I like/dislike foreign layouts - discuss

[TEAMYAKIMA]

I was thinking of going to the Doncaster show this weekend, but decided not to when I saw that it was all British layouts and, as I like foreign layouts more than I like British layouts, I decided to give it a miss.

 

I know that I am in a minority in liking foreign layouts more than British ones, but what do others think about the British/foreign debate in general.

 

My favourite layout in the last 12 months was a Cuban layout at the Stafford show - why?

 

1. It's the first Cuban layout I've ever seen

2. I went on a railway photography trip to Cuba in 1984 and so I had a basic interest in Cuban railways

3. It was very different

4. I spoke to the builder and learnt about Cuban railways

 

Consequently, it was more interesting to me than any other layout at that show - thoughts?

Edited February 10 by TEAMYAKIMA

[Ryde-on-time]

I like to see layouts, which to me, are amazing / stunning / realistic / interesting. Therefore scale, gauge and location are irrelevant. 

 

Everyone is different though and the person I often go with to exhibitions has quite a narrow field of interest

 

I wouldn’t want to be an exhibition manager!

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

I don't do foreign, I don't do narrow gauge, then along comes Pempoul!

 

Mike.

[Suzie]

When I see a layout I like to look at it and relate to what I know about what is being modelled. That has the effect of making models of the modern era set in Great Britain of instant interest as it is something I have seen. I used to walk quickly by anything I was not familiar with but would dwell for a long time on any British electric layouts because the electrified railway was the normal railway for me.

 

Over the years I have researched a lot, and that has expanded my horizon of what I know, and therefore what I can relate to. I will spend a lot of time looking at American layouts now because I know a lot about American, even if I still have trouble identifying most of the locos!

 

If I see something well modelled that I am not familiar with I will try and engage the operator to find out a bit more about what has been modelled. This usually starts a thread of research which eats up a lot of browsing time! Layouts are so much more interesting when you know what it is. If it has an information board I will read that to get more of an insight.

 

Nowadays the only layouts I spend little time at are the ones with Great Western steam locos on them - I feel I have seen enough to last a lifetime.

[SR71]

I find it harder to relate to non-UK based layouts as it's not what I know. Some I feel make their unusual location enough to justify their existence. A series of streamlined white rectangles speeding by can only hold my interest for so long.

 

But a good layout in any location will hold my interest and I don't ignore a layout because it's prototype isn't one I'm familiar with.

[t-b-g]

We all have our areas of interest. Mine is the British pregrouping scene. I also like to see things that people have made/altered/weathered/adapted or had some personal input into. Out of the box RTR doesn't inspire or interest me. If I only went to shows with a decent number of layouts that cater for my personal interests, I would never go to another show.

 

Good modelling is good modelling. I do gave a slight problem with a lot of modelling of overseas railways in that many layouts do seem to be mainly RTR, often unweathered and straight out of the box. There are exceptions but seeing locos and stock that people have made is a rare thing.

 

We also seem to get rather too many cliche ridden layouts, such as the USA logging layout with the trestle bridge, broken down timber workshop, the bear in the trees, canyons and a Shay trundling along with the clanging bell, or the Swiss layout along a mountainside with the curved viaduct and bottle brush trees. We get cliche UK layouts too.

 

Yet give me a Pempoul and I can thoroughly enjoy a non UK layout. I enjoyed the Cuban layout too, as it was unusual, well modelled and had no cliche in sight. I enjoyed your own layout at Manchester too, for the same reasons.

 

Edit to add that the Doncaster Show is billed as the "Festival of British Railway Modelling", so a lack of overseas layouts shouldn't be a total surprise.

Edited February 10 by t-b-g
To add content

[TEAMYAKIMA]

28 minutes ago, Suzie said:

If I see something .....that I am not familiar with I will try and engage the operator to find out a bit more about what has been modelled. This usually starts a thread of research which eats up a lot of browsing time! Layouts are so much more interesting when you know what it is. If it has an information board I will read that to get more of an insight.

 

I absolutely agree. For those who don't know, my exhibition layout is Chinese which is a very niche interest and that's why I have info boards at both ends of my layout and I stand at the front of my layout (whenever possible) to answer any questions and proactively engage with viewers. 

 

 

 

Edited February 10 by TEAMYAKIMA

[Dunsignalling]

33 minutes ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

I don't do foreign, I don't do narrow gauge, then along comes Pempoul!

 

Mike.

I don't deliberately avoid foreign-prototype layouts but I find some much too "chocolate box" for my taste, and I then don't look further. Thankfully, those predominate much less than they once did.

 

I entirely agree about the magnificent Pempoul, though. For me, it demonstrates the best combination of excellence across every aspect of modelling I've yet observed on one layout. I've seen it at least a dozen times and lingered so long I often missed half the rest of the show. 

 

John

Edited February 10 by Dunsignalling

[TEAMYAKIMA]

19 minutes ago, t-b-g said:

Edit to add that the Doncaster Show is billed as the "Festival of British Railway Modelling", so a lack of overseas layouts shouldn't be a total surprise.

 

Yes, I totally agree, but a friend of mine who has a German layout was approached by Warners a few years ago with regards to exhibiting there - maybe it was a misunderstanding, or maybe their criteria have changed. Anyway, it is what it is and if Doncaster was just a few miles down the road I would have gone, but as it's over 4 hours door to door each way I decided to give it a miss.

[Hroth]

21 minutes ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

I absolutely agree. For those who don't know, my exhibition layout is Chinese which is a very niche interest and that's why I have info boards at both ends of my layout and I stand at the front of my layout (whenever possible) to answer any questions and proactively engage with viewers. 

 

 

 

 

Crumbs!

 

The character in black is the stereotypical exhibition attendee...

 

I'll appreciate any model layout, especially if the person who created it is telling me a story. "Foreign" layouts are interesting because they tell a slightly different story to the familiar British one, even the cliches are different enough to be amusing.

 

[Mol_PMB]

As well as quality modelling, I like layouts that are novel in some way; that could be any of:

• A prototype not often modelled , whether country (e.g. Cuba, Lebanon, China), era (e.g. Victorian, wartime), type of railway (e.g. metro, contractors railway)
• An unusual scale/gauge combination
• A different way of presenting the scene (e.g. view along the length of the layout, circular rotating layout, night-time, station scene from a passenger viewpoint, layout dominated by landscape rather than trains)
• Accurately portraying an unusual method of operating (e.g. rope inclines, banking, combination of working road and rail traffic)

As well as being interesting in their own right and inspiring me to broaden my horizons, these types of models tend to require a greater proportion of scratchbuilding or imaginative scenic work, and therefore really show off the ability of the modellers.

 

Operational reliability is a really key thing. The appearance of the hand of god is often the time to move on to the next layout.

[Fair Oak Junction]

If a layout is well made and interesting to watch, then I couldn't care less where it's set. I love seeing layouts from all over the world because it gives us a window into railways we don't normally see. And I think if they can then shows should have a mix of UK and ROW layouts, but obviously that isn't always going to happen just because of percentages.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

3 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Crumbs!   The character in black is the stereotypical exhibition attendee...

 

 

Yes, I'm embarrassed to say that that is me! I was engaging with visitors at Warley last year and my only defence is that the lighting inside the NEC is very harsh :-) 😉

[DaveF]

I model the Midland Railway around 1912 in 0 gauge and Switzerland in n gauge, so I like both.

 

I will look at any layout at an exhibition providing it works and if it is based on a prototype so that it looks believable.  I particularly like layouts set in Western Europe as I know a bit about the railways.  For elsewhere I have to comapre the models with photos I've seen so perhaps there is no quite so much interest.  I even enjoy watching the Lego style layouts and tinplate ones - they generally work!

 

I realise that in real life every country is different, it always surprises me how much of Switzerland looks like a chocolate box picture - but there are grotty bits as well.

 

David

[jcm@gwr]

1 minute ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

Yes, I'm embarrassed to say that that is me! I was engaging with visitors at Warley last year and my only defence is that the lighting inside the NEC is very harsh :-) 😉

 

I think Hroth meant the character in the black hat, wearing a backpack!

[TheQ]

I like to see a good standard of modelling what ever it's based on. Unfortunately I have little knowledge of what foreign railways look like, which makes it difficult to know if it's good or not..

 

That being said, I'm now building a railway based on somewhere in France... A lot of research is needed.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

4 minutes ago, Fair Oak Junction said:

I love seeing layouts from all over the world because it gives us a window into railways we don't normally see. 

 

I guess that's pretty much my position. A model of a country and a rail system which I don't know anything about is far more interesting (to me) than one I'm very familiar with.

[Kris]

I have less time for layouts based on "overseas" prototypes. I don't understand the prototype to the extent that I understand the UK prototype so find that I appreciate the UK based ones more. I also feel that a lot (not all) of the overseas models I see are very bright and show a highly idealised view (even by GWR branchlike standards!) of the model, many I would also say are so stuffed full of gimmicks that they come across as very toy like, which may sound wrong as their owners obviously really enjoy these models. 

[APOLLO]

I like a mix and overseas layouts are always interesting. In fact ALL layouts are, to me, interesting.

 

I have OO British in the loft and North American O in the garage.

 

Brit15

[TEAMYAKIMA]

1 minute ago, APOLLO said:

I have ...... North American O in the garage.

 

That reminds me of an experience I had at the Bristol exhibition in about 1981

 

I had possibly the first American O gauge layout on the exhibition circuit - all Atlas F-units and US Hobbies brass steamers - and we had set it up and I went out front to see how it looked. As I was reviewing things the barrier team turned up and started building our barrier. That team was led by an elderly Welshman who said in a very Welsh accent, "There's some people who like this sort of thing I suppose!"

[Michael Hodgson]

I prefer British layouts, as the UK is what I know best.  Whilst I admire the skills in good realistic weathering, I don't go a lot on the modern railway scene with graffiti and litter everywhere, anti-climb security fences to exclude the public from the railway, even though I have to acknowledge the realism of such models.  So ideally a layout is British, preferably steam era, so early BR, pre-nationalisation or better still pre-grouping.  

 

1 hour ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

My favourite layout in the last 12 months was a Cuban layout at the Stafford show - why?

 

1. It's the first Cuban layout I've ever seen

2. I went on a railway photography trip to Cuba in 1984 and so I had a basic interest in Cuban railways

3. It was very different

4. I spoke to the builder and learnt about Cuban railways

 

I've never been to Cuba and have no intention of going, and wouldn't know if they have/had railways or not.  Is Guantanemo Bay rail serevd?

In short, a model of it would mean nothing to me.   It might as well be one of those fanciful railways with Emmett cartoon architecture staffed by teddy bears etc.  Sorry, but they are of no interest to me, like those collectors' tin-plate train set "layouts" hastily put up on trestle tables.  Fortunately we're all different and other things appeal to other people.

 

I don't know as much about overseas railways generally, particularly their operating practices, and I don't therefore know whether a model is a good or bad representation.  If there are foreign layouts. I prefer those which are set in western Europe or North America, which are places I have been.

 

However I agree with the posting that "chocolate box" layouts don't appeal.  They tend to be based on an idealised setting (nostalgia for a fortnight's holiday in some tourist trap?) - though to be fair, many British historical layouts are also based on a nostalgia and amount to an attempt to re-create the "good old days" when life for the ordinary working man was nowhere near as easy as we like to look back through our rose-tinted spectacles and TV period dramas.

[Captain Kernow]

Although I tend to prefer 4mm scale, British layouts, especially those modelled to good standards with scratchbuilt buildings, kit or scratchbuilt locos and rolling stock or modified - weathered - individualised RTR, I do like other UK stuff as well, such as 2mm finescale, 7mm where it's modelled well and good quality narrow gauge layouts, especially if the gauge is a bit out of the ordinary (ie. not 009).

 

However, I also very much like certain non-UK prototypes for layouts, especially if they are well modelled with good scenery, nicely observed and weathered structures etc. Principal amongst those would be 3.5mm scale North American and European prototypes, especially German (I really like black locos with red wheels!). I have very little experience of the North American prototype, yet is somehow 'does something' for me. I have a bit of experience of the German scene and very nearly got into modelling the Harz narrow gauge system when Tillig introduced their sublime 2-10-2 tank locos.

 

I really enjoyed watching Teamyakima's layout at Taunton last October. One of our fellow club members has an interest in Chinese HO prototypes and it's always interesting when he brings stuff into the club to run on our test track.

 

[TEAMYAKIMA]

One interesting thing I've discovered at shows.......................

 

My layout plays very well to the family audience - why?   Because the family audience don't care (or sometimes know) that the layout is foreign. All they care about is that there is plenty of action with plenty of colourful trains running. They don't know/realise/care that the steam locos hauling that long tanker train are Chinese QJ 2-10-2's  all they care about is that there is movement and it's catching their child's imagination.

 

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

14 minutes ago, Captain Kernow said:

 

I have very little experience of the North American prototype, yet is somehow 'does something' for me.

 

 

But you may just have seen one or two films where blokes with black hats or red skins held up a train but the blokes in white hats won.

[APOLLO]

Just to say that I NEVER walk past a layout an exhibition without spending at least 5 minutes or so closely observing, even if nothing is running. A lot are worth a second look on my walkaround, and one or two worth ten minutes or so (usually the "big 'uns" !!).

 

On entering I have a quick walk round both layouts and trade stands, looking quickly before I do my viewing / buying !!

 

I miss my local exhibition (Wigan) but nearby is the Leigh one, an excellent show.

 

Brit15