Sometimes the prototype is perfect - just what you need. Other times, the prototype comes close to what you want it to be - but you want to modify it just a bit. One good case in point is the Colorado Midland Railway' station in Granite, Colorado (station is unfortunately just out of view to the left of this photo). This was built in 1887, and at the time, Granite was the seat of Lake County. The station was a two story split-level affair, and when I first saw photos of it I never associated it with this.
The model you see in the picture is a 1970s-era craftsman kit, known as "Granite Station," manufactured by a small and apparently defunct company called Timberline Models. I've been partial to this model ever since I was a kid. My dad picked up a copy of the old "Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette" for me when I was ten, and it contained a piece on sprucing up one of these models; the image stuck in my mind (as the work of a lot of 1970s-era modelers like John Olson and Mal Furlow did), and when I came across it decades later, I started searching online in hopes of finding it, and discovered the kit, the maker, and the prototype.
I was surprised to find, however, that the real Granite depot was a very austere structure by comparison - those marvellous windowframes, for example, were a product of someone's imagination. The real Midland was too cash-strapped for fancy ornamental windowframes, and settled for simple double-hunge windows - and it didn't bother with a canopy, supported by fancy posts and the elaborate bracketing for the eaves. When I realized the Timberline model was unaffordable and went back to look at Dan Abbott's Daylight Through The Divide in hopes of finding plans, I was surprised at how simple the prototype really was. It was like seeing someone famous without the makeup on.
Similarly, I've always been fond of the logging diorama John Olson built and photographed for Model Railroader in May, 1976 - his "Mule Shoes Meadow" layout. I've always been partial to the high mountain parks and valleys, and I thought the Mule Shoes layout is a very fine mix of the railroad and the deep woods. It's a little modern for my taste, but backdate it a few years and you can plausibly imagine something of the kind as a junction for a branchline on a slightly larger railroad at the turn of the century. The original photo essay captured several shots of the depot, from various angles. It was a less adorned building than the Timberline structure, and so far as I know it was scratchbuilt, but I always liked the look of it - a big,rambling frame building, one third depot, one third office, one third cooking and living space. Apparently I'm not the only one, because Wiseman Model Services seems to have used it as a rough prototype for their Horseshoe Meadow Depot, which is currently available (and worth the price, I might add).
I bought one on the strength of the initial resemblance, and did a closer comparison once I had it at home. I was surprised at some of the variations the kit builders introduced - the pitch of the roof, for example, is noticeably steeper on the mass production model. I had not initially noticed this, but something about it strikes me as noticeably unnecessary - the steep pitch makes the building a bit higher, but doesn't provide much in the way of additional covered space. I understand that buildings in snowy areas need a steep camber to shed the snow, but the camber is so steep that it would require a lot of additional roof space, but would not generate much in the way of usable additional floor space - if you look at the second floor, for example, you can imagine that the interior's basically a cathedral ceiling. They also added a shingled roof on the bay window, which protrudes out just a bit further on the Wiseman model than it did on Olson's original, and of course, the cast chimneys are more ornate.
It's not a bad-looking result, but it does sort of raise an important question: is it worthwhile doing something just because "it looks good?" And does it look good because it's well-engineered, or does it look good because it conveys an impression you wish for it to convey? I'm open to either answer, actually. The fact of the matter is that I like both manufactured models. I also like the Granite depot as it was built, and I like Olson's depot enough to have retained an enduring impression - for I first saw it in the library at Oak View Elementary School at the age of six, when I paged through a bound volume of MR during library time, and I remembered enough to recognize the photo essay when I saw it again decades later. Something made each of these structures memorable, and beautiful. Plausibility is a part of that beauty, because it contributes to the suspension of disbelief, without which there can be no effective modeling. There's a tension between brute reality and beauty, sometimes, and the trick lies in the resolution. I've been working at this on my 4-4-2, and hope to have a photo up in a couple of days; we'll see then how well I've resolved that tension!
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