Back when I lived in Ottawa, the Ottawa Valley Associated Railroaders (OVAR) organized a day trip to a couple of layouts in Montreal; on the way home, the bus stopped at a McDonalds, which happened to be alongside some tracks. Somewhere between the delight of licking Big Mac sauce from our upper lips and the inevitable regret that comes after shaking the remaining salt from our fingers, there was the sound of a steam whistle, and in the distance a plume of smoke. Of course, the organizers had planned this, but I knew nothing about it. Soon, CPR Pacific 1201 thundered past us at speed with a passenger train in tow. I’ll never forget the noise, the quaking earth, the hot gust of wind, the acrid smell of the furnace, and the gentle warm mist that followed. It’s part of the reason I model the steam era.
If I were to recreate this experience, I would invite viewers into a darkened room. There would be a sound system to create the noise, a mechanism to thump the floor, another to blow a sudden gust of warm coal-scented air, and a third to gently mist the audience from above. If there were any visual experience at all, it would be with lights. There would be no miniature Pacific-hauled passenger excursion, and I don’t think anyone would mistake the installation for a model railroad.
At what point does a railroad-themed representation cease to be a model railroad?
On his blog, James Hilton, whose book I’m appreciating more and more as time goes on, shared the most minimal layout imaginable: a single track emerges from stage left, and terminates at a platform on the right side of the layout. He is able to run a single DMU (think Doodlebug) to the platform, and reverse out of the scene. To be fair, I think James built the display to test scenery and lighting techniques; yet it is one of the most evocative railroad models you’ll find. Just looking at the photos makes you feel so damp and cold, you want to put the kettle on. With such limited operation, though, does it qualify as a model railroad?
In the 2024 edition of Model Railroad Planning, Thomas Richards describes his “Architectural Layout.” This layout consists of a plywood shelf where the author sets up their collection of Kato Unitrack and Milwaukee-grey sub-detailed* structures. They can then operate their layout without distraction from the sense of place, focusing solely on the trains. On second reading, I concluded that it is operation that is important to this enthusiast, and citing the mantra of the new breed of minimalist layout builders, “if everything is important, nothing is important,” they’ve expurgated almost everything that isn’t related to the operation.
Taken to its extreme, if the only thing that is important in a model railroad is operation, then why have models of trains at all? From an operating perspective, the reporting marks are the important bit. You could have blocks of wood that represent rolling stock, and with the appropriate Consolidated Code in hand move them around on a layout that consists only of lines representing tracks. With such a solitary focus on operation, though, does the game board qualify as a model railroad?
Does it matter? Probably not: we’re talking, after all, about toy trains.
However, the Architectural Layout leads ultimately to a collection of trains that rarely come out to exercise on a length of track hastily snapped together on an Ivar shelf for the occasion. The epitome of such an endeavor is a complete collection – one that includes an example of every piece of rolling stock ever produced in N scale for the Milwaukee Road, say. So, while I thank Mr Richards and Kalmbach for their courage in writing and publishing this article that challenges the status quo of our hobby, and provided some food for thought, this direction for the hobby does not interest me.
- “sub-detailed” as opposed to “super-detailed.” Whatever happened to “super-detailed” anyway. We don’t seem to use it anymore, except on dated NMRA Achievement Program forms.
Pembroke:87 
You can say the same thing about the super-duper-detail crowd. If it wasn’t so easy no one would be doing it.
AH
Hello, Rene.
Thank you for your commentary as I, as the author of the MRP 2023 CNJ article with the line, “if everything is important…”, am always interested in others’ points of view on the hobby and how my specific approach may be viewed. While the layout is minimalist, and I do enjoy operation, there is lots more to it than just that. The buildings and context and sense of place are all there in my layout, the “architectural layout”, and other similar minimalist endeavors that I have seen, it is just that they are rendered differently. They take a much less literal approach to showing a sense of time and place. The point, at least in my case, is to find a different way to express the trains, and the place. Exact replication, what I sometimes call the “engineering approach”, is not the only way to do things. It holds us back, I think. And all of this can be viewed on a spectrum with exact replicative prototype modeling on one end and your blocks of wood example on the other. My view is that the entire spectrum can be considered as model railroading. There is tons of space within those extremes and I think it is a missed opportunity if those other areas are not explored. Thanks again for your thoughtful and constructive comments. I have enjoyed your wonderful work for many years and I hope to continue doing so.
Jonathan Jones
Hi Jonathan,
I am thrilled to hear from you! Both articles are thoughtful, innovative and courageous, and I’m so thankful that you and Thomas Richards are exploring the boundaries of the hobby. At some point though, the representation surely ceases to be a model railroad, and starts to be something else. Perhaps that point is even beyond the wooden blocks, as the rules start to diverge from prototype operating rules.
As I reflect on the question I realize it is a personal one. Surely the only reason model railroading’s boundary is important (to me) is because I identify as a model railroader, and as people enjoy hobbies that are increasingly disparate from my hobby they become less and less interesting. For example, while I can appreciate their enthusiasm for toy trains, I have a difficult time identifying with Lionel collectors. They are practicing a different, adjacent hobby. The same is true of publications, and I’ve never picked up a copy of Classic Toy Trains magazine.
Thanks again,
Rene
I rode the rails on freight trains in 1979-1980. My model would be how to sneak onto an empty freight car with an open door without getting caught by the rail cops. The right train, going the right direction, in the stealth of night. More of a role playing game like Dungeons and Dragons than your traditional electrical model.
But would it be a “model railroad?”
Well, now you have a point there. 😊