The Amateurs and the Pros

My next N Scale article is due out in about a month and I emailed David K. Smith of Railwire forum fame and asked him if he would create a sectionalized version of the 4'x8' layout featured in the article (mine was built using Atlas flex-track.) under the assumption some readers with less experience may want to build a similar layout with sectional track. Wow! did I ever get a beautiful rendering back. I have copied his flex-track version below along with my original sketch (which now looks like it was drawn by a third grader).

 

That's the difference between the amateurs and the professionals. And it can be intimidating to the amateurs. So much so, that they may stop trying.

Take model layouts themselves. Railwire seems to have attracted a lot of the "professional" level (actual and some self-proclaimed) model railroad builders. I just marvel at, with a dropped jaw, their work. You then look at your own efforts and wonder why should I bother showing my work. It just doesn't measure up.

But if you look closer, you realize just how few have achieved that "wow" level. I copied the Railwire membership list into a Microsoft Access database to analyze it (I analyze everything; I counted the average # of posts, etc.) and went through all the ~900 members url's to look at their layouts (most do not have them). I only came up with about 2 dozen "wow" layouts (probably more now since the died Atlas forum invasion - a good thing). I found a heck of a lot more that showed layout attempts that still need significant growth/improvement.

So, instead of being discourage by the "competition", I think modelers need to not give in to the "give up trying" feeling and display their work. It probably resonates more with the average forum reader and encourages them to keep going, more than the "expert's" pictures (although they are still the inspiration standard). And hopefully I should be living proof that the average modeler can get published. If you have a dream and something somewhat unique, there is a niche there waiting for you to publish it.