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Profiling. Demographics, Sociology. Touchy subjects at times depending on the context. Applied with good, or at least benign, intentions however, classifying people into categories can be beneficial both to the individuals being grouped as well as those that are serving them. A major factor in the usefulness of all of this data is how effective we are in choosing our categories. What appears to be a simple task on the surface, often is not. Taking the wrong perspective can result in an entire group being underserved.
As it applies to model railroading, breaking down our hobby demographic by age, scale being modeled, favorite era, etc. is good stuff to know for everybody. One of the more important classifications, and one that often gets just a glancing look, is modeling experience. How many of us are beginners, intermediate modelers, or advanced? You need to know your audience in order to tailor the product or service to their needs. Needs aren’t simply interests but also extend to having the necessary tools to achieve modeling goals. These tools must take into account where somebody is on the learning curve. The most important group is the “beginners” both because of their size as well as the fragile issue of whether they will stay in the hobby. On the surface, this group is served well through the efforts of Model Railroader, train shows, and efforts such as The World’s Greatest Hobby. However, If we dig deeper into what defines a “beginner” we see that we aren’t looking at one homogenous group but actually two. The fact that the model railroading community is benignly ignorant of this reality results in a large segment slipping through the cracks, ignored, and ultimately leaving the hobby, to the detriment of all.
No, not all “beginners” are the same. The term is most commonly used to describe what I’ll call, a “recreational” beginner. This is somebody captivated by trains in general and drawn to the basic appeal of having something in miniature, in motion. They are handicapped by being at the bottom of the learning curve in terms of modeling skills and typically have very little knowledge of (or interest in) the prototype. The absence of any real interest in the prototype or achieving any sense of realism is totally irrelevant. The hobby has done a good job helping the recreational beginner “launch”. They can start by picking up a train set or perhaps following a “how to” tutorial series in Model Railroader. Anything goes and running a 4-6-0 adjacent to an Acela on a 4 x 8 table is totally cool. They have fun and their kids have fun. It’s win, win for everybody including the hobby at large. Some move on to more sophisticated layouts, others stay in the hobby long term and fully enjoy it while staying permanently in the recreational beginner zone. For many more it’s a passing interest which may or may not be picked up again.
The problem, the mass oversight, is that the recreationalist isn’t the only type of “beginner”. There is another silent group which, for lack of a better term, I’ll call the “advanced beginner”. The only attribute they share with their cousins is that they are at the beginning of the modeling skills learning curve. All other similarities end there. (although, even in their own minds they simply call themselves “beginners”).
An advanced beginner is typically very knowledgeable about many aspects of prototype railroading. What they don’t know, they want to know. Realism is important to them. Prototypical accuracy matters to them. Running trains around a loop as a casual rail fan? Not interested. They really aren’t supported by the press because there isn’t an awareness that they even exist. What they want is a model of a railroad but one that can be created using easily learned skills. They want a roadmap that takes them from where they are now down a clearly defined path of ever increasing modeling skills. From a suppliers point of view the advanced beginner, properly supported, is more likely to stay in the hobby long term, purchase ever more expensive products, and ultimately develop into the authors and role models that will move the hobby forward in the decades ahead.
What is their profile? First, they are intelligent. Ages are spread over a tremendous range starting from around age 12 (Yes, it’s frightening but there are some really knowledgeable teenagers out there! Shouldn’t they be studying geometry and not diesel spotting guides?) going well into the retirement years. If I had to pick the most common age I’d say it skews slightly younger in the thirty to early forty year old range. Prototype interests vary but there is a slight skewing towards the more modern time periods.
Sadly, many advanced beginners feel like outsiders, not sure where to begin or how to develop their model railroading passions in modeling form. “How to” series in the press are rarely geared towards them (David Barrow’s series in MR being an exception). They view more established modelers as clickish but are too polite to say as much.
In the eyes of the advanced beginner, pursuing the hobby can be a lonely and often frustrating experience. They want a “model of a railroad”, don’t yet have the skills to create what they have in their mind, and have limited guidance as to how to bridge the gap. On the surface, you’d think being in the age of unlimited information would be the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, lots of information is not the same as lots of quality information. Separating the wheat from the chaff just adds another level of frustration.
If you find yourself in the advanced beginner demographic, here are a few thoughts:
Rather than wringing your hands endlessly worrying about the perfect design, reframe your orientation towards that of breaking the log jam of stagnation and set a basic goal of skills development. Set a target date of building something, anything, and keep it small and manageable. Don’t worry about “perfection”, worry about action. There will be time enough to adjust the tiller as you go.
The nature of model railroading is such that most of the steps are repetitive in nature. If you can successfully build a ten square foot switching layout, transitioning to a half basement model railroad is fairly easy. You just repeat the same steps more often.
Begin your starter layout skills progression by focusing on a three key areas:
There is a ton of layout design information out there, some good, a lot of it not so good. One of the better sources of consistently reliable, vetted, design information is Kalmbach’s annual periodical Model Railroad Planning. Pick up as many back issues as possible and study them.
Branding yourself as a “lone wolf” is fine but doing so will make the journey much longer and tougher. Ultimately, the path to skills development is paved by creating alliances with skilled modelers that are willing to mentor you. If you’re willing to put yourself out there a little, they aren’t that hard to find. All a mentor will really wants in return is a sincere effort on your part to implement the suggestions.
Finding mentors involves mixing in the circles and networks where you’re most likely to find the more skilled modelers. This can be one of the most daunting, anxiety inducing obstacles. I’m sure from the outside, as with anything social, things can appear quite clickish. This if often more perception than reality. As with other aspects of life, those at the top of their fields are often the most willing to help and those that are the most negative often are those with the least ability.
In order to establish alliances with people that can help you, you need to get out of the house. In my experience clubs are a very mixed bag and not always the best option. As a starting point, I suggest attending some of the prototype modelers meets. Hang out in the model room and ask people what techniques they used. Initiate conversations. Don’t eat meals alone. Three meets that are particularly friendly are in Cocoa Beach, Valley Forge, and Fredericksburg, VA. (not that the other meets aren’t friendly, I just haven’t been).
Forums: These can be a tremendous time sink and the information you receive isn’t vetted. Anybody can say anything, and if communicated with an air of authority, give the impression the information is accurate. Often it is not.
Join the Operations Industrial SIG and attend a few of the operation events. Not every session will be fun but the environment is positive and you’ll be exposed to some high quality modelers in a social setting that lends itself to keeping in touch down the road.
Finally, if you’re looking for a starting point for a skills launch here are two previous blogs that might be of help:
The intersection of District Blvd. and South Everett Avenue.
When I start a new layout I pick out a few modeling skills I’d like to improve upon. Since pavement is such a dominant player in urban modeling, it was at the top of my list for the LAJ project. While the painted roads in my tutorial were passable, I’ve become increasingly less satisfied with them. Concrete and asphalt coloring is very complex, particularly when you add in the effects of weathering and the pounding they take. To truly capture the look I was after I decided the photo wallpaper technique was my best bet. The challenge is getting the images because you are limited to what you can get from overpasses and parking garages. It takes some fiddling but if you play around with the camera tilt, the images from Google Streetview are usable once you correct for perspective. After more than a little photoshop work I was able to capture pavement images from Everett and Maywood Avenues (plus adjacent sidewalks) and make them work. I used .060″ styrene as the base for the streets and then glued additional .060″ strips on for the sidewalks. The photos were then glued to the styrene with Super77. A little good fortune came my way when I found that the inks in my HP 7612 printer can be coated with Dullcoat without issue.
For those that want to try this on your own I’m including a few of the base images below:
I love building models of nondescript structures. Once you get into them, you invariably pick up on features you hadn’t noticed at first glance. With Pacific Forest (4803 S. Everett Avenue, Vernon, CA) I loved the yellow brick, door framing, logo above the door, and blue banding.
Although I shot the prototype photos myself on my trip last month, I found the Google Streetview images to be more workable. In the past when editing the images to be used for photo wallpaper, I’d go to great pains to crop out the shadows of trees, guy wires, etc. I now leave the shadows in as I think it creates more depth, contrast, and interest.
As far building the model, each face is a stack of three photos (photos made available for download in a previous blog). The bottom layer is an unaltered base. Next I cut the windows and doors out of the second photo and glue it on the base. Finally, I cut out the trim features such as door frames, columns, sills, etc. and glued those on top as the third layer. Once I’m done with stacking the photos I add the stand off details. Most were just loose ends from my rather large “junk box”.
A southbound local passes bridge E8, south of Bloomington, IN on my old N scale layout. I devoted a full thirteen feet to this ‘boring’ scene. There were no industries, no turnouts, nothing but the field and stream modeled as they actually appeared.
Of all of the factors that contribute to realism, at the top of the list is scene composition, the size, shape, location and distance between elements we put on our layouts. It also refers to which elements we chose to place in a scene. Have you ever been riveted by a cleanly executed architectural model? Even if the model is all white or gray, you are drawn in because it is perfectly composed. Such models drive home the impact of getting it right. If you don’t get it right, it can be hard to compensate regardless of how well you perform the rest of your efforts.
Element Spacing – Crop, don’t compress
At the top of the list is the spacing we place between elements. This is where modelers typically put themselves behind the eight ball right out of the box. Given our limited space, obviously there will have to be some compression. However, if you take compression too far and place your elements too close together, your scene suffers. Such overly compressed scenes are probably the single largest error model railroaders make. There are so many interesting things to include on our layouts it’s only natural to try to include as many as possible. It takes self-discipline and a leap of faith but, if you can accept the fact that you can’t have it all, incorporate fewer elements, and space them further apart you’ll be amply rewarded. A few things done well are much more powerful than a lot of things done not so well.
Pictured above is a typical agricultural scene found throughout the country. Diagram 1 shows the scene drawn to scale. Note the ample space between elements. Given our real world of limited modeling room, the natural tendency is to eliminate the open spaces between elements (diagram 2). The typical model railroad mindset is to preserve and incorporate all elements at any visual cost necessary. Unfortunately these open spaces are what defined the scene and we’ve just eliminated them. With the open spaces eliminated, the modeler then compresses everything into the space available. The results is a typical, overly compressed, model railroad scene and not a “model of a railroad”.
If in fact realism is the key, if you do indeed want to have the real world in your basement, difficult choices need to be made. Cool stuff needs to be scratched from the docket. Realism is achieved by cropping away items you don’t have room for and maintaining space between those that do remain. Crop, don’t compress. You can’t have it all, it’s just a fact of modeling life. However, if you don’t try to ‘have it all’, you’ll ultimately be richly rewarded with doing justice to the items you do decide to incorporate.
Element Selection – Document, don’t judge
Another aspect of scene composition centers around the elements we chose to place in our scenes. Are you a ‘cherry picker’ or a journalist? Do you pick and chose which elements to include based upon how interesting you think they are or do you document what is actually there without judgment? If realism is your goal, simply copying what is actually there is the ticket. It’s also much easier. The moment we start having a beauty contest is the moment the scene starts looking like a typical model railroad. Model the mundane. Model what’s there. There is also a hidden payoff here. In many cases, elements that at first glance you had written off as boring, upon closer examination turn out to be understated gems .
The diagram above illustrates a typical rail side scene. Some buildings are interesting, some not so much. A ragged field and empty lot are front and center. The houses aren’t particularly dramatic, probably one or two story white clapboard with their backs facing the right of way. There is a rail side structure that, horror of horrors, doesn’t receive rail service. In other words it’s a typical scene. The modeling path is extremely simple. Just copy it, as it is, without judgment. Unfortunately, doing so make many modelers break out in hives. Anything that approaches the mundane is eliminated. Empty space is considered wasted space (figure 2). Boring elements and open space are eliminated. All industries must be served by rail. The Walthers catalog is pulled out and every nook and cranny is filled with caricatures. The end result again is a model railroad and not a “model of a railroad”.
Slow down, take a breath, take in your surroundings and train yourself to appreciate the ordinary, understated beauty that comprises the ACTUAL rail scene we love so much.