Joe,

I know another editor of a model railroad magazine who made a career writing about John Allen. 

I see you are carrying on in his foot steps. Good topic but is becoming a little dated.  Many model's today have as good or better ideas and concepts.  Everyone has a little different outlook. 

Visited one in Houston, done by Eddie Carroll , and John Weiss. 

Art:

John Allen and the Gorre & Daphetid is old news for those of us who've been in the hobby since the stone age (wink), but anyone who is 50 and younger would have been too young to ever have been aware of John and the G&D when it was still around.

So every now and then, it's good to go back and fill in a bit of the hobby's history for the newcomers. And besides, if you were a contemporary with John, wouldn't it be good to know 40 years later people would not have forgotten what you had done to advance the hobby?

Today's modelers need to know how we got here, and to appreciate some of the pioneers who made today's hobby possible. We owe at least that much to the hobby innovators like John.

If we're always looking forward and never looking back, then how does the saying go? "Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them ..."

Today's modelers need to know how we got here, and to appreciate some of the pioneers who made today's hobby possible. We owe at least that much to the hobby innovators like John.

I couldn't agree more and tried to address the same thing in the thread linked here....

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/8477

Many model's today have as good or better ideas and concepts.

Really? Show me where?  Some of the folks who are responsible for a large part of the concepts put into print today seem to be so concerned with advancing their agenda of what they think a model railroad should be that they do so at the expense of good modeling and good scenery. At least IMO.

Michael

Many model's today have as good or better ideas and concepts.

>Really? Show me where?  Some of the folks who are responsible for a large part of the concepts put into print today seem to be so concerned with advancing their agenda of what they think a model railroad should be that they do so at the expense of good modeling and good scenery. At least IMO.<

Many things that John Allen included on his layout had to be invented by him because no one had done it before. This is no longer necessary as we now have the technology an techniques in hand already. And newbie's can use it right from the start. So they are really starting with and advantage that they would not have had if not for John Allen.

Irv

>Really? Show me where?  Some of the folks who are responsible for a large part of the concepts put into print today seem to be so concerned with advancing their agenda of what they think a model railroad should be that they do so at the expense of good modeling and good scenery. At least IMO.<

What sort of agenda are you thinking of, that is running counter to good modeling? There are a heck of a lot of simple but greater realism options now, than John had at his disposal. So I presume that's not what you mean?

Really John Allen's point of his railroad was operation. Read the MR articles from the mid-sixties. That is why it was designed with the fifties style of overlapping mainlines to gain length. It wasn't until I believe 1964* that multi-level was suggested by John Armstrong in MR.

The scenery was just a byproduct of Allen's artistic ability.

The idea of it being whimsical was fostered by the Varney ads. He was one of the first modelers to use code 70 for realism.

Harold

EDIT: *Multi-level was January 1962 Model Railroader, a narrow gauge layout by John Armstrong

All right ye blind men, you're all talking about the same elephant - let's stop making soapboxes about "what the artist was actually trying to say."

But in my own words, the value of his railroad comes down to the fact that he hit so many values all at once.  The Total Model Railroader, the Whole Package concept. 

Hence, the elephant.

What sort of agenda are you thinking of, that is running counter to good modeling? There are a heck of a lot of simple but greater realism options now, than John had at his disposal. So I presume that's not what you mean?

Looked at the latest couple of MR's lately? People are being told that the "best way" to build a model railroad  is a multi level design with 8 inch to one foot wide shelves with very little real three dimensional scenery and to rely on photo backdrops for most of their scenery. They are being shown examples  of so called "good modeling"  that is nothing more than one flat wall of a building slapped up against a backdrop. Just my opinion of course, but I think that runs a bit counter to what John Allen did with floor to ceiling scenery and deep scenes with bridges and real three dimensional buildings. The concepts I cite above seem all to be being advanced in the name of "operation" and I've got nothing against operation but it seems to me that John had a very well thought out layout as far as operation without having to sacrifice scenic grandeur and good detailed structure modeling to do so.

Michael

that must not have been the same Mag I read this month that included a B&M layout which touted floor to ceiling scenery. Or do we just choose to ignore those cover stories that don't illustrate our point?

Not floor to ceiling but anyway..... it doesn't take a "rocket scientist" to see where the main theme of most of the articles is going or do we just choose to cherry pick isolated stories to illustrate our point?

Michael