The Little World

Does your little World move? Does it need to?

I’ve written elsewhere about the vitality your structure needs according to whether you are still a child or have been burdened with age. You decide where you are on the spectrum.

If you actually do need to have something move in front of you, consider several hobbies:

a. Model railways. Big or little, static or portable, they all have something that trundles down a track sometime. It may not do it reliably or realistically, but movement is there. That can be ordered and sensible motion with timetables, bills of lading, and railway accountancy or it can be random train play. Again you decide what pleases yourself.

b. Model racecar layouts. Here the action is generally competitive, though the modelling can be fully as detailed as anything else. There are more crashes and destruction, but then there are more thrills than an equivalent railway layout.

c. Model airfields. Little action here, unless it is of the very contrived sort. More concentration upon display and spectacle. In the case of the smaller scales, the layouts become industrial teaching aids.

d. Model road layouts. Rarer these days, and never attained the success rate of the racecar outfits. When done well, with larger scale R/C vehicles and multiple drivers, the effect can be frighteningly realistic. And road rage doesn’t scale down at all – people get mad 1:1. A charming spectacle when done well.

e. Model boat work. It is rare that anyone has a private boating lake, and so most boaters depend upon public let and hindrance for the operation of their hobby. In the drier parts of the world they also need the permission of the climate and geography. Sometimes all these authorizations are withdrawn leaving hobbyists struggling to use what they build.

f. Model aircraft flying. Again permission, space, noise abatement, and every other form of interference to be surmounted before the enthusiast can get 30 seconds over anywhere. Doolittle had it easy compared to anyone trying to fly a school oval – he only got shot at with anti-aircraft guns. The model flying hobby is also one that requires the flyer to accept fate more often than any other.

g. Doll Houses. They may have moving parts, but who cares. The whole charm of the doll house is visual and apart from working lighting, little else in the way of functionality is needed. As long as people can see the details, the art is entirely satisfactory.

h. Model villages. Again it is all about architectural detail and visual effect. The ensemble is the thing and any moving trains or windmills or canal barges are just icing on the cake. Outdoor model villages get to interact with weather and lighting.

i. The specialist models – the working coal mine or the rolling mill – do need some action to supplement the static scenes. If there is mood lighting all the better.

j. Model Construction. There are enough terrifically good R/C model construction toys commercially available to allow a group of grown men to play in a sandpit all day until their wives have to stand at the door and call them in to supper. A model steam shovel, two model dump trucks, a grader, and 20 yards of yellow builder’s sand would keep me busy for weeks, if not months.