I finally gave up on Facebook and Twitter. Seems like most of the messages I got were meant for someone else anyway - a guy with the same first and last name as me, a prominent child psychologist in the D.C. area. Oddly enough when he was a grad student I was an undergrad at the same university at the same time.
SeeYou190I just cannot do Facebook.
I was like that for years until I was told about three model railroad groups that I might be interested in, prototype operation, shelf layouts(lots of switching layouts) and Freelance..
Since these are private sigs I join all three groups.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
BRAKIEOn Facebook there is a freelance railroad group
I just cannot do Facebook.
I have a page that my wife maintains, but I have only logged onto it a handful of times. The last time was in the Summer of 2016. I guess I do not care about it at all.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Kevin, On Facebook there is a freelance railroad group that has 3.6 K members.
Didn't know NMRA had a private road SIG.
Does anyone know any data on the NMRA Private Roadname Special Interest Group (SIG)?
When was it formed, peak membership, and when it stopped?
SeeYou190I am pretty sure I would not be a freelance modeller with today's availablility of products.
Kevin, While I have NS,CSX and CR locomotives my main interest is Summerset Ry then SCR. I have been freelancing railroads for 50 years and probably 10 years of prototype well, more like protolancing then modeling a given area..My SCL locomotives is all that is left from my 78/79 modeling.
If I was returning to the hobby even with today's prototypical correct cars and locomotives I would still choose to freelance and that would more then likely be a terminal switching road like SSRy or SCR. I have always been a sucker for shortlines and terminal switching roads.
SeeYou190...I am pretty sure I would not be a freelance modeller with today's availablility of products....
Bowser, Tangent, Exactrail and Rapido all offer undecorated kits or undecorated r-t-r, and Bachmann offers undecorated steam locomotives. That may pretty-much cover the current in-production models of locos and rolling stock, but there still exists an enormous reserve of used or even NiB locomotives and rolling stock, available on-line, at train shows, and in estate auctions, most of those items at very affordable prices.
While I have purchased some new rolling stock and locomotives, I probably have much more used stuff on my layout than new. Much of that older stuff wasn't undecorated, but it was easy to make it undecorated, enjoyable to upgrade it, and enjoyable to paint and letter it, too.
If I had to model only prototype, I'm not sure that I'd even be in the hobby.
Wayne
SeeYou190 I am pretty sure I would not be a freelance modeller with today's availablility of products.
I am pretty sure I would not be a freelance modeller with today's availablility of products.
I'm not sure I would agree with that. In some ways its now easier than ever to be a freelancer. Inkjet printers and widely available decal paper allow any of us to letter our equipment as we choose. As I understand it, in the past freelancer modelers would have to order custom made decals from companies that offered that service. I don't need undecorated equipment because I can undecorate just about any piece of equipment I want with a can of spray paint, then decal it as I see fit. I did that recently with a pair of NYC Jade Green boxcars which I discovered weren't appropriate for my time frame. Since my layout is fictional, I could have rewritten history and said that livery appeared in 1956 but instead I just painted them boxcar read and am decaling them for my fictional home road. I am also coverting a set of Nickel Plate two bay hoppers with unique numbers for my home road. All I have to do is paint over the roadname and reporting marks with some flat black paint, slap my homemade decals on them and I have the coal hoppers I need to service the coaling tower at my main engine terminal. I've painted over locos as well.
I went back to your OP and reread your four requirements for being a freelancer:
1) Custom decals or lettering.
2) Undecorated models.
3) Appropriate paint.
4) An open mind towards fantasy.
I've discussed 1 and 2. As for appropriate paint, the freelancer is free to decide what the appropriate paint is. He doesn't have to match to anything. As for an open mind towards fantasy, I think I have that to some degree although in my case I do have a clear idea of the locale of my railroad and I interchange with real railroads in that area. I'm not specific as you are as far as the time goes. To me it's late summer of 1956. Not sure why I selected that time frame but looking back years after I made that decision, that would have been right before I started kindergarten. That was the last time in my life I was completely carefree with no responsibilities at all.
richhotrain This is an interesting thread in the sense that it tries to categorize layouts based upon the extent to which the modeler adheres to the actual prototype railroads. So, if freelance is another category, side-by side with prototypical and protolance, what about the modeler who builds a layout with complete disregard for prototype and era, who mixes railroads that never ran on the same tracks or even within the same geographic area? I have been referring to those layouts as "freelance", but apparently, that is not how others think about those 'anything goes' layouts. Rich
This is an interesting thread in the sense that it tries to categorize layouts based upon the extent to which the modeler adheres to the actual prototype railroads.
So, if freelance is another category, side-by side with prototypical and protolance, what about the modeler who builds a layout with complete disregard for prototype and era, who mixes railroads that never ran on the same tracks or even within the same geographic area? I have been referring to those layouts as "freelance", but apparently, that is not how others think about those 'anything goes' layouts.
Rich
I think we are all freelancers to some degree. Nobody I know of has built a layout of any size tie-for-tie and rivet-for-rivet. Even selective compression is freelancing to some extent. At the other end of the spectrum is the anything-goes approach which you described. Most of us fall somewhere between those two extremes. We all have different preferences. Some like to model a real railroad as close as possible. That's fine for some but that would be too limiting for me. I don't want to have my choices dictated to me. I strive for plausibility as opposed to realism. IOW, I'm not out to model something that was but something that could have been.
richhotrainThis is an interesting thread in the sense that it tries to categorize layouts based upon the extent to which the modeler adheres to the actual prototype railroads.
That was not my intent when I opened this thread.
But since it went that way... Freelanced railroads, TO ME, are when a significant railroad is just made up, and then modeled. Magnificent examples are the ALLEGHENY MIDLAND (my favorite), MAUMEE, or UTAH BELT. There are countless other fantastic freelanced railroads that have been featured in one-off articles in the model railroad press.
I did not want to discuss all the various morphations that exist in the spectrum between freelance and prototype modeling.
I wanted to discuss what a modeller would need to do different today than what I had to do 35 years ago when I created the STRATTON AND GILLETTE, because it is an entirely different market out there now.
Conversations happen, and topics evolve, and that is OK.
richhotrainWhat about the modeler who builds a layout with complete disregard for prototype and era, who mixes railroads that never ran on the same tracks or even within the same geographic area?
I do not consider that to be freelancing, but anyone should do whatever they want to in order to enjoy their model trains.
I have known many people that ran anything they wanted with no regard to era or location, and that should be encouraged if that brings them happiness.
But that's not even model railroading......
- Douglas
Here in the Mid Atlantic we just call that a "train garden" or "Christmas Garden" as it is a long standing tradition here to set up model train displays for Christmas.
Often such displays make no effort at era or historical context.
Sheldon
How about faux-lance?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Alton Junction
richhotrainIf the selection of cars and locomotives need to be era correct, that sure doesn't seem like freelance to me. It sounds more like a form of protolance. Rich
Rich, Allow me to explain.. One can freely run any era cars he/she chooses that is no means freelancing.
Freelancing is not protolancing.. Freelancing is like the V&O,AM,Utah Belt and the Maumee Route. You invent a railroad following prototype gudelines.
Again let's look at my SSRy or SCR in 94/95. You will look in vain for a 40' boxcar,40' gon or a IPD boxcar. There will be N&W,Southern NS,CSX,CR BN,WC and other roads that fit the era. You will see a C&NW,MP,SP,Soo B&M, AA, D&TSL and Cotton Belt since those cars was still being seen as late as 94/95. Some is still seen today.
Protolancing is when I use one of my CSX,NS or CR units and call Slate Creek by another name. Its generic modeling of a prototype that has no real location..
doctorwayneIf your layout is freelanced, and you've chosen to put it in a particular year or era, shouldn't the cars and locomotives be appropriate for that era, even if none of them represent a real railroad?
YES!
That is why I have chosen such a specific date for my layout. I have a "devil-may-care" attitude about a lot of things, but the date is rigid.
doctorwayne richhotrain If the selection of cars and locomotives need to be era correct, that sure doesn't seem like freelance to me. It sounds more like a form of protolance. They don't have to be era correct, I suppose, but it probably helps to create a better sense of realism, than, f'rinstance, a teakettle steamer shuffling well-cars carrying containers, and auto-racks with a FRED on the last car. If your layout is freelanced, and you've chosen to put it in a particular year or era, shouldn't the cars and locomotives be appropriate for that era, even if none of them represent a real railroad? That said, I model the late '30s, with prototype roadnames and and era-appropriate equipment, but while all of my freelance roads have equipment suitable to the era, too, I have some that are era-appropriate only because my road designed and built them long before the real railroads even realised that such cars could be useful - despite what common sense might dictate, I'm the owner, and I sez that's the way it is!! Wayne
richhotrain If the selection of cars and locomotives need to be era correct, that sure doesn't seem like freelance to me. It sounds more like a form of protolance.
They don't have to be era correct, I suppose, but it probably helps to create a better sense of realism, than, f'rinstance, a teakettle steamer shuffling well-cars carrying containers, and auto-racks with a FRED on the last car.
If your layout is freelanced, and you've chosen to put it in a particular year or era, shouldn't the cars and locomotives be appropriate for that era, even if none of them represent a real railroad?
That said, I model the late '30s, with prototype roadnames and and era-appropriate equipment, but while all of my freelance roads have equipment suitable to the era, too, I have some that are era-appropriate only because my road designed and built them long before the real railroads even realised that such cars could be useful - despite what common sense might dictate, I'm the owner, and I sez that's the way it is!!
richhotrainIf the selection of cars and locomotives need to be era correct, that sure doesn't seem like freelance to me. It sounds more like a form of protolance.
richhotrain BRAKIE To my mind a freelance railroad needs to be believable including selection of cars,locomotives and those need to be era correct. If the selection of cars and locomotives need to be era correct, that sure doesn't seem like freelance to me. It sounds more like a form of protolance. Rich
BRAKIE To my mind a freelance railroad needs to be believable including selection of cars,locomotives and those need to be era correct.
To my mind a freelance railroad needs to be believable including selection of cars,locomotives and those need to be era correct.
If the selection of cars and locomotives need to be era correct, that sure doesn't seem like freelance to me. It sounds more like a form of protolance.
I would agree, the more important "believability" is, the more it is protolance modeling.
My best example, there are no Big Boy's lettered ATLANTIC CENTRAL. It is a western design made for open country, not the winding river valley trackage of the Ohio Valley or Appalachia.
Eastern locos generally had to be more nimble. When eastern roads wanted Big Boy kind of power and speed, we got the N&W Class A and the C&O Allegheny with their much shorter engine wheelbase, higher axle loading, and ability to maintain medium speeds on winding trackage.
Guys, You can "protolance" a prototype.. I've done it several times with my last Slate Creek ISL. When I used my CR engines it became 22nd St industrial lead. When I used my CSX engines it became Proctor Ave Industrial park, on the SCL it was simply Atlantic Industrial Park and when I used my NS engines it became 17th St industrial lead. I doubt if any of those places exist beyond my imagination.
I take great care in planing my freelance railroads.. Let's look at Slate Creek Rail.. SCR is loosely based on Progressive Rail's Airlake industrial park operation. While I did not invent Summerset Ry. I still took great care in planing its rhyme and reason for being and thus it follows PR's Airlake operation just like SCR..
To my mind a freelance railroad needs to be believable including selection of cars,locomotives and those need to be era correct. Prime examples would be the AM,V&O,Maumee Route and the Utah Belt.
Rich,
One of the older definitions of the word "freelance" is "independent", or "without allegiance".
As in this case no allegiance to a prototype railroad that existed or an actual place.
It is a given that even the largest layouts will require selective compression. My view, and the historical use of the word in this hobby, suggests that most any attempt to follow, or have "allegiance" to an actual railroad prototype make you not a freelance modeler.
In my case I am both, in addition to the ATLANTIC CENTRAL I model the B&O, C&O and WESTERN MARYLAND, as closely as is practical and blending them into the fiction of the ATLANTIC CENTRAL.
I consider you a pretty serious prototype modeler, just like my friend here who's 1800 sq ft, double decked layout only tries to model the short stretch of the PRR mainline as it passes thru the Baltimore metro area.
But even a 4x8, with western scenery, and Santa Fe equipment is making some attempt to bring the spirit of that railroad to the modeling.
And then we have the revised term "protolance" and maybe the more liberties we take, the more that term applies? But that term originated as freelance modelers tried to make their "fiction" more believable? Like I do with carefully thought out engine rosters and equipment choices, regionally correct scenery, etc.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL MisterBeasley Is freelancing basically anything but pure prototype? Most of us, then, qualify as freelancers. I have a freelance public transit system and a freelance carfloat system, but really, my railroad runs Milwaukee equipment, my cabeese are Milwaukee and I have a lot of home-road boxcars. Ok, I have a few oddball rolling stock pieces, like a salt hopper and a couple of ice- bunker reefers, but I don't think of myself as a freelancer. I'm just a model railroader. Well, I guess everyone will define it differently. But in my opinion, if I run locos, caboose, and passenger cars that say B&O, even if my track plan or scenery does not make any attempt to model specific places on the B&O, but is more "generic", that is not freelance modeling. That is simply modeling the B&O with artistic license. Sheldon
MisterBeasley Is freelancing basically anything but pure prototype? Most of us, then, qualify as freelancers. I have a freelance public transit system and a freelance carfloat system, but really, my railroad runs Milwaukee equipment, my cabeese are Milwaukee and I have a lot of home-road boxcars. Ok, I have a few oddball rolling stock pieces, like a salt hopper and a couple of ice- bunker reefers, but I don't think of myself as a freelancer. I'm just a model railroader.
Is freelancing basically anything but pure prototype? Most of us, then, qualify as freelancers. I have a freelance public transit system and a freelance carfloat system, but really, my railroad runs Milwaukee equipment, my cabeese are Milwaukee and I have a lot of home-road boxcars.
Ok, I have a few oddball rolling stock pieces, like a salt hopper and a couple of ice- bunker reefers, but I don't think of myself as a freelancer. I'm just a model railroader.
Well, I guess everyone will define it differently.
But in my opinion, if I run locos, caboose, and passenger cars that say B&O, even if my track plan or scenery does not make any attempt to model specific places on the B&O, but is more "generic", that is not freelance modeling.
That is simply modeling the B&O with artistic license.
But, I continue to ask myself, what is prototypical and what is freelance. Thanks to the need for selective compression, my layout is based upon the prototype, but it doesn't totally and accurately reflect the prototype because I lack the necessary space to do so. So, what am I really doing? Is my layout prototypical, freelanced, or something in between?
Take someone who has a 4x8 layout, or an 8x12 layout who is modeling the Santa Fe, using only Santa Fe equipment from a specific era. Does that layout look anything like the Santa Fe railroad? Not really, because there isn't the space to really simulate the prototype. Give me a 100' x 100' outbuilding, and I will duplicate what I am currently trying to model without any selective compression.
Overmod The '30s Checker was hands-down one of the best-looking automobiles of the mid-Thirties -- never mind that it was a bespoke taxicab of delightful robust construction. Why more isn't made of that car I don't really know. It could easily be said that they made a mistake NOT retooling their large postwar car right around the time of the Tucker -- perhaps as the less-exciting but still groundbreaking large taxi version using the construction methods and safety features; there was certainly room in that plant to do it. THAT would have been memorable, in the brief age of very large torpedo postwar cars before the industry went to boring shoeboxes and then three-boxes. Checker restyled just in time to be stodgy, before the lower look came in after '58, and then had to stay stodgy forever... inagine if they had redone their chassis and body system just a couple of years later, using the modern welding techniques of unibody together with the strength of hydroformed box frame... with style. They had the corporate 'bones' to prove it could be done. And if anyone could protect Preston Tucker from GM weaselry, Mr. DuPont would have qualified... The Tucker 'wagon' would have been better as a kind of mini-bus, with the engine arranged as rear-midengine, flat under a raised floor like a Hall-Scott bus engine if not horizontally-opposed (and a big raised, almost walk-in trunk for the whole rear). See the contemporary late-40s interstate buses for some of the applicable design language. Start the VW-bus revolution a decade earlier, with something far more stable and perhaps economical ... and easily converted to a taxi-style vehicle or sedan delivery, too... And then there's Tucker's answer to the Chrysler Town and Country -- but with the technique of the Labordeur skiffs...that could be the best woodie of all time...
The '30s Checker was hands-down one of the best-looking automobiles of the mid-Thirties -- never mind that it was a bespoke taxicab of delightful robust construction. Why more isn't made of that car I don't really know.
It could easily be said that they made a mistake NOT retooling their large postwar car right around the time of the Tucker -- perhaps as the less-exciting but still groundbreaking large taxi version using the construction methods and safety features; there was certainly room in that plant to do it. THAT would have been memorable, in the brief age of very large torpedo postwar cars before the industry went to boring shoeboxes and then three-boxes. Checker restyled just in time to be stodgy, before the lower look came in after '58, and then had to stay stodgy forever... inagine if they had redone their chassis and body system just a couple of years later, using the modern welding techniques of unibody together with the strength of hydroformed box frame... with style. They had the corporate 'bones' to prove it could be done. And if anyone could protect Preston Tucker from GM weaselry, Mr. DuPont would have qualified...
The Tucker 'wagon' would have been better as a kind of mini-bus, with the engine arranged as rear-midengine, flat under a raised floor like a Hall-Scott bus engine if not horizontally-opposed (and a big raised, almost walk-in trunk for the whole rear). See the contemporary late-40s interstate buses for some of the applicable design language. Start the VW-bus revolution a decade earlier, with something far more stable and perhaps economical ... and easily converted to a taxi-style vehicle or sedan delivery, too...
I had that thought too, to build a wagon around the rear engine TUCKER driveline would require it to be more of a van.
The Checker A8 thru A12 cars were "stodgy" no question, but the utility of the design was hard to beat, with the wagon being almost magical in its ability to carry 4x8 lumber with the tailgate up.....
Yes, CHECKERS from the 30's were styling art of the highest order, a shame virtually none survived.
Yes, the CHECKER A8-12 cars would have benefited from a stronger, tighter body, but as designed the relatively light body on the heavy truck like frame allowed the car to be upright and roomy while still having a reasonable center of gravity for handling that was respectable for a car of its size and era. It was also a light weight design for its size and roomyness, which made the 6 cylinder fuel economy rather good.
The original A8 cab only weighed about 3400 lbs, and even after crash bumpers, safety steering columns, internal door braces and V8's the last of the fully loaded A12 Marathons were still around 4,000 lbs. My FLEX weighs in at 4850.........
The 6 cylinder Marthon wagon I owned never got less than 20 mpg city, even if you drove it with brick on the gas pedal. And unless you tried to go 80, it would provide about 28 mpg on the highway.
The several small block V8 Checkers I owned also easily exceeded 20 mpg on the highway.
Except for building a few staff cars, Checker mostly build those trailers pulled behind jeeps and 2-1/2 ton trucks during the war. Not sure how well positioned they were at the end of the war? Getting anything back in production may have been very important for them.
Also, the design of the A-8 was largely driven by new taxi regulations in New York and Chicago requiring cabs to have shorter wheelbases. Before the war, those big classy CHECKERS had 127", and sometimes longer, wheelbases. New regulations in the 50's said new cabs could not exceed 120" in an attempt to releave traffic issues.
So the A8 thru A12 cars were an exercise in building the roomyist possible car on a 120" wheelbase. To this day I don't think any vehicle meets that goal any better.
Yes, with somebody like DuPont in the picture the TUCKER story might have been rather different. From what I have read, GM and Chrysler feared TUCKER, but FORD on the other hand welcomed the competitor and made parts for them.
FORD was also friendly to CHECKER, lending them their full size car front suspension design for the A8-A12 cars. That's right, what does a 1956 thru 1982 CHECKER have in common with a 55 thru 57 Thunderbird and a 49/50 Lincoln, and few other FORD products?, the entire front suspension.
CHECKER also used the BorgWarner version of the FORD FMX three speed automatic transmission, until costs and government regulations drove them to GM not only for engines but for brakes, steering wheels/columns, and transmissions.
I created my freelance Millvale Valley around 1962 and have lettered many cars using alphabet decals. While working for Chessie System I decided that I would like to model their equipment including the B&O, C&O, and WM. Thus the MV was taken over by the Chessie System. Now I can use Chessie decals and can convert the WM initials to MV.
If I ever get around to building a layout I will probably model ex Millvale Valley territory since it is very hard to model prototype scenes that you are familiar with convincely in the space available for even large layouts.
Mark Vinski
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
ATLANTIC CENTRAL...Wayne, I too would like to explore the idea of a GERN plant here in the Mid Atlantic.
Hi Sheldon, I've sent you a PM in regards to your comment.