WHY WAIT ?

Sounds good, you say ? However, you ask, "Am I supposed to twiddle my thumbs until the first        P Scale model houses and streetcars appear in the marketplace?"

NO ! That's exactly the huge benefit of plunging into a new but well--defined scale .

Just look around you for the huge number of small trackside and small-town accessories that people could be interested in if they produced an interesting product in a modest production run in , say, one-sixth --- two-inch-to-the-foot scale.

First, let's call it P Scale for convenience . This is a good mnemonic, calling Barbie's Playscale to mind .

Second, let's consider the hundreds of roadside and trackside and small town accessories that are available from Walthers in H0 scale . The first items that come to mind are background flats. Here you have an interesting choice between one-sixth (2-inch scale) apartment-above-small store flats AND the identical product in one-twelfth (one-inch scale) used as background in a Forced Perspective viewscape. (... can't lose !) .

I have always been amused (I say "always" because my first electric train by Marx in 1942 seems like Forever ago) by this observation : It has seemed to me that , whenever one model manufacturer produces an  F-3 diesel loco, every other manufacturer quickly calls up their favorite Asian model company and orders production of an exact, direct duplicate. This inevitably stretches the market so thin(ly) that no one makes any money .  In Homer Simpson's infamous phrase : Doh !

The great benefit of attempting a model of a background flat taken from a real life small town or city vista is their enormous variety. The chances of (accidentally) duplicating --- unintentionally --- someone else's background flat are miniscule . The more the merrier ! ... and not just storefronts with apartments above ... BUT how about office buildings --- many small towns have correspondingly small office space situated above, for example, movie theatres and other small businesses --- banks, business supply shops, etc.

Telephone booths, gumball machines outside candy stores, clothing dummies in a window display, a newspaper rack displaying real headlines,  books in a bookstore window, a shoe store (infinite variety) , A cigar store (your imagination can run wild here) .

Now here's the Beauty Part !  EVEN IF NOT ONE SINGLE MODEL RAILROADER  PURCHASES  your product, think of all the opportunities that exist to market this stuff at a  Barbie Conference OR at a GI Joe or other model militaria program. All the Barbie Buyers have never had the opportunity to fill out the many gaps in their small towns. I hope to provide many other new ideas in coming Miniature Universe BLOGS. As one counter-culture author offered "STEAL THIS BOOK IDEA !

Requirements for representations of an earlier era

                                                                                                                                                       Do you need fresh new ideas? We could really use, not just routine two-inch-to-the-foot (one-sixth) scale items, but :

Realistic male 12-inch figures (male action figures) --- We’d like to see real men in work clothes, standard business dress --- jackets and suits, with ties --- and other every-day street clothes. Unless you're committed to fighting World War II all over again --- an action that we would not recommend --- stay away from GI Joes in uniform, glorified Nazi soldiers, bombed-out ruins of invaded countries, and so on. It's like taking your best girl to a high school prom while wearing your grandfather's cast-off schmattes .

Realistic female 11½-inch figures ! They're often called fashion dolls, but we'd rather see the everyday housewife or working woman . Can anyone get this right? Not everyone looks like Anorexic Barbie with the impossibly thin Goose Neck at a fashion show . The key word is "realistic" .

Vehicles : die-cast cars, in 1:6 size, are admittedly not easy to obtain ; you might take this opportunity to try Forced Perspective by placing foreground figures at varying distances from the viewers' eyes in such a way on the Viewscape as to suggest decreasing distances from us full-size humans. Set designers for Broadway plays and Hollywood movies do this all the time. Position the smaller scale autos as background in a forced-perspective diorama. More on forced perspective in later posts .

Buildings: An excellent opportunity for some artisan or manufacturer to make and sell stores, offices, apartment buildings, and all the other structures found in the average hometown. We can recommend starting with false front background flats like those that are available in O Gauge and smaller for model railroads, often very nicely done. That would be another utilization of forced perspective, as in a stage setting or many film backgrounds .

Houses: Finally, some excellent (doll) houses are being sold in 1:6  (2 inches to the foot) scale; with those sizes placed in the foreground and other sizes (1/2 " scale and 1/4" inch scale - O gauge ) even further from the viewing eye;  the viewscaper then starts to really build depth and distance into the scene.  

Clothing appropriate to the era --- what your parents and grandparents wore every day to go out into the street. The difficulty here is that fabrics are very difficult to scale down, is that they look like wool rugs grabbed off the floor and hastily wrapped around the figure. The problem with so many figurines is that they are dressed using fabric that doesn't scale down. We have found that the most realistic figures in a viewscape are the ones that are cast and the clothing skillfully painted on . Examples to follow in future Miniature Universe BLOGS .

Furniture: "Shrunken Treasures" seems to be featuring some good looking wooden and upholstered furniture that look like they belong in those great houses. Picture Bespaq's line of outstanding furniture in this larger two-inch-to-the-foot scale !
                                                                                                                                                                Basically, we need all the many different accessories for daily living that are available in other scales --- a real opportunity for artisans using this new Forced Perspective approach to develop and market a whole new line of miniatures .  Suddenly, your day is populated with interesting and meaningful research and creation ... a nice change from current activities . P.S. Research can include appropriate --- of that era --- Sears catalogues, Ladies Home Journal, news magazines like Time and Life, and, of course, illustrated books on clothing .

Our hope is that these street scenes can provide the right scenery for , say, an entire line of dioramas, including streetcars .

HALF-WAY THERE, WITH REVISIONS

Factoid 3: DESIGNS, TOOLINGS, & MOLDS EXIST

We understand (or, at least, we believe) that RRK and other very small one-inch scale garage-space manufacturers have not destroyed their molds, designs, or tooling. If that's the case, then that’s another major plus, as it provides a running head start in both time and in start-up costs, as opposed to potential competitors.

RADICAL REVISIONS ARE REQUIRED

Then what remains to be done? In my opinion, as a person who has the luxury of being able to stand back and view the situation dispassionately, it requires a major revision of the program on a few fronts. The first one --- Watch 'em, don't ride 'em   --- is so radical that it goes against the very grain of the name chosen by Rod Johnston for his one-inch to the foot models , Riding Railkits, now sadly Out-Of-Production.
 

Why do we demean our special interest by spending (sometimes) years on a model, researching detils, fabricating intricate parts, then spoil it irretrievably by perching on top of them and hauling hugely oversize out-of-scale people around an endless circle of sand and shrubbery, while friends, strangers , and casual onlookers gawk, chat unconcernedly, and never get close enough to even see the workmanship?

If we're trying to capture railroad history, if we're trying to persuade others to join us in this complex and demanding hobby, we have chosen a medium which is the complete reverse of what is required.

Scale-compatible scenery to critically necessary to lend an air of realism to the scene . BUT no scale-correct human figures populate this landscape; there are no models of the magnificent automobiles of the era (think Packard, classic Buicks and Cadillacs the almost universally present Model A Fords) ; no houses, no business district to justify the endless parade of rail traffic; if you or your railway friends are modeling electrically-propelled rail models --- the prime subject of these blogs ---  there is no overhead, no intricate web of catenary, nothing but that endless circle of track; any scenery in place would be swept to the ground as riders went racing by. In the iconic words of Dr. Phil "How has that been working for you ?"

Of all practitioners of this hobby, only the British tram enthusiasts, modeling in 1:16 scale (3/4ths inch = one foot) have made the transition to a believable viewscape, and have done it extremely well .

More rants to follow before we present the simple and attractive solution, which you can probably already anticipate. (Sneak Preview : ONE-INCH SCALE AND TWO-INCH SCALE )

N.B. Have you noticed that LGB's "G Scale" track is .334 inches high ; that translates --- when we multiply it by One-Inch scale's "Magic Multiplier" of twelve --- into four prototype inches high, OR scaled down 75 pound rail, an excellent all-around useful and accurate prototype . It serves everything from historical, even pre-1900, steam to light rail to trolleys and trams, to RDC-compatible trackage. For Two-inch scale possibilities, the one-inch high rail available from live steam suppliers scales out to six-inch prototype, a really robust prototype size that will handle anything.

Doesn't all this sound more exciting and interesting as a potential small business than the current outrageous earned bank interest rate of less than one percent ?  

More to come ! 

 

  

Essentially, there is no production to speak of in one-inch scale model railroading.

Factoid 2:  It's a pity, too, because we believe that there could be a market for many finished, complete, ready-to-run products similar to those formerly manufactured by Rod Johnston, of Riding Railkits (RRK). There are currently no other viable, large-scale-production model railroad manufacturers in one-inch scale now that Riding Railkits is quiescent ... and a world of potential buyers who might be interested .

I would hope that the molds and designs are lying around in some small manufacturer's basement or workshop .There is essentially no competition, an enviable business position in a field that is not known for ease of entry. RRK has earned an enviable reputation for good quality, attractive models, and they or some other knowledgeable, skilled small entrepreneur could easily pick up where Johnston left off.

The key is in the title word "RIDING". Frankly speaking from the perspective of an outside observer, people --- even children ---  look ridiculous --- balancing precariously on the backs of those narrow rail cars. If the locomotives and cars (and magnificent RDC's, and trolleys, and streetcars, and a host of other possibilities) were set up to be VIEWED at chest level, or even above, and remotely controlled using one of the currently existing operating systems, like those in the new Lionel O Gauge locomotives, with all the (literally) bells and whistles, we would have a winning combination of product to vend to a ready market.

Over the next bit of time, we will present in Miniature Universe a set of solutions and responses to all the objections that may be raised to this scale and gauge... and a host of new ideas for marketing these products . Stay tuned ! 

FACTOIDS CONCERNING ONE-INCH SCALE

Factoid 1: ONE INCH and TWO INCH SCALES MERGERS of SEVERAL INTERESTS

One inch to the foot is an excellent scale, sadly neglected in model railroading, with potential for the fusion of several interests. Obviously, one-inch scale dollhouses are a firm foundation for landscape modeling; I wish there were also urban landscapes --- apartment houses, city storefronts, and so on. The lack of realistic, interesting figures, or trackside and landscape accessories in that scale, is both a positive and a negative. [-] It leaves a void that needs to be filled, but [+] my optimistic, glass-half-full approach says “That provides an excellent opportunity for entrepreneurs and skilled modelers to produce and market products that fill those needs for both dollhouse hobbyists and one-inch scale model railroaders”.

Please also consider two-inches to the foot, one-sixth scale, which is the scale promulgated by Mattel, the iconic toy manufacturer, which is the mother ship of Barbie and friends. You'll see arguments (legal-type, NOT angry-type) in favor of latching on to their need for realistic people, rather than fashion models, and for the myriad business opportunities available for those who want to craft and sell all the many accessories in that scale, accessorie3s like (hold on to your hat ! ) trolley cars, realistic automobile models, and a host of other possibilities that (probably) are not considered enough of a market by giant toy companies, who don't like to think of numbers less than one million).

It sure would be nice to see "Made in the U.S.A." stamped on toys again.

I'm hoping that the many small model railroad companies ("Small Potatoes" to Mattel and their ilk) will see this and consider producing streetcars for the streets of Barbieville) . Are you listening, J & S Railcar of Tennessee ?

The Perfect Size

Two different universes need not collide . They can merge,  reaching many times the number of people, displaying many times the visual interest, and --- most powerfully in these economic times --- providing many times the possibilities for interested entrepreneurs seeking new worlds of business possibilities .

The two universes are the world of miniatures --- dollhouses, realistic figurines wearing believable clothing , and a host of accessories, previously thought to be the province of ladies only --- AND the very large scale worlds of model railways, model engineering, and model automobiles --- considered to be primarily hobbies for men .

Through the synergistic power of visual wizardry and image manipulation, and using a new blend of scale and craftsmanship, these can all merge into a special interest previously believed to be restricted only to architects and artists. To those groups we can now add model railroaders, craftspeople, model engineers, and miniaturists, creating an art form that interests and involves to everyone, without compromise and with a realism rarely achieved among previous craftspeople. Choose the right scale and achieve perfect harmony that appeals --- in the old cliche ---  to the entire family .

When you add in the incentives of opening new markets and new business opportunities, we find ourselves in a interesting and exciting new world, doing well by creating a new Miniature Universe .

Tune in every day to Blogger.Blogspot.miniatureuniverse for much more on these possibilities !