I watch a lot of model railroad videos on you tube. I have observed a difference between the. European layouts are always neat and clean while American layouts seem to model everything. As an example, an American layout will have "model garbage" strewen around , like old train parts lying around in a railroad yard and old rails on the ground. European layouts appear to not model "garbage". They don't use "aging" like on American layouts. Have you observed like?
In the real world european country side is much cleaner than the US.
Martyn Welch was English, and his "The Art of Weathering" is (IMHO) the book on how to age and weather engines, cars, buildings, etc. British and Europeans certainly do age things, it's not all squeaky clean.
As far as just junk piles and stuff like that, I think rrebel is correct that on the Continent, things are kept cleaner/neater along the rail right-of-ways, yards etc. I believe Europeans did recycling and had strict environmental laws before we did.
One could also argue that there's a cultural difference. I think Europeans tend to think more about how things affect other people; I think we tend more towards 'doing our own thing' and not worrying so much about how it affects our neighbors or communities.
Hello All,
After traveling through the former Eastern Germany by train my observations of the prototypical have been different.
The detritus alongside the rails is significant. The accumulation might be better "organized" but it is there nonetheless.
Perhaps European modelers wish to convey a sense of "what if" rather than the "what is" that North American modelers strive to replicate.
On our most recent trip to The Continent, traveling by train the entire time, what struck me, in particular, was the "infrastructure" along the sides of the urban sections.
Cables and piping were hung with abandoned along the walls rights-of-way with metal brackets and other means of suspension.
Yes, they were functional, aesthetic...No.
In European modeling, I don't see this aspect of the prototypical represented in their vignettes, whereas with North American modeling I see, "...the warts and all."
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
In N. America the rails constitute an industrial complex. I think it's treated more like part of the roadway in EU, and the look reflects it. Here, we see personalized artwork everywhere, not just on the rails and adjacent buildings, but on post office boxes, building walls...the streets seem to be more of a bedroom in N. America with the week's trash, pizza boxes, and clothing discarded wherever it happens to fall. EU doesn't exhibit this phenomenon quite so much...some, but nothing that gets in one's face. Also, with the comparatively smallers spaces afforded to layout/back board builders in EU, they pay more attention to the details of the countryside through which the train passes and less to the clutter of everyday life.
Remember, this is a generalization. The overlap in the Venn Diagramme is huge.
And then there's Everad Junction, the owner of which (can't recall his name although it was mentioned a few times) has no compuction about strewning litter about his urban areas, adding graffiti, modeling things like shopping trolleys dumped into the canal, heavily weathered locos and wagons, piles of junk, sloppily replaced cable covers and patched high streets, and so on. You say 'but thats the UK' (specifically BR c. 1990), but hey, the UK was in the EU at the time...
Richard Warren has a model Everard Junction.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
There's just as much trash, semi abandoned infrastructure, homeless encampments, graffiti, and general filth pulling into Paris, Rome, and London as there is in Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington.
One or two are deviating from the OPs post. He is talking about the difference between American and European Model Railroading.
He is saying that European modeling is cleaner than American railroad modeling. European modelers do not age/weather their models whereas American modelers tend to do.
Generally speaking, I find that modelers in Mainland Europe (France, Germany and Italy) tend not to age/weather their models. Keeping them in a pristine condition is a must.
In Britain weathering models is more prevalent. Having lighting on the scenery is becoming a must have. The trouble I find with a number of British layouts is a modeler goes to great lengths to weather a locomotive, yet the scenery is a pristine condition. The lighting is too bright. Modelers forget that gas lighting is not in your face bright.
As for American layouts; the ones I have seen are more true to the area modeled.
In many (if not most) cases, both in America and Europe, modelers do not not model what they see, but what they thought they saw.
The sky is very rarely blue. The grass is fifty shades of green. Sunlight on a scene plays wonderful tricks. Buildings are not all perfect. People do strange things. They stop as they leave a store, so those behind cannot leave. Is the man repairing his car or is he just servicing it?
Simple scenes make a picture.
I can attest that real-life European ralways are just as dingy as real-life American and Canadian railways. :) However, I do think the attitude towards maintenance (of the real trains, at least). In the Krauss-Maffei book, it was mentioned that the Europeans are big on routine maintenance while the Americans have a run-it-till-it-breaks mentality. So you do see somewhat cleaner rolling stock. As for the layouts... perhaps European modelers are more intent on creating an ideal world than we are. :)
There are a number of factors at play that contribute to the difference in the appearance and mindset of European vs. American railroads. First, most European railroads were state run. Thus, as an arm of the government, the focus on making a profit, as in the U.S., was not there. Instead of private enterprises, the government run railroads, especially post WWII, were part of the national recovery, especially on the continent. To provide employment, larger workforces than actually required for the operations were maintained. A lot of this workforce was not technologically adept. There was a lot of pick-and-shovel work, and paint-and-spruce work done, that a U.S. railroad worried about an operating ratio would never dream of. Therefore things almost unheard of in America were common place. To keep this larger workforce activelly, vs. "gainfully" employed was the governmental mindset. This resulted in station gardens and flowerbeds in Europe, among other things one very rarely saw in the U.S.
The other major factor to be considered was the fact that by 1960, World War Two had only been over 15 years. After the devastation caused by the war, much of Europe had to be rebuilt from the ground, up. This is especially true of the countries that formed some of the major battlefields. To facilitate rebuilding, what was destroyed had to be cleared away for the recovery effort. A large segment of the European rail scene was still relatively new in 1960. When things are new, more care is given to their appearance and upkeep. When the workforce is employed by the state, this is possible. Europeans wanted to rebuild, and put the war years behind them, and move ahead. American railroads had been run ragged and that which would have normally have been retired/scrapped, was kept on long past the end of the end of its normal service life. With a fresh start beginning in 1945, Europe was cleaner, newer and neater. This was true of all combatants, not just in Europe, look at Japanese National Railways in 1965, with their Shinkansen bullet trains. People tend to model what they know, and show national pride, in their modeling.
Because most Europeans did not have as much discretionary income for models, as those in North America, their models were nearer to their hearts. Thus, they were more loathe to replicate that which was viewed as imperfect. As property of the state, the railways were viewed by the people as theirs and, they wanted them taken care of. Not weathered and cluttered, as a privately held enterprise whose primary concern was the bottom line, would be.
One more factor to be considered is, European railways are much smaller than American railroads. Lay a map of the Pennsylvania or, Southern Pacific over a map of Europe if you want a shock. As state run operations, their territory only existed within their national boundaries. Once outside of their state, although the track gauge might be the same, it was truly "foreign" territory. These smaller operations were not profit driven and, much easier to oversee and maintain. This is what the European modeler saw, and sought to emulate.
Mention is made of the railways of Great Britain. When I lived there in the late 1980s, their Class 37 diesel was still a major player, at more than 30 years old. Steam had finally been eliminated on BR in the mid 1960s, and with the government holding the purse strings, the Class 37s are still in daily mainline service. Where are the F-7s, Alcos, Baldwins, and other American steam killers?
These are some of the reasons I don't see a lot of the negatives we take for granted, modeled in Europe.
One thing I notice (and of course these are generalizations) is that European layouts seem rather (to our eyes) extreme in their exacting adoption and use of the geometry of their sectional track, such as Maerklin's. Sidings relentlessly parallel to the main, multi-track mainline curves exactly concentric and even in radius, that sort of thing. If you remember the old Kalmbach book on trackplans for sectional track, that is the sort of look I see on many European layouts, or at least those that follow European prototypes. Maybe what I really am talking about is Germans with their Maerklin layouts rather than Europeans which of course covers way more territory.
The British by contrast seem to love capturing the smooth flow of track with easement curves, so you don't see that rigid regularity quite so much. I see a difference between European and British layouts in the track if nothing else. But the (prototype) right of way in England was very carefully engineered, more carefully it seems than some American routes which meandered more to avoid obstacles. Our model track laying seem also to meander a bit more as a consequence.
Dave Nelson