JWB Posted August 3, 2011 Share Posted August 3, 2011 I think the biggest area for improvement that I see in UK style North American layouts is that they're too neat. There are lots of ways to be too neat, although there are lots of ways (in the mode of Furlow or Sellios) to miss the point. I saw a presentation at an NMRA convention 15 years ago that really influenced my approach to layout details. He pointed out, via photos he took while railfanning, stuff that ought to be on layouts but isn't. I wound up thinking he had a really good idea and took a lot of photos myself in subsequent years. 55-gallon drums, pallets, and trash: Scrap rail and track parts: Leftover track panels The above applies to pretty much any active industrial track. If you model lines with signals, you have a lot more stuff to include. Relay sheds: Switch heaters (in potentially snowy climates) Dwarf signals And this just scratches the surface. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-UnitMad Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 ...there are lots of ways (in the mode of Furlow or Sellios) to miss the point. ... A very interesting comment, there, that I agree with, and I know there's been comment before here on RMweb about the likes of the Franklin & Sth Manchester layout.... highly detailed, excellent modelling, but realistic..? Erm, no, actually.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Gwinnett Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Agreed - its a Cartoon - very clever and accomplished, but not realistic. (although I'm not familiar personally with 1930s USA so have to slightly reserve judgement.) What i would say about JWB's OP is that yes, the photos show the small details, but also the vast areas without anything - hard not to make a layout look cluttered whilst including the little extras... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I blame the architecture - all the airy fairy cupola's taking American Gothic styling to a ludicrous conclusion, etc. If you are charging $300+ for a "Craftsman Kit" then it has to look like it is worth it. Most industrial architecture over here (from any era) is stolid and unadventurous - yet it is still interesting. I always advise people to take a ride down the BQE from the Verrazano Bridge and look out the window to the left from Red Hook onwards - it's making available from the space available the most efficient way to work. Miami layouts are interesting because of the preponderance of late 20th century buildings whereas in the North East (and other places) it is conversions of older buildings still (well, it's cheaper "init" when you think about it). On the question of trash, where I live there isn't much but go to any industrial area (or look around the New Jersey Turnpike) and the sheer amount of litter can be staggering - I'm talking paper, food container's, soggy cardboard that type of thing. Also "they" never appear to clear sightlines along the "shoulders" of important roads of weeds - which grow prolifically in the climate. Very few nice and clipped like you see in Europe. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 I think like Jon says, the hard bit isn't neccesarily putting the small details in, but conveying the huge amount of empty space between elements - particularly coming from a UK background where we're not used to that much space existing in real life, let alone recreating it in model form - it is however a defining feature of a lot of the US! This is a good example: Scrap rail and track parts: Ignore the small amount of clutter in the foreground, but look at the huge dirt shoulders taking the 'road' width to nearly three times the size of the tarmac'd area...trading-off your selective-compression between fitting in more 'action' and adding 'scale' scenery is a bit of a tough one - try and model that to scale on a micro layout and you've no space for any track... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Wintle Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 One of the things that you notice while riding on GO trains in the Toronto area is the sheer amount of junk and trash that is just tipped over the back fences onto the railroad property, primarily behind anonymous industrial buildings. But then you also get features like the gardens that some of the lineside homeowners have planted on the unused bits of railroad property behind their back fences. And just to prove it isn't all open spaces, there are places where the tree branches brush against the coaches. Adrian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 And just to prove it isn't all open spaces... Of course the other pitfall of modelling from over here is that after being raised on a diet of questionable TV we think everywhere on the planet looks kinda like Southern California... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Wintle Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Of course the other pitfall of modelling from over here is that after being raised on a diet of questionable TV we think everywhere on the planet looks kinda like Southern California... I agree, it really doesn't help when Hollywood uses southern California to represent Connecticut... (e.g. Cannonball Run II). Also, a lot of major US cities have been represented by Toronto. Adrian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
alastairq Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Having studied prototype photos form my store of old RMC's, MR's, & NGSLG's.....and others.....I find it difficult identifying small incidental detail..... Apart from anything else, 40 or 50 or more years ago, I don't think railroad photographers were interested in sundry trash.... Thus I don't feel able to comment on the 'realism' of F&SM, etc.....although I have to admit, F&SM does smack of 'Gangs of New York' to me. Maybe that was how 'industrial revolution' USA looked? One of the issues I stumble over is the change in how we view our models these days, compared to 30 or more years ago. Because of the internet, and I suspect, digital photography [try taking pictures with a dial-up telephone?]...the close-ups we see on here and in the press hilite the need for almost sub-atomical levels of detail. SO much so that it is easy to lose track of the 'bigger picture?' so..what were lineside trash-levels like in the age of US steam, or in the 60's? [1960's, not 1860's...] did all Americans look like John Wayne....or Clint Eastwood? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWB Posted August 4, 2011 Author Share Posted August 4, 2011 You can get a lot of the US railroad scene from the 1950s and 60s in DVD, especially the Emery Gulash films from Green Frog (plus some from Pentrex and Clear Block). The level of trash was about the same, in large part because the basics of how the rail business is conducted at the track level isn't all that different. For instance, pieces of track have always been left along the line for later pickup -- by the 1950s, this was by small cranes with magnets (like the current Walthers release), as it is now. 55-gallon drums have pretty much always been used for trash collection themselves and for burning trash to allow the track workers to keep warm. Stacks of new and old ties have always been along the right of way -- actually, less common now, since creosoted ties are now hazmat, and concrete ties are in greater use. Gulash tended to use 55-gallon drums, relay cases, and such like to "anchor" his scenes, which is another reason to include them for layout photography,. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-UnitMad Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 so..what were lineside trash-levels like in the age of US steam, or in the 60's? [1960's, not 1860's...] For turn of the Century...(20th not 21st!!) *Thinks*.... Shorpy In steam days there may not have been so much trash, but there was plenty of "'Oss Muck"... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigZ Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 A very interesting comment, there, that I agree with, and I know there's been comment before here on RMweb about the likes of the Franklin & Sth Manchester layout.... highly detailed, excellent modelling, but realistic..? Erm, no, actually.... Best description I've heard of the F&SM is that it's a poorly cared for 1930s town as seen 50 years later; it's simply awash in clutter and detritus. And he was so influential to many modeler...but when I looked at 1930s photos I never saw what he saw...or, as Pete said, the airy fairy stuff. Not even in New England towns. That's what made Lance Mindheim so...well, amazing. He does modern stuff that looks like modern stuff, not some sort of Norman Rockwell vision of Americana. Simple and elegant, and very hard to do right. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JWB Posted August 4, 2011 Author Share Posted August 4, 2011 Here is a Santa Fe section shed in Seligman, AZ about 1980: Notice the 55 gallon drum well filled with paper trash, and the metal trash pile around it. I suspect that one task for the section crew was to gather up the metal stuff in particular from the right of way, since that would be a safety issue for any crews having to walk the train. But the metal trash stays there at the section house until it's gathered at some interval. The condition of the 55-gallon drum suggests the paper trash gets burned in cold weather. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
298 Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Of course the other pitfall of modelling from over here is that after being raised on a diet of questionable TV we think everywhere on the planet looks kinda like Southern California... Please Sir, my chosen area does look like Southern California... I think it's easy to over detail a small layout, and be riddled with overdone cliches such as oil drums, broken pallets, oil drums on broken pallets, and Bikini Car Washes. You do need large areas of nothing to compensate. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold John B Posted August 4, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted August 4, 2011 I'm not sure what part of New England Mr Sellios resides in. However, the town of Franklin, MA looks nothing at all like his fairytale creation. I'm not a fan, by any means. However, I was in Nashua, NH for the past few weeks. Downtown looks uncannily like a slightly run-down Bedford Falls, from "It's a Wonderful Life". Either side of downtown, the residential areas are full of American Gothic houses that would suit the Addams Family to a tee. And looking through old photos of the Boston & Maine, they certainly liked extravagantly gothic styled depot buildings - see the photos on the Depot thread. None of which, of course, excuses the "charicature" school of modelling espoused by Sellios, Furlow & co. As usual, though, I guess the "IMTS" rule applies.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 Please Sir, my chosen area does look like Southern California... Haha! Yes it does.... and Bikini Car Washes. Well if that plural was intentional then yes - more than one on a layout is definately OTT.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted August 4, 2011 Share Posted August 4, 2011 In a Austin Powers film a scene was set in London with the Santa Monica Mountains visible (at the top end of Regent Street, seemingly). Manhattan used to have all those guys with the white hats and little trollies going around cleaning up trash - the first time I came here my driver was bemoaning their disappearance all the way from Newark Airport to the Lincoln Tunnel.......I think it was John D. Rockefeller that got rid of them? Now Manhattan has recovered a lot from the nadir of the '70's (think KOJAK). The thing about the American Gothic style (my opinion) is that towns went overboard in promoting them to the extent that they became caricatures with over the top "gingerbread" slathered over them. Whilst I realize that the Victorian era was more colorful than old black and white photos seem to show (well, d'oh, obviously, Pete) even Cape May has found that losing some of the filigree has produced more authentic recreations. Towns stuffed full of Gothic are a relative rarity (though it is amazing when you come across one like John did). Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Ray Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 I think it's easy to over detail a small layout, and be riddled with overdone cliches such as oil drums, broken pallets, oil drums on broken pallets, It's not a cliche if it is actually true - most businesses and light lndustry (I'm on Suburban Long Island NY, not too much heavy industry around) do have at least one or two pallets in the back, if not stacks of them, if they receive any sort of quantity of inbound freight (cartons of food, drums of cooking oil, boxes of auto parts etc - most such items are palleted, and the empty pallets have to go somewhere. Many facilites do have kegs and steel drums and plastic barrels in the back (no wooden barrels, nowadays those are bascially consigned to alcohol/wine distribution, and decorative usage - e.g. planters) Most businesses will have dumpsters of some variety (strip malls may have communal ones shared among the stores), many business will have stacks of empty carboard boxes, and lots of businesses have the ubiquitous steel shipping container on the side or in back for storage usage.- to properly represent modern urban/suburban areas you require these details (as well as fire hydrants, manhole covers, light poles etc). Not a cliche. Same with weeds and tall grass in the back of a commerical establshment, or even on the sidewalk - since I have to pull up the weeds that attempt to grow in the sidewalk in front of my house, I assure you these are not cliches either (PITAs, yes). If you are modeling a auto-repair business in Suburban NY, you'd need a dumpster or two, weeds along the sides and property lines, a steel drum or two full of metal scrap, and a few pallets propped against the side wall - how do I know this? Because there are about 6 such establishments within walking distance of my home, and they all have those elements. What I do consider cliches are 'miniscenes' - the motorists pulled over by a cop (or worse, the motorcycle cop behind a billboard), the burning building scene, the road construction scene, and so on., that model manufacturers llike to claim "bring a scene to life",,, Oy! OTOH, a ROW of a secondary branch of a Class I/Class II, especially one in the 1970s, but even today to some extent, I would expect to see tall grass/reeds, ties buried somewhat in the dirt/mud, and in urban trash such as wrappers and cans (I'll leave the cigarette butts to the G-Scale guys), and at least a few discared "white goods" (worn-out washers, stoves, refrigerators) and abandoned, stripped autos. Even with the 3ft/90cm rule of distance ("Does it look good on the layout viewed from 3 foot?") you'd be surprised at how much detail any moderately inhabited area has. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-UnitMad Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 It's not a cliche if it is actually true - most businesses and light lndustry ... do have at least one or two pallets in the back, ... If you are modeling a auto-repair business in Suburban NY, you'd need a dumpster or two, weeds along the sides and property lines, a steel drum or two full of metal scrap, and a few pallets propped against the side wall - how do I know this? Because there are about 6 such establishments within walking distance of my home, and they all have those elements... An interesting little excercise in observation, that is along these lines, is to try and work out what the differences are between a working Industrial building and a closed down/abandoned (but not utterly derelict) one. There's similar things like litter and skips ("dumpsters") about, but there's definitely a different 'air' about a factory that is shut down and one just closed for the weekend... what that difference actually is, can be hard to define, at times... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pH Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 A small example of something else found along railroad tracks: or is this going too far? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Gwinnett Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 Haha! Yes it does.... Well if that plural was intentional then yes - more than one on a layout is definately OTT.... Not sure one can ever have too many bikini car washes... (Now I sound like a sad old trainspotter) A small example of something else found along railroad tracks: or is this going too far? Rail-kill? Something Lance Mindheim makes much mention of, in a voodoo stylee. I think it would be cool to reproduce this, since its a telling detial (told on the rat anyway) but I'm not sure how big (or small) a 1/87 scale dead rat would be.) I suspect I need to concentrate on building a layout first before worrying about the dead fauna. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 If you modelled a dead rat in HO i'm not sure you would see it, and if you did i'm not sure you would be able to model it in such a way as to know it was a dead rat... (There's a challenge for someone!) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-UnitMad Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 ... I'm not sure how big (or small) a 1/87 scale dead rat would be.) Ok hands up all those who thought the 'detail' in that picture was the point motor... Considering I missed the rat completely despite the red circle around it, in a picture shown at a far larger 'scale' than HO, I'd say that is going a bit too far..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talltim Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 Talk of trackside rubbish trash reminds me of this pic, on a still working railroad McDonald Avenue Underpass - Bay Ridge Branch by jatlmv, on Flickr Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prof Klyzlr Posted August 5, 2011 Share Posted August 5, 2011 Dear RMWebbers, While chasing down some of the pics in this thread so far, I came accross this http://www.flickr.com/photos/9270422@N05/2535234075/sizes/l/in/photostream/ I'm calling "modelgenic inglenook" with plenty of "Incidental details"... Happy Modelling, Aim to Improve, Prof Klyzlr Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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