This question is self-explanatory. Clearly, some of us are quite content to run what we pick out of the box, while others pick up the item, gingerly, with face averted, between the thumb and forefinger…like it was contaminated or something… and set about altering it, chopping it, adding to it, painting it, and so on, until it is “just right.”
What gives? What is everyone “looking for?” Scale for scale, how far do you go?
-Crandell
I used to not care about detail- if it had the correct number of wheels it was good enough for me. However, after seeing many layouts in MR and GMR I have decided to focus on detail more than I do now. Athearn B-B detail is no longer “good enough” for me. But I do plan to super detail my B-Bs someday. What really made me want detail is when I got my new Atlas GP40 a few weeks ago. It has so much detail! Now I want all my locos to have that kind of detail.
In striving to make my layout more realisitc, I require more detail. I want a realisitc layout. Someday I WILL get a layout of mine in GMR. No, not the layout I have now, but next time I’m going for more detail. And that’s not the only reason I want a realistic layout. I just do.
Prototype accuracy is very important to me. sure there are exceptions (I’m runing a U33C in 2006 that was scrapped by IC in 1984) but I want a good representation of the prototype I’m modeling.
I model largely what I see. On GN’s covered wagons, for example, the railroad
added detail to the roofs in the form of relocated air horns, unique winterization
hatches, a boxy carbody filter (on some passenger units), visible aftercooler
piping, occasionally a roof-mounted bell and changed out at random the
radiator fans-so that any given F-unit might have both low and high fans
simultaneously. I enjoy the challenge afforded me by having to fabricate some
of these details from scratch and “the GN look” is unique and something I
wi***o capture. I guess I go pretty far, but that is the part of the hobby I enjoy
most.
I will invest many hours, if not days, of research to get just one passenger car right. One of the main reasons for this is that we are military and I live in base housing without a layout, so I have the time to do it. Plus I just enjoy the heck out of it!!
I enjoy the ‘modeling’ aspect more than the ‘railroad’ aspect of model railroading. So I will keep adding detail as long as enjoy it.
Right now I am just getting this layout going so I am not spending a lot of time on details. Once I get more in place and looking pretty good I will spend a lot more time detailing. I’m not a rivet counter by any means. I just enjoy building, modifying, painting, weathering etc…
As for attention to prototype detail…forget it. I know nothing about prototype and care even less! [8D]
I haven’t started detailing engines yet. I’ve head plenty to do just getting my layout working. Of course, I’ve spent a little time detailing a few buildings, wagons, and figures,
Two things: first, I like to model and work with my hands. Moving models like trains are great, but I generally spend more time working on superdetailing a kit or scratchbuilding a structure than I do on watching the trains roll. Secondly, I’m a history nut. I’d love to time travel, but that’s an impossibility. Instead, I recreate history in miniature through my modeling. If it’s not correct for the time period I’m modeling, it’s not right, and my efforts have failed.
I think it’s that drive for excellence that makes me want everything as prototype as possible…anyone can plop a car out of the box, hang a couple of kadee couplers on it and run it on the railroad…i guess its the love of the hobby and trains in general to get it right…i want the cars and locomotives to look exactly like the photos of the real thing…I even read rule books, railfan, study route maps, and do research on any given piece of equipment…yes, a drive to make the model look as close to the real thing as possible is the drive behind attention to detail…chuck
Fellas, I will admit that I was puzzled by this drive to get as much “right”, or “correct”, as some of you were responding to, but I think my time in the hobby has given me a deeper appreciation, learning if you will, for the details. This is not profound; it is merely the evolution that most of you have undertaken…surely. After running trains for a while, you begin to notice things…out of place, missing entirely, misshapen, out of scale, the wrong colour or shade, and so on.
Lately, I have spent a fair bit of time on Richard Leonard’s super-duper site with all of its archival photos and links. Go to his Steam Archives, and on the right, scroll down to the blue link that says “Links to other related sites”, and then scroll down to the bottom link about “virtual railroad steam roster.” Aside from being a gold mine, the details in the photos drive home the urge to start tweeking what I have for my own roster. My BLi Hudson is a very nice model, but it could sure use some time and material to get it to the point where onlookers can’t get over it. First, I need to get it to the point where I am amazed, and the rest will follow.
Sorry, I’m just rambling here…
Okay, now yer just embarrasin’ me…[B)][:o)]
In a word, photographs. People’s pikes can look Ok in person but take and examine a photograph and all the faults come out. So attention to details will keep one from being embarrassed by a photo of a model.
Personally most of what you all refer to as details dont really bother me, ie rolling stock details, I dont know if an SD45 should have one horn or two, or what colour its ditchlights should be or if in fact it has these items at all. Although I will be weathering my rollingstock, I guess you can call that a detail.
I do however know what a tree looks like, or rocks, water and so on which is why I strive to get a degree of realism into my scenery work. I also enjoy detailing scenes and putting small details there that arent noticed initially but draw the viewer into the scene subconsciously for the overall effect.
Hopefully I will achieve a small degree of realism on my new layout (due to be started any time now as per the stack of benchwork lumber in one of the spare bedrooms). I suppose I should really come up with a trackplan… another minor detail.
Hmmmm what was the qusetion again… oh… the thing that drives me is the gasps of wonderment and admiration from onlookers… [:D] (I wish)
Also as Zepher says photo’s… playing by the “two-foot-rule” is OK untill you take a 7megapixel digipic from 6 inches away and see it full screen.
Have fun and be safe,
Karl.
GREAT TOPIC selector! I’m very anal about detail. Probably too much for my budget.
If I could ever have a pic published in MR, my life would complete. I feel detail; should start at the track level and move up from there.I drool over the trackside photo section every month and take notes and say WOW!, I want to do work like that! I know I’ll never earn the rank of Master Modeler, but it’s fun to dream…
Actually, that drive is bi-directional:
Toward - The desire to have a model that is as accurate a representation of its prototype as detailed drawings, photographs and my (admittedly limited) skills can make it. This is especially true if the prototype has some sentimental connection.
Away - The desire to have an operational layout that is a reasonably accurate representation of a transportation system, plus the finite number of minutes in an hour, hours in a day and days in a year.
Simply - I would rather build enough reasonable - looking cars to make up a couple of freights than spend the same amount of time putting flimsies and coffee stains on the conductor’s desk of one museum-quality caboose.
I was going to say posting photos here, but I realize that is just plain vain–except it’s true.
Easy to answer the headline question… insanity… speaking for myself.
I tend to worry more about the details of my steam locos and steam era rolling stock than anything else I have. I want it all to look as correct as possible.
TL
I use old train photos that I have taken, from books or Internet to help model the right-of-way details. Looking for those ROW details within a photo really helps getting it right.
First off I like details just as much as anyone else! But (always remember that anything before the work BUT is a lie!) when the car or engine hits the floor all of those extra crispies will just disappear and also when the OPs crew come over it seems that even more of them fall off the equipment.
Now my layout is built for OPs and this is all we do. We don’t stand around and OOH and Ah each and every detail on the cars or engines. If we NEED to do this then put them on a shelf under a glass case and keep them there as this is the last time all of the details will be there!
Now having them right for the time period is OK but I don’t want to spend my life trying to make everything exact. I love OPs and switching more than IS this car correct for my layout. I am too busy trying to get the interchange track cleared out as the next local is due any minute and the Dispatcher is breathing down my back as I STILL don’t have the main line cleared!
Just a few thoughts from having been in that situation last Thursday night!
BOB H – Clarion, PA
Me, I think every kit has the potential to be better. Back in the sixties, guys like John Allen, Paul Jansen(Jensen), Paul Larsen,they built extremely detailed models that when in print made you wonder if it was a model or not? When you’re trackside,stop and notice all the different things that come into view,weeds, ballast profiles, line poles, wires,etc, you’ll see what I mean.I want to represent that on my models.