Posing A Question About THe Hobby

[MountainMan]

Good points. Maybe all of us are doing it all wrong.

I think I'll contact that contractor and see what he will charge to build my layout for me. I'm way behind on reading my how-to books, anyway. Might even be cheaper in the long run; I won't have to pay for his mistakes and he can argue the space issue with my wife!

[Russ Bellinis]

I think it has to do with what an individual wants to do. I think Frank Sinatra had his layout professionally built. I know other celebrities have hired pros to build layouts. On the other hand, I think Rod Stewart built his own layout. We have one member in our modular railroad club who built a module for another member. Some of us went over to help the guy with scenery and to check on the track work. Our standards call for every module to have a junction box with a 110 volt recepticle installed. The guy who had built the module had wired black wires to white wires and created a 110 volt direct short. This guy tries to do his own wiring and we do our best to keep him out of trouble, but he really ought to hire all electrical work done by a professional. As long as everybody is honest about whether a model railroad is the work of the owner, a club or friends helping him out, or a professional build, I don't have a problem with it. If having a professionally built layout is a criteria for appearing in the magazine, then I would consider that a problem. As it stands, when I used to subscribe to Model Railroader, or RMC as well for that matter, the featured layouts were a mix of professional builders and amateur modelers with probably 75% falling into the hobbyist catagory. My biggest complaint with Model Railroader has been and continues to be a lack of content that has application to my modeling interest. When you are modeling Southern California, there is almost nothing to be gained from articles on how to model New England or Wisconsin.

[Selector]

Good points. Maybe all of us are doing it all wrong...

I don't really follow you with this statement. Which "all of us" do you mean? Do you mean the "all of us" who run only brass, or only the ones who run only the brass engines that we make from scratch? Is the hobby providing room for other ways to enjoy it?

I don't mean to sound coy, or facetious, but I would suggest that "all of us" are doing it exactly right. We are doing it as we see fit, and would probably not welcome much judgement from those who would seek to put our enjoyment to some arbitrary or personal/subjective test. Just as I can make water using a two part epoxy, so can others use a single pour in Woodland Scenics products. Is that I do three functions in order to get a water effect, the measuring and mixing, and then the pour, a de facto judgement that my way about the hobby is better than those who elect for the measure and pour, one less step than mine? And who is to say so to whom both of us ought to defer in matters of this nature?

I don't want to get into a heated debate about this, but the subject, as introduced, while couched in terms suggestive of an invitation to dialog, reads to me as more a line drawn in the sand, a judgement, and amounts to an attempt to bifurcate this young forum into two camps....as threads of this nature almost always manage to do whever I enounter them. Whose "side" are "all of us" on?

Live and let live.

[MountainMan]

I think that now you are arguing purely semantics, Selector. Whatever melts your butter...

[deckroid]

I guess it's my turn to chime in.

I buy Ready to Run rolling stock and engines. I also buy kits. I have yet to buy that Bowser kit... I am quite nervous about THAT but I would have to say that its my choice. If I want to build scenery, or not, it's my world. I can choose what I want to do with it.

From time to time, I buy the British Hornby Railroading magazine and in the October issue, there was a similar argument, Why are you in the hobby if you aren't going to exactly recreate a railway.

It comes down to It's My World.

If I want to hire it done, so be it.. It's My World. If I want to create my own paint schemes or letter an engine that NP didn't have, so be it... It's My World.

That being said, I do believe that MR exhibits the commercial aspect of somethings a bit much and that this article shows it. But they are in business to make money and they do have a responsibility to show readers different ways to railroading. Did I enjoy the article? Eh, it was ok. Will I cancel my subscription because of it? No.

I do think they should expand it's search for railroads to show. No offense to members here and elsewhere, but if they wanted to show the masses a great layout? I would vote for DoctorWayne's layout. His is not the only one here that I think exceeds what they have shown, but his How To's are outstanding. Just his How To on water, alone, taught me more on making water than any of the Kalambach books or any of the past 3 years of MR that I have been reading.

That's about it. To sum up - It's My World. If you wanna buy it done, It's Your World.

George

[yellowlynn]

Selector, About all I understood of what you said, was mostly about being on sides, or choosing sides, or whatever. The thing about sides is that no matter what comes up, I always end up on the other side. I sure wish things would get straightened out 'cause I would really like to find out if I'm on this side or the other side.

Lynn

[Sumpter250]

Starting on page 52 of the Feb '09 Model Railroader is a presentation of a layout titled Steaming Through The Winter Wonderland. It is a nice layout, but it wasn't built by the owner; it was commissioned from Raildreams, Inc., a commercial firm.
My feelings are that this isn't a proper display of a layout made by an owner or club, but essentially amounts to advertising for the company that did all the work. From a modeler's viewpoint, I'm uncomfortable with the way this was presented, but maybe I'm too much of a purist.
I'm interested in the opinions of other members.

OK, I just quoted the original post so we can all get back on page 1.

I will not state that they did, but, I would not be surprised to find out that MR (Kalmbach) was well paid for publishing that article............at least it wasn't a "senate seat" (that's a "Blagojevich" joke). I have watched Model Railroader make the change from a model railroader's "source of inspiration" to a "cover to cover advertisement", and "good ol' boys" brag sheet. which is why I dropped my subscription, like a hot rock!
MR is also one of the reasons I found and stayed here. There's far more inspiration, and genuine good fellowship here than can be found in the pages of "Kalmbach's Finest". Please don't misunderstand, there's a lot of good material published by Kalmbach........MR just isn't part of it, for me, at least.
I learned a lot from all the years I spent reading MR, but the "master" stopped learning, and the "student" passed by the master, and needs him no longer.
Sad, I looked forward to the learning, and now, have found new "masters" to teach me, some of them, right here.
No, I'm not taking "sides", but I do have to agree with Mountainman's feelings about the article being an advertisement, more than a source of new skills, or information. When I saw the article, I put the issue back on the shelf.
Sorry Kalmbach, one less issue of MR sold.

[Ralph]

I think that we're losing sight of the original topic here, which is not about the validity of commercially-built layouts, but with this particular presentation of them in MR, where the layout article appears to be more a display of what one may buy from the builder, as opposed to what the owner was able to build himself. Usually, a feature article on a layout focuses on the owner's accomplishments, not on the work of a "for hire" company.

As noted, this is a hobby that we each pursue in our own way. Because we may disagree with another's methods doesn't make those methods "wrong". In my opinion, though, a magazine that purports to promote the hobby should, editorially-speaking, promote it as a hobby, and leave the commercial aspect of it to the Advertising Department.

Wayne

Thanks Pete for returning us to the beginning to remind us of the original theme of the thread. I think Wayne's comment above deserves a second look too.

Ralph

[Charlie B]

All of this discussion has finally turned on a thought in my tiny little brain.
Many years ago the modeling magazines were more "how to" about modeling, and the interest was more on selling subscriptions then it was on selling ads. Now the rolls have reversed. While you can't do one with out the other, the balance is being lost.
IMHO the magazines are in a quandary because if they do an article on building "trees" for a nickle, then the tree manufacturer gets upset and pulls their add. I can remember seeing many articles on building scenery, track, and painting backdrops that were geared more to using non-commercial items.
Now along comes this thing called the Internet and we are sharing ideas and techniques, and no longer need to go to these publications. The dealers have a web site and cut the ad from 4 pages to a line that says something like "Jumpin Johns Hobbies visit us at or web site" and then publish the address.
So, thinking about it from this angle, if they do an article about a commercially built layout and don't get paid for an ad, maybe the company will place an ad later. The magazines give lots of free ads with their reviews on items, though I tend to be more and more sceptical about published reviews when a lot of times the online version from actual consumers may vary greatly.
Frankly, I don't think I want to be in their shoes.
Charlie

[steinjr]

Incidentally, if you read the article, then you know that virtually no information was provided on actual construction. Frankly, I doubt a professional would want to openly publish his methods and techniques when he's trying to make a living, but who knows? Maybe they're just waiting in the wings, pining for the opportunity.

I did read the article before I commented. Actually - I originally did read the article before you posted your initial comment, and then went back to re-read it before I commented. It is a funny habit I have - I try not to comment on stuff unless I have at least an inkling about what it is about.

It was a short article. Roughly two pages of text organized in 5 sections, with two more pages containing 5 pictures, a track plan and three fact boxes ("layout at a glance", "modeling realistic snow" and "meet the owner").

It was clearly indicated in the article that the layout building had been done by custom builders - it was mentioned in a sentence in the first section, and in the fourth section, as well as in the "modeling realistic snow" fact box. You would have to be somewhat visually challenged if you feel that the article left you with the impression that the owner had made the claim that he had built everything himself.

Main focus was on showing a winter layout, covered with snow, and perhaps surprisingly the article was called "Steaming through the winter wonderland".

The short article showed pics and gave a little information about the creation of the winter scenes. Not as much information as I would have liked to see about *how* things were done, but one of the techniques was briefly described how the snow had been made (building up drifts on the ground and on roofs with Sculptamold, sprinkled when still wet with WS lightweight Hydrocal and then WS Soft Flake Snow).

As I said earlier, the primary problem I have with the entire concept is that someone who knows absolutely nothing about trains at all can hire someone to construct an award winning mega-layout using such an approach. Is that really "model railroading"? Is that where we want this hobby of ours to go? That was the thrust of my original question, and the answers so far have ranged from "H*** no!" to"Heck, yes!"

Nice piece of rhetoric, but an 8x9 foot H0 scale layout is hardly an "award winning mega-layout", is it ?

Article also mentioned that the owner previously (while living in Texas) had built a Lionel layout that filled a two car garage. It also mentioned that he after a relocation from Texas to the Midwest had just made do with temporary Christmastime Lionel layouts, but had wanted a more permanent H0 scale winter scene layout, had made a rough sketch and established what he wanted, and hired a company of custom builders to build it.

As I mentioned above it was clearly indicated in the article that the owner had not built it himself, but that the concept (or vision, if you like) was his, while the actual building had been done by Raildreams.

So - what we have here does not seem to be a billionaire who commissioned someone to build an award winning mega-layout, and then tried to claim that he had built it himself.

Instead, it would appear that this is someone who has built a layout previously, but for some reason not known to me or you (I assume ?) this time around chose to have the layout built by custom builders.

Maybe this particular person (Bill Nelson) enjoys running trains more than he enjoys building layouts, or maybe he has a severe shortage of available time or maybe he feels he couldn't get his winter landscapes right or whatever. Don't know, don't care. None of my business.

Was it a great article in my opinion? Nope. "Winter wonderland" is not my kind of dream layout.

I noted in passing that the track plan, not totally unlike John Allen's original small Gorre and Daphetid layout, was based on mainly being viewed from one side (the front), that it had a couple of visible staging tracks at front, two loops (upper and lower) where trains could run simultaneously on auto pilot, and that you would have to either back in from the outer/lower loop to the inner/upper loop or back out again. It is clearly a layout intended more for display running more than e.g. a layout intended for switching.

Pictures showed nice snow covered scenes with what seemed to me like reasonable small town buildings for a 1940s North Eastern US look and feel. Engines and rolling stock seemed well done - NYC and PRR steam engines.

I felt that the article was too skimpy on details of how planning and construction had been done, as well as about how the layout was being operated (if that is the right word). But it wasn't really a how-to article - it was more like an extended "trackside scenes", ie maybe inspirational for others who might want to make a winter scene layout.

Since I am not planning a steam era winter scene layout, it didn't really have all that much to hit me directly in my center of hobby interest. I made a mental note of the track plan and the sculptamold/lightweight hydrocal/soft flake snow combo, and moved on to read other articles.

But the article wasn't exactly about "someone who knows absolutely nothing about trains" and "hire someone to construct an award winning mega-layout" either, was it ?

As for the "is this where we want this hobby of ours to go?", I have no illusions about being able to control how other modelers do things on their layouts.

Neither have I any desire to even try to dictate to others how they should do their layout.

I look at how others do things, and ask questions to learn how they do things. Some of the things I learn, I try on my own layout. But when it comes to how I do things on my own layout, I make my own decisions on how to proceed.

When I feel competent enough on a subject to give advice, I give advice to others if they ask for advice. But I am also clear on the fact that your layout is yours, not mine. You do what you like to produce a layout that is to your liking. It does not have to be to my liking if you like it.

YMMV, but I have found that none of us speak for "the hobby" or "all modelers". I speak for me, you speak for you. Anyone else can speak for themselves. Pretty simple system, isn't it ?

Grin,
Stein

[sgtcarl1]

Why can't we all just get along??

[tetters]

I could care less either way. I say whatever floats your boat.

[scubadude]

MR is no different than any other small industry consumer mag. Almost everything inside the covers is paid for in one way or another. It is the same in the scuba industry. I have been featured in many articles over the years and it's mostly because I am good friends with many of the staff photographers rather than the mag actually wanting me for an article. Many articles about a dive operation or destination were actually paid "infomercials" and were written from a marketing standpoint rather than an informational one. Product reviews and such are just ways for manufactureres and other vendors to sell their products and services. It wouldn't surprise me if these guys who actually built this guy's layout paid for this article to be published in MR.

[Brakie]

Starting on page 52 of the Feb '09 Model Railroader is a presentation of a layout titled Steaming Through The Winter Wonderland. It is a nice layout, but it wasn't built by the owner; it was commissioned from Raildreams, Inc., a commercial firm.

My feelings are that this isn't a proper display of a layout made by an owner or club, but essentially amounts to advertising for the company that did all the work. From a modeler's viewpoint, I'm uncomfortable with the way this was presented, but maybe I'm too much of a purist.

I'm interested in the opinions of other members.

Interesting thought MM..

I haven't read my newest MR yet-I read N Scale Railroading and N Scale first,then Trains,then MR except for when Railfan and Classic trains arrive then they are read before MR.

I have mixed feelings about articles in MR (or any MR mag)that features a prebuilt layout..I can understand a person having a layout built that lacks the needed carpentry skills or electrical skills,have a physical impairment ect..

On the other hand I see such articles as infomercials promoting a advertiser.

[MountainMan]

Incidentally, if you read the article, then you know that virtually no information was provided on actual construction. Frankly, I doubt a professional would want to openly publish his methods and techniques when he's trying to make a living, but who knows? Maybe they're just waiting in the wings, pining for the opportunity.

I did read the article before I commented. Actually - I originally did read the article before you posted your initial comment, and then went back to re-read it before I commented. It is a funny habit I have - I try not to comment on stuff unless I have at least an inkling about what it is about.

It was a short article. Roughly two pages of text organized in 5 sections, with two more pages containing 5 pictures, a track plan and three fact boxes ("layout at a glance", "modeling realistic snow" and "meet the owner").

It was clearly indicated in the article that the layout building had been done by custom builders - it was mentioned in a sentence in the first section, and in the fourth section, as well as in the "modeling realistic snow" fact box. You would have to be somewhat visually challenged if you feel that the article left you with the impression that the owner had made the claim that he had built everything himself.

Main focus was on showing a winter layout, covered with snow, and perhaps surprisingly the article was called "Steaming through the winter wonderland".

The short article showed pics and gave a little information about the creation of the winter scenes. Not as much information as I would have liked to see about *how* things were done, but one of the techniques was briefly described how the snow had been made (building up drifts on the ground and on roofs with Sculptamold, sprinkled when still wet with WS lightweight Hydrocal and then WS Soft Flake Snow).

As I said earlier, the primary problem I have with the entire concept is that someone who knows absolutely nothing about trains at all can hire someone to construct an award winning mega-layout using such an approach. Is that really "model railroading"? Is that where we want this hobby of ours to go? That was the thrust of my original question, and the answers so far have ranged from "H*** no!" to"Heck, yes!"

Nice piece of rhetoric, but an 8x9 foot H0 scale layout is hardly an "award winning mega-layout", is it ?

Article also mentioned that the owner previously (while living in Texas) had built a Lionel layout that filled a two car garage. It also mentioned that he after a relocation from Texas to the Midwest had just made do with temporary Christmastime Lionel layouts, but had wanted a more permanent H0 scale winter scene layout, had made a rough sketch and established what he wanted, and hired a company of custom builders to build it.

As I mentioned above it was clearly indicated in the article that the owner had not built it himself, but that the concept (or vision, if you like) was his, while the actual building had been done by Raildreams.

So - what we have here does not seem to be a billionaire who commissioned someone to build an award winning mega-layout, and then tried to claim that he had built it himself.

Instead, it would appear that this is someone who has built a layout previously, but for some reason not known to me or you (I assume ?) this time around chose to have the layout built by custom builders.

Maybe this particular person (Bill Nelson) enjoys running trains more than he enjoys building layouts, or maybe he has a severe shortage of available time or maybe he feels he couldn't get his winter landscapes right or whatever. Don't know, don't care. None of my business.

Was it a great article in my opinion? Nope. "Winter wonderland" is not my kind of dream layout.

I noted in passing that the track plan, not totally unlike John Allen's original small Gorre and Daphetid layout, was based on mainly being viewed from one side (the front), that it had a couple of visible staging tracks at front, two loops (upper and lower) where trains could run simultaneously on auto pilot, and that you would have to either back in from the outer/lower loop to the inner/upper loop or back out again. It is clearly a layout intended more for display running more than e.g. a layout intended for switching.

Pictures showed nice snow covered scenes with what seemed to me like reasonable small town buildings for a 1940s North Eastern US look and feel. Engines and rolling stock seemed well done - NYC and PRR steam engines.

I felt that the article was too skimpy on details of how planning and construction had been done, as well as about how the layout was being operated (if that is the right word). But it wasn't really a how-to article - it was more like an extended "trackside scenes", ie maybe inspirational for others who might want to make a winter scene layout.

Since I am not planning a steam era winter scene layout, it didn't really have all that much to hit me directly in my center of hobby interest. I made a mental note of the track plan and the sculptamold/lightweight hydrocal/soft flake snow combo, and moved on to read other articles.

But the article wasn't exactly about "someone who knows absolutely nothing about trains" and "hire someone to construct an award winning mega-layout" either, was it ?

As for the "is this where we want this hobby of ours to go?", I have no illusions about being able to control how other modelers do things on their layouts.

Neither have I any desire to even try to dictate to others how they should do their layout.

I look at how others do things, and ask questions to learn how they do things. Some of the things I learn, I try on my own layout. But when it comes to how I do things on my own layout, I make my own decisions on how to proceed.

When I feel competent enough on a subject to give advice, I give advice to others if they ask for advice. But I am also clear on the fact that your layout is yours, not mine. You do what you like to produce a layout that is to your liking. It does not have to be to my liking if you like it.

YMMV, but I have found that none of us speak for "the hobby" or "all modelers". I speak for me, you speak for you. Anyone else can speak for themselves. Pretty simple system, isn't it ?

Grin,
Stein

Can't be that simple if you needed an entire page to say it...