And that is the purest form of using models in a museum... a diorama that depicts something that is gone, and can never be recreated, to show the visitor, "how it was."

I haven't been in Wiscasset in over twenty years mow... are the bones of the schooner still in the bay, or has it broken up by now?

I feel model railroads can help visitors to actually "how" the equipment they are seeing was used as an alternative to running demonstrations (which are not always possible or practical). Steamtown for example has an HO gauge diorama in their museum complex of the DL&W Scranton Yard as it appeared in the 30s. It helps the visitor learn a little more about the place they're visiting as well as its history as a railyard and engine terminal.

There are a couple of "missed opportunities" of this sort of thing I can think of off the top of my head that amount to wasted space in otherwise significant historic railroad sites. One is in my "backyard", although not that close, the other in the Mid-Atlantic. Marion, Ohio is a major junction that attracts lots of visitors to it's depot and preserved "AC Tower". They have a number of significant displays of things like signals and interlocking panels, but the model railroad club that inhabits part of the building does not model anything in particular, especially what was in/around Marion. It's pretty much whatever the dominant members want to run on the track, mix-and-match.

The second one that comes to mind (and it's been over 10 years since I was there, so I don't know the present situation) is the former WM depot museum at New Oxford, PA, which was the destination for the last excursion of the '03 NRHS Convention. Again, a mishmash of whatever, set up in, I believe, either a baggage or box car.

Part of the problem is that it's really hard to find a large enough group of skilled modelers in a region who have the same vision to try and replicate historically accurate scenes and the rolling stock of that area. For some reason, a lot of modelers always seem to want to model something hundreds, or thousands of miles away. I've met a number of local modelers who do nothing but Santa Fe or UP, and could care less about our local B&O, Erie, PRR, etc. I don't know...

A couple of comments, prompted by the memory of seeing the "operating diorama" at Steamtown in Scranton...

HO scale can be very beguiling; there are a lot of accurate, well detailed models available, and the finished display doesn't take much space. The problem is, it doesn't run reliably enough for an unattended display. Yeah, I've been a model railroader for fifty years now, and I know how nicely HO equipment can run... but when thinking about a display, one has to remember that one is dealing with the least common denominator. Every time the train stalls, when the attendant notices it, they'll crank up the speed. The best part of watching the Scranton Yard display was wondering how far the train was going to jump off the end of the coal trestle, as the little switcher came rocketing up the incline.

Same with the diorama I saw at Cass maybe twenty five years ago. The scenery was great... then the little Mantua General came flying into the station and screeched to a halt, pause for a moment, then flew away at breakneck speed.

I can still recall how majestically the 1/4" scale trains flowed through the old "O" scale layout at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. Interestingly, when I was a kid visiting the museum one day, someone dumped a whole ream of notebook paper on the layout from the balcony above, which fell like giant snowflakes across the modeled landscape. The weirdest thing was the trains kept on running, right across the paper. Those big O scale F units were heavy enough to press flangeways in the paper, and the multiple unit locomotive must have had power jumpers between all the units, and were finding just enough clear rail in the five foot length of the consist to keep on going. Equally interesting was when the attendant just strolled in, walking right on the scenery, to pick up all the paper. Years later I found out that the scenery was Portland cement plastered on steel wire lath. There are a lot of advantages to the size and mass of 1/4", or even larger scales.

For about eight years Accurail had a 2' x 6' operating display we carried into the Chicago Model and Hobby show for a four day run each year, Yeah, this was HO (as are our products) but there was always one of us within arm's reach when some kid would say, "Mister, the train stopped." The setting was urban / industrial, and the track plan was based on the old Gum Stump & Snowshoe published by Chuck Yungkurth in Model Railroader magazine back in the sixties. It was basically a four leg switchback that crossed over itself, so as the switcher and caboose ran back and forth on the layout they eventually ended up directly above where they started, whereupon the engineer said, "darned, I forgot my lunch pail", and then they ran all the way back down again. Repeatedly. All automated with Circuitron equipment.

One thing I noticed while watching kids watch the train... kid's attention span is not very long at all. When I had the time delay at the reversal points set to about twenty seconds (which seemed about right to me) kids would watch the train come to a stop at the end of the track, watch a few seconds more, then inevitably turn away just before it started again. I had to keep any stop less than ten seconds to hold their interest. For a public display, the trains don't have to run fast, but they've got to keep on runnin'!

Paul -

I hear you. In the N scale interpretive layout at HVRM that I mentioned earlier in this thread, the replication of North Judson as it was in the early 1950's is probably about 98% accurate, although somewhat compressed account limitations of space. On the other hand, the G gauge layout that runs in our depot is a different story. Of course it is strictly on a "shelf" and meant to entertain visitors while waiting for the train. And one of the locomotives IS the Erie Triplex. However, member Rich Warner, who provides the trains and does much of the work, is a Union Pacific fan so there is a set of U.P. PA's on a long passenger train and more recently, a reasonable facsimile of a U.P. "Bull Moose" steamer was put into service. The kids don't seem to mind, and I've also heard no complaints from adults. Union Pacific in Indiana.....Roll On!

Les

The schooners Hesper and Luther Little have been gone for many years now, sadly. They finally disintegrated sometime in the late 1990s as I recall. However, some small pieces of hardware have been preserved by the Maine Maritime Museum:
http://www.mainemaritimemuseum.org/luther-little/

Incidentally, the unnamed "Wiscasset entrepreneur" mentioned at the link above who acquired the schooners in 1932 was none other than Frank Winter, the last owner of the WW&F. He had grand visions of an integrated railroad-maritime transportation empire, but it all came to naught.

-Philip Marshall

There used to be a model train store right along the street next to the RF&P main in Ashland, VA. I asked around about it, thinking they would be a great resource for stuff about the RF&P, C&O, etc.; you know, stuff that would make sense for the area. Not to be. Again, another one of those grass is greener, rails shinier in far, far away places situations. Makes about as much sense as an HO Chessie System painted Atlantic.

Just wondering, do modelers in California pine for and model Eastern roads? (Outside of someone like Mr. McCormack's 1:1 PA in NKP paint?)

To follow up on Philip Marshall's post about the Wiscasset Schooners, the WW&F Railway Museum keeps a replica of WW&F/Turner Centre Dairy car 65 at the dock near the schooner site, parallel to the Maine Eastern RR. It is there during the summer months, across the dock from Sprague's Lobsters on the opposite side of Route 1 from the more famous Red's Eats. To be more on-topic, I will report that inside the car there is a roughly O-scale diorama showing the Wiscasset dock area and the railroad sidings that serviced it.

Thanks, John. Yes, the diorama is exactly what I was referring to in my first post on the previous page of the thread. (Sorry to have ventured off topic a bit.)

-Philip Marshall

2 cents…I have a bit of experience with Model Railroading though it’s been years. The use of a miniature version of “what’s outside” has tremendous merit. I can remember a discussion in MR, or one of the other periodicals on the subject, where a distinction was established between Model Railroading and Railroad Modeling. Paraphrasing, a model railroad is a miniature version of a railroad with the primary aim of operating it like a railroad with being a replica of a railroad secondary. Next the piece defined a railroad model as a representative reproduction of an actual railroad, with operating like the railroad being secondary. With that in mind, any model exhibit should be an extension of what the museum is attempting to accomplish. A non-specific or fictional model that tells the story of how railroads operate is no more or less valuable than a scale model that depicts specific railroading places and things lost to history. From things written in this post, it’s just as easy for a model railroad or railroad model at a museum to fall victim to the same shortfalls in mission, time, treasure, and talent that are discussed here about the 1’ = 1’ versions.

1 cent more. As to Easterners modeling the Western RRs. Once beyond the train models I enjoyed constructing scenery. Western topography was for me less expensive, easier to mimic, and offered more drama than the rolling deciduous scenery found in the East. Then until late in my MR period, the models “out of the box” were predominantly Northern or Western roads - not much for Southeastern roads where I lived. As to drama, I found myself drawn more and more into narrow gauge (D&RGW). The rugged rocky terrain allowed the modeler to make use of vertical space to add drama and double or triple the amount of track side scenes per square foot without thing being too unrealistic. Well that’s how this Southeasterner found his way into Colorado narrow gauge. Then I got the chance to work on 1 foot equals 1 foot which I really prefer.

Lots of PRR modelers in California... Florida, too. After almost thirty years in the model RR business, I tend to agree with the truism; after hobbyists become proficient enough to be able to make real choices about what they model (once they get past the "gotta have one of EVERYTHING!" stage) they tend to gravitate to modeling what they remember from their young formative years. A lot of people who grew up in Pennsy country retired to both California and Florida. Doyle McCormack's PA is not an exception, but does indeed support the rule.

Club layouts tend to have no focus because the membership doesn't... but there are a few exceptions. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute club layout is freelance, but shows strong influences of both the D&H and Rutland. There are many fine large home layouts, and these may have a tighter focus, but still are often freelance, simply due to the lack of space. The builders have a mental picture of places they want to model, and they may not all be on the same railroad, or if on the same railroad, not the same division, and not really related to each other. Constructing a fictitious persona for the railroad is one way to justify this.

There are some very few clubs that were founded to model one specific line, and have the space to do it justice. The huge Tehachapi layout in San Diago's Balboa Park is one that comes to mind; it not only models the pass, but also the division points at each end, and I understand operating across it using Timetable and Train Order rules can make for a long, grueling day... shades of the original.

But I digress. Suffice to say that the interests of a model railroad club are enough at odds with a true historical representation of any real portion of railroad that trying to combine the two will cause both to suffer. If IRM wanted a diorama that showed the C&NW from say, Elgin to Belvidere , with the E&B interurban buzzing along right next door, the resulting layout would be, quite frankly, boring to operate. Add more traffic, industries, features, and all of a sudden it's no longer a model of what it purports to be.

Which is why I never refer to model trains in a museum setting as a "layout." If it's intended to be a diorama, either static or operational, it needs to be thought of, first and foremost, as a diorama.

Dennis -

Along those lines, there is an HO model in the ex-Wabash depot in Monticello, Illinois of the museum site of the Monticello Railway Museum. This depot is located at the west end of MRM's train ride and visitors can board there and ride back east to the museum. It's also an explanation for riders coming in to Monticello on the train who don't actually walk around the museum site. The buildings in that diorama are those in existence although I understand that some new construction still has to be added. The rolling stock shown is what actually runs on museum rails. An interesting, and different, diorama for sure.

Les

Any museum deciding to have model railroading has to decide whether they are going to be simply hosting a model railroad club, or dictating terms and conditions, down to saying "the model will represent our station area in the 1920s".

Model railroaders come in all stripes, from the chaps that create their own little fantasy Utopias to lord over, to operational geeks all about dispatching/timetables/individual car waybills, to the cliché of the guy who represents "Temple, Texas at 9:43 AM on June 17, 1953", to guys who obsessively collect models and kits. The ideal club layout merges and uses the best attributes of all these types, but a few will never fit in.

There now exist small companies that will build a flawlessly-operating display layout for your shopping center Christmas displays or your basement--for a price. Indeed, one or two chaps who set up and take down the "train garden" for a local rail museum have since branched out into doing so for local shopping centers, firehouses, etc. (Christmas "train gardens" are a big thing in Maryland firehouses, where they charge admission to see it with funds going to charity or more equipment).

It might behoove a museum interested in a model layout to consider calling in a "pro" who can best negotiate between the museum's vision and the practical real world of what's available out there. If you happen to have a local specialist willing to donate his expertise, all the better, but if he wants to see your local SP modelled while the museum wants something that runs flawlessly (think Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry layout), someone may have to do negotiation and planning. And don't go too far unless you are sure you can find volunteers willing and able to run and maintain the layout after some consultant leaves.

Two other thoughts to consider:
When Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry decided to upgrade its large O scale layout, originally sponsored by the Santa Fe, from 1960s technology to 1990s DCC technology, BNSF came through with funding along with GATX, TTX, and others--see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Train_Story . Similarly, I believe there have been relationships between the modelmakers and the owners of the prototypes--I recall when Bachmann started its Spectrum line of models with a model of PRR 1361, supposedly a small portion of each model's price went to the Railroaders Memorial Museum, at least for one batch for a time.

The Baltimore Streetcar Museum is currently redoing its O-gauge streetcar layout, which includes overhead catenary and the architect's model of the Visitors Center in which the layout resides. The revision includes lowering the layout about a foot and a half, from average adult navel height to knee height. Please tell me I don't have to explain why.....

As the old saying goes "I resemble that remark!" :) Our museum does have a small layout that is, basically and regrettably(?) that. In fact, its my understanding that it was a donated item. However, the context in which its used is as a classroom instructional tool and not as a general display item. For those purposes, its often used with schoolchildren and other groups of younger visitors who really couldn't care less if it was Tyco with horn-hooks or an Overland Models. Other museums I've visited used lower-end model railroads as a kids activity center - and for similar reasons you would want lower end "toy train" stuff. Of course, many museums with these sorts of displays/exhibits/activities have the Thomas and/or Chuggington toys for this role nowadays.

However, it should also be noted that our museum has a large display diorama of the complex back in its heyday, in N scale. Its a non-functioning layout, but it accurately and historically represents Spencer Shops in 3D, and the people who had built it way back when had certainly put a lot of skill and effort into the task.

So the long and short of it is that model railroads have a lot of different roles they can fulfill at a museum, and depending on how they are used, what you need to have can vary widely.

-Eric Shock

The PSMRE layout in Tacoma, WA has found a way to be historically accurate while also accommodating members with other interests.

Most of the time, the layout follows strict rules to be historically accurate to the time period represented, Tacoma WA in the transition era of the 1950's. Only equipment that would reasonably be found in that location and era is permitted. That means freight cars from just about any "golden era" railroad, passenger cars from NP, GN, MILW and UP, as locomotives from those roads along with a few logging lines.

Several times a year, and for about two weeks during the Christmas holidays, they host "open operating sessions", which means you can bring and run whatever you have, as long as it meets the basic standards (DCC, clean wheels, etc) So during that time you'll see all kinds of trains, from modern double stack and coal trains to vintage steam. Of course you'll usually find a little blue guy as well, converted to DCC by some enterprising member.

It works well, staying accurate while also letting members run their favorite trains on occasion.