On Allen McClelland’s V&O Railroad, Afton Division (see the Pentrex review, this issue), faceless “brass” watches from an air conditioned office in this small corner of the world.

Build a World

In a conversation with Athearn’s George Riley, we covered a point that has been tossed about in model railroading off and on for years: the difference between model railroading and other scale model hobbies. I love examining a well-done sailing ship model, complete with real cloth sails, masts, and all the rigging. I get a kick out of watching powered aircraft models winging around an open field and powered boats zipping around a pond. Static models of cars, planes, and dollhouses are just wonderful. But there is a general difference between this other scale modeling and ours.

How often do you see a ship model set into a scale scene of, say, Boston harbor with a tea party underway? How many times have you seen the planes overhead return to a scale runway with miniature landing lights, a control tower, hangars, and little fuel trucks? Do the builders of car models usually create houses with garages, gas stations, or race tracks for their products?

While some model railroaders build models of particular locomotives and put them on display without ever building a layout with scenery, they number in the minority. Most of us aren’t so much model railroaders as world modelers. In short, we model the world around a particular place. While the trains are the moving visual attraction, most of us also tackle scenery and landscape, buildings, vehicles, characters and more.

It is this part of the hobby which sets us apart. When you build a scale model of a single item, you have joined the scale modelers of the world. But if you build and operate several items in the same scale for the purpose of creating a small portion of the planet, you have transcended scale modeling. While I like Kalmbach’s “World’s Greatest Hobby” campaign, we should not forget what makes our hobby the way it is. We are also the “Greatest World Hobby.” Indeed, model railroading is more popular in Europe than in the US, according to several international sources.

In a story I read recently, a model train hobby shop in Israel is doing considerable business because the children of Orthodox Jews may create detailed scale models but are not allowed to watch a great deal of television. It seems they feel that creating models is more than just the clever skill of hands; it is also a very constructive use of the mind.

In most cases, layouts don’t just model a collection of scale items, they recreate an economy. Builders have in mind a source of raw materials, factories to process them, towns and cities to provide the goods and service that the workers require, and even the homes in which they live. Out of their imaginations and observations, builders then construct some corner of the planet. Models can show detail down to laundry on the line in the backyard of a house. Through it all are the trains, connecting the economy together and making it work.

Perhaps because of this, model railroaders might actually understand the economy better than some legislators. Several model railroad industry people have repeated the notion that model railroaders may be more intelligent than their non-model-railroading contemporaries. That would be a hard assertion to prove, even if I have seen ample proof of its truth. One thing is clear: model railroading has a very positive effect upon most people. It punishes anger, impulsiveness, and malice. It rewards patience, thoughtfulness, and careful planning. There’s a very good chance that if you stay with it long enough, it could make a better person of you. Or maybe the only folks who stay with it very long are the better people.


John Sipple
Editor