Unless we’re trying to arrive at a proposal that dictates such verbiage, Scale Rails has also done this, in their own way, by their invocation of Blue Box nostalgia. Unless you’re the type where you get all teary-eyed and forget about what the BB was really about, or perhaps too young to know, then SR has done pretty much what Atlas, ExactRail, and others have done – in their own way – by dropping the pretense of it being a prototype-specific model. One look at the rest of their line should tell you this part of their line isn’t that.
And if people really want to know, there’s little to no learning involved in slapping that scarlet F on things. The only thing they get with that is know to look for the label. They won’t understand anything else about a car, it’s service life, reason for existence, etc, i.e. the entire context that makes knowing about such things useful in creating a realistic and satisfying layout, if that’s the goal. It would be form without substance.
To put it another way, that’s like some students I get who come to ask about what the correct answer is to a history essay question? Well, there is NO single correct answer. What is sought is evidence of understanding the context and meaning of a complex set of facts, not simply repeating the facts. Memorizing a bunch of dates and names won’t get you far, just as memorizing a few facts about a prototype is just opening the door to prototype modeling, not stepping through that door to really explore and enjoy all that lies within.
Well, there’s that elitism word again. All because someone who models a specific prototype might want to have cars with accurate numbers on them, but doesn’t really care what numbers are on the fill-in cars in the train.
Would we be calling a HOn3 modeller elite because he doesn’t want to have an otherwise correct 36 foot boxcar marked Penn Central or Conrail?
For sure. No one should feel bothered that some folks like to make informed purchases since certainly we’ve seen that the hobby has plenty of customers who just like to run what looks good to them, fantasy or not. Heck, there is a guy on TrainOrders who is building a very large 27x61 foot fantasy layout depicting the Penn Central in the present day.
People don’t have to think of Fantasy as “scarlet” letter or something to be shunned or an anathema - such a notion is nonsense but I realize “Scarlet P” was coined to make a point so I take it with a box car full of salt. The reality is fantasy modeling is a fairly popular genre in the model railroading world. Any informed model RR fan can cite any number fantasy railroads featured in our hosts magazine over the years - some of which have even had custom decorated rolling stock such as Utah Belt or Allegheny Midland, or V&O etc. Of course they don’t go by the term fantasy, but rather a slightly more dignified term as free lance or “proto-lance” if you want to be posh.
If you know what you want, then there’s no need to brand what you don’t want as somehow unsuitable. It may be for you, but for many others it’s something they want just as much, even if it’s just a certain paint scheme.
Shouldn’t it be good enough to know what you want and pick it out without insisting that someone else’s perception of what they should want should be skewed by your perception of what they should want?
Only if they insisted that such offerings be marked as somehow unsuitable in their eyes. In my case, I couldn’t care less if someone wanted to offer a car like that. I feel no need to insist it carry a big warning “Not an actual model of anything real.” Why? Because if you do know what’s on your prototype, then case closed…unless you really want to interchange with the PC[(-D]
To me an informed purchase is one based on my educating myself about my needs. When you count on a third party to do that in the real world, results can be highly variable. Think of all the drug advertising we see, then a few yaars later the lawsuits come for all the people who persuaded their doc that’s just what they need and ended up the victim of unanticipated side effects.
Fortunately, taking two boxcars and see me in the morning doesn’t have any real adverse effects except on one’s pocket book.
I suspect where we’re talking past each other is in the idea that you’re either a prototype modeler or you’re something else, maybe a fantasy modeler? But that is rarely so clearcut, mostly it’s shades of gray in between. For all the stock put into the idea that we are hard and fast prototype modelers, I’ve yet to see any layout depict a RR exactly as it was. The compromises are legion in almost ever model held in high regard by prototype modelers, if you really look at them. It’s a different set of standards, but as I mentioned above, it’s still about good enough even for those with such aspirations.
In my own case, as with yours, it’s the Rio Grande that interests me. Now I understand that some don’t want anything they feel is not documentable to the DRGW in the exact time and plave they chosen to model on their layout. That would bother t
ALL of the WC Evans cars are secondhand and repaints. The modern WC was formed around 1986-87, and these are late '60s cars. ex-USLX.
It is possible that the minor variations between this model and the prototype photo are an artwork error; it’s also possible that this actually represents minor variations in the prototype repaints (the model and proto shot are different car nos.).
I believe that we have switched far off the main from the original comments to the OP’s initial post. What he said was:
The postings following that addressed the possible non-fidelity to prototype. Certainly those comments should not be viewed as criticising, bashing, or anything else. If the OP had posted in the Prototype Information for the Modeler forum and asked “I have an Evans car lettered Conrail numbered 123456 and would like to know if it is prototypical”. If someone answered that it was not prototypical would we even be having this discussion?
But really bothers me is the use of the elitist word. No, I don’t have a thin skin. I just find it unjustified and somewhat insulting to be called that (or a rivet counter) just because I happen to like prototypical accuracy in one very specific area of the hobby.
And regardless of what anyone else believes, I do not have the time nor the resources to research every little thing. So if the manufacturer would indicate that a particular item is a foobe, that helps me out immensely.
Fortunately most people cant tell the difference between one box car and another when they are moving around a club layout at a train show. For $16.19 +tax, not really expecting an exact carbon copy of the original in HO scale. I was pleasently suprised when I found that the road numbers for these 2 cars were actually 50ft box cars. I noticed the door type deficiency, and stopped caring there. Why, because I paid the before mentioned price for each car. If I wanted an exact replica, I would have purchased (and probably will purchase at least one rivet counter).
They do infact tell you that their kit classics and possibly even their operator series contain fantasy cars. Watch their video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rCRGo46TZk starting at 1:20 seconds they describe their product lines.
“When road name and road number specific details matter, Rivet Counter Models from ScaleTrains.com set high standards for real world fidelity”
From that we can extrapolate a “red F” for their other 2 lines.
What I was wondering was if there were some more Spartan paint jobs on these cars after WC did the initial ones that retained most of the Evans door markings and so on. I didn’t find any, but didn’t look many places either. Too late for my era either way.
EDIT Another look through the Scale Trains site indicates they’re leaving off most of the small markings, like the arrows, door dimensions, and so on, from all of the kits. When Atlas did their initial version of this same car, with the cast-on ladders, they included most of the small lettering.