When does a train set become a model railway?

[sparky]

When I got back into n gauge last year I wanted a model railway and not a train set....when does a train set become a model railway...is it about good scenery, ballasting etc... or having room enough to run realistic length trains..my layout is still just track on the baseboards....I know I should start turning it into something that looks realistic but I can't resist playing trains so progress is very slow...when did your train set's grow up and become a model railway ?

[Trainfish]

In my mind a train set goes back into the box when you've finished playing with it, loco, coaches/wagons, track, controller, the lot. If some of it stays out of the box due to the track being stuck down etc then it's a model railway.
Just my thoughts.

[Ray Haddad]

When you look at it as a model of real life instead of an engine dragging consists around. Your mind's eye is the key. Once it reflects real life to you, you have modeled a railroad and are no longer playing with trains. What happens next is a miracle that has often been compared to creation itself.

Onward!

[Steve.T]

I think when I reached the age of 14 I stopped telling people I had a train set and said I was into model railways.
But the two definitions above seem pretty good replies. 

[Newportnobby]

I'm another one who hit the buffers (sorry) when I got the ability to run trains and further progress slowed dramatically
I think the question could be answered in many ways but I think your quote of....

or having room enough to run realistic length trains

.......really hits the nail on the head for me. I hope I'm not upsetting anyone when I say in my opinion there's nothing worse than seeing large locos, regardless of type of traction, pulling minute trains. My main layout is designed such that 6-8 coach passenger trains can be run. However, I'm in the process of constructing a small (maybe exhibition) layout on which 3 car DMU's or loco + 2 coaches will be the max length, BUT the layout is designed around that premise so they won't look out of place at all.

In times gone by the 'train set' was deemed to be one that was placed on maybe the dining table for a running session then put away again afterwards, but that could also be applied nowadays to many a 'model railway', particularly with modular layouts.

The main thing is there is room in this world for both, and that youngsters are not deterred by any vilification possibly resulting from anyone looking down their nose at them.
After all, didn't most of us graduate from trainsets in our youth to what we are doing now?

[Agrippa]

Whenever you choose to call it that , it doesn't matter what it's called  as long as you're having fun.

[Sprintex]

Whenever you choose to call it that , it doesn't matter what it's called  as long as you're having fun.

That pretty much sums it up perfectly


Paul

[Paul B]

... or having room enough to run realistic length trains..

...although, as everyone says, there is always an example of something different in real life?


Poland March 1989 Steam train Ty43 123

This is a Polish copy of the German wartime heavy freight 2-10-0 loco - pulling two coaches down a small branch line in Poland in 1989! This is one of the things I like about trying to model Polish railways in the 1970's-1990's - big steam locos alongside diesels, all pulling whatever needed pulling at the time!

[NeMo]

Whenever you choose to call it that , it doesn't matter what it's called  as long as you're having fun.

That pretty much sums it up perfectly

While I do agree with this, I also think that a layout can be both a train set and a model railway. When I'm building a kit, weathering a piece of RTR rolling stock, or making scenery, it's a model railway. It's probably still a model railway when I try to do realistic shunting or marshalling of wagons, hoppers and brake vans in the sidings. Likewise buying rolling stock to assemble a realistic passenger train for a certain line or era is the stuff of model railroading.

But when I buy a locomotive I don't need but just like, and then leave it to run around the tracks for twenty minutes just for the fun of it, then that's a train set.

I hope I'm not upsetting anyone when I say in my opinion there's nothing worse than seeing large locos, regardless of type of traction, pulling minute trains.

A very fair point, but easily worked around with research (which is surely part of the fun of model railroading). Don't have space for a 12-coach passenger train but want to use a Type-4 diesel? Then milk tanks or nuclear flask trains could be options, depending on your era. I like milk trains a lot precisely because of this; the other day I came across a picture of a 'Duchess' class Pacific on the front of a trains consisting of maybe ten milk tanks and a three-axle 'Stove-R'-looking brake van! Since a loaded milk tanker weighs about the same as a loaded Mk 1 coach, that's actually a fair-sized train, and without refrigeration needed to be run at express speeds, hence the need for a bog engine at the front.

Lots of lines in Wales and Scotland ran Class 25s or 37s on the front of relatively short passenger trains during the 70s and 80s. There were also a fair number of four-coach interregional trains ran in the BR blue era, typically with Type-2 and Type-3 locomotives on the front, typically Class 31s.

Cheers, NeMo

[jonclox]

7 ft X 3ft including a terminus station and sidings at one side don't really allow me much room for long trains but as I get stuck into the scenic etc I hope that the train set image vanishes into the surroundings. Time will tell I guess
At least its a layout that's been separated from the main rail network thanks to  Comrade Beeching in the past. The local population love the diversity of stock and locos so all is well----
A train set maybe but its my trainset or model railway

[silly moo]

Your friends and family call it a train set but you call it a model railway.

I think it becomes a model railway once the track is permanently laid onto a baseboard with some sort of plan in mind.

[port perran]

I was told last Autumn at a show where I was exhibiting Port Perran that I should come back when I have a model railway not a train set I just smiled and let him get on with it) !
The person who said this was a fellow exhibitor (O gauge) who spent most of the time trying to get his "train set" to work. Eventually dropping his hand held controller which smashed into several pieces. Poetic Justice I thought.
Moan over !!
Anyway, I think call it what you will but I think a model railway is a fixed thing which isn't put away at the end of the day and is a representation of a railway scene (real or fictional).

[sparky]

This afternoon is typical.Posted my thought at about 1pm .... thought I should go and try to lay some more track on the "model railway"..... Got in the garage where the layout is housed and then spent all afternoon repairing a Class 47 that had stopped running...then ran it for an extra hour or so just to make sure...oh well...perhaps when the train set reaches 18 years old it will be grown up enough to call it a model railway !

[port perran]

I think we can all sympathise with that. Little jobs that we expect to take 10 minutes take half the day !

[Paul B]

I was told last Autumn at a show where I was exhibiting Port Perran that I should come back when I have a model railway not a train set I just smiled and let him get on with it) !
The person who said this was a fellow exhibitor (O gauge) who spent most of the time trying to get his "train set" to work. Eventually dropping his hand held controller which smashed into several pieces. Poetic Justice I thought.
Moan over !!

SWMBO only started going to model railway shows after we first met, so the first scale she got used to was N Gauge.  When she started seeing other model scales and gauges, she said that she thought that N Gauge looked 'right' - anything smaller looked 'too small to see the detail' and anything larger looked 'too toy-like'!     Gotta love her for that!

I enjoy looking at all the different scales and gauges at shows, and can see the differences in them can allow for a different set of skills as well as pros and cons in each - but I always come back to N Gauge!