George Sellios' layout

I equate tenements with slums.

What does the url and the caption say?

"Berenice Abbott Court of the First Model Tenements in New York City, =========

Tenement

Which dictionary.com defines as:

A rundown, low-rental apartment building whose facilities and maintenance barely meet minimum standards.

Obviously you have a problem reading for comprehension.

Eric

Achmed Ptooey wrote:

Wow, talk about bigotry. You equate laundry lines with slums????

I don't see any graffiti, worn out advertising signs, or crumbling brick. In case you so called historians are not familiar with laundry lines, that is how most laundry was dried before indoor dryers became so popular. I was raised in a middle class suburb, and I remember my mom hanging out the laundry in the 1960's...

Selios obviously has nailed structures, detailing and scenery. I don't think is a caricature but rather a pastiche of real scenes selectively compressed. Like the movie 'Saving Private Ryan' the events portrayed did actually happen just not in a compressed timeline as it was shown.

RPI's NE,B & W was mentioned as a well running well detailed layout. I've seen it several times. The last was april of 2002 and they were having a problem with the DDC system and the trains ran rather poorly. Also someone was running an ABBA of Milwaukee Road F units which don't really fit in in a rural New England/upstate New York layout. In addition, some of the scenery is around twenty years old and could benefit from an upgrade with modern techniques and materials.

Selios obviously has a sense of humor; it's something many people on R.M.R ought to consider cultivating. :-)

I think you can show humorous scenes and still have realistic modeling.

Eric

Froggy wrote:

Why don't you join in and give us your thoughts on the subject? Although a few are getting their feathers ruffled there are ALWAYS a few that get ruffled feathers in any discussion. It just goes with the territory.

So, what do you think? Is the Franklin & South Manchester a bona - fide model railway? OR Is the Fine & Scale Miniatures a showcase diorama for FSM Inc.?

What do YOU think Eric?

I have a weak spot for American Flyer. It was American Flyer that initiated me into the model railroading hobby over 50 years ago. A new Haven Pacific with four green, Hew Haven Osgood-Bradley cars behind, plus another Pacific with five freight cars and a caboose My Pop had a big 8' X 16' train table built, all the track laid ( there was a lot of track and turnouts ), and accessories installed; all ready to go Christmas morning. If I live to be a thousand years-old I will never forget that first tinplate "train set".

.....................F>

I love people who use dictionaries to refute what their own eyes tell them. The photos clearly show buildings that are not "run down" at all.

One thing the photos do prove however -- George doesn't know how to model tenements.

Ptooey

P.S. You used the wrong definition. Choose the first one --

A building for human habitation, especially one that is rented to tenants.

The buildings were called "tenements" the day they were first built -- it was only MUCH LATER that people like yourself equated them with slums.

Eric wrote:

Yep. Fantastic, excellent,.stupendous, wonderful (Unrealistic) scenery. Looks like the set for a movie, for say "Dick Tracy".

Just not my cup of tea.

It seems that the pro and con group, although we all agree on the superlatives, will have to agree to disagree on the realism.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Roger, you may note that one of the loco depots appears to have loose driving wheels dumped outside - I know how much you this sort of detail! :-)

Mark.

"Mark Newton" <

Yes. I decided not to nit pick. :-)

-- Cheers Roger T.

=>will have to agree to disagree on the realism.

Roger, it's _all_ an illusion. We just want to create different imaginary worlds... :-)

=>I equate tenements with slums.

That's what many of them became, but they didn't start out that way. Besides, the "good" sections of any large North American city eventually go down-scale socially, and most of them turn into one kind of slum or another. It has a lot to do with class consciousness, racial prejudice, declining buisiness, etc which move people (and businesses) to move to "better" neighbourhoods. Sometimes the process works the other way round, and slums become gentrified -- old buildings that were converetd to rooming houses and apartments are gutted and restored to their former glory, warehouses are converted to upscale condos, etc. And the locals can no longer afford to live there, so they move to a cheaper area of towen - which promptly is labelled a slum...

In any case, few people like living next to train tracks, so the neighbourhoods through which the tracks run are the first to go downscale.

HTH

At least they got the number of rails right . . .

Yes, as I have repeatedly stated myself, redundantly, over and over again, repetitiously, time after time.

It's ALL toy tains and there's no escaping that. To me, it's a game, like a war game. A combination of strategy and tactics to accomplish the required movements associated with moving the freight and servicing the customer's accounts in the most efficient and protoypical manner. I am an operations addict and place authenticity of operation above almost everything else within the bounds of reasonability.

...................F>

Just for the record I say tomato ("Toe-May-Toe").

Adolescent introductory to miniature trains.

A very well marketed 3 dimensional version of a popular children's television show characters aimed at promoting the show to develop brand loyalty which in turn increases sales of more 3 dimensional characters.

Terry

Another great movie for scenery ideas. (along with "Popeye").

-John

"I decided not to nit pick. :-)"

Actually I wish you would. I'd like to know what the people who find Sellios' work unrealistic specifically dislike.

Eric

"Eric"

Since you ask, too much detail. So much in fact, that it looks cluttered. The large buildings are too tall, far too tall for pre skyscraper construction days, while the smaller buildings are too Disneyesque. As I wrote before, the whole thing looks like a movie set for a Dick Tracy movie.

As someone else wrote, it looks like John Allen's Gory and Depheted with tall buildings instead of mountains. The first time I saw photos of George's layout, that's what it reminded me of. And I was never a fan of the G&D either.

-- Cheers Roger T.

Good description of the cycle.

The F&SM is supposed to be a depression era NE city. I think Sellios has achieved that.

Many of the buildings seem to be consistant with post Civil War architecture; so built 1860-1900 which would make them between 30 to

A few of the really decrepit ones could even be prebellum.

Most of the small building on the F&SM would be characterized as wood framed and masonry venacular structures. They would not have been designed by an architect but rather designed by 'eye' by the builder. Not exactly on the National register of historic buildings.

The newer tall commerical and residential building seem to be in the background. This gives the impression that they are a few blocks from the railroad. I would also suggest that they are the backside of the structures and as such rather plain. I don't find the high kitbashed magnuson kits out of line. They're about 20-40 stories tall. In the real world that about right. The problem is on model railroads we're used to small compressed structure geared to the 4X8 crowd.

Take this one.

The big buildings that are near seem to be manufaturing of warehouses which is reasonable.

As for the condition and the signage. Given that most of the paints used were made with natural pigments mixed into linseed oil and turpentine and weren't exactly durable. Combined with the fact that the enviromentalist movement wouldn't be born for at least 20-30 years and that there were smokestacks sticking out of virtually every building in the city pumping out clouds of coal smoke over the city and don't think that the F&SM was that grungy. Especially in a depression era timeline where people had better things to spend their meager resources on then paint.

I think a lot of people are forgetting this along with the fact that the B&W photos of the era would tend to hide the sublities weathering and lack of maintainence of buildings.

George has made a few blunders. Like this one.

I find this one quite good.

I think the best thing George could do is find a train oriented model railroader to go through his rolling stock and cull the stuff that doesn't fit in with his timeline.

Eric

Eric wrote: =>I equate tenements with slums.

Wolf Kirchmeir wrote:

That's what many of them became, but they didn't start out that way. Besides, the "good" sections of any large North American city eventually go down-scale socially, and most of them turn into one kind of slum or another. It has a lot to do with class consciousness, racial prejudice, declining buisiness, etc which move people (and businesses) to move to "better" neighbourhoods. Sometimes the process works the other way round, and slums become gentrified -- old buildings that were converetd to rooming houses and apartments are gutted and restored to their former glory, warehouses are converted to upscale condos, etc. And the locals can no longer afford to live there, so they move to a cheaper area of towen - which promptly is labelled a slum...

Roger, you've probably never been to Newark, NJ, there are parts of Newark that actually/still look somewhat similar to this, very cluttered, steep roofs, unkept, umaintaned. Even parts of North Philadelphia look similar, too, from what I remember the last time I was down that way. Jeff

Eric, I don't dislike Sellios' work at all. It is simply not to my taste. My entirely subjective opinion is that his urban scenes are too homogenous in their appearance. All the structures are weathered to about the same degree, all the wear, tear and deterioration is uniform. Simple observation tells us that even in the scungiest of neighbourhoods, this is not the case. But in order to convey a particular impression, or mood, certain elements of the scene are exagerated. So I would characterise his work as theatrical, rather than realistic.

But as I stated in an earlier post, it is the expression of his particular vision, as is any model railroad an expression of it's builders vision. He likes it that way, as do his fans, and that's really all that matters.

My comment to Roger about loose driving wheels that elicited the above response was in reference to a previous thread about steam engine depots in model form.

All the best,

Mark.

To my eye, this looks like a typical one-small-dairy-farm milk dropoff. Enough room on the platform for the cans, enough room in the office for paperwork and two chairs... and somehow I don't think "Disneyesque" and "very G&D looking" are as perjorative as you intend.

When a model railroad is built, the entire work is a "parody" of sorts of the real thing. We don't _actually_ move freight and passengers (just their containers), we don't have room to model the _entire_ city, or even the entire factory. (when was the last time you saw a modeled large factory with a parking lot big enough for 3500 cars?) What we do is to attempt to capture the feel of a particular scene with enough attention to detail that we are mentally satisfied with the attempt.

Both Disney and Allen understood the concept of a "stage" very well, and exhibited the understanding that what works is different in a still photo than it is in moving pictures or in person. The static parts of a layout suffer in comparison to the trains, because they _don't_move_. Therefore, an exaggerated sense of detail helps to bring them up to the percieved level of detail of the moving trains.

This is a different level of detail for everyone. George obviously like the quaint and unusual in structures. Somehow, I have the feeling that (with the possible exception of the 16 story brick structure - though one that size _could_ possibly have a brick facade...) most of his structures DO have a prototype.

Not for northern states - snow, remember?

It's one fire away from an urban renewal project... not an unusual look in the dock district of a seaport.

Commonly called a "Widow's Walk", a high point on a building where people could watch for inbound sailing ships. A common feature on tall buildings in pre-1860's construction in seaport towns.

No, it would have to be cleaned up for that...

I don't really have a problem with these, either. I _did_ think, at first, that the paint fading was prbably overdone... but on reflection, there have been VAST improvements in paint technology over the past years, and buildings 70-80 years ago DID fade and weather faster.. and buildings that might have been needing repainting in the mid-1920's probably wouldn't have gotten it for at least another 10 years.

Of course, if there was something _really_ unprototypical, like a whole string of factories jammed together wall to wall without even an alley between them...