Freelance Modelling.

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Most who do modelling want to copy the real thing, but I prefer freelance modelling as it gives me more scope and it gives a better feel and atmosphere then it would if I directly copied the real thing.

As it happens, the issue of Model Railroader which arrived in Monday's mail has an article about a fellow who has a strictly prototype layout then added a 9 foot long shelf extension and decided to freelance a town on it for a pleasant change of pace from his prototype modeling.
So he now has it both ways!

Most people freelance the scenic setting, but how many freelance the locomotives and rolling stock so that they are not based on a prototype. I am told this is far more popular in the USA because for years you had many different small to large private operating companies while here in the UK one has to go beck to before 1923 or after around 1995 to get this type of thing unless one models narrow gauge to make it plausable, so in the UK modellers mind, freelance tends to be unusual unless one is making a model of an overseas railway system.

I model in narrow gauge, and if one looks at the history of narrow gauge prototypes, one quickly realizes that every railway did their own thing unlike standard gauge, where they had stricter rules and had to make all their stock fit within the sizes and weights allowed etc. (There were exceptios but the exceptions were so well known that it is more difficult to create an illusion of something different. One can invent a whole narrow gauge railway system including locos and stock, and as long as it is based on a rough real area so one can have heard a town name etc, only those who live there or have been there will realize one has made the railway up from ones imagination... Unless one is modelling a scene which is based in the days before the locals parents and grandparents were born in which one can get away with almost anything! It is surprizing how many locals may know of some of the history of the standard gauge lines, but with little industrial narrow gauge lines or tramways, even the locals can be surprized to find out what existed in their area).

I'd like to see pictures of your freelance models. I've been missing your train threads.

Ok... I can't remember what I called the old thread so I will start a new one...

When I read the title of this thread Freelance Modelling, I seriously actually thought of independent fashion models. Women who walk down runways or appear in TV commercials who don't have agents representing them. I am drinking a little so maybe that's why I thought that IDK

Ah. Prehaps this will make more sense? Click here ⊙

I thought the same thing. I'm also drinking a beer - but I really don't think that's it. When I think of models I think of fashion models (or underwear models ), not scale model trains.

I was drinking a glass of some whisky mixed with Coke. It was about half & half. I prefer beer but the whisky was given to me so I'm saving money by not buying beer, thou I only drink occasionally anyway. I probably woulda known this was about trains if I had realized this thread was made by Mountain Goat before I opened it
I had a train set when I was a kid. Well it was actually two, one belonged to my dad when he was a kid or maybe his brother(my uncle never married nor had kids) & the other belonged to their uncle(who also never married nor had kids). The latter had some rust & needed a bit of cleaning up. I could only have one engine on the tracks at a time thou cuz they ran off of different electrical voltages/currents but practically everything else was compatible with each other like the cars & tracks. I haven't really been into train stuff since I became a teen thou & I haven't used the sets since then. I would of found the train posts interesting when I was a kid thou. MG does seem to have a knack for this & my younger self probably would of enjoyed engaging in this hobby with him

There is no age limit to the hobby. It is surprized what can be done in a limited space and to a limited budget. I have seen cheap battery operated train sets used to create lovely masterpieces.

I guess I just lost interest when I got older. I liked trains as a kid but they were never special interests intensity. I was more into Legos & action figures like Batman & G.I. Joe. When I became a teen I kinda outgrew toys & got into TV & video-games more which I was into as a kid as well. I got into music more too then. I think some of that was due to pressure from society. My parents thought I was too old to still be playing with toys & I was already a social outcast & didn't want another reason to be picked on. I have nothing against kids & adults having an interest in train sets but it's not an interest that I really want to get involved with again on my own. If I knew someone offline who was into it & was a nice person to me like you MG, it might would be awkward at 1st but I'd probably have some needed fun & would find it interesting. I'm more of a follower than a leader & I'm not into trying things on my own.

Here's an actual 30 inch gauge locomotive which could inspire a kitbash, https://www.railpictures.net/photo/762227/ and it is an electric, you don't see many On30/O16.5 electric railways; and especially not HOn30 electric railways!

That is nice!

There are a few electric locos in narrow gauge. How about some narrow gauge trams?

Click here ⊙

And here ⊙

Ah, have seen Smallbrook Studios mentioned on some model RR forums.

I am tempted by those trams... Makes me think I would need a simple overhead system, though I would make a sprung loop rather then a trolley pole for convenience.