Looking thru an old thread 'Lost Layouts' a number of them were listed.
I then began to think 'what made them memorable'?
The ones I remember here in the UK all have a recurring theme.
Reverend Peter Danny's Buckingham Great Central is firmly stuck in a week in 1907. Nothing was on his layout after that time.
David Jenkinson's layouts on the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) were set at a particular time in the early 1930s around North West Yorkshire and Westmoreland. Yet he would run a train of 1938 carriages and locomotive.
Derek Naylor's Aire Valley Railway. A charming narrow gauge layout set in the Aire Valley North West of Leeds, Yorkshire. A layout full of scenes wonderfully crafted to a whole.
P.D. Hancock's Craig & Mertonford Railway. Another narrow gauge layout set in a mythical county of Craigshire, East of Edinburgh.
John Ahern's Madder Valley Railway a ficticious narrow gauge layout built in the 1930s.
All these layouts are different to others. They have a charm of their own. Layouts that can (and do) draw the spectator into the little world they are in. Layouts that have wonderful scenery, wonderful locomotives and rolling stock. Layouts that have stood the test of time. Most have gone now as their owners have passed, yet every so often an article in a magazine will appear of one of them and memories flood back.
What makes them so special. There are hundreds, thousands of layouts all well made with lovely scenery, and trains. They do not stand out like those I have mentioned above.
All I have mentioned have a reason to be where they are. Trains run for a reason. Trains run thru a typical landscape. Landscape that was there before the railway. The little people have a reason to be there even as if the railway was not there. They are are 'alive' even when a train is not there.
What makes old layouts memorable to you?
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
I think the "old layouts" that we remember have to do with information or the lack thereof. Before the internet and videos/DVDs etc., the only way to see the layout of John Allen or Frank Ellison was through photos in MR or RMC. They were generally made in such a way to make the photo look like a photo of a real railroad, without benchwork or other distractions. Your mind kinda filled in the rest, imagined what the layout was like.
Layouts are the vision and creative expressions of the builder so comparing them is difficult. I've visited some outstanding layouts in my 71 years. Bill MClannahan's T&RGW, Bud Sima's PURR, Bill Vivian's C&O, Gil Freitag's Stony Creek & Western, Cliff Robinson's MUT, Larry Redmonds PRR and many others. All were beautiful layouts and ran well. So much craftsmanship went into building these older layouts when one usually had little available to use.
I think the thing that made them most memorable to me was the men who were kind enough to allow me to visit and pick their brains. They were always gracious hosts and willing to share ideas and skills. Those guys were very special and true craftsmen.
oldline1
David, the old layouts that are memorable to me are those that appeared in the few books I had when I was a kid in the 1970s (Bill MClannahan's and many others). I would look at these pictures for hours, literally. Before the age of the Internet, pictures were rare, for me anyway. So I focussed on the few I had. With the abundant sources of pictures on the 'net today, I would have a tough time pointing to one or two in particular. There is a lot of talent out there!
Simon
Sometimimes it is just a photograph that can make an old layout memorable. A black and white vertical format photo that appeared in an old MR of the yard on Whit Towers' Alturas & Lone Pine has been reprinted often in books and articles because it is just so incredibly railroady looking. Andy Sperandeo in particular regarded it as a masterpiece of yard design.
More recently a particular photo of Lance Mindheim's N scale Monon layout featured a meandering creek that just sets the entire scene with incredible realism - a place you'd love to be, watching trains.
Dave Nelson
I think immediately of the Franklin and South Manchester layout of George Selios. I had the good fortune to see the layout some years ago. It's a true masterpiece of Depression-era modelling.
What impressed me the most was the density of scenery and detail. It all fit together. The urban scenes flowed into the forests flawlessly and vice versa. Everything just belonged together. The trains and the scenery are together, part of a whole, and nothing dominates anything else.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Artistry and craftsmanship. I just had a chance to visit the model railroading exhibit at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, and if you get an opportunity to go, you can see a complete railroad from the 1970s (Malcolm Furlow's San Juan Central) and a section of Irv Schultz's St. Clair Northern, which was featured in MR in the 1970s. A fleet of Mr. Schultz's outstanding turn-of-the-century models is also on display, and worth seeing in its own right. Furlow's layout is complete - it was a small project layout, but it gives you a sense of how he captured the look and feel of Colorado in a comparatively tiny space.
http://mprailway.blogspot.com
"The first transition era - wood to steel!"
MidlandPacific I just had a chance to visit the model railroading exhibit at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, and if you get an opportunity to go, you can see a complete railroad from the 1970s (Malcolm Furlow's San Juan Central)
I thought the San Juan Central was on display in a museum in San Diego.
Has it moved?
I did not see it when I visited the railroad museum in Sacramento in 2019.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
dknelsonSometimimes it is just a photograph that can make an old layout memorable.
That made me think of the series on Rock'n'Roll photographers playing on PBS now. They talk about how one photo can become iconic for that person, or even for that type of music in general.
Ersel Hickey was essentially a 'one hit wonder' back in the 1950's, yet a famous photo of him and his hollow body electric guitar is still around today, often used in ads for old-time Rock / Rockabilly music shows.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ersel_Hickey
For those of you with art backgrounds and a finished layout is a type of art, you know that art is all about self promotion and sometimes it is used to promote something else. John Allen was into photography, his model railroading promoted that at first and then of course the MRR bug got him. George Sellios of FSM fame was a kit promoter, think he had the bug before though. Malculm Furlow was a photographer first. For many artists, art moves around from one medium to the next.
Yes- it's in Sacramento now, up on the third floor. Here are some photos of the exhibit. It's well worth the trip:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/192373853@N06/sets/72157718547893733/
MidlandPacificYes- it's in Sacramento now, up on the third floor
Well, looks like I am going to need to get back to Sacramento in the future.
Didn't know the Sac thing had progress, they had so many issues at first, now a visit seem worthwhile if we are ever allowed to travel again.