Whatever, Mark - but Sellios is a long way above O27 missile launcher cars or "Range Patrol" flat cars (gawd, how pathetic) and his layout is a lot more interesting than some terminal full of double stacks.
...so the era of your layout is 1905-1907 (the mid-1900s).
Mark, apparently you don't give equal weight to the date when the modeled equipment would have been retired when setting the era for a layout.
Why is that? Don't you think that date is just as important as the 'newest' piece of equipment on the layout -- in terms of establishing the era of a layout?
To me he's not, his layout is as much a fantasy as any of the 027 items you mention.
If the double-stack terminal was realistic, I would find it much more interesting than Sellios' Gothic & Gotham...
Pete Kerezman wrote: >
When that crowd adopts that attitude, I'll do the same.
Only if you like that sort of thing.
Whoa -
If "that crowd" adopts a "live and let live" attitude, how can "that crowd" have a "it's your layout, do what you like with it, anyone who thinks differently is an elitist" attitude? It seems contradictory to base your actions on a scenario that by definition is impossible to achieve.
"Mark Mathu"
Understood. I was being a bit too absolute.
However, I personally don't buy into the, for example, "I model 1940 to
1950" style of modelling.My own personal goal is to model, even if freelance, equipment that would commonly be seen in my model region in 1958.
However, as I wrote before, each to his own.
-- Cheers Roger T.
Home of the Great Eastern Railway
Nothing wrong with that.
However, as you seem to imply, nothing can be absolute here, and a certain amount of 'freelancing' is necessary. It's just the DEGREE of it that's the brunt of this whole thread.
One could tear up your own effort by saying: "I don't buy into the, for example, "1958" style of modeling". Actually, one should limit oneself more precisely, say to a specific location at 3:30 on the afternoon of May 22, 1958. I've met a few of those types, and they can keep it! (IMHO)
One is no more correct, or wrong, than the other. It's all a matter of degree. Some TRY to accurately represent a very specific prototype location, and era. Some much more generally so, and others to totally freelance a complete fantasy world. A few maintain the fiction that they're modeling things EXACTLY the way there were. Now THAT's a real fantasy!
Fortunately, most of us are SOMEWHERE in between the extremes. The hobby is many things to many people, and so it should be.
I started out with my home layout set in 1935. All steam. Some of my regular operators, however, were 'Diesel freaks', and they kept yowling for some Diesels to run. I relented and added a few early Diesels. Now the railroad is more properly something like 1948 or so. I've set a few mid-40's vintage vehicles around too, but overall it doesn't look much different. I pretend this is a backwater branchline operation, so lots of older stuff is still around (I will NOT get rid of the steam locos!).
Dan Mitchell ==========
"Roger T." wrote:
C'mon, admit it: you just wanted to be able to park a shiny new ugly Edsel in front of the drugstore.
(the designer must have BEEN on drugs)
Compared to some of the things one can buy at the dealerships today it is a real beauty.
Of course that is what I thought of modern locomotives until I saw one in war bonnet. I think that paint scheme helps hide the angular notches on the long hoods.
Agreed.
-- Cheers Roger T.
Home of the Great Eastern Railway
Which is precisely my point. In general, the people who regard Sellios' and his creation as the pinnacle of model railroading achievement don't strike me as having a "live and let live" attitude. When they adopt it, so will I. But I'm not going to hold my breath while I wait for this to happen.
Oh, but I do, see below.
My thinking on dating and period is simple and straightforward, as follows. My old layout was set in 1953, and only 1953. That meant that I could still run cars fitted with K brakes in interchange service, while having a few examples of new, modern freight cars such as plug-door house cars and covered hoppers such as the early Airslides and PS-2s. The roads I was most interested in were making the transition from steam to diesel, so I could legitimately run steam and 1st generation diesels together.
Anything that was scrapped before 1953 didn't get a look in, nor did anything built in 1954 or thereafter.It's a simple matter to research the relevant dates for freight cars in an ORER of the period. Locos are equally easy to research.
While I understand that many modellers choose to depict an era as opposed to a specific year or even day, I am not comfortable with this approach, at least for MYSELF, ONLY. I would rather not have to accomodate the anachronisms that the 'era' modelling approach entails.
But you are still 'era' modeling, unless you narrow it down to one instant. You could still have cars retired in January 1953 next to cars built in December 1953.
If you narrow it down to one instant, then you also have to know WHERE everything was at that instant, so that you don't have any cars on your layout that really were halfway across the country at that instant.
Chris Johnson
Steve Caple wrote: >
LOL! A very apt decription, that! :-)
Yes, I think we can agree on that point.
The misinterpretation is all yours. I was referring to his level of ability, not his subject matter.
I aspire to model better than he can, mainly because I don't regard his modelling as being all good in the first place. There are other modellers who I regard as being better, certainly more skilled, and far more inspiring.
That's an interesting point you make there, Dan, I sometimes think that people are overwhelmed by the scale of Sellios' work, and figure that there's so much of it, it must be good. I look at it and merely think that it's overdone, in every sense.
Well, that's where our opinions differ.
That's probably the only lesson in the F&SM, for me.
Examples?
Texas Pete
Hmmm ...
I've never been one to equate volume with quality, but if there is a fair bit of quality to start with *AND* a lot of volume to go with it, that can be impressive in it's own right.
It's true that many things on the F&SM are not 'contest quality' (depending on the nature of the contest). Certainly they are NOT, in comparison to say, much of what is seen at the Prototype Modeler's meet in Naperville, IL every October. To compare such modelwork to that on the F&SM is to compare 'apples and oranges'. Both good, but sure not the same.
And, most everything on the F&SM is better than 95% of the modelwork I've seen on most model railroads (many, MANY). It's WAY above average, even if a bit off center to the mainstream of modeling. As I've stated, I consider I to be a fantasy layout. By THAT standard it's not fair to judge it by strict prototype standards. As to HOW well done it is, THAT depends only on what Mr. Sellios was TRYING to create. It's HIS fantasy, and only he can judge it by THAT standard.
Personally, I LOVE a good fantasy, and I think the F&SM is a GREAT 'model railroad' (semantics aside). Not the very best, but awfully nice. Not the norm, certainly, and better for that. I don't think it IS, or was intended to be, a strict reproduction of any real scene. So what? It's an IMPRESSION of a vision of Mr. Sellios's. Yes, it has 'Gotham' overtones ... the world of Batman is also a vision. So is the world of LOTR, etc. Add those of John Allen, Malcom Furlow, Bob Hayden, Allen McClellan and others. All 'visions', brought to some kind of reality by lots of careful craftsmanship ... and no small bit of 'love'. The models ARE the reality, and don't accurately represent any one real thing, but create an impression of something that is not, or was not, but that might have been, or might yet be. Or maybe something that someone just dreams might have been.
To varying degrees, ALL our efforts are similar to that. WIDELY varying, it's true.
Dan Mitchell ==========
Mark Newt>
=>It's true that many things on the F&SM are not 'contest quality' =>(depending on the nature of the contest).
A layout wholly built to contest quality standards would a) be rather small; b) take a very long time to build.
The only one I know of that comes close is Jack Burgess's YV. He also took care to build his scenery and track to almost exact scale diemsnions, with little or no selective compression. And it's small. And it took a long time to build, to judge from the low frequency of articles about it.
Tha fact is that layout is more than an assemblage of models. I've seen a few layouts that attempted the contest quality throughout standard, and none of them looked any better _overall_ than layouts built to lower standards. I mean, it's one thing to take in the whole scene, and another to look at individual models. Most people build to "good enough" stnadrads. On such layouts, the contest quality model usually doesn't stand out -- and if it does, it often looks wrong. In all my visits to layouts, the ones that have a certain consistency of style overall have been the most impressive. And they all have had interesting vignettes that on closer inspoection were in fact built to a higher standard; but not on first glance.
Some of the contributors to this thread have expressed a "my taste is better than your taste" attitude. I guess they never learned that in aesthetic matters we should all strive to distinguish between what we like and what we recognise as excellent. When I was a teacher, I used to quote the following (source unknown): "You don't have to like it, you just have to understand it."
Wolf Kirchmeir ................................. If you didn't want to go to Chicago, why did you get on this train? (Garrison Keillor)
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