pugdog
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Oct 26, 2005, 8:54 AM
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Season of your layout -- Why summer is most popular.
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I just read an editorial in a recent magazine about summer being the most popular time of year to model.
It's fairly easy to understand why 1954 +/- is so popular -- steam and diesel coexisted, and many railroaders (especially when the bulk of books were written in the 70's & 80's) remember that time period growing up.
But why summer?
I don't believe it's the "longing" for an "endless summer" as the editorial suggested.
I do believe it's a much more practical reason -- in summer, the world is alive. People are outside, plants are growing, and the modeling possibilities are endless.
In winter, with snow on the ground, most detail is hidden, and the layout is a bowl of ice cream (Christmas scenes excepted, with their lights and bustling activity).
Spring/Fall are colorful, but they also "mark" the layout to a specific time. People are very sensitive to the changes coming in fall and spring, and even small inconsistencies would "bother" them.
In summer, dead plants as well as live ones coexist naturally. New plants and old ones do too. Nothing looks wrong, and people have a whole "block" of summer in their mind. It centers the time period in the middle of the year. People like "middles." Also, details on buildings or other parts of the layout are visible, and can be appreciated.
I don't think most people even thought about the fact they were modeling "summer" when they began their layouts. Some, decided after the fact to make it look more like fall, or some other season, but most layouts -- maybe all but a few -- started out as "summer" as the default season. It just seemed natural.
In the article, the writer did not specifically comment on Christmas, but many, many layouts concentrate on that time of year, where 'winter' is more or less secondary to the lights, and decorations, and hustle and bustle of shopping.
Those who've read some of my other articles (which I'm posting more of here), realize I buck the accepted party line of why model railroaders model, and how they model, and my anti-"prototype" campaigns.
The editorial closed with a comment about detailed ready made kits, and how modelers don't spend time modeling any more.
This is the part that really struck me. It's actually a good summary of what I don't like about model railroading today.
MODEL railroading. Not prototype building. The whole purpose for most people in building a layout was not to operate trains in a time table, with a crew lounge and such. But, looking at the literature, you'd think that was what the hobby was about.
MODELING was what it was about. You built models. You tied them together. You let them run.
Sure, kits are more detailed today, and we longed for more detailed KITS as kids. We *DIDN'T* long for ready-made, pre-painted, and shake-the-box kits. We wanted MORE PARTS in the box to have to put together.
What we *did* want was those parts to be more detailed. Give us the parts we couldn't make, or which took so much time it took the fun away. Let us put them together the way we wanted. Like building blocks.
Why model THAT train station?? It doesn't fit on my layout. Give me the parts to build my own -- JUST LIKE THE "PROTOTYPES" REALLY DID!
They had a space, a need, a budget, and they filled it. They didn't worry about how "prototypical" it was!! Just because it was full-scale, doesn't mean it becomes a "prototype."
(I'm not going to go into that here).
(Kudos to DPM for starting the modular buildings, and Walthers for advancing it.)
I remember a discussion on a Usenet board, where someone asked "What are the FS colors for the Roswell Alien UFO."
That's as bad as writing an article on making "prototypical" trees. And yes!!! Recently that has been used! _REALISTIC_ *LOOKING* trees, maybe. But unless you are modeling a specific landmark tree, the word "prototype" is wrong, and is a signal flare to what is wrong with MODEL railroading today.
Where is the creativity if every thing you do comes out of the box???
The author of that editorial also noted that northern railroads seem to have more detail. He wondered if it was the longing for summer, or the lack of it.
If people spend more time indoors, and they need hobbies and activities to occupy them, they are going to spend more time at those activities, and get better at them. They will be better either because they simply spend more time at it, or because they actively try to do something they can look back on as time well spent.
In the southern climes, there is more to do year round, and less time for a "hobby" in general.
But it all goes back to MODELING and HOBBY and what it means to have a hobby, a craft, a skill, an enjoyable activity.
In closing here, I've commented on how most "hobbies" today are activities. They involve groups of people, competition, and things like that. Open a box, and play with it -- NOT build it.
Model railroading was something that began in a basement, alone, as a hobby. You BUILT your layout. Over the years, "operations" has taken over from the "MODELING" and the "hobby" is becoming an "activity." Now you "operate" your layout.
Everything is about getting an operating layout up fast. *FAST* was never what model railroading was about.
When you wonder why you can't interest new people in the hobby, look at that. Model Railroading is becoming nothing more than R/C models on tracks. Fast clocks, time tables, competitions, and more "woe be to anyone who goofs during an operating session..."
That is *NOT* what the HOBBY was about. EVER.
Think about it.
(PS: Why Summer? It's the last part of the layout (or hobby) that allows people to be creative, and to add details of their own without having someone say "That's not prototypical.")
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