Layout Alternative

When did a model railroad become a train layout?  I'm no model railroad historian, but I bet there was a time before we called it a "layout".  I've seen it described as a "pike" and this term seems even more dated, as if I should be wearing an engineer's hat with my shirt and tie and smoking a pipe as I run the trains while my family gazes on adoringly.  If I told a non-model-railroader I'm building a train layout in my garage, would they know what that meant?  Would they wonder if I were planning to set it up for a while then take it down, like a train around the Christmas tree? 

As someone who has worked in a field with specialized language, I also recognize that some words don't mean much to the average person.  If you go to a traditional church on Sunday you probably enter the narthex before going into the sanctuary for worship and perhaps afterwards spend time in the fellowship hall.  However, you didn't go to church, you went to a campus.  The church is the body of people, not the building they meet in, but how many folks know this distinction?  The narthex is the foyer or lobby or entryway and the sanctuary is the auditorium.  The fellowship hall is a different auditorium, but sometimes resembles a gymnasium or large meeting hall.  Some churches work hard to eliminate "churchy" language and label their spaces accordingly.  Others stick with traditional names and expect newcomers to learn them.

Dictionary.com offers TEN variant definitions of the word "layout" and NONE of them reference model railroading.  Not that this is inaccurate for our use, as most of the definitions refer to the arrangement of elements in a space whether on an advertisement or in a room.  I don't think "layout" presents the same difficulty in understanding, but I wonder if there are better words that describe what we're building and perhaps even what we're doing.  Language is important and if we model railroaders want to share our hobby with a non-modeling public in a straight-forward way perhaps some more useful language is in order.  Even within our ranks it might be helpful. 

Miriam Webster does include a reference to model trains in their definition of layout, but there's an issue with that one.  "Something that is laid out".  Sounds like something that is set up only to be taken down later.  When we build our model railroad do we do so in a temporary manner?  Very few times have I seen articles about model train setups that are meant to be run then put away by taking the thing apart and putting it back in a box.  And, I'd bet we wouldn't call those things "layouts", but train sets or something similar.

So what is the alternative?  What about simply calling it a model railroad?  If we are scaling down reality or some version of it, and running scaled-down electric trains through that setting, then we are modeling a railroad and railroading in miniature.  In light of my previous post on a track plan, I'm going to make a conscious effort to change my language from now on.  I'm not building a train layout in my garage.  I'm building a model railroad.