Hi John;
Plenty of airplane kits still around, but I also note
large numbers of pre-built, painted and even weathered
aircraft, tanks, etc in the stores.
Unless the plane flies or you use the tank in wargames
I'm not sure what you do with a fully pre-built model
of this type - just display it, I guess. Those who
like to run trains or even "operate" on their model
railroads may (of course) see the availablity of RTR
equipment as a chance to concentrate on things other
than building cars and locomotives.
I certainly agree the difficulty in finding parts to
build if you want to is a problem, especially in a
scale like S where the model you want may never have
been commercially available.
Pieter
--- John bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At the risk of being tared and feathered, my own
> humble opinion...
>
> Thirty or forty years ago, (yeah, I'm old) I used to
> be in the "can't
> wait" mode, waiting for the latest issue of MR to
> come out with
> pictures of all the neat models that folks had
> built. Lots of
> locomotives, most scratch built, kit built, or kit
> bashed. By today's
> standards, some were kind of crude,... but still,
> they were fascinating
> works of art. Also, all kinds of cars, cranes, etc.
> No rivet counters
> here.
>
> You don't see this much any more. First, there
> aren't many S locomotive
> kits out there, and the ones that are, are expensive
> (when you don't
> have a lot of money), and sort of off beat. No
> 2-8-2's, 4-6-2's, you
> get the drift. Also no parts are around to scratch
> build a locomotive,
> especially drivers. It's difficult. I speak from
> experience, having
> scratch built a BL-2, a 2-8-2, and a 4-6-2 from
> scratch.
>
> I think that not having the resources to build
> locomotives is hurting
> the hobby. Model railroad magazines, today, are too
> focused on scenery,
> track plans,and electronics. Heck, half the fun of
> making a layout, was
> making your own plans. It's almost as if the
> magazines think we are not
> capable of this stuff.
>
> To an extent, I have gone back to building model
> airplanes (please, no
> rocks through my front window). Imagine if building
> model airplanes had
> gone the way of model railroading. Most of the
> building would be of
> runways, hangers, control towers and such. There
> wouldn't be much on
> the market we could use to build our own airplanes.
>
> I also think that all this talk about not having
> enough time to build
> is a bunch of hogwash. Even if you watch only an
> hour and a half of TV
> a day, which isn't very much, think of what you
> could build with this
> time, IF, you had the resources.
>
> Just an opinion, please, no one take offense.
>
> All take care,
>
> John Bell
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
Pieter E. Roos
Railroad Home Page at
www.geocities.com/pieter_roos/pieter_1.html
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