Train Layouts and Time Warps...

[NarrowMinded]

I see some incredible work here and at train shows.
Model Rail Roaders are some of the best miniture model builders there are.

I would just like to point something out that I see on just about every layout I see.

I call it "Time Warping" what is it? The simplest and most common form is a layout set in say 1940's and a 1940's truck with 50+ years of weathering & rust. It has the same visual effect to me as if you just dropped a modern day Diesel locomotive on the layout.

The second most common is run down buildings that are period for the layout but again have 50+ years of wear and tear.


Over all they look great and maybe no one notices  they give the layout some whimsy but they stick out to me like flashing beacons.

Imagine your looking down main street of your town today and you see a 2014 truck that is rusted dented and beatdown as if it were fifty years old, or a five year old building that looks 100 years old.
T
The funniest part of this phenomenon is it is most prevalent on the strictest locomotive rivit counters layouts.

Just my two cents

NM-Jeff

Ps Im guilty of it also at times because its visually pleasing to people.

[rogertra]

Jeff.

What I call the "Disynesque" approach to model railroading as perpetuated by George Selios, for example, with his "Franklin & South Manchester" with its over the top scenery.

Excellent modelling but not really realistic.

Usually modelled by people who set their model railroad in the time of the depression where popular myth has it that that everything was run down and in a state of decay, which photos of the era tend to disprove, other than the ones by famous photographers who actually set out to show people living in extreme conditions.  Hence the myth that everything was run down and in decay.

And, BTW, let's define a "rivet counter".  George is not a rivet counter, just an excellent model builder, there's a difference.  A rivet counter is one who insists on accuracy in all their models right down to the correct number of rivets.  Hence the term "rivet counter".  These days it's come to mean someone who tends to follow the prototype as accurately as possible but without the rivet counting details.  i.e., someone who doesn't just run their trains aimlessly around a circle of track with no purpose to the train.    That's probably a "prototype modeller", if we must insist on names.

Some people on this forum think I'm a rivet counter.  How can I be when I run Athearn Blue Box, IHC, Model Power and other lower end freight cars along side Spectrum, P2K and Athearn locomotives.  Hardly the tools of a "rivet counter".    

Cheers

Roger T.

[Ken G Price]

Jeff.
Some people on this forum think I'm a rivet counter.  How can I be when I run Athearn Blue Box, IHC, Model Power and other lower end freight cars along side Spectrum, P2K and Athearn locomotives.  Hardly the tools of a "rivet counter".     
Cheers
Roger T.

Rivet counter? No, your just an other crazy, fun loving model railroader doing what pleases his enjoyment of the hobby. Just like most of us.

[Len]

I would just like to point something out that I see on just about every layout I see.
I call it "Time Warping" what is it?
The second most common is run down buildings that are period for the layout but again have 50+ years of wear and tear.

That sounds about right for Wentzville, MO, where I grew up as a kid in the 1950's. Originally built in 1855 as a railroad town, it pretty much stagnated after WW-I. A bunch of mills closed, cars killed passenger service, trucks took over the freight, and the paint started peeling on the station.

Not much happened there until GM built a plant there in the late 70's, early 80's. Not sure exactly when, as we'd moved to New England by then.

Len