Craftsman, that said, “replace your town’s hangman’s noose”, and described figures and detail parts for an electric chair? The ad would have appeared in the mid to early 1970s, possibly the late 1960s. I’ve looked through my back issues, and couldn’t find ad, and I swear I remember reading it way back then.
One thing I’ve noticed about Model Railroaders, at least insofar as I’ve seen represented on their layouts, is that they seem-- for the most part-- to be both optimists and revisionists, modeling reality in all its grit, all its glory, all its splendour, but none of its crime. Which, at least to me, is interesting considering the areas in which trains are typically situated, and even give rise to the cultural notion of being on the “wrong side of the tracks”. Indeed historically, in many towns, the railroad divides the haves from the wanna-haves, and the gainfully-employed from those with more nocturnal aspirations.
In the real world, many seedy and sinister deeds are committed in the moonlight to the sound of a mournful whistle blowing and the distant rumble of steel upon steel. Gambling, prostitution, racketeering are but only a few of the delightful activities undertaken by the neighborhood denizens ensconced therein. And yet, when crime is even addressed by the modeler at all, invariably it is of a more whimsical nature, more mischievious and less malicious.
Which seems odd to me actually, when in stopping to think about it. When you look at TV and movies in our popular culture, they are filled with the stories and trappings of crime. And yet on our layouts, we modelers tend to adopt a kinder, gentler view of the world. Sure, I suppose part of it is that we model the world we imagine, or would perhaps like to live in, but considering Model Railroaders trend toward modeling everything wi
I don’t have a layout, and shant anytime soon, but this question piqued my curiosity and I’ll throw in my couple pennies (though with inflation I might have to throw in a nickel).
– What is the “crime” situation on your layout?
When I create my layout, I might have some speeders and street racing scenes, that’s it. OTOH some of my passenger trains being of prototypes that ran through the south before the 1960s and they had segregated accommodations (gag) and that to me is a far worser crime on humanity then some so called crimes in the criminal codes (don’t ask me what I think those are). Thus, I’ll model passenger train interiors where people of all skin-colors intermingle with one another.
– Have you given it any thought or consideration?
Very little.
– Do you model the world we live in, or the world you wish we lived in?
More of the latter.
– Why do you suppose modelers, who are sticklers for “realism” in most every other area, leave this one out?
Because it likely gives little pleasure to one modelling such scenes, even if they exist in real life, why spend time on modelling what depresses us? When modelling time instead can be devoted to creating what is exciting, interesting and the like.
So far, the local gendarmes seem to have the situation under control. I do have one character who, to me, looks like a pickpocket, but he’s still in the Preiser box he came in.
<— Rocky in my signature over there looks like he’s up to no good, but, well, he could just be waiting for a train…
Back in the Transition Era, we weren’t environmentally aware, and dumping of all sorts of unspeakable chemicals was a routine practice. Here, barrels of God-Knows-What are being buried behind Burns Coal and Oil. Mr. Burns, of course, thinks this is an “excellent” way to dispose of his problems:
Eventually, though, the car float terminal at Mooseport will come into being, and with it an assortment of wharf rats and scalawags. The urban planners have already blocked off a red light district. I’ve got my eye on a couple of Downtown Deco structures, too. The center of this depravity will be The Brass Rat, a bar named after, of all things, my college class ring.
…the second time was the same nincumpoop from the first too…
