Model Railroading, remember when you had them
Model railroading is a very popular hobby today. This is in part because it represents a time gone by. Model train enthusiasts enjoy the very accurately detailed recreations of the original towns or scenes which surrounded the old railways. The pieces are simply scaled down versions of the real things, and are able to be grouped and shared because of scale standardization. There are several very popular standards such as O scale, HO scale, Z scale, and N scale. Although each scale has its own unique ratio, they all offer great detail when compared to the originals.
Often people will choose to begin with model railroad kits as they enter into the world of model trains. Often the kit will include the scenery such as trees and bushes, and there may also be crossing signs, electric utility poles, buildings, and telephone wire poles. There will often be track included so basically the kit will allow you to set up an entire complete and authentic looking railroad scene.
There is an endless array of additional items that can be added to the set which will allow you to completely customize your railroad set. Many times a theme will be chosen by the collector which they will follow closely as they design the railroad scene. Some choose, for instance, the late nineteenth or early twentieth century time period. There were many locomotives running around on tracks from east to west, and north to south. Some enthusiasts may design country areas made up of very authentic looking forests with colorful foliage. There may be little streams leading to lakes or ponds with boats on them. There could be little towns with water towers and general stores where people walk around downtown doing they’re shopping.
Railroad enthusiast strive for their sets to look very authentic and will often study photographs of life in they’re chosen time period. They will use this as a reference to designing the set accurately.
Some people have very fond memories of trains and they still remember the days when railroads were much more a part of people’s everyday lives. Although the cargo trains are still plentiful, the fact is that there has been an ongoing decline of volume in the railroad industry. As a result of their original design, other means of transportation slowly took over there was no longer a need for the trains to stop, or even pass through many different areas. This has led to the near abandonment of many miles of track as well as spelling the end for many small towns along the old railway lines.
These events can have a powerful effect on the people who live or lived in these areas. Often they may have to move because there is no longer any work, so they have to start all over again somewhere in a more prosperous area. There are many people who experienced this as children and now that they are older and more secure in their own lives, they consider model railroading to be an excellent way to pay homage to the past they remember as children.
The opportunity to re-create memories of this earlier time is achievable through setting up their model railroads just like they remember. This is the time to dig out all those old family photographs and start designing what it was once like in their own little home town, when the trains still stopped there.
