This thread builds on the RYPN discussion from three years ago, Interpretation through model railroading.

My view is that, yes, a model railroad can play a role at a museum. But, I think it really must represent an actual, real-life operation, and not be a generic or fantasy layout.

Below is an example that motivated me to post this thread. This layout accurately depicts the CGW Railway at Fort Dodge, IA, including the famous high bridge. All I can say is, I hope this layout ends up in a museum some day. (I really do!)

At the link below, watch a short video about this layout. Note how the layout owner talks about the model bridge as if it were the real thing, and in so doing, sounds very much like a museum docent. That's the point -- a layout like this could be a wonderful museum teaching tool.

Click "PLAY PREVIEW" at this site to see the video:
http://trainmasters.tv/videos/2015-02-3 ... on-act-iii

Or, if your computer fails to play the video on that site, the same one is also on YouTube, however at a lower resolution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry5UwQVRKm8

Below is a view from the layout, and a post card of the actual Fort Dodge bridge.

So what are your thoughts?

The portion of your posting that I quoted above highlights the basic problem. Most modelers that develop historically accurate scenes do not design the layout in a way that encourages saving portions of it for use as a diorama. There have been many layouts built with great accuracy by excellent craftsmen that have ended up being torn apart by relatives to be sent to the dump. Usually the rest of the family does not share the modelers enthusiasm for the hobby and is primarily interested in getting the home cleaned up for resale.

There have been many discussions with folks in the NMRA about encouraging modelers to consider modular construction for individual historically accurate scenes so that portions of the layout can be cleanly removed from the benchwork and preserved after the builders passing.

PC

Thank you for that perspective, Mr. Cook.

Here's an excellent example of such foresight and utilization:

http://moosevalley.org/wmrhs/modules.htm

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Western- ... 2648418229

The Western Md. Railway Historical Society co-sponsors this effort, which has evolved over several years into representing the ENTIRE former Western Maryland Railway (albeit in "selective compression") from Port Covington in Baltimore to the mines in West Virginia, and myriad locations in between. When this railroad is fully gathered and assembled, it stretches to 50 x 70 feet.

An excellent example of this can be seen in Tacoma, WA at the Washington State History Museum. The Puget Sound Model Railroad Engineers have created an HO scale model railroad that accurately depicts the local area, including many of the historic landmarks familiar to residents.

The layout was designed for historical interpretation. The locations are depicted authentically, though of course selective compression is used. Many of the structures on the layout are accurate models of real structures. Two of the most intricate are the amazing model of Tacoma Union Station and also the Brown & Haley chocolate factory.

Seattle and Portland are simulated by a large staging yard, and the Seattle to Portland GN, NP, UP and Milw mainlines are integrated into the layout, as well as the Stampede Pass line from Auburn.

The layout is a permanent display and is open to the public any time the museum is open. Visitors can run trains using a push button system. They also have a "can you find this?" type activity, where school kids come in and look for local landmarks, learning their history as part of the exercise.

Once a month we hold an operating session, and run the layout in a realistic manner, with passenger and freight trains, including a dispatcher and a card system the crews utilize to pick up and set out cars from specific (and historically accurate) locations. The goal is to show people how the railroad worked as part of the community.

Here's a line to their website, which is kind of dated, but you can get an idea of the place. http://www.psmre.org/exhibit.htm

Another Museum Model Railroad, which has been in Pittsburgh, PA for over 60 years now. It doesn't get much attention from the model railroad community, but it's an amazing layout. The trains are Lionel hi-rail O scale for reliability, but everything else is a scale model, and a very well done one at that.



http://www.carnegiesciencecenter.org/ex ... -railroad/

A few images of the Rock Creek Railway O-scale layout at National Capital Trolley Museum. The car is "started" by moving the handle on a K controller. Besides the car ride, this is our most popular exhibit. The original layout was constructed in the late 1980s and later relocated and enlarged in our new visitor center in 2008-2009.

Wesley

The biggest issue I've seen with model RR layouts in museums over the years is in many cases, they look like someone with minimal skills and rescources built themn in the early 80s. Which, I'm sure, is often exactly the case. Many I've seen over the years don't move at all (they might have, many years ago, though).
I won't name names, but I was at a museum in the South and saw exactly this not long ago. It was built probably from local hobby shop donations and it looks like a cub scout troop built it. Atlas 'snapp' switches, Tyco rolling stock, no historical context and the rolling stock didn't have RR names that had any bearing on anything that went with the museum.
I'd like to think this was a donation and not something that the museum paid for. I sure hope not, anyway.
Model railroading has been a quickly-evolving hobby in recent years and a layout can look 'dated' really fast...

Since my original posting I've done a little more thinking. As we know, Thomas has nothing to do with rail history, but he helps the bottom line. Similarly, if a model railroad that isn't accurate historically helps with ticket sales, well maybe that's not a bad thing either. Most rail museums are a balancing act between entertainment and serious museum stuff, so some junk like Thomas must be tolerated.

Thoughts and comments welcome.

If your Museum mission statement includes preserving and interpreting model layouts of TV show characters, or the preservation of British Railways then I would suppose a permanent exhibit of a Thomas layout would be appropriate. Otherwise the layout should bear some relevance to the mission of the organization and not included for entertainment sake.

Wesley

I've yet to see a "mission statement" of a railway museum or non-profit excursion line that included, as examples, offering food service to patrons aboard dinner trains, preserving Civil War history in a multi-year exhibit, providing musical entertainment with strolling troubadours, and/or renting out cabooses for birthday parties or halls for banquets or special events. Yet we see all of the above, and then some, at various rail lines.

It's called attracting audiences and getting them interested in railroading and trains--and making them CARE. And if that has to start with "eye candy" at a young age with Thomas or Chuggington toy train tabletops or model railroads that run when the kid pulls a controller or pushes a button, so be it. That little tyke may be the one that comes back in ten years to learn about how railroading changed American history for a school report, and then in another five or ten years decides you're going to be a community service project for school graduation or an Eagle Scout program.

Mission statements and articles of incorporation typically include education as a purpose. If a train from a children's show generates an interest and opens further doors towards educating the younger visitors, I'd say the museum is doing it's job. Thomas is an educational tool supporting the mission, even though you won't find it directly addressed in the mission.

F. Lee Jacque's model railroad was not an exact representation, it is more an emotional experience, he made his steam engines looking like they were hard grinding mountain climbers much like the N&W Y6b's, yet they were only 2-4-4-2's, this concept was repeated thruout the layout, he captured the effect. He was was a diorama artist for museums like those that had stuffed ducks and the like. The layout is at the Minnesota Museum of Mining now. Model Railroader did an article on him about 1964, do look it up if you can.

http://www.trainweb.org/chris/hull.html

someone traveled there and took some pics but these pics don't show the effect that is in MR. The track is not your normal rail, it is L channel. These will never derail.

There are plenty of models of equipment that are totally scrapped today. There is no Triplex or Jawn Henry, yet they are in model form (I own both..heh)

IRM is planning a model railroad building.

I am doing modules as If I have to move its an easy move, but they are not take out display modules like the module standards are.

Hoosier Valley has an interpretive, somewhat compressed, N scale layout of the North Judson area at about 1952. It shows the four railroads that came in to town at that time with member Jon Oram scratchbuilding most of the structures and doing almost all of the construction. I'm always on the lookout for vintage photos showing buildings that Jon doesn't have on the layout. He seems to think I do it just to aggravate him! Um....maybe! I recently found a photo of a C&O structure that's not on the layout, but the building shows off in the distance and I haven't found a closer photo so that Jon can replicate it. But, maybe someday! The layout is non-operating, but the signals are all lit.

We also have a G scale layout that runs around the upper part of our depot building. This is not an interpretive layout, but strictly for the enjoyment of visitors. The kids seem to really get a kick out of it.

Les

The WW&F Railway Museum has a small On2 layout (really just a display module) depicting the historical WW&F's extensive waterfront trackage in Wiscasset, ME. The layout, commissioned from the well known narrow gauge modeler Peter Barney and completed in 2014, is located in the reproduction Turner Centre dairy car in "downtown" Wiscasset that functions as the museum's satellite display site. Wiscasset is typically overflowing with tourists in the summer season, and most of them it can be assumed know nothing of the town's railroad history. The layout and other displays in the dairy car therefore serve to grab the attention of casual visitors and send them up the road to the museum proper in Alna, ME (5 miles north). The layout also provides a really striking visual representation of a distinctive section of the historical WW&F (the only one of the Maine 2-foot gauge railroads that ran along the coast and connected with merchant shipping) that will almost certainly never be reconstructed.

-Philip Marshall