I am thinking that you're not a true model railroading hobbyist unless you scratchbuild all your locomotives & rolling stock, including winding your own motors and turning your own wheelsets from raw bar-stock, growing the trees you'll harvest for the timber to construct your benchwork, dig up your own iron ore to forge the nails you'll need to hold it all together, design and build your own DCC-compatible throttle system and decoders, and grow your own lichen for trees. Anything less is just a store-bought fancy in my opinion and it really pains me to see all the press the ready-to-run off-the-shelf stuff gets in the hobby press. MRR should just stick to the fundamentals.
Wow, great discussion! It did get a little out of hand sometimes, with a little too much sarcasm and perhaps name-calling, but all in all, quite interesting to read. Since I don't have the magazine here at work, I will base what I am about to say on my increasingly bad memory and some statements on the articles content in this thread.
I am assuming that the owner of the layout designed most of it and built some, but not the majority of the structures. (Yes, I do know what happens when you "assume", but I'm tired and the shift isn't over for another 6 hours, so let me go)
I liked the article, but will admit to some disappointment when I read that a custom builder built it. It would have been better to have more information from the builder's side of things, as has already been suggested.
I hope that if the owner of the layout saw this thread, he took no offense. He committed no crime and should not be chastised for his choices. We all know a layout is never really finished, and if he did some work on it, no doubt he will do more as time allows. I am glad he shared his layout with us
There were a lot of attempts to make analogies to our hobby. Home building and custom cars are two that come to mind. I think they are all wrong. Our hobby is unique. There are just too many variations to Model Railroading. There are "modellers" who like to build everything and "collectors" who are happy to get what the factory made. There are "operators" who like to duplicate the way railroads actually worked and "runners" who simply like to run the trains over the layout. There are "proto-realists" who want to get all the details correct for a specific place and time on a particular railroad, and then there are the "Toy Train" people who are quite happy having a car with a giraffe sticking it's head out the top and can get into long discussions on the intracasies of getting a milk car to deliver or pickup those milk cans. I am sure you all can come up with a few more classes, but the truth is, most of us are somewhere in between all of them. One guy likes to scratch build his structures, but prefers to buy his locomotives factory painted. Another guy is serious about operations, but has a dinosaur on his layout. ;)
The great thing about our hobby is that there is room for everybody.
jwhitten wrote: I am thinking that you're not a true model railroading hobbyist unless you scratchbuild all your locomotives & rolling stock, including winding your own motors and turning your own wheelsets from raw bar-stock, growing the trees you'll harvest for the timber to construct your benchwork, dig up your own iron ore to forge the nails you'll need to hold it all together, design and build your own DCC-compatible throttle system and decoders, and grow your own lichen for trees. Anything less is just a store-bought fancy in my opinion and it really pains me to see all the press the ready-to-run off-the-shelf stuff gets in the hobby press. MRR should just stick to the fundamentals.
Here's the plan. Go out to the woods, cut down a tree. Use it for everything from benchwork, ties structures and rolling stock. Find a copper mine. Process the ore, make your own wires. Drill for oil. Use the oil to produce plastics to insulate the wires you make. Repeat this going back to the raw materials for everything in the hobby. Oh come on....you can do it....
Now back to reality. Yes, there are scratch builders that make their own wheelsets in their home shop. I suppose mostly in G scale and or live steam guys, but scratch building is your thing. I admire your skill and dedication to your hobby. I wanna run some trains, sooner rather than later. That would be my hobby. So if anyone wants to count my rivets for me...don't expect me to add or remove any. A model railroad is a model railroad. Matters not who built it. Stories in MR are about different things beneath the showing off of the completed work. Some are about scenic design, some stress ops, others structures. President Mouse's proposal is a good one(not to be kissing up to a candidate from space)get it built and have it running, then make it look good. Still, having only space and time and virtually no budget, there's the construction philosophy for my layout. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to cast some new dies for my wire extrusion shop. Do you know how hard it is to build all my tools from scratch?
Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I wanted to pass along that I've had a profound change of heart on this subject.
I still wish MR would focus more on the contract layout planning/construction/installation process than the finished product.
But my original argument that having a layout "custom built" for someone "cheapens" what the rest of us do is, the more I think about it, nonsense. I've always, always felt that custom model railroad builders, for the most part, are dedicated, skilled model railroaders who have found a way to make money doing what they love. The target of my argument was their customers.
But I realized, especially now that my layout has been crated for sometime awaiting a move, that everyone, no matter what their skill level and spare time allotment, deserves the chance at a well-constructed, well-detailed, and well-operating layout. Should they have the money to "buy" one off the shelf, and they don't mind the diminished sense of ownership that may (or may not) go with that, then they should be allowed to do so without guys like me accusing them of not being "real" model railroaders.
When I've been invited to operate a layout, I really don't end up caring who built it. If it looks and operates well, it's fun no matter what. Now, I will always build my own layouts unless a handicap prevents it, because I get the most fun from building. But not everyone is comfortable building. Even the most dedicated model railroader with plenty of time to build one may not have the talent or skill to achieve his dreams... should he be denied a decent layout? I used to think "yes..." But the more I read about the custom model railroad business online, the more I realize that there's NO reason a person with a shaky skill set should have to live with a poorly constructed layout when there are excellent craftsmen available to build one for him or her. These custom layout guys are part of the hobby industry, and so it helps everyone when we can inject money into that system. After all, these custom builders are buying large amounts of MR products from scenery to track to structures to trains, on a scale much larger than you or I.
Some people just may not find construction fun. I get that now. I do, and that's why I would probably enjoy being a custom builder.
So with foot planted firmly in mouth, I wanted to apologize to anyone offended by my previous arguments in this thread... As much as I have always respectd the custom builders, I want to now extend my respect and acceptance to the custom layout buyers. How they choose to enjoy the hobby is immaterial; that they're enjoying it is the key.
Happy model railroading!
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
Dave:
It takes a big man ...
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Dave,I admire your open-mindedness on this topic. I see it as a question of what do I want/need from a magazine? For me, model railroading is a construction hobby, so I enjoy articles that relate to construction. As Model Railroader has chosen to focus more on RTR and now includes RTR layouts in its features, I find myself looking forward to the next issue less and less. That's just me. I'm sure there are some among us who are thrilled to see articles like this one. For them, I'm glad Model Railroader is there to serve their interests. My subscription ends with the August issue; as a consumer, I plan to exercise my prerogative to not renew. If they ask me the reason, I'll tell them. I really doubt that they care about modelers like me, and that's OK - it's their prerogative.
Sometimes I get the sense that many of us see Model Railroader as the showcase where the real model railroaders are anointed with some sort of higher status. To see a feature in which that status is placed on someone who just wrote out a check would run against my grain. However, I don't see it that way: Model Railroader is not the hobby's hall of fame. Model Railroader is in the business of selling advertising space, so they publish a magazine that they feel will get high circulation numbers because that helps to sell advertising space. My guess is that if their research showed tha a swimsuit edition would increase circulation, we'd see one of those, too. I recommend that we all regard Model Railroader for what it is - a business whose primary interest is profits. It is no different from any other business. As such, they are entitled to make their product the way they feel is best, and we should only buy it when we feel it serves our individual interests.
I feel a little sad about my decision, because I feel a sense of loyalty to the Model Railroader brand. Yet, it makes no sense to keep buying something just out of loyalty - for my hobby dollar, it has to do me some good. The $40 that I would have spent on the magazine will do me a lot more good on eBay - It will probably buy me at least one vintage craftsman kit.
Phil, I'm not a rocket scientist; they are my students.
Actually MRP ran an article on a commercially designed layout a couple years ago. It was designed by John Armstrong. Athabaska?
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusman wrote:Actually MRP ran an article on a commercially designed layout a couple years ago. It was designed by John Armstrong. Athabaska?
Yup. Article contained quite a bit about how the owner had communciated with John Armstrong during the planning process.
Stein
steinjr wrote: dehusman wrote: Actually MRP ran an article on a commercially designed layout a couple years ago. It was designed by John Armstrong. Athabaska? Yup. Article contained quite a bit about how the owner had communciated with John Armstrong during the planning process. Stein
dehusman wrote: Actually MRP ran an article on a commercially designed layout a couple years ago. It was designed by John Armstrong. Athabaska?
I don't mind articles about layouts built by professionals, though I do admit that I feel a little let-down when I read that the owner didn't do the work himself. No, I'm not saying he HAS to do it all himself, but I'm more impressed by people who learn the skills and apply them than the ones who open their wallet.
I don't understand this argument.
Some people like to play with the trains and have no interest in trying to see who can build the most realistic miniature world. There must be a lot of those people because train simulation software is popular.
Some people enjoy building the layout and showing off the product of their labor, and have little interest in actually running the trains. Some of them build dioramas, where actually running the trains, as opposed to displaying the trains, is not even possible.
Some people enjoy both.
Is there not room in the hobby, and the magazine for all of us?
I enjoy articles about a commercially built layout as long as the article is about the construction of the layout, not about the guy who financed it.
Actually my only real complaint about the article is I wish they had gone into more detail about the cost(s) of the layout. That's probably not something that is widespread knowledge since most people build their own, and it would probably be an interesting/useful detail.
For myself personally, it wouldn't matter (much) to me if someone else built it, as long as it was what *I* wanted, worked well and I could run trains and customize it-- and if someone else paid for it... :)
My guess is that if their research showed tha a swimsuit edition would increase circulation, we'd see one of those, too.
My guess is that they have not actually done that research or else there would be one already.
jwhitten wrote:My guess is that if their research showed tha a swimsuit edition would increase circulation, we'd see one of those, too.My guess is that they have not actually done that research or else there would be one already.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how anxious I am to see John Allen in his swim suit...
Perhaps a single page in each issue titled "Train spotter of the Month".
She could also do Cody's segment on the website.
jwhitten wrote: My guess is that if their research showed tha a swimsuit edition would increase circulation, we'd see one of those, too.My guess is that they have not actually done that research or else there would be one already.
Actually they already did that. You can occaisionally see a few shots from the effort in some older books.
Back in the 1970's they had several shots with women in bib overall shorts and engineer caps posing in pictures. Probably the most reproduced one has two women on top aof a boxcar with what looks to be a huge thumbtack marked for car forwarding (that dates it back to when tack/tag on car systems were much more common). It didn't go over well and so was quietly side tracked.
About the only "R" rated stuff has been a few double entendre's in ads ("Give your wife a Climax for Christmas", "I want to be your tool lady").
One of the funniest model railroading cartoons I ever saw was in Playboy. A guy dressed like an engineer is busy at a control panel running his layout. His wife is standing behind him au naturel and he says "Not now Martha, I have a railroad to run!". A man's got to have his priorities.
dehusman wrote: "I want to be your tool lady."
Midnight Railroader wrote: dehusman wrote: "I want to be your tool lady." Ah, yes, Patty. Whatever happened to her?
Wasn't that Pam Anderson's gig before she went on to Baywatch?
'Way back when, there were some, 'Right on the borderline,' bits in MRR. However, the somewhat negative reviews given to the aforementioned bib overall photos ["I don't want my teenage son seeing this!" (at a time when his high school classmates were wearing tube tops over skin...)] caused the editorial staff to swing all the way to the extreme end of the scale. Any females in MRR are going to be wearing street clothes, business suits or burqa.
Going clear back to the original subject, I have noticed that, with the exception of in-house project railroads, there are very few layout articles that include under-construction and unfinished-work photos. The only exceptions are those which are introducing new concepts for benchwork.
Of course, if I want to see half-finished benchwork and unballasted track, all I have to do is go into my garage...
By the way, Dave - well done, sir.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)