Trains v. Structures...


OBS

OBS

Structure Fan
ok..one last observation from my train show visit today. I noticed that the people who run the long train lines, with lots of switching and such, have pretty simple looking structures. The people who brought along highly detailed structures had little or no trains along with them. Am I right in thinking that most of people in this hobby seem to gravitate to one side of things more than the other?

For me, I think I'm pulled much more by the realism of the buildings and environment than the trains.
 
Everyone has a "favorite" part of the hobby. But there are a lot of shades of grey....not quite the black and white you offer.....For example I'm somewhere in the middle on both counts. I like realistic buildings....but weathered kits work for me......I don't think I'd enjoy building one from scratch. And I enjoy running long trains, but I want a realistic place to run them. I suppose I lean a little on the side of rolling stock, since I enjoy bashing cars/loads/engines using existing models as a starting point......guess I'm being a bit of a snob, since I like having stuff noone else does.
 
It's an excellent song, but please hire a barber shop trio to sing this, I'd like it for my iTunes! :) (lol)

We're all some part of that song, and like Dave said, it's not all black and white, but we certainly all lean more heavily on one of the three to define your layout. My railroad is my art mostly, but proper detailing and realistic operation is also a big priority too. :)
 
There's one guy out there who's layout consists of track laid down on benchwork. That's it. They spend all their time operating; the owner spends zero time on scenery.

I remember the comment made about it; the layout was about 5yrs old, and nobody has done anything regarding scenery.

Kennedy
 
I guess I lean more towards the scenery side in general, which includes tracks and right of way. I like building realistic towns, roads, and foliage. I also like making the track and ROW look as realistic as possible. I do weather my rolling stock as well. I have less operations than some modelers but it's enough to keep me busy. I can't imagine having nothing but track and just running trains but I'm sure that's enough to keep some guys happy. Whatever works is OK with me -I just do what I like.
 
I'm trying to balance everything myself, but I'm leaning more toward running the trains, and detailing, along with rolling stock, vehicles and such first though....
 
I think the natural instinct is to run trains, which is why many start off with the 4x8 roundy-round. Which gets boring quickly. Then, folks go to some other sort of layout, one that they can 'run trains'. Scenery and the rest are always secondary; very few posts here (or anywhere else) talk about building scenery and terrain first, then the trackplan. Even though in the prototype world, the scenery came first.

There are those who spend more time on scenery than trackplan, but I don't think they're in the majority.

Kennedy
 
Well, I'd probably be one of those, Kennedy. My layout (~125' of main) was primarily designed as a photo-op. In other words, I designed the layout to give me as many photographic opportunities as possible, with a minimum of interaction necessary to actually run the trains. I can just turn 'em on and let 'em rip while I shoot or work on more scenery.

My layout is primarily scenery that trains happen to run thru. The trains are a key part of the scenery but not the only part.

Layouts like the F&SM are predominantly scenic, albeit urban scenery, and the trains run on very simple track plans. Operation of the trains, while important, takes a backseat to the scenery that envelopes the entire concept.
 
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