More than a hobby

A guest editorial by Thomas W. Dixson, Jr.

I am not a modeler, though I admire the work of modelers very much, and for the thirty odd years I have been involved with the C&O Historical Society, I have always been amazed and a little perplexed by the rivet counter class of modelers. I always thought, as long as a model, or layout/diorama, has the general appearance and feel of the road or era being portrayed, why quibble about imperceptible minutiae. Recently, I have come to understand why this is, or rather can be, important.

A couple of years ago, I wrote an editorial in the C&OHS Magazine entitled The Modeler as Historian. It was the most commented-on piece I had done in many years, and caused me to believe that this was a theme that deserved further attention.

My thesis is this: the modeler can be, if he/she wishes, the consummate historian, and indeed perhaps the sole preserver of important pieces of history. I point out that if one goes to a large maritime museum you are likely to see many wonderfully detailed and accurately rendered models of ships of all types. However, if one goes to a railroad museum the visitor is likely either to see original equipment in some state of preservation (or lack of it), and perhaps a diorama or maybe an operating model railroad (usually not anywhere near prototypical). But, usually, one finds no set of accurately rendered models depicting rolling stock, motive power, and structures that no longer exist on the face of the earth. My question is, “Why not?”

Yet, if you look at the modeling community inside or outside the NMRA, you see many individuals and manufacturers/importers striving for superb detail in their models, whether O, S, HO, or N scale. It seems odd to me that most of these great modelers and their great models do not see themselves as historians, potentially able to preserve for the indefinite future not only the feel and miasma surrounding an era of railroading, but accurately detailed miniature models of huge pieces of equipment that no longer exist or may become, in the future, too hard to maintain in any quantity. I want to raise this awareness.

The model hobby has the potential to become an important element in railway historical preservation and interpretation. The fact is that the actual railway equipment, like those great ships that I mentioned earlier, exists in only a minuscule percentage of its original variety. Those pieces which have survived the scrapper’s torch or nature’s decomposition, are hard and expensive to maintain. Concomitantly, there is very little money in the under-funded preservation world to maintain them.

There are many small railroad museums and collections, NRHS chapters with equipment, and so on, but in almost every case the population interested in these organizations and their equipment is an aging group. When they are gone, what support will there be for these remnants of America’s wonderful railroading past. I postulate that there will not be much, unless something is done now to help bring these pieces alive and to interpret them adequately for the public (not just for the connoisseur).

The Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society (C&OHS) has taken up the cause of prototype modeling and has added its own twist to it by calling it historical prototype modeling. The thrust of this approach is to use historical documentation that may be available to achieve prototypical appearance and/or operation for a given railroad, locale, date, or era.

C&OHS is interested in this because about 2/3rds of its members are modelers, and we see the tremendous resources that can be accessed and used by these people (200,000 photos, nearly as many original C&O engineering and mechanical drawings, timetables, employee magazines, annual reports, and a wide variety of other things housed in our archives). Many outside the Society as well can take advantage of these resources to achieve a historical prototype.

To further the interests of historical prototype modeling, the C&OHS, like other similar organizations, now offers specially decorated equipment that manufacturers may not produce — providing an accurate model can be found on which to apply it. The Society sells a wide variety of models that fit the C&O prototype. To enhance the modeler’s view of this equipment, each model is supplied with a Modeler Information Packet, which gives detailed explanations about the original equipment’s history, background, use, painting/lettering, disposition, etc., so that the modeler can use it accurately.

For a long time, the C&OHS has published a monthly magazine which concentrates on prototype railroad history, but we try to tailor a good portion of its content to items which can be translated to modeling, in addition to a regular modeling column. We have come to recognize modeling, done in an accurate way, as a branch of railway preservation as valid as a museum, archive, or other interpretative display.

In short, I have come to see modelers as historians. I think it would be beneficial to the modeling community to begin to look at itself as more than a hobby.

Thomas W. Dixson, Jr.

Chairman & President, C&O Historical Society, Inc.