L&N Industrial Rail Spur

[sailormatlac]

[quote}
When I started out modeling the Miami industrial scene, I rather naively set the year as "Today". Reality has set in. It's just not practical to do so. Things change much faster than anybody can build models to reflect such changes. To be accurate you would be in a situation where you are constantly re-building structures and changing rolling stock. Industrial tenants come and go. Industries that saw rail service give it up. In other locations new tenants move into vacant buildings and start up rail service. Buildings in Miami are constantly repainted. CSX has phased in it's new locomotive paint style. I just can't say I'm modeling the present and keep up. For that reason I'm setting the date I'm modeling as 2007. In 2007 the Miami Produce Market still received cars in their courtyard. In 2007 the Seaboard Warehouse was still going strong. I will fudge a bit though. A number of new industries have started taking rail shipments and I'm not above adding those into the layout.[unquote}

I think Lance's remark can apply to any era. At some point, when you try to model a specfic era (today, tomorrow of yesterday), you find out everything changes. Modelling a specific month/day in a specfic year may seem a way to get rid of the problem, but as Lance also says, at a point, you got to fudge things a little bit. I always set my different layout about Quebec area in September 1957 because the insurance maps says so. But this isn't a panacea because many things I like about this era disappered earlier in 1957 or appeared in 1958. Focussing on a prototype is a good to discipline ourselves, but at some it shouldn't never hinder our passion.

I remember many times I built an industry siding, started to gather rolling stock and ended up cancelling the problem later on. We all dream to have an industry for every car type we like, but it doesn't work like this.

With the year, my own experience and other's modeller experience, I came to the conclusion model railroading wasn't a static affair like other models. You've got to create a world for these models with which you interact. Just like the real world, they have purposes, sometimes they exist because of a will and often, they disappear slowly to oblivion. Maybe it's the aspect the more prototypical of everything we do. I've seen countless industries die on the club layout, be cleared then replaced by a new one, often implying our "railway" to rebuilt track to serve it adequately. I think it's more about having a frame in which you can modify things according to a general coherent view than jailing yourself in a specific theme. It's interesting to see that Lance, and probably others that had the same train of thoughts, finds out that modelling "Today is just a sweet escape.

Matt