Same era but less "Popeye" like?

Is this the layout that the owner's dog peed on and has subsequently been scrapped?

-- Cheers Roger T.

Some fine modeling there!! Thanks for the link.

Charles=A0Bix wrote: For those of you who were criticizing George Sellios' layout for reminding you of "Popeye cartoons" is this more in line with what you think a depression era layout should look like? This layout might actually be set a little later than the depression but it's close.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

Because it does look like a Popeye cartoon?

-- Cheers Roger T.

First, my so-called qualifications: an active R/C flier since the mid-seventies, an armchair model railroader and MR and RMC reader since approximately 1952. In my youth I had an AF layout that morphed into an HO layout, but never at any time was I "serious."

Currently, I have a tiny collection of HO rolling stock and buildings, and I have assembled a few structure kits, which I very much enjoy doing. Just getting ready for the day when I'm too feebed to fly R/C, you understand, and hoping I'm still gonna be able to use some toys. If my model trains aren't allowed to be toys then fuhgedaboudit.

To me, the prototype only modelers are lacking in imagination. No matter how fabulous their modeling skills may be, without a prototype they cannot exist.

The "operations" fanatics really should just go get a railroad job, but maybe operations are not so fun when one is actually getting sweaty and filthy or all tore up, eh. Operations are much safer and cleaner in a layout room or at a train show.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

That guy is one helluva modeler, but so is Sellios.

Yeah boy!

The reason I even have any model train stuff is because of the Varney ads that were photographed on the G&D by John Allen back in the fifties. Allen, Sellios, Wright, all modelers supreme. Diversity is what it's all about.

That's a really fine post, Mark.

Texas Pete

Charles, you hit the nail square on the head!! George's work, while awe-inspiring, is just caricature of reality. The photo below shows what we've been talking about -- REALISM -- sure old industrial cities are dirty and run down -- but they are not usually wall-to-wall trash and clutter.

Charles Bix wrote:

industrial areas of the

Interesting, as I actually wrote to John Wright about that very topic

- I was impressed as to how realistic his weed and grass choked yards looked in his Model Railroad spread, and asked him his technique (which he consequently told me - nothing too out of the ordinary, he just took a lot of care with it). Of course, I come from a perspective of the mid-60s and later (having not been alive before then), where grass and weed covered ROWs are very, very common.

It was their cat...

-- crazyro

"Keith Norgrove" <

Ouch!

-- Cheers Roger T.

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 20:54:48 UTC, snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net (Bill) wrote: 2000

The buildings are gorgeous but... there has to be some trash and clutter. The whole thing looks too sterile to me.

As someone who is actually IN that capacity, I am qualified to comment thereon.

While a number of railroaders are themselves "buffs," they generally have to keep a low profile because of the nature of the industry and the safety issues it entails. Thus, to a degree, railroaders look down on railfans, and are generally uncomfortable with working with them until they've demonstrated they can work safely with such unforgiving equipment. Railroaders DO NOT want an employee who points and exclaims, "Oh, look! An SD60!"

Railroading is a dangerous, dirty, sweaty job in which one is outside in all sorts of weather. Just today I worked 12 hours on a change crew assignment in which my pants and T-shirt got quite dirty. Cleanliness is not something for which railroads are known.

Yet, when I joined my present club ten years ago, I discovered I enjoy operations, and that this enjoyment is further enhanced as a result of my working in the industry.

Seniority is EVERYTHING on the railroad, and men with low seniority cannot hold regular assignments; instead, they get to work "on call," meaning any hour, any day.

With that in mind, I caution those who'd think working on a railroad is "neat." You're better off keeping your present job, because that's what working on the railroad fundamentally is: a job.

Dieter Zakas

I said, That's the way I remember the old days. Great pix!

Ernie replied: The buildings are gorgeous but... there has to be some trash and clutter. The whole thing looks too sterile to me.

---------------------------------------------------

I don't remember trash and clutter in the 1940s and 1950s in Washington, DC when I was a kid. In fact, believe it or not, we picked up any trash we saw and put it in a trash can.

I still do but I'm more careful when handling anything I pick up these days.

Times have changed.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

Couldn't get any to "display". :-(

"Temporary file not found. Display failed."

-- Cheers Roger T.

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 22:03:16 UTC, Charles snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com (Charles Bix) wrote: 2000

I have never lived where there is not a bit (or more) of clutter and there is always some trash. When the wind blows it brings papers, wrappers, etc. Loading docks invariably have some clutter on them and frequently piles of discarded packing material. Maybe not a lot, but some. Sterile only occurs when there has been a real strong wind and then look for the nearest chain link fence. Alleys and passageways between buildings look worse.

On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 03:04:28 UTC, Gregory Procter wrote: 2000

But of course!

Hmmm, must be something funky in the way that the Library of Congress has their photo section set up. Those links were copied and pasted directly from the browser window to the e-mail composition window. I notice the reference to "temp" in the links so maybe they're dynamically generating pages as they're referenced by users. Unfortunately, I couldn't test the links in the composition window prior to hitting send. Anyway, they show photos from the Depression Era that could be references for George Sellios's work.

Yup. Ands when I's builds 'em theys stays built! More spinach!

-John