The 'trick' would be ...

... to post a photo of a prototype that 'looks' like its a model ...  

(Similar to the photo Logger01 posted in 'that other thread'.)

a photo of a prototype that 'looks' like its a model .

here's one that could go either way?.......DaveB 

no the smoke, depth of field,

no the smoke, depth of field, and chains off the water tank give it away as a proto photo

andrew

FEC 506 and Local at Lake Worth Fl

The Exshaw local on June 7, 2013

This was taken a few weeks before the floods that year.  

Andrew

CP Welded Rail Train

Fresh from the CPR's new (at that time) welded rail plant in Smiths Falls Ont, CP Extra 4016 West, powered by an A-B-A of ALCO-MLW built cab units, rolls the welded rail train through Verner Ont (Mileage 34 - Cartier Subdivision) on 02 July 1971.

The CPR was upgrading their transcon line through Northern Ontario between Sudbury and Thunder Bay (via the north shore of Lake Superior) over the 1970's, re-laying the mainline with welded rail and adding CTC to the sections not yet so equipped.

Photo from the WRMRC collection

Better if culvert pipe cropped

No, it's real

 \

Not a model

@dmbott

I never noticed that before - it does kinda look like a photo backdrop. 

Here is the image cropped and some lens blur added. Although the little hill to the left is at the wrong blur level to my eyes.

Who needs Helicon Focus?

Dear Andrew,

So now we are actively trying to invert what Helicon Focus can do for us?

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Hey, that L&N U23B looks familiar...

Except I prefer it when it looked like this:  

Jim

#$@%! dry-transfer lettering!

David

Dear David, Um, Russian

Dear David,

Um, Russian Cyrillic?

(or, a car which has been too close to some bushfires?

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/4232/1245/1600/Bushfires-108.jpg)

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Try Canada

Prof, how about the effects of +35c to -50c temperature variation in our wonderful Canadian Climate!

( Kinda Siberian like ! )

Ontario Northland's famed POLAR BEAR EXPRESS, and that car would be long retired iirc.

...

Tilt focus, I do believe they call it.

A Fallen Flag + a NG Steamer

Lehigh Valley at Rochester Jct. heading east to Manchester, New York after amking a drop off. Picture taken with a 126 Kodak Instamatic in poor light.

East Broad Top #14 a 2-8-0 at Orbisonia, Pa.

Bernd

train museum in sacramento

i was thinking about visiting california so i was checking out their train museums.  i stumbled on this photo.  its the real thing, not a model.  

http://www.csrmf.org/visitor-information/hours-admission-location

It is NOT a model

To observe operations around a rail yard, many yardmasters/managers have access to a video camera that works 24 hours a day.    Maybe it is the combination of a lack of color and heightened contrast that erases the sharp details, but the night footage always strikes me as having the full appearance of a model train layout.  A possibility would be to try the sepia and or extreme low light setting on a digital camera to achieve similar results.  

A couple of my favorite "model" shots...

OK It Is Not

From the Panhandle of Texas

Regards, John *******************************

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude,you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public. <> Winston Churchill

Wow Tim ...

... the trains in those two shots really do look like scale models!  The 'people' look real though ...seems that a lot of 'scale' people really aren't .. their limbs are too thick, or something about the proportions sort of gives them away (if the shiny paint didn't first); but the second one (Sante Fe) is pretty dang close with the majority of the poses just folks standing around ....  Thanks for sharing.  

PS ... there have been some very good shots of models including people that look "right" posted on these forums, so it can be done.

...

I was close...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt%E2%80%93shift_photography

Tilt SHIFT. 

those two shots really do look like scale models!

They might have been manipulated to try and look like models, the texture and focus don't look like typical camera results...DaveB

...

Tilt Shift photography does this on purpose, though now you can also produce the same results using software.