"Accuracy is a crutch"

[Metro Red Line]

Uh....Isn't beautiful, realistic scenery in itself a form of accuracy? Granted, it is virtually impossible to model every leaf on a tree, but to convincingly capture the look of a forest, a hillside, a canyon, etc is being "accurate."

Before CGI technology, movie studios used matte paintings to depict locations or scenes. The Red Sea from "The Ten Commandments" and The Land of Oz from "The Wizard of Oz" were all matte paintings in a Hollywood soundstage, but the depiction was accurate enough to make the viewer believe they were looking at Egypt or Oz. I feel modeling scenery is the same way. 

 

[BRAKIE]

Sorry,Chip,I still disagree..There are NO rules to fantasy modeling.Fantasy modeling has no direction,anything and that to goes just like a new modeler that doesn't know that much about the hobby and will buy what ever pleases his eyes until he matures in the hobby.

Then there are those thats been in the hobby for years and never changes directions and still knows less then most rookies.

Then you have those that been in the hobby a short time that has advanced into serious modeling.

Still anybody can fantasy model because it requires no real knowledge  and those are the ones that fail to understand what other modelers are trying to model so they find excuses not understand..

We see this in the "rivet counter","High price topics" etc.,then that stupid statement that Tony Koester will kill the hobby and those gullible enough to believe such garbage..

What might turn the hobby off is fantasy modeling.

[el-capitan]

The difference between a good fantasy layout and a bad fantasy layout is how well the modeler stuck to the vision.

Obviously a person whose rules include plywood is okay for dirt and a shoe box makes a good industry will not have a "good" layout by in either camp, realist or artistic.

You seem to be contradicting yourself here.

[SpaceMouse]

Chip,You still off base..There is NO RULES,DISCIPLINES or PRINCIPLES to FANTASY modeling because anything goes including plywood centrals with shoe boxes for industries.

The modeler makes the rules. In general, the more strictly the modeler sticks to the rules that he has made, the better the layout. Obviously a person whose rules include plywood is okay for dirt and a shoe box makes a good industry will not have a "good" layout by in either camp, realist or artistic.

But I would guess that Furlow's rules for what loco can appear on his layout is much tighter than what locos can appear on your layout.

My guess is that you would say there are no rules for abstract art--but I can tell you that there are and they are teachable.

Just because you don't know what the rules are, doesn't mean they don't exists. Only unfocused modelers don't have rules for what is allowed and what is not.

[MAbruce]

None of these individual "draws" is going drive people away from the hobby. What "will" drive people away from the hobby are:

1. Family/life obligations
2. Serious health issues
3. Finances ( not enough money for hobby )
4. Other hobbies or distractions
5. Loss of interest

6.  Topics like this... 

And all this time I thought that Model Railroading was supposed to be just a hobby.  Silly me! 

[SpaceMouse]

Chip,

Are you siding with Furlow on this because you're also modeling a fantasy Western old-timey layout like Furlow?  I think Sam Posey's model of the Colorado Midland is superb, but there's also the fantasy element (i.e., one or two bridges that are impossibly light to hold the weight of a train, vertical rock walls, etc.).  It's all very neat to look at.

But to suggest that those of us following Tony Koester into accuracy and operations is ruining the hobby is way out of line for Furlow to say (if he really said it). 

I don't think stacking a bunch of disconnected loops of track in a vertical canyon with every kind of bridge (including some a narrow gauge railroad would never build) and then dotting it with delapidated equipment, napping Mexicans, and their dogs is model railroading.  It's diorama-building.

I guess that means I'm ruining the hobby.  Sorry about that...

Often as an intellectual exercise, I will take a point of view and see where it leads. In this case, I wanted to see what Furlow had in mind when he made the statement "Accuracy is a crutch." It was not that big leap for me because I live with a successful artist and dwell in and out of the artistic community. I have also spent time in the debates about literature, and done my share of academic research. While this is not to say that I am expert in any of these, I at least have had exposure to different modes of thinking.

Making the leap of faith to Furlow's point of view is not that difficult, nor is it that difficult to see Mark Newton's point of view. In my experience however, nothing is as cut and dried as it appears.  I used the example of gravity, because most of in the Western World except it as fact. However, people growing up with the belief of the physical universe as the ultimate illusion, would not give credence to this "law" and hence would be more inclined to accept levitation. I also knew that for most people reading this forum gravity is cut and dried and levitation is the myth.

In my own layout, Jetrock is right, I am recreating more of a Louis L'Amour old west than one truly existed. On the other hand, I'm trying to bring in a plausible operating system as I do want to invite others for ops. I do have my rules, and with a little discipline, I will try not to break too many of them.

So do I side with Furlow or Mark N?

Yes.  

 

[shawnee]

 

I reckon that getting too wound up about exact prototypical operations is a little too obsessive for me.  Yes, it is a hobby, it shouldn't drive you krazy.  But more power to people who get wound up about it though...

because...

They heighten the interest and motivation to model something that is plausible.  Getting back into the hobby, my initial interest was to recreate the fun of MR for my son...a 4x8.  I've always been more a scenicker.  But forums such as this, and the operational guys, made me really think and get into it deeper, and realize the importance and fun of having a layout that did something...industries that made sense, rail traffic that made some sense and went somewhere, consistency to a railroad brands and cars, a general sense of time and place that made some sense...even if i decided to freelance, which I did, to get beyond the straightjacket of unadulterated reality....plus I wanted cabooses.    So now my layout is stretched, has several industries and generally the right cars.

They inspired me to find out what engines are generally right for a regional railroad, learn about rail-served industries, figure out where a regional would plausibly serve, and even construct a little pseudo-history for the line...in which they built track in areas that never actually had a railroad, but could have if the cards had been right..."if only the C&W hadn't run out of money, and had bridged that pass"...might have been the C&W instead of the C&O.  Well, maybe for a while. On my layout, it happened. And they're buying up other railroads now.

So there is room for both ends, and both are growing the hobby, not killing it.  To each his own.

[grayfox1119]

As we have all read and heard a thousand times, our desires in this hobby are like finger prints, we have fingers, but the prints are different.

We all get attracted by something within the hobby. For some it is scenery, for others it is just running trains, for others it is just collection of cars and locos, for others, it is the operation.

Then we have combinations of all of the above in various degrees. Some like scenery, but they also want to run their layout like a real operation , ie Joe Fugate.

None of these individual "draws" is going drive people away from the hobby. What "will" drive people away from the hobby are:

1. Family/life obligations
2. Serious health issues
3. Finances ( not enough money for hobby )
4. Other hobbies or distractions
5. Loss of interest

[on30francisco]

Malcom Furlow to Sam Posey.

He goes on to say that the trend towards realism ala Tony Koester, will kill the hobby. That new people are not attracted by schedules and time-tables, they are attracted by scenery.

I know I was attracted by scenery. When I saw my first pike I imagined small steam winding through giant redwood trees. I was inspired like so many others by John Allen and his floor to ceiling scenery. It was only after six months to a year into the hobby that I discovered operating.

When I see photos of the uber layouts like those by McClellan and Fugate, I don't think, I'd love to operate on that layout. I see the scenery and imagine my favorite engine running through their countryside. I know I would like to participate in one of their ops sessions. But that is not my first impression.

Now back to that accuracy thing. All modelers have an artistic muse or we would not be creating these mini-universes--although some modelers will never admit it even when faced with a grizzly death.  If you look at MR from an artistic stand point where our pikes become 3d representations of the world as we would like it to be--mine a return to yester-year where a mans word was bond, you lived with integrity, you created the world from your sweat and ingenuity. Others try to recreate the innocence of their childhood, while others create an ordered world as a relief from the chaos of daily life.

When you look at it from that perspective Furlow is right. Why do we confine ourselves to "reality" and "accuracy" when what we are creating is a fantasy anyway. 'Why not let out the stops and really express the "reality" we want our railroads to be. 

If we suppress our drive to create our universe by clinging to accuracy and "reality" does it not become a cage that traps us in the world we are attempting to escape from and at the same time denies the very urge that drives us to model in the first place? 

I don't think realism will kill the hobby and my hat is off to those who strive for an accurate representation of a specific prototypical railroad down to the nth degree, however, this type of modeling isn't my cup of tea as it's too restrictive and more like a chore rather than a pleasurable pasttime. I've noticed this seems to be the trend that is emphasized in MR magazine. For myself, I have always been attracted to plausable,(and sometimes not too plausable) backwoods scenery, structures, locos, etc running over detailed trestles and through highly detailed scenes around the early part of the 1900s. I am a stickler for details but do not follow any specific prototype. Although I give some credence to operation, it isn't a high priority. I am definitely in the Malcolm Furlow camp when it comes to modeling in that it allows me to express my artistic license (although I'm more mechanically inclined) and allows me a great deal of lfreedom in my modeling. And remember, Model Railroading is FUN. 

[Dave Vollmer]

Chip,

Are you siding with Furlow on this because you're also modeling a fantasy Western old-timey layout like Furlow?  I think Sam Posey's model of the Colorado Midland is superb, but there's also the fantasy element (i.e., one or two bridges that are impossibly light to hold the weight of a train, vertical rock walls, etc.).  It's all very neat to look at.

But to suggest that those of us following Tony Koester into accuracy and operations is ruining the hobby is way out of line for Furlow to say (if he really said it). 

I don't think stacking a bunch of disconnected loops of track in a vertical canyon with every kind of bridge (including some a narrow gauge railroad would never build) and then dotting it with delapidated equipment, napping Mexicans, and their dogs is model railroading.  It's diorama-building.

I guess that means I'm ruining the hobby.  Sorry about that...

[PA&ERR]

He goes on to say that the trend towards realism ala Tony Koester, will kill the hobby. That new people are not attracted by schedules and time-tables, they are attracted by scenery.

Let's think of some more worthless topics to debate:

I like:

1. ATSF over UP

2. Desert over mountains

3. Steam over Diesel

4. cabooses over freds

5. Sunset over Precision Scale

6. Atlas over weaver

7. DC over DCC

8. Plaster mountains over foam

9. Handlaid track over flex

10. Brown ballast over gray

11. O scale over HO

12. Basement layouts over attic

13. Brass over plastic

14. Steel wheels over plastic

15. slow switching over fast mainlines

16. Accurate models over fantasy

17. People who agree with me over people who argue

 

I AM RIGHT. Anyone disagreeing with me on any of these points is wrong and is killing the hobby. If you want to argue any of these items, you are in direct violation of #17, so don't bother.

Any questions?...... good.

Now that we are all clear on that, who wants to hear what your religous beliefs should be?

1. UP

2. Mountains

3. Steam

4. Caboose

5. Precision Scale

6. Atlas

7. DCC

8. Plaster

9. Flex

10. Gray

11. HO (duh!)

12. Basement (I believe there is some kind of otherworldly creature living in my attic!)

13. Plastic

14. Steel

15. Slow Switching (there is "fast" switching?)

16. Accurate models (even if they are freelanced)

17. People who argue, of course! LOL

-George

[Jetrock]

The last time I checked, the real world had great detail, prototypical accuracy and fantastic scenery.

 

We all come in this modeling door for different reasons. For me, getting back into model railroading has catapulted me into the world of the historian--instead of just modeling trains and cities, I am writing books about trains and cities, and trying to do a little modeling in between. Of course, part of this is because I find writing to be as much fun as modeling, as my blathering on this forum helps to prove. My view of the past is very different from SpaceMouse's: his view of the "Old West" is a complex mythology, more based in legend than in fact. It is popular because it is uniquely American, just as the legend of the samurai is uniquely Japanese and the legend of knights in shining armor is uniquely European.

 

More recent schools of history than those of Frederick Jackson Turner's era have a tendency to want to upset the applecart. We point out that the samurai were an ultra-authoritarian oligarchy, the knights of old were generally semi-literate thugs, and cowboys generally weren't cut from the cloth that Gene Autry or John Wayne would have us believe. None of this, in my mind, makes those legends any less appealing--it makes them more real, more like us, more accessible as human beings rather than archetypes. Studying the history of railroads, with its wide variety of characters and portrayals, draws me farther into the story than merely hearing the legends. The legends are just the surface, the stuff that draws people in--the history is what gets you hooked.

This doesn't make layouts like SpaceMouse's any less valid, and my layout is no less susceptible to mythology, or less than 100% accuracy--my layout includes a particular vision of my own semi-idealized world, that of downtown Sacramento when electric and diesel freight trains trundled through residential streets that were slowly falling into disrepair as wealthier Sacramentans fled the suburbs, but before the forces of urban redevelopment wiped out many of the neighborhoods, as well as many traces of the railroad's passing. My intention in modeling is to create a sense of what it was like, not a photographic reproduction--a level of creativity that isn't as possible when I write about it as a historian.

 

The kind of model railroad you see on the cover of MR are kind of like Disneyland. When you go to Disneyland, you see a carefully crafted fantasy land. It's not reality--it is a carefully constructed illusion that is intended to portray an idealized view of reality, one that is carefully orchestrated and planned. It doesn't happen by accident--it takes a lot of creating and behind-the-scenes dithering to make visitors totally believe a giant mouse, a robotic Abe Lincoln, and a haunted mansion. The best sort of experience, for a layout visitor, is one where they don't have to worry about the nuts & bolts of the layout--but the operator ABSOLUTELY MUST. The owner of a layout can simply play around and not worry about a central theme--but the effect won't be as striking on the visitor.

[PA&ERR]

42 responses in 3 hours!

Is that some kind of record or what?

-George

[el-capitan]

He goes on to say that the trend towards realism ala Tony Koester, will kill the hobby. That new people are not attracted by schedules and time-tables, they are attracted by scenery.

Let's think of some more worthless topics to debate:

I like:

1. ATSF over UP

2. Desert over mountains

3. Steam over Diesel

4. cabooses over freds

5. Sunset over Precision Scale

6. Atlas over weaver

7. DC over DCC

8. Plaster mountains over foam

9. Handlaid track over flex

10. Brown ballast over gray

11. O scale over HO

12. Basement layouts over attic

13. Brass over plastic

14. Steel wheels over plastic

15. slow switching over fast mainlines

16. Accurate models over fantasy

17. People who agree with me over people who argue

 

I AM RIGHT. Anyone disagreeing with me on any of these points is wrong and is killing the hobby. If you want to argue any of these items, you are in direct violation of #17, so don't bother.

Any questions?...... good.

Now that we are all clear on that, who wants to hear what your religous beliefs should be?

[MidlandPacific]

Chip, you're assuming that everybody is trying to create a fantasy. I'm not, nor are many of my modelling mates and associates. I personally have no desire whatsoever to make my layout a "3d representation of the world as (I) would like it to be". I want a representation of the world as it actually is. So accuracy is my whole reason for modelling.

Cheers.

Mark.

Mark,

I know we could go round and round on this as we have in the past. But my argument would be that you are modeling your perception of reality and nothing more. You can not know what is real any more than anyone else can.

The reason I say this so directly is that in any given instance we take into our senses approximately 4,000,000 pieces of information. Our mind filters this down to approximately 2000. The criteria that our mind uses is that we filter the information is to reconstruct our perceptions to align with view of the world--that is what works for us and keeps us sane. Your world is very solid and rigid. Mine is less so. Mine works for me; yours works for you. However, each of us through mental processes of deletion, generalization, and distortion filter out over 99% of our sensory input. And even that doesn't question whether or not our senses are accurate or factor in that we cannot sense a dog whistle or micro-waves.

The best we can do is agree to call our sensation of a particular frequency of light "red" and that math done in a base-10 is accurate. We also develop standards such that the more people that experience something, the more real it becomes. Gravity is an example of an accepted "law" while levitation is an example of a less accepted "law."

So I propose that you are modeling your perception of reality--the degree to which others view it as fantasy depends how closely they are aligned with your perceptions.   

In the end, the only thing that really matters is that your pike is yours because you created it. It is yours to be whatever you want it to be. If your pike is accurate, so be it.    

You include a point that inadvertently supports Mark's point - Math produces the same objective result regardless of the base system that's used.  The symbols may differ, and the words may differ, but regardless of what you call it, the number of oranges is objectively provable. 

So that's not quite a support for the argument that belief changes objective reality. 

Mark's point is simply that there are certain facts that are objectively provable, and he chooses to replicate those points: building dimension is one; the color of paint taken from chips is another (albeit at the lower end of the objectivity scale, at least for this non-chemist).  There's room for argument about whether this is artistically desirable, but not, I think, whether the facts on which Mark chooses to base his models exist. 

The idea that gravity and levitation are both laws obviously doesn't hold up to empirical scrutiny.  We accept that gravity is a law because empirical verification, endlessly repeated, has shown it to exist.  If we were to use the same term to describe levitation, that would suggest that its existence has been proven as conclusively as gravity.  I'm prepared to believe that it exists, but I would require evidence.  And I would require evidence before I would believe that it's a law - and even then, the significance of my acceptance of the fact would not be that it is based on my personal perception, but on the appearance of obvious, verifiable facts that proved the point. 

 

 

[selector]

When a person decides he wants to make a hot rod, does he go to a boarding stable for ideas?

If a person wants to build a representation of a railroad, or just to create an imaginary one, should she start with books on logging, or maybe with how-to articles in Popular Mechanics?

Long before Michelangeo, sculptors were making stupendous representations of life, mostly in stone. This goes across cultures, even civilizations.  Did statues in one place look like those in another?

Why all these silly questions?  Because they speak to the matter.  For those who want to scale down the real thing, their crutch will be what the real thing looks like....to them, as they perceive it all.  Two cameras, 10 feet apart, will not record the same things.  Same for two pairs of eyes.  We don't even have to get into the emotional and other limbic system filters that colour what we place on our "hard drives" for later recall and use when we make up our models.

Most of us have a hard enough time colour-matching when we try to duplicate something we have seen.  Indoor outdoor lighting problems, spatial constraints, materials, tools, skills, and mood all conspire to a rendering that is always going to be a ratable, judgable, depiction of something much more dynamic, noisy, and larger.  We start the rating and judging, and invite others to contribute as we get more comfortable with what we have crafted.

I see two crutches,....the reality, whatever that is, and the limitations of our desire for fidelity, whatever and for whatever reason they are.  Sometimes the confluence is happy and judged good, and sometimes the results are not well received.  Picasso's work doesnt' find favour with me.  Doesn't mean his paintings don't still sell for millions.

Assh, what do I know...

[bogp40]

I never thought I'd come racing to Tony Koester's defense, but...

What TK is doing is not ruining the hobby.  He's trying to help us get more out of our trains.  Scenery may attract new folks, but once you've got scenery and trains running well, you may (or may not) start to wonder if that's all there is.

I think my scenery's pretty good (mind you, this is as close to conceit as I'll let myself get, and I feel ashamed for saying even that), and my layout runs reliably.  Now what?  Watch 'em go in circles?  That's fun sometimes, escpecially for my young kids.  But I want something more.

Tony has helped me get more by explaining in his several books about how I can make my layout look and operate like a railroad and not like an animated fantasy diorama.

Tony has not ruined the hobby for me.  He's actually made it better for me.

I have to agree whole heartily with dave. Many may be satisfied running in circles and never wonder  if there's any more to it. Fantasy and whimsicle layouts draw much attention when done properly. A non modeler is in awe when walking into someones depiction of their fanasy world, frankly I am also if the scenery and wild kitbashed structures are done to some sort of realism. I just can't take those Dr Seus themes [Northlandz?].

There really is more to it, in my opinion, though.  Even my club of 60+ members shows a decent crosssection of the hobby in peoples modeling preferences. However the club does set standards and guidelines for operation, equipment and scenery. The layout from the initial design stage is primarily done for a copy to prototypical operations. Some that just run trains in circles don't care and never put their 2cent in. A handful of the designers and workers propose the plan for vote- it's not one person's say. Try to get a group to settle on design criteria!

I head the scenery for the club in doing so, I try to make it as believable as possible and to fit the operational design. I find myself battleing with operational options that will create scenery nightmares. I refuse to build scenery, modeling our local, with unreal cliffs and cuts,  mountains that have no purpose other than someone wants one. There is some harmony to be found between an opeational aspect and to allow it to flow though realistic scenery. Hey, I even look at the scenery from a geological standpoint of rock type and strata. Same is true for all other landform contours. Maybe I'm just nuts but poorly done scenery can take an otherwise great operational RR and make it look cheesey. Maybe the novice may be impressed, but many modelers NOT. 

One can't ruin the hobby for wanting to promote more realism. If some aren't into that, fine, they can be like the few at my club that are oblivious to it and just ignore what the realists have to offer. I find it inspiring to know more and beleive many, many others feel the same.

[ErnieC]

Chip wrote:

"You can not know what is real any more than anyone else can."

It had to happen, soneone had to quote Post Modern BS philosophy on a Model Railroad forum!  To provide a needed perspective to this thread I suggest that there seems to be some confusion as to what the hobby encompases.  We are spending too much valuable modeling time playing with our computers and pretending to impress each other.  This thread is going in the same direction the ridiculous 'gobal warming' thread went.  To see what a modeling forum is try trainboard.com.  Let's get to play and have some fun modeling.

Ernie C

[BRAKIE]

...4-4-0;  mfg to issue a steam engine painted for CSX. 

Uh, do you know when it's coming out? I have the CSX 2-8-0, 4-6-2, and 2-8-2 but I hadn't heard about the 4-4-0.

Irreverently,

Paul 

Yes! The 4-4-0 will be the first model by Wigets Models..Road names will be BNSF,CR,NS,CSX and UP in the "Flag scheme".Release date is early 2008.

[SpaceMouse]

Sorry Chip but,Selios is NOT a fantasy modeler like Furlow..George has a very believable freelance railroad..The F&SM..

I agree it is not out there as far as Furlow, but it is a far darker and grimmer picture of the world than say Koester would see.

However, if you choose to discuss it in terms of Furlow, then you must agree that you'd never see a U-boat or a Dash 9 on his layout because it would be against the rules. In fact, I would venture to say that Furlow has very strict rules about the locos that would be acceptable on his layout.

[IRONROOSTER]

...4-4-0;  mfg to issue a steam engine painted for CSX. 

Uh, do you know when it's coming out? I have the CSX 2-8-0, 4-6-2, and 2-8-2 but I hadn't heard about the 4-4-0.

Irreverently,

Paul 

[PA&ERR]

Chip,

This is a great discussion!

Gotta go heat up another bag of popcorn!

-George

[BRAKIE]

Sorry Chip but,Selios is NOT a fantasy modeler like Furlow..George has a very believable freelance railroad set in the early 30s..The F&SM..

 

Chip,You still off base..There is NO RULES,DISCIPLINES or PRINCIPLES to FANTASY modeling because anything goes including plywood centrals with shoe boxes for industries.

[SpaceMouse]

For those of you arguing that fantasy lacks the discipline of modeling accuracy, I would suggest that the oppose is true.

Good fantasy holds true to the vision of the fantasy. There is an internal consistency that must be adhered to. The difference between a good fantasy layout and a bad fantasy layout is how well the modeler stuck to the vision. Since is is so easy to say, well, it's my vision, no one will know but me, it is easy to diverge from the consistency of the layout. When you do, it diminishes the layout. In that light, takes more discipline to see the vision through than it takes to adhere strictly to accuracy.

In that context, accuracy is a crutch.  

Chip,I hold the other to be a truth and fantasy modeling is just that.No discipline is needed nor is there any principles in involved.Just gather together what you like and enjoy.You what to run a Y6B pulling a stack train no problem.You want to follow Furlow fantasy style of modeling go fer it.It takes no worries as anything goes.

I agree that anyone can model how they want.

But just because you don't see the "rules" to fantasy layouts doesn't mean they don't exist. Nor does it mean that you don't need discipline to follow them. You don't see Selios running Y6B's pulling stack trains because it is against the rules.

[SpaceMouse]

JK,

I think that equating pulling auto-racks with 4-4-0 to the fantasy of Furlow or Selios as absurd. Your version of fantasy would be the equivalent of the street person pushing a shopping cart and talking to his estranged daughter. I'm assuming you can come up with a better argument than that.  

 

[selector]

Art imitating life <----------------------------------------------------------------------------------->Life imitating Art

Dear Modeler, please place your personal appraoch to modeling at a place on this continuum that best represents your own approach to the hobby.  Note that you may change your mind at any time as the whim and/or need arises.

Thank-you.

Admit it--you're just trying to stir the pot.

Never!   And you can't make me!

[BRAKIE]

For those of you arguing that fantasy lacks the discipline of modeling accuracy, I would suggest that the oppose is true.

Good fantasy holds true to the vision of the fantasy. There is an internal consistency that must be adhered to. The difference between a good fantasy layout and a bad fantasy layout is how well the modeler stuck to the vision. Since is is so easy to say, well, it's my vision, no one will know but me, it is easy to diverge from the consistency of the layout. When you do, it diminishes the layout. In that light, takes more discipline to see the vision through than it takes to adhere strictly to accuracy.

In that context, accuracy is a crutch.  

Chip,I hold the other to be a truth and fantasy modeling is just that.No discipline is needed nor is there any principles in involved.Just gather together what you like and enjoy.You what to run a Y6B pulling a stack train no problem.You want to follow Furlow fantasy style of modeling go fer it.It takes no worries as anything goes.

[jktrains]

Here's the good ol' now-win argument.  Which way is better?

Fanatasy is the crutch.  Fantasy allows someone to run articulated autoracks behind a 4-4-0; a SD90MAC to pull a string of 36' cattle cars through the mountains.  Fantasy allows a manufacturer to make inaccurate models.  It allows a mfg to issue a steam engine painted for CSX.  And what's worse it that there will be people who will buy and find a reason to justify it.

Accuracy and modelers like TK have caused manufacturers to up the quality of what they produce in the last decade.  It's the accuracy modelers who have demanded better locos, rolling stock (both dimensional accuracy and detail ), buildings, scenery products, etc. that the fantasy modelers are enjoying.  These high profile modelers work with manufacturers to make certain accurate models are produced.

To be an 'accuracy modeler' doesn't mean counting every nut, bolt or rivet on the real thing and then replicating it; it means taking you cues from the prototype so that what you create is a believable representation of the prototype.  It means modeling the common and not the unusual.  If seen to many layouts or modelers who can point to cars that they own and say that XYZ RR had only one of those and one of those and one of those.  When you do that what you end up with is not something that looks like what you see outside, but a train/bldg/ scene, whatever that is made of many one of kind elements that have never come together as one.

For people just entering they hobby, they're better served by trying the following the common day sights they see and avoid the fantasyland of engines climbing 4% grades along steep rocky cliffs with a river at the bottom of a 4ft deep canyon.  Leave fantasyland to Disney.

jktrains

[tomikawaTT]

Accuracy is a foundation.

What you choose to erect on that foundation is a very personal choice!

• Chip chooses to erect a circa 1885 western false front building.
• Chuck prefers a five-tiered pagoda.
• Tony Koester works toward an accurate model of his childhood home.
• Malcolm goes all-out for something appropriate to Disney's Fantasyland.
• MisterBeasley slides underground, then views his modeling on television.
• David Barrow puts up a very prosaic (dare I say featureless) warehouse.

What do we all have in common?

• Each is creating their own brand of fantasy, even if that fantasy is a very specific reality.
• Except for the very insecure (which certainly doesn't include any of the six above,) the choice of fantasy was not, and is not, subject to change enforced from the outside.
• Everybody is having FUN!

If a modeler isn't having fun, THAT MODELER needs to reassess that personal fantasy.  Others may offer suggestions, but the final decision remains personal.

A couple of comments on previous posts and thoughts they raised:

Model Railroader covers didn't always feature "Beautiful Scenes."  Earlier covers featured people at control panels (including one with a huge, prototypically accurate air brake control!) and close-ups of models by such masters as Thornburgh and Hoffmann.  There was even a cartoon - a cutaway apartment building with a different modeler doing something MR in every room, from an elegant coffee table layout under a crystal chandelier to large scale live steam in the basement.  IMHO, the present crop is far less interesting!

There was once a suggested layout designed for the train-watching purist, inspired by WP in the Feather River Canyon.  The tracks (mainline and one passing siding) were at a low level, viewed from the top of the canyon across the river, and consisted of the main and a passing siding - period.  Undoubtedly, the scene would have been a railfan's dream (and possibly useful to give non-modelers something to look at,) but would have driven any operator right up the wall!  I don't know if it was ever built, or, if built, how long it lasted.  (In my scheme of things, it would have had a half-life of about a heartbeat!)

The big draw toward the hobby for me was the civil engineering aspect - specifically the elevated trains of New York's IRT and the grandeur of the Hell Gate Bridge.  I grew up in the concrete jungle and my interests were set in stone long before I actually saw any real 'scenery.'

Above all, have FUN!

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - for my own reasons)

[cpeterson]

I'm totally torn here:  I love modeling UP, I truely enjoy trying to recreate a specific part of the prototype rail, I want people to look at it and say I know where this is, or I've been there, and lastly, I hope to be able to operate it and have people enjoy that as well:

But, I routinely hope that the next cover of model railroader will have a picture of the latest Furlow project.  Although I do not doubt that in the long run I wouldn't have fun running those creations, I sure do like the way he can take you there and give you the feel of his chosen landscape.

Somebody find Furlow and tell him we need him back.......for those of you who love the whole where is this hobby going and why aren't there more people in it discussion, you want to fix that;  have more projects and pics by Furlow et al