Well, by that argument, the societies should only produce models in Prototypical scale (i.e. Proto:48, Proto:87, etc) ignoring the inaccuracies forced by 60+ years of NMRA "standards" and "recommended practices."

I don't have any problem with that!

Others who seek interoperability with heritage equipment following those standards and recommended practices will have a lot of objection with models produced that are fully prototypical accurate.

Arved Grass
Arved_Grass@... or Arved@...
Fleming Island, Florida

--------------------------------------------

Really guys?

First - where are the moderators - I thought STMFC was NOT supposed to be a forum for attacking organizations business practices?

Second - talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Last I checked, the historical societies are supported by volunteers, and many, especially for long-fallen flags, are suffering from a significant drop in membership for the simple fact that most former employees have passed on. So we are to crucify a group that is still trying to promote their fallen flag while their membership drops?

Third - Does this mean a Historical Society that lacks resources to produce fine scale models (Who defines "fine scale" - perhaps only proto48 or proto87 cars need apply?) is no longer useful? I think the IRS has a different criteria (thankfully) for non-profit, educational organizations.

Fourth - A group that complains about the price of fine scale models and how they can not be afforded by many modelers, now finds it unconscionable that an HS produces "stand-in" or even "foobie" models that a much larger segment of the model railroad community can afford?

Here is a sad reality check - most Historical Societies are losing all of their former employee members. Members who worked side by side on the real railroad for decades - they joined the societies almost as a retirement club to preserve bonds and fellowship they had before they joined the society, and those members have provided all of us a very valuable service by preserving and disseminating important railroad history.

But now the HS's need to attract new members, and that will only happen by creating a sense of fellowship between mostly modelers (and a few historians) - who did NOT spend their careers working together.

This challenge is going to be very difficult - to get modelers to volunteer their time for their favorite prototype's historical society to try to keep the flag alive (instead of using that time to build more models for their layouts), and continue to preserve and publish the prototype's materials and historical information. Building a sense of fellowship between modelers so they join and volunteer their time to keep the historical societies viable will be much more difficult if members snipe at each other because they will not agree on the necessary level of fidelity in their models.

How can any of this drivel be considered a positive contribution to the core (and legally required) mission of the HS's to preserve railroad history?

If a car is too foobie for you - don't buy it.

If you want something better, volunteer to help the society produce a better product.

If they determine it can't be done, or will not do it - for whatever reason, then do it yourself - I am SURE the historical society will be happy to provide you the prototype information required for you to develop an accurate model and sell it yourself.

This sort of intolerance needs to stop - or we will be burying the very organizations that help provide the data modelers on this list need for ANY level of model fidelity.

And you wonder why the commercial hobby press uses "rivet counters" in a derisive manner? This thread makes the case pretty convincingly.

This is a hobby guys - we are not developing flight control software that will kill someone if it does not meet all the requirements.

Sorry Mike, don't care about the food down below - this has reached a new low for intolerance.

Dave Evans
PRRT&HS

Hi,

Perhaps I have a different view ... ?

1) I want/desire/seek certain levels of prototypical accuracy.
Not just for "my RRs" but for all of the models I own/build/
run/operate (but not necessarily own).

2) Having said #1 - I have a "higher priority" than accuracy -
and, for me, that is "how well does it run/operate?". As
a result of this you will not see any Sergent couplers on
my models. Simply because, for me, it isn't worth the
reduction in ops to get the increase in accuracy. Similarly
you will not see very many "semi-scale" couplers on my
stuff either ... again simply because they don't operate
as well, nor interchange easily with #5s.
Do I like the look of #58 size couplers better?
Absolutely.

3) Most historical society members who are holding office
are not modelers - or, if they are, they came to
modeling after they were already railfans/historians.
Most of us on this list were modelers first - and
joined and maintain our membership in the historical
societies in order to gain prototypical knowledge.

4) Many of the H.S cars are produced/sold primarily for
the purpose of being as "convention memento" and not
as "supplies to the modelers". Sure, they produce
more than will be sold only at the convention. And yes,
they don't do 'convention lettering' (very often). And
that is directly related to needing to break even on
the model - coupled with fund raising.

Do I wish that the historical societies would embrace
prototypical accuracy for the models they sell? Of course
I do. I'm lucky - the HS's I'm a member of are already
doing that for the majority of their models. Do they
frequently use a "sort of OK" model ... and then have it
lettered correctly? Yes. Do they often sell/promote
models that are not even correctly lettered? Rarely.

But #3 'explains' why they often fall short of acceptable
levels of accuracy (as measured by the members of this list).
Please note - I specifically used the word "explains" and
not "excuses" and I do know the difference between those
two words.

Economics also drives the choice of which model they
will do - and how accurate it will/will not be. If they
were to sell models that are of the Sunshine level of
accuracy ... they wouldn't sell very many and the cost
would quite likely be even more than a Sunshine model ...
it's easy to see why they choose the models they do.

The historical societies do not exist to "serve the
model railroaders". They don't even exist to "serve the
model railroaders in their ranks". Would I prefer it if
they paid more attention to the needs/wants/desires of
the model railroaders? Of course. Do most of their
members care about prototypical accuracy? I don't know
but I suspect not - or that the current level of
accuracy is "good enough".

But I would be the LAST person to criticize the H.S.s
for selling a model that some call a foobie.
- Jim Betz

P.S. I do agree that they should at least list the
known inaccuracies in any model they sell/promote.
If they know them. Or maybe just put that list
up on the web?

At 10:33 PM 11/23/2014, you wrote:

Here is a sad reality check - most Historical Societies are losing all of their former employee members. Members who worked side by side on the real railroad for decades - they joined the societies almost as a retirement club to preserve bonds and fellowship they had before they joined the society, and those members have provided all of us a very valuable service by preserving and disseminating important railroad history.

But now the HS's need to attract new members, and that will only happen by creating a sense of fellowship between mostly modelers (and a few historians) - who did NOT spend their careers working together.

...SNIP...

If you want something better, volunteer to help the society produce a better product.

If they determine it can't be done, or will not do it - for whatever reason, then do it yourself - I am SURE the historical society will be happy to provide you the prototype information required for you to develop an accurate model and sell it yourself.

I am one of those historians/modelers without a direct history with a given railroad who joined an historical society and found that it was mostly former railroaders with a considerable clique'ishness that made me feel like an outsider.  I stayed a member because there were a few friendly faces and I still learned a lot about history.  Of great importance, that particular society has never put out anything decal or model wise that wasn't very accurate (to the point that many modelers with less historical bent than me complained about the lack of models and/or complained that the accurate ones made weren't fit for their particular time frame or region of interest, so they didn't buy them).  The society put out historical documents in fairly great number, but not much for modelers unless they considered it scratchbuilding plans.  The only problem with your argument above, is this particular society is absolutely NOT happy to provide the prototype information required for someone else to develop an accurate model and sell it themselves.  This society paid dearly for the prototype information (for acquisition, storage, and now for indexing it) and, it seems to me at least, that they want to make money off that prototype information to underwrite all the expenses they've incurred to date.  I know they WILL share with existing manufacturers if they know a manufacturer is going to produce a model and they want to ensure (as best they can) that the model will be accurate.  But, for the most part, they will not provide that prototype information to an individual modeler interested in scratchbuilding, kitbashing, or attempting to learn how hard/expensive it is to become a manufacturer of commercial kits. They will claim the info is in the archive if you can afford the time and travel to visit the archive when it is open. While that seems only fair, it is not a way to generate interest beyond the brotherhood of former railroaders and the few wealthy or retired historians with sufficient resources and curiousity to come to them. To me, it would seem a reasonable survival strategy to spread correct info as far and wide as you can, hoping you get a sufficiently high number of people interested to carry on.

You are right that somewhere there has to be a balance, because the number of living railroaders retired from fallen flag railroads is dwindling, and soon memberships in the historical societies will be made up mostly of those people who never experienced the railroad firsthand if the historical societies for fallen flags wish to continue as separate organizations. In order to keep membership at a reasonable level, the organizations might have to merge as the prototypes did.  Or they might have to start reaching out and being more dependent upon the modelers and interested historians.

No matter where it goes, as the number of firsthand observers dwindles, it seems like the concern would be to have the most correct information out there.  Because there will be fewer and fewer people who can say for certain that a steam era freight car model is a foobie if there is a lot of bad secondary evidence out there.  I would think a patch or a photo collection, or a clearly marked reproduction artifact--something other than a foobie model--would be a better money-maker and interest generator.

Whatever a society's plan for the future, I would think it should be focused on accurate information, and at least warn the modeler, AND the future historian, how to tell the real from the foobie.  I think that is all that can be asked for no matter your strategy: provide enough info so that it's not caveat emptor for the next generation.

Dave

Schuyler,

Interesting perspective. I am sure the PRRT&HS also had its share of railfans in the early days, but it is pretty hard to mint new rail fans for a long-fallen flag. Still the same problem.

You mention "Classic era" (transition modelers). I find it interesting that when I returned to the hobby ten years ago I was warned that the Pre-WWII and WWII era modelers were becoming a small minority, and that the manufacturers would be producing less WWII and earlier models and more transition era and modern era models (which is exactly what has happened.) Ten years later I hear transition era modelers worrying about the same fate for their era. Time moves on.

Dave Evans writes in part:

Greg Martin wrote

The sad reality is that most modelers are far more concerned about their locomotive fleets than their freight car fleets with the possible exception of signature cars. They can tell you every phase of a locomotive and it's respective differences, the oddities, the paint schemes and love to debate the color a locomotive builder chose to paint it, mostly making reference to DuPont colors when likely Rinshed Mason was the body color. They spend hundreds on their locomotives while they ignore the most basic details on their fright cars. They spend countless hours detailing them to the neath degree. MY My... 

Greg, you're sure right about locos vs freight cars! Modelers, photographers,
railfans, and former employees alike -- it's all about the locomotives! Just
pick up any "history" book and see what is chosen to represent the railroad --
people, tracks, stations, bridges, locomotives, passenger trains... and buried
in there might be one or two freight car portraits. I have over 300 railroad
books (not counting any of the freight car books that have appeared) so I can
testify that this is largely true.

Oh well this whole discussion is exhausting... The Southern Pacific group on
Facebook now has almost 4,000 members. That greatly exceeds the number of people
who belong to the SPH&TS, which is a large and very healthy society. Many other
societies are much smaller and marginal. Yet I agree with those who think there
is a lot of untapped potential out there.

Let's recognize that we Prototype Modelers are a minority. We're an important
minority, and we've had HUGE SUCCESS in the last 20 years. I can't think of a
major manufacturer (or importer as is now mostly the case) that has not fully
embraced Prototype Models (with varying degrees of fidelity). Let's not spoil
our success by bashing what societies do. Get in there and roll up your sleeves
and try to make accurate models available, if you think that's what will help
your Historical Society to survive.

Tim O'Connor

P.S. The Facebook SP group is totally obsessed with locomotives, trains, and
telephoto photography! I think the ratio of locomotive to freight car photos is
at least 99 to 1. When I post a freight car photo I always try to include some
information about the car. Maybe I'll "hook" some unsuspecting fan and they'll
start taking a greater interest in freight cars.

"Tim O'Connor timboconnor@... [STMFC]" <STMFC@...> wrote:
 

BTW, if a society exists in making name train dining car settings, then offering bogus mugs would be shameful. But in our societies, no one is looking to their society to offer well-researched coffee mugs.

I sure wish Richard was still with us to speak up on this issue.

 

Andy, I think you captured exactly what Richard would have said.

 

Jerry Michels

Andy, to say that fund raising should be a lower priority of things to do
really ignores that many of the societies exist on the edge of financial
survival. I am not saying that justifies "duds, AKA foobies," but fund
raising is a critical element of their operations. It ENABLES, not the
"promotion," but the documentation of the subject railroad's history.

Schuyler

Agreed Schuyler,  Fundraising is critical.  However, fundraising based on trickery, whether intended or not, is unacceptable (not saying that you suggested this).  There is no problem in my mind with an historical society offering whatever it wants, be that Thomas the Tank Engine or highly accurate models of their railroad's freight cars.  Just as long as I know what they are offering and that the advertising is honest.

 

Jerry Michels

 

Well, by that argument, the societies should only produce models in Prototypical scale (i.e. Proto:48, Proto:87, etc) ignoring the inaccuracies forced by 60+ years of NMRA "standards" and "recommended practices."

I don't have any problem with that!

Others who seek interoperability with heritage equipment following those standards and recommended practices will have a lot of objection with models produced that are fully prototypical accurate.

Arved Grass

That isn't the point since the society is most likely not advertising the model as Proto 87, etc.  If they were and it wasn't, then there is a problem.  I think most modelers would not customarily expect an offering from an historical society to be Proto 87.

 

Jerry Michels

Dave Evans, 

 

A well thought out reply.  It definitely gave me pause, and I agree with 99.9%.  The only comment I have is in the case of false advertising.  That is a concern, and will hurt a society.  As an active member in both the Amarillo Railroad Museum and the Missouri Pacific Historical Society, and involved with sales in both organizations, I understand many of the problems we face with funding.  We do need to make sure we don't bite the hand that feeds us, but unfortunately, it is rather easy to bare one's teeth (i. e. complain) when there are no repercussions to be had.  One's attitude changes when you have a balance sheet for which you are responsible.  Again, as long as any product is well described and not misleading, I am all for an historical society selling anything it wants, STMFC-member approval or no.

 

Jerry Michels

Whew!  Judging from the gravitas with which this subject is viewed, and the outrage expressed in the discussion, this IS indeed a Moral Issue!