how do you model? From childhood memories or what you see now

[mr magnolia]

If pushed, I would say that I am modelling what I would have seen in the area where I now stay, if I had been here in my very early years, and if I could remember it!  So that is very much influenced by what I see now, but I would find it odd to model what I see today if I walk along to the station.
I am actually though, pondering the fact that I have no motive power at all for the time and location that I would suggest I want to model, and so modellers licence knows no bounds! Which perhaps leads me to another question: I know WHERE I am, but WHEN am I?

[bbdave]

I model what i like so alsorts i never thought i'd like diesels but i am comming round to them but not being a rail buff i struggle to know whats what and when so an accurate depiction is beyond me at the moment but one day i'd like to model Teignmouth to Newton Abbot

Dave

[mr magnolia]

Dave
Back in the day... Um, about 1983 ish, I knew that area very well!
Worked in Plymouth on the A38 bypass and then tiverton on the flood defences. Stayed in Exeter, and many happy memories of trundling the main and branch lines on my way to and from the rest of the world!
What era will you model?

[TimothyB]

I model what was around when growing up - but what with memory of those days being a bit hazy, I rely on my collection of railway oriented books and our local Public Library for much of my source material.

I have for that last 20 years (on and off) been trying to model Weybridge as it was in the late 50s / early 60s - did at one stage have almost all the track laid on a tail-chaser akin to one of CJF's large exhibition plans in his N Gauge Plans Book.  Since it's been ripped up and re-laid in various ever reducing guises several times.  I have done a couple of visits there armed with camera, notebook and tape - surprised the ticket office staff by asking to buy a platform ticket so I could have the run of the place so to speak, the amount of dust they had to brush off it before issuing to had to be seen to be believed  .  I have to agree with Southernboy that the research is almost as much fun as the modelling.

The trouble is finding Loco's, EMU's and other rolling stock appropriate to the location and era.

[bbdave]

Really not sure but i have seen some interesting pictures of Teignmouth during the war lots of sidings in the docks but i like to watch what the 66s are moving when they go through Dawlish so i'd have to think hard about it

Dave

[keithfre]

Childhood memories. My first is of, aged about 5, being terrified and at the same time thrilled by an express steam engine rumbling into Bournemouth Central, with its gigantic wheels and ear-piercing steam exhaust and whistle. I had to put my hands over my ears!

Then there was the agonisingly slow chuffing along branch lines on day trips to Corfe Castle and the like - in those days all I wanted was speed! (nowadays the steam train can't go slowly enough for me...) There was a memorable week's holiday on the Isle of Wight with a runabout ticket: I seem to remember we upgraded to first class so we could sit in the wonderful old saloon carriage, with seats round the sides. When we lived (briefly) in Liverpool there was a day trip to the Lake District, which must have been steam-hauled. The trouble is, at the time it never occurred to me that steam trains wouldn't last for ever, so I took no photos and kept no records...

At one time we lived in Clacton, so the trips were on the electric trains with their funny whirring noise, past stations with mysterious names such as Thorpe-Le-Soken.

My last fond memory of British Railways was travelling from Ruabon to Cambridge when I was a student, my tin trunk going Passengers Luggage in Advance - it was actually there waiting for me when I went 'up' ;-} Not that the ride was anything to write home about, at least once the gorgeous scenery at the start of the trip (Chirk Viaduct) had gone and there was just the noisy, bumpy ride in the cross-country diesel railcar...