How prototypical are you?

[silly moo]

I do try to run prototypical trains but that's about as far as it goes, the location of my new layout will be fictitious, I like it that way, a chance to use my imagination.

[ColinH]

Totally fictitious location and no idea of which engine pulled which train at the moment. Am trying to learn though for my next layout which will be based around Harrogate. Besides this forum have also joined the local MRC so hope that will give me a bit more insight.

Rule 1 for me

[Luke Piewalker]

Well you see North Haverbrook is the mainline interface for the US military complex at RAF Ogdenville. As a foreshadowing of the Baghdad Green Zone a project was initiated to minimise disruption to visiting troops and prevent security breaches by isolating them from outside influences, with a hint of Cold War paranoia.
This meant basically building an entire self contained American community with shops, bars etc. run by American companies and built in an American style.
The ultimate excess of this project was to use 'American' trains and rolling stock to bring supplies into the site via the North Haverbrook junction. Due to the loading gauge restrictions, a series of US designs were scaled down slightly (almost as if they were 1:160 scale compared to the 1:148 of British Rail...  ) and built for use on these trains...

[DCCDave]

I'm half and half.

My layout contains a fictional terminus station on the Waverley Route. As such it's not prototypical at all. I  do however only run locomotives appropriate to the WR in 1958 (all steam) and separately 1964 (diesel / steam ). I've renumbered them so that they represent locos allocate to sheds on the WR at the time, and use a mix of Stannier/Thompson/Gresley/Mk1 as appropriate fr the two timescales.

[Skyline2uk]

I think I am a bit of a contrary *** with this!

It pleases me when I see, say, a Coal livery 58 with a rake of coal sector HAA's.

BUT on my layout:

A) The loco and wagons are both spotless (have you EVER seen a gleaming HAA???).
B) There is not so much a single lump of coal in any wagon, no matter which direction the train is going in.
C) There are only 8 wagons in the rake

Add this to the fact that the 58 is allocated to a depot (but does not currently have any depot plates) which it shares with 2 56's (one is in coal, so plausible?) a 60 in petroleum (at least the same era) and both 66 and 67s in EWS (ok pushing it now!) and you see my point.

I like certain trains to "look" right, but am happy to ignore the fact that they are too clean, too short and would probably never have run on the same line (let alone the line my layout is "inspired" by) together with time-travelling locos.

Its been said before here, but on my home layout at least, rule 1 / my rules should rain supreme 

Skyline2uk

[Agrippa]

This is  becoming like a rule 1 debate. As to a Bagdad green zone. What is that?

[Komata]

FWIW, my few cents worth:

I am a 'freelance' modeller, and as such have no prototype to copy.  HOWEVER, because my fictional railway system (the Tickford Valley Railway Co. (London) Ltd. (TVR) interchanges with the larger national carrier (New Zealand Government Railways (NZGR),  it has had to adopt certain of the national carrier's practices.  Failure to do so would result in no NZGR rolling stock being allowed to move over TVR tracks and no TVR vehicles permitted to run over the NZGR system. 

As a result most TVR wagons have NZGR-pattern drop-type handbrakes, and are of similar (but not identical) classes, while NZGR-style McKenzie and Holland semaphore signals (where they still exist) are also used. For 'safety' reasons, NZGR operating procedures have also been copied (but not slavishly).

Lest it be thought that I am merely cloning the NZGR, there is actually an historic national precedent for what I am doing.  Between 1881 and 1908 there was a privately-owned public carrier located in the lower half of New Zealand's North Island which was in active competition with and against the NZGR.  This line (the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Co. Ltd.(WMR) was described as being 'A Colorado Narrow Gauge railway, transported to the South Pacific', and followed American practices, while running Baldwin locomotives.  it was ultimately absorbed by the NZGR as part of the establishment of a unified national railway system at a time when no such thing existed.

As the 'owner' of the TVR I operate on the premise that it is the WMR by another name, transported to a more-remote part of the country and still doing something economically 'useful'.

It's an interesting question.  Thanks for asking it.   

[Luke Piewalker]

The Baghdad Green Zone was (is) the secure area in the centre of Baghdad, also known as the 'bubble'. It's where all the facilities and accommodation for 'visiting' personnel in Baghdad were post Saddam's downfall. It had (has?) a Burger King and Subway in there and so forth. Obviously the nature of the situation and the surroundings made this bubble an inevitability of sorts.
So I mentally took the concept and transplanted it (without the hostile surroundings)

[Pengi]

I would like to be but don't have the space or patience to be because I like running my trains fast.

Plus there is the 1:148 /1:160/1:150 question and that I want to run the beautiful EMUs & DMUs from the UK and Europe + the odd FGW HST together 

Stating the obvious, if you are running 1:148 then that is not prototypical.

[Chatty]

I would like to be but don't have the space or patience to be because I like running my trains fast.

Oh Pengi.

[Wingman mothergoose]

My layout is based on my interpretation of how New Basford station on the GC would have looked had it been closer to Nottingham Victoria and closer to the Sherwood area of the city, and if the GCR had built a loco shed there. My chosen period is 1948-1960 ish, so allows me to run LNER liveried locos and coaches alongside BR liveried stock. I'm told that some LNER liveried locos and coaches weren't reprinted for a while after nationalisation, so that's my 'loophole' to running them with the BR stuff!
As for train lengths, I'm limited to a main board of 8x3', and my loop lengths dictate no more that loco+5 coaches or 14 wagons, but the 'rule of thirds' make these lengths look ok.....

[petercharlesfagg]

Rule 1 applies in everything!

Peter.

[Pengi]

I would like to be but don't have the space or patience to be because I like running my trains fast.

Oh Pengi.

Eurostar, Thalys, ICE  etc are designed to run fast in real life And that's my excuse

[ParkeNd]

There are quite clearly levels of approach to the hobby here that would fit the classic normal distribution curve. Even in this small sample of replies there are approaches bordering on almost boring rigidity at one extreme, and flights of fancy bordering on eccentricity at the other end.

But what do the classic 80% in the middle portion do?  How close to the rivet counters do we get? Or as I suspect do we just enjoy ourselves to the level we can afford?  I suspect that for the absolute purists it is a very slow hobby

[gc4946]

I have a small train set type table top layout where's there's not much storage space and have to stack the board away after use.
Most of my collection is arranged so I can run an operating session consisting of small groups of appropriately matched stock for the era and location, e.g.
2 x 101 Met-Cam DMUs plus blue 37 and 47 and 4-wheel traditional wagons, around 1976/77,
or,
Grand Central HST plus Northern 158 with EWS liveried 66 and Europorte 66 709 "Sorrento" with container and Channel Tunnel compatible wagons, around 2012/13,
or,
Britannia, 9F, A3, and Std 5 4-6-0 with Gresley crimson/cream carriages and maroon Mk1s and appropriate wagons, around 1957

I've never focused entirely on one era or location and have had to curtail my use of Rule 1 due to storage issues.
At one stage because of the poor running of UK Farish models, I ran Kato Japanese DMUs and EMUs (the budget types) with Bachmann Spectrum Co-Cos or Fleischmann BR 218s hauling British and European stock together on a freelance basis. I had much better running and reliability out of all this mash-up!

My only current use of Rule 1 is running a Farish WD with a Fleischmann Prussian 4-6-0 in black with NS (Dutch) markings and a Union Mills J25 with my modified Farish carriages representing ex-Great Eastern Rly types and my other Gresley stock and wagons in LNER condition, post-1945.