Bear "It's all about having fun."
I think the main focus is on the railroad itself, but that's just my opinion.
"The Human Condition" is hardly political.
Ship modellers don't seem to have any problems with craft that were used for whaling or even slave trading over the past few centuries. At the same time, the coal and later the oil that railroads were bringing to market were the "alternative" fuels, allowing us to move away from whaling to light our homes. And, the Underground Railroad was a symbol of freedom, whether or not the trip actually involved travel hidden in train cars.
Railroads did allow us to "exploit" the coal fields, but they worked both ways, bringing awareness to the mining communities and giving the rest of us a glimpse inside the mines. Eventually, this led to an improvement of mining conditions, even though they hardly compare to "hard work" in a bank or insurance company.
Railroads also provided an escape route to those who chose to leave the coal fields and travel to other areas of the growing country in search of economic opportunity. The economic boom that accompanied the joining of the country by rail raised wealth and the standard of living for pretty much everyone, including the miners.
No, I've got no trouble with the coal traffic on my layout. Railroads have done a lot for our nation, and I think we should be pretty proud of the job they've done.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Frankly, if one were to get TOO existential about model railroading and remember historically how many railroads were originally built by the so-called Robber Barons who schemed, manipulated and ran circles around accepted morality to GET them built, then we probably wouldn't touch trains with a ten-foot pole.
In my case, I'm running long trains of refrigerator cars that are full of produce picked in Central California by vastly underpaid (at the time my RR is set) seasonal migrant farm workers. But what I'm watching are large, handsome articulateds towing long lines of brightly colored reefers through mountains. And that's what I'm concentrating on. So I suppose it all has to become relative.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Coal mining is always going to be a dangerous, dirty job. And the issues about safety and the governments' enforcement of same are important. And there is no excuse for mine owners and operators who cut corners on safety.
But I think in this case you're not glorifying substandard working conditions but focusing on the transportation of a commodity - one that is important to the economic well being of this country. And one that can be done in accordance with modern standards of safety, even if that's not always the case.
It's no different then logging, furniture manufacturing, etc. Standards of safety have been and are being developed, but it's not the job of railroads to use them or enforce them (unless they own the mine, etc.). So I have no trouble running cars full of coal, lumber, furniture, cars, etc.
As always my
Enjoy
Paul
bearman wrote:It has struck me, being a knee jerk, bleeding heart liberal with some Jeffersonian democrat and libertarian thrown in for leavening, that there is a dark side to model railroading...for example, coal mining trains. Lots of modelers go through massive amounts of money, time, energy etc. to get that coal hauling raiload set in Appalachia just right. Books are read...aerial photos are consulted...questions are asked and then there is a prototype model rr constructed and operated in a dedicated room. However, that prototype railroad is hauling coal mined by miners in one of the poorest areas of the country, under working conditions that are horrific for most people, yet the model glorifies the prototype. Does this matter?
Nope. Not in the least.
The only "dark side" to mrr is when someone turns out the lights in the layout room.
Check out the Deming Sub by clicking on the pics:
I was born in Philippi, West Virginia,where my great grandfather, both great uncles, and 1 uncle all worked for local coal mines. I model this region of west virginia and coal mining in general as a tribute to a rapidly dissapearing way of life, and a period in history many people would like to pretend never happened. What a shame. If you do some research, you will learn that a lot of mines did stress safety, even as early as 1920, and many mining camps were much nicer places than surrounding towns....even with cable tv (in the 1950s!) hospitals, schools, and recreation such as swimming pools and restaurants. Mining is a dangerous occupation to this day, and many early miners, especially immigrants, were taken advantage of and worked in hellish conditions. Many, however, did not. The era of the robber barons was long gone by 1948, the year i model.
I now live in a very poor region of Ohio, where factories, auto plants, and steel mills have closed by the HUNDREDS in the last 20 years, due to competition from china and mexico. Think about that on your way to Wal Mart in your foreign car.
I guess things like this depend on one's point of view, eh?
I dont worry about that existential stuff. I actually had to look this word up in the dictonary.
Ive a coal mine waiting to be built along with some company houses and perhaps a store as well.
One day soon there will coal cars rolling. The pretend scale people are tough and can take it.
It is my understanding that children grew up around mine tracks with very early lessons on train safety. The survivors of these early lessons go on to long productive lives.
ACLU can go stuff it. That wasteful stuff didnt exist back when Coal was king. People came from different parts of the world to America and some were miners.
You better want to maybe delete this thread, Ive had my say and cannot think that alot of others will sit for one moment and not turn this into a massive poltical bleed.
The hobby IS MODEL RAILROADING...which is modeling whatever period era or type railroad You like,You don't like an aspect of railroading,Don't model it..
should I not make model cars..because they Kill thousands every year in accidents...nuff said
snagletooth wrote: I didn't know existentialists even had hobbies? Doesn't that kinda' defeat the purpose? Maybe you need a new hobby, like building WW2 military equipment.
That's a good, wholesome, all American hobby.
Well, except for all those guys who model German equipment
Well, there's always that guy who modeled Michael Waltrip's Bristol car. . Couldn't you that with German equipment.
Don't forget we as a hobby glorify one the most, historically, dangerous and strife-riven industries. Read some railroad history and you'll find:
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
To answer bearmans original posit. Naaawww. Not to worry.Its the human condition. All of us have had to do something miserable in our lives. Even the president has to get up at three in the morning to answer the phone..We all have to eat and so we do coal mining, digging railroad tunnels,there one for sale in Idaho by the way,picking fruit, working in a slaughter house, Heck there's even a TV show about dirty jobs.People get used to nasty, hard work,and sometimes no amount of pay will compensate. I used to work at cleaning sewers and shoveling garbage and I was well paid ,but I still hated it.
The jobs that are the worst are done with relish by the big business CEO who steal our pensions,run our savings and loan businesses into the dirt and then are given millions in severence pay.I'd better stop here, this whole thread is sorta off topic but interesting nonetheless.
IRONROOSTER wrote: Coal mining is always going to be a dangerous, dirty job. And the issues about safety and the governments' enforcement of same are important. And there is no excuse for mine owners and operators who cut corners on safety. But I think in this case you're not glorifying substandard working conditions but focusing on the transportation of a commodity - one that is important to the economic well being of this country. And one that can be done in accordance with modern standards of safety, even if that's not always the case. It's no different then logging, furniture manufacturing, etc. Standards of safety have been and are being developed, but it's not the job of railroads to use them or enforce them (unless they own the mine, etc.). So I have no trouble running cars full of coal, lumber, furniture, cars, etc.As always my EnjoyPaul
Add my two cents with the liberty I have taken above added. Living costs. Railroads are about living. People live. What's so hard to figure out?
If your model railroad is inhabited by real people, then maybe the initial poster might have had a point (No, not THAT kind of point!)
The few people awaiting places on my, "No place (yet) for scenery," layout are either solid plastic or have copper (twisted wire) skeletons. I doubt that their lack of income will bother them any.
Pick ANY product, from gold to gravel, and you will find that somewhere in its history there were incidents and conditions that would raise existentialist questions, and drive died-in-the-wool liberals to their high blood pressure meds. Ever heard of, "Blood diamonds?" How about the conditions in the Brazilian gold fields? Can you take a spoon (or packet) of sugar without reflecting on hundreds of years of plantation slavery in the Caribbean?
Sorry, folks. I refuse to try to lift the burdens of all the oppressed people everywhere. Trying to keep the (1:80 scale) trains running on time is all my heart can stand.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
No different than aircraft modelers building aircraft of the Luftwaffe from WWII. You'd be amazed at the majority of modelers that build those. Does that make them Nazi's? I hardly think so.
Just because we choose to model a particular subject doesn't mean we endorse a certain beleif or political ideology. We model these things because they interest us and look good.
-G-
Well, to further discuss this post that I think will be locked by Monday morning--my father's family came from Cornwall to California in the 1850's to work the hard-rock gold mines in the northern Sierra Nevada, which was dangerous and exhausting work--my Paternal grandfather died of 'Miner's Lung' the year before I was born, so I never had the chance to know him--and my father spent some years working part-time at one of California's largest and deepest hard-rock gold mines in Grass Valley when he was in high school (most young men did in that area back then, in the 1920's and '30's).
I've got two operating gold mines on the Yuba River Sub, the Champion and the Kentucky, and I grew up around these Northern mines, so modeling them is, I think, kind of an honor to the memory of my father's family--stalwart Cornish miners who spent their lives doing dangerous and expert work.
Just my thoughts.
Oh, and PS: Originally 'Existentialism" was a French literary movement in the late 'fifties, early 'sixties, and formed by writers such as Jean-Paul Satre, Jean Genet, Andre Gide and largely based upon the drug-induced writings of the 19th Century French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Seems back then, ANYTHING French was immediately adopted by we more 'artistically' minded Americans as being supremely "Cultured". Take it from there.
'
You would do well to pay attention to your own tag line... "Its all about having fun."
-George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
Lateral-G wrote: No different than aircraft modelers building aircraft of the Luftwaffe from WWII. You'd be amazed at the majority of modelers that build those. Does that make them Nazi's? I hardly think so. Just because we choose to model a particular subject doesn't mean we endorse a certain beleif or political ideology. We model these things because they interest us and look good.-G-
When I was younger, I built models of Nazi and Soviet aircraft. They didn't look like American equipment, and they seemed more exotic. The angled cockpit glass of an Me-109 fighter or the unusual double bubble canopies of an Mi-24E Hind gunship helicopter weren't anything like anything the US Air Force ever produced. That those Me-109 chewed up thousands of American bombers or those Hind-Es killed who knows how many Afghanis never even entered my mind. They looked neat.
And when I was younger, I always had the bad guy's toys. My GI Joes were all Cobra and I had Stormtrooper action figures instead of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. It wasn't because I was an evil child and I agreed with the bad guys. My parents bought those ones for me because I liked the colors. They tended to be darker or harsher colors or had a sleaker look than the good guys. It was all aesthetic.