Category Archives: Opinions

Honest Choices

During a discussion on the cost of track, I came across this commonly uttered phrase on a well-known UK-based model railway bulletin board:

I think hand track laying is one of those talents which is limited to those that can.

That’s one of the most depressing things I see and hear, not just about track, nor the hobby, but anything.

Yes, the are a few people who have that something extra, an insight, natural pitch, whatever, which set them apart, but for every singer with perfect pitch there are hundreds if not thousands who have worked hard and trained hard and then finely honed their abilities until it becomes a skill – as Gareth Malone demonstrated on BBC’s “The Choir”. Assuming that you don’t have a “special ability” without trying to find out, or assuming that without a natural “talent” it isn’t worth the effort of learning, is simply giving up without trying: “If you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford.

I am not saying that anyone has to hand lay track, just that like anything else which is not dead easy (and laying flex track well is not dead easy, as it requires a little care and application) it requires time, patience and practice, and it can be improved upon cosmetically by the addition of jointbars, etc. We do not always have the time to put into this, which is where good flex track comes into its own: for most modellers, this is a trade-off against time they are more than willing to make, especially when the cost is not much different. Similarly for turnouts: the reliability of many brands is very good, and what is more some of them even look vaguely like the real thing. Unfortunately the agreed “universal” standards for the most popular scales have somewhat large flangeways, which stand out clearly to anyone who has studied real track: not just at the common crossing, but also the guard/check rails and the amount of clearance required at the point toes.

It all depends on where you place yourself on the building—operating continuum, and where you get your personal enjoyment of the hobby.

Happiness in The Hobby – just like everything in life – is all about the choices we make, the priorities we have, and the resources we have available. We each have our own combination of these, and being honest with ourselves about the decisions we make. Nothing wrong with that, but there’s no need to hide behind a self-deception of “I haven’t the ability”.

Bad advice

What follows is a review of two recent publications, that promise more than they actually deliver. One is something I would have bought out of interest, the other I bought out of curiosity. I leave you to work out which was which. It won’t be difficult.

Wise fellow that he is, Mike Cougill refuses to comment on others’ layout plans. I used to think this was odd given that I think he has a finely honed ability to strip plans back to the essentials, but he is quite right: these things are personal.

Not being quite as wise as he, I am inclined to make the occasional comment, but more via a question. E.g. “What are you trying to achieve?” or a question linked to a statement, “You said in your preamble that you wanted to create a rural scene. Given that, do you think that you might have too much track?” Now, there is a certain irony in this as I have a reputation in certain circles for churning out plans by the dozen hundred, but actually I have simply been searching for something which ticked my own personal boxes. In amongst that check list has always been something which is plausible, realistic, and not too cramped. If a plan has too much squashed into the space, or cannot be operated in an authentic way, then it goes out of the window. (As it happens, I have recently had some success in trying to squeeze quarts into pint pots, and who knows, after a nearly 20 year hiatus since I started the last one, I may soon start on another layout.) To that end, about 10 years ago I invested in a copy of Templot (back when you paid a small fee for it) and spent time learning how to use what is a very sophisticated piece of software. One of the first things you learn from using it is that sketches on a piece of paper are often rather too optimistic. The second thing you learn is that help comes via the extremely effective user forum. The third thing you learn is pretty much like the first, in that plans published in the modelling press (magazines and books) are also optimistic about what you can fit into a space: only trust a plan which shows something which has been built!

Be that as it may, I am still fascinated by track plans, and how the layout of the track is deployed to represent railway operations in a given space – I am also all in favour of viewing the track plan as just part of the bigger picture, as espoused by Iain Rice. So I made a couple of spontaneous purchases: the “BRM Guide to Trackplans and Layout Design” and the “Hornby Magazine Design Manual – Volume One”. They have differences, they have similarities, and they both have defects.

Firstly, the major difference is that the BRM Guide is essentially a series of layout designs from past issues of the magazine, with some accompanying text written by the BRM staff. (Presumably this avoids any royalty payments to the original authors.) The HM Manual has a variety of plans, some of which are based on layouts that have been constructed in the past, and some of which are planning suggestions. I use that phrase as I have seen it used in self-defence by one of the contributors to Hornby Magazine, when his layout plan was criticised on a forum as being unbuildable. So, the BRM plans are proven. Some of the HM plans are proven: many are not.

Similarities next. Both magazines are pitched at the right market, I would say: people moving beyond the train set, if you like. Quite possibly, the Hornby Magazine Manual is more closely targeted at beginners than the BRM Guide. There is no real point aiming at the finescale market: this market is smaller, and more likely to design it for themselves or turn to other established works aimed specifically towards them – the aforesaid Iain Rice’s works come to mind, but also Barry Norman’s two lovely oeuvres, as his Scenic Modelling book does have a very interesting appendix on layout design. This is all fine and dandy, and both magazines tend to play safe and talk about traditional (heavy, cumbersome and crude but effective) benchwork/baseboards, and also about ready to lay track. This is understandable as building your own requires its own works. The BRM Guide has many layouts within it which have obviously used homemade track, and makes brief, passing reference to it but sticks with SMP plastic based point kits and PCB alternatives: no mention is made of the plastic chairs which have been on the market for nearly 30 years. Not so the examples in the Hornby Magazine, where moving from set track to flex-track is seen as a major step. (It was for me, too. But I wasn’t even 10 when my father – more interested in puppetry than model railways, truth be told – introduced me to flexible track. I remember this vividly because in my excitement I sat on the track and bent it beyond use!)

And now, the defects. Here there are a number of similarities. There are errors in the selection of photographs (I am not sure why there is a photo of Albion metal works purporting to be the signal box at East Lynn), in the text (guys, we might be in the digital age, but you still need to read the proofs) and worst of all, in the published track plans. Both publications have errors in matters such as the placing of slips on diamond crossings: in the case of the BRM guide, this can be seen by comparing the photographs of the finished layout with the trackplan but in the case of the HM Manual, this will only be seen whilst looking at the trackplan, or worse still, discovered once construction has commenced (if built as drawn, then Padstow would be unworkable, for example, but there are numerous such examples). It is also clear that the BRM plans have been “lifted” straight out of the original magazine articles, as the hidden sidings on “Borchester Market” remain hidden, although the exit points from the main layout are given reference letters which are not used any further. In the case of the HM Guide, many of the “plans” really are suggestions – although drawn for 00, they might work well in the designated space in N gauge, but even there the paintwork might be rather tight. (I would love to see a model of Hawkhurst in 00, using say Peco track, which fitted into the allocated space.) Use of basic, simple software such as Anyrail would have provided a check on the feasibility of the plans (I have never used this, but am aware that it is one of many products out there). The output from the software could have also been used as the basis for the layout artwork. Indeed, the plans – together with a shopping list – could have been made available as a download.

And then there is the indication of signalling on the plans. Which is worse? No signalling, or incorrect signalling? I can see what HM are trying to do, by supposedly showing the rear view of signals for one direction of traffic. Unfortunately, the arms are coloured for the front view (red with a white band, as opposed to white with a black band), so they look a touch odd. OK, I worked out what they were doing, but then again I have had an interest in proper signalling for over a third of a century. What hope a new recruit to the hobby? Also, whilst it is perfectly normal to have two equal height arms on a bracketed signal post, serving as platform starters, both would be “stop” signals (red arm, red or green lights) the combination of one “stop” signal and one “distant” in this situation is frankly fantasy. I also have a dislike of personal opinion, for example that terminal layouts are limited in their operation, expressed authoritatively as it it were a fact. True, you don’t get to see an express running at speed, but not everyone wants that. For many, the operations at a steam age terminal in the UK are truly fascinating.

But the shame of it is that some of the ideas in the Hornby Magazine Manual really are very good, and very thought provoking. Some of the plans are full of great ideas, too – if suffering somewhat from optimism over turnout length and radii in a few places. Some of those ideas, particularly those presented in the “Main Line” section, would make for a cracking “exhibition layout” for a club, or indeed a dedicated individual. Let’s take design I. How about two unconnected lines on separate levels? The upper one is double track, served by a small number of storage loops, and consists of plain track in the visible section. A procession of trains at different speeds can pass by on this level. The lower level is also double track, but has platforms set against loops (so that express trains can run straight through, and freight trains can be halted to allow stopping passenger trains to overtake them) and also a local goods yard and a local industry (say a gas works, or chemical works.) Within a standard UK garage, a really interesting layout could be created, and modifications made to various features to reflect different eras: a modern setting might see the local goods yard used for the civil engineering department, or as a car park, but the chemical works could be going from strength to strength, and the through passenger lines might have been removed – maybe even one of the platforms rebuilt against the previous through line, and the loop removed to allow this. Showing how the plan could be changed to reflect eras would surely have been a really interesting and illuminating piece for the beginner?

So, what can I say? If you like looking at layout plans, then you may as well go ahead and spend the equivalent of 3 or 4 pints of beer buying both. If you are looking for inspiration from layout plans that actually work, then buy the BRM Guide but be wary to check photographic evidence against the drawings. If you are in the early stages of the hobby (in which case, I suspect that you are not reading this anyway!) then the BRM Guide to Trackplans and Layout Design might help by showing you a variety of layouts in a variety of scales and sizes, and open your eyes to what could be achieved now, and in the long run. But the faults and errors of the Hornby Magazine Design Manual – Volume One make me think that its intended audience would be well advised to avoid it, as by their very nature the lack of experience needed to sort the wheat from the chaff, and the hyperbole from reality, will simply not be there. I hope subsequent volumes are more thought out, and more practical.

I am sorry, but newcomers, beginners, etc, need to be given simple, sound advice about the options open to them. I really don’t think that anyone is helped by bad advice, even those who can spot it. This isn’t “elitist“, by the way. I just happen to think that if a publication is aimed at helping people to get more involved with and more out of the hobby, then it really does need to be, well, helpful. Leaders (and almost by definition, claiming to be “Britain’s Fastest Growing Model Railway Magazine” suggests that such a position is being assumed) need to lead.

Rubbing Shoulders

Constructive Fallacy of the Secondary Activity – or, perhaps, The Delusion of Mastery through Proximity.

Whilst making breakfast this morning, I had BBC Radio 4 burbling away in the background, as is my wont. There is a lovely 10 minute programme called, “A Point of View” which has a variety of presenters putting across, well, a variety of points of view.

Today’s episode was called “The Football Fallacy” and was presented by an American, Adam Gopnik . To quote directly from the BBC website, he “explains why the English are better at watching football than they are playing it and why the Americans are better at talking about democracy than they are at practising it.”

He also went on to explain why the French, a great literary nation, currently produce no readable great literature, and so on.

The extension of this to our hobby, particularly on the various web forums where there are a lot more posts about talking than doing (and yes, I can and do include myself in this criticism) is a simple matter, but it does occur to me that most blogs are about doing.

Web forums: The Delusion of Mastery through Proximity.

Addendum: My thanks to Michael L for emailing me with a link to the programmes’s transcript.

Dearth of Leadership

Cast around the web and you will find numerous postings about the decline of the hobby and its impending demise. A particularly frequent remark is about declining magazine readership figures, and how they are “dumbing down” and not interested in “finescale”, to which someone with connections with the printed hobby media responds by saying that finescale is too small a market, etc. (On which basis, how is it that Model Railay Journal is approaching its thirtieth birthday?) This is the marketing tail wagging the editorial dog. There has been an interesting discussion on Iain Robinson’s blog, in amongst the excellent modelling he displays.

Here’s a contrary thought, based on the concept of action rather than reaction.

Forty years ago the Railway Modeller – about as mainstream and middle of the road as they come – had an audited circulation of 100,000. It was the first hobby magazine which I took on a regular basis, from the age of ten, and much as I now dislike the appalling strap line they used at the time (“For the Average Modeller” – who wants to be average, when average is an alternative word for mediocre?) they struck a good balance. Some featured layouts were frankly somewhat lacking in finesse (unballasted track with missing sleepers at the rail joiners) but others were leading edge. Indeed, the P4 layout “Heckmondwyke” came about when the then editor of the magazine, the late Cyril Freezer, stated the criteria for proving the concept of P4, sufficient to get a layout featured as “Railway of the Month”. Given the links with the parent company, Peco, it is perhaps not surprising that I cannot recall articles on how to make one’s own track, but it was not a requirement that all layouts used Streamline in order to feature in the magazine. My first issue contained articles on a variety of subjects, including EM gauge and a drawing of a prototype goods wagon. On balance I think they got things right. I also improved my standard of grammar and my vocabulary. I am told that CJF did not amend articles as such but he did discuss the writing style with authors and helped them to improve via suggested alternatives and positive feedback.

I believe that the circulation is 40% of that figure now. Quite a decline!

I know that hobby interests have changed, but we now have more free time, more spare cash, and we also offer a hobby which we all agree has more to offer than most (except by way of instant gratification – you still need to build a layout on which to run the trains which came out of the boxes; even if you pay someone to build it, it will take time). If the hobby is declining, then I suggest it’s more to do with how we present ourselves than anything, and I think magazines do have an important part to play here: how to get the best out of modern RTR (including putting new sides onto existing bodies). How to complement the “out of the box” models with a bit of variety via modification, kit-building and scratchbuilding to create more interesting trains. How to create a believable setting – which means we need articles on making buildings from scratch), how to operate it properly – and how to put signals on a layout to aid this. And ultimately, how to develop a trained, critical eye for things – and how to go about getting things right. There is plenty of potential material for this: just look at the blogosphere.

My wife buys “crafting” magazines. These are full of useful ideas which she regularly puts into practice. They also seem to be flourishing, and no one bemoans declining numbers nor do they say that they are simply interested in buying things – unless they be tools or raw materials, and ideas from the magazines. Why can’t we be more like that?

There is a massive opportunity here. Not necessarily for the mainstream magazines to grow, at least not immediately, but an opportunity for them to stabilise their circulation prior to leading the hobby to new growth, with the obvious ultimate benefit to all.

Overcoming stereotypes

To quote The Beatles, and (with more relevance) Mike Cougill, “Tell me what you see”.

More years ago than I care to remember, I graduated in psychology. One of the things which really interested me was the processing of data. If we take vision, there is so much information streaming into our eyes and yet we can only process a fraction of it at any one time. To cope with this, we have evolved strategies to filter out the usual, and attend to the unusual, on the reasonable evolutionary basis that we need to identify things that might be food, friend or a threat and everything else is background. (When in a state of heightened anxiety, colour vision can cease to function as it requires a lot of energy to process the data, energy which might be needed for the purposes of a fight or a flight.)

A consequence of this is that the human mind is very good at forming stereotypes, particularly when it comes to uncommon things (like, for instance, someone not in the family group, or someone who models to finescale standards). If we see a coincidence of uncommon things, for example most railway modellers are normal people, and that includes finescalers, so a finescaler with a somewhat obsessive attitude becomes doubly unusual, then we form a stereotype based on the distinctiveness, but wrongly attribute the cause: so finescalers are seen as somewhat obsessive. The real problem comes when this becomes an archetype, and unfortunately this happened many years ago in our hobby. What the human mind then does is to look for confirmatory evidence to back this up, to preserve the distinctiveness, and myths arise and the “evidence” is routinely put forward to bolster the opinion of those who are threatened by things which do not conform to their way of thinking.

But it doesn’t end there: we do it all the time, and model what we think is there, rather than what actually is there. Hence, I think, the number of poor models of trees out there. Ask any young child to paint a tree, and you will be surprised to see omething which is not a variant on a theme of brown stick with a green blob, yet trees rarely have a brown bark, and the foliage is anything but a single colour blob. Clichés abound on layouts: “clutter” is added to improve the “atmosphere”, and we see lengths of rail (in anticipation or consequence of relaying work) left in yard areas where railwaymen on th night shift would trip over them. The result is inauthentic and, well, cluttered.

It is possible to train oneself to become aware of these processes, and to counter the negative stereotypes which can arise, but it isn’t easy: in fact it can be very difficult. This is one of the first things that art students have to learn: how to un-learn their preconceptions. When it comes to our hobby, I am afraid that lazy acceptance of the norm (well, it is a hobby and therefore supposed to be relaxing) is the norm, but for those who can be bothered to overcome this hurdle, the world is a much more interesting place!

I began with a quote, and will end with another fom the same song:
“Open up your eyes, now.”