...but not the whole railroad.
From "At The Throttle", Model Railroader, January 1962, by Linn Westcott
"OUR TOWER OF BABEL FALLETH"
"We model railroaders have many names for the same thing and sometimes several things for the same name. For instance, is a 'loop' an oval or a baloon-shaped thing? What is a block? Sometimes we wonder which end of the train has markers and which has classification signals. Last year I had the pleasure, along with Whit Towers (our chairman), John Allen, Heube Heubenthal, and others, of serving on an NMRA committee to dig out the various meanings of model railroad words and to assemble them into a glossary. The result of the first year's work is now in the back pages of the NMRA yearbook. The work is by no means completed; we may have overlooked many important words and our tendencies to narrow some meanings may not meet with general approval. For instance, we felt 'layout'* should mean the concept and plan but not the whole railroad. (emphasis mine). Take a look at the glossary and let the committee know if you feel things are wanting."
I found this editorial while reading through the MR 75 years collection. Were there responses to this editorial? I hope so...they should make for interesting reading.
*You may or may not know my thoughts on the word "layout" (click the link to find out).
I see I commented on the layout post many moons ago, but failed to come back with any findings. I will give it another try and attempt to redeem myself :-)
ReplyDeleteNo worries. I'm in no hurry to explore this topic as I recognize it is a bit esoteric. Still, I'm curious about the evolution of words in this hobby. I suspect I'm not the only one.
DeleteI forgot about this post:
Deletehttps://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2019/03/you-say-layout-i-say-model-railroad.html
Too many posts, so little time :-)
Yes! Perhaps you can imagine Don reading the Westcott quote in his best radio voice.
DeleteThe Hornby/Meccano quote reminds me of when my buddy Brandon and I would set up sectional track in his laundry room floor and run his trains. Mostly Tyco with horn hooks on brass rail. Took a while to get all the joiners pinched tight and the power packs wired on but we had fun.