Traction Modeling and Social Media Fatigue

Here on the blog it became very quiet in recent months, I will say the last year. There are so many internet platforms now to share quickly impressions and pictures of your work, like the excellent Traction Model Railroading group on Facebook, or the Indianapolis Traction Terminal Group.

The nearly daily participation to this groups made me forget my own blog. There is no harm in it, if there wasn't the loss of depth and continuity.

I learn much participating to the Facebook groups, but they have two big failings:

1/ they are closed groups. This maintains a civilised and spam-free environment, but casual visitors will no more passing by.

2/ The Facebook group is living only for the moment, there is no real memory, older posts disappear quickly and are hard to find later.

This groups are a sympathic café for traction enthousiasts, you need to come in frequently, but they are not a base to study and build seriously traction models with your own hands.

Slowly, a certain Social Media fatigue is growing. Things worsened recently for me, as I am working now full time for Social Media News Wires. It may sound great to spend the whole labor day on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, but in the end it's work, and I can say you it's really hard work.

This said, I will now go back to the roots. I'll always stay on the Facebook Groups, because it's a nice café, perhaps just one publication less per week. In return, I will try to write a weekly story on my old fashioned blog, with photos, drawings, and a bit more text.

Sparkling greetings of the Season

Sparkling greetings of the Season and every good wish for the Coming Year

Thoughts on scale

When I started drawing, I used metric scale. Nothing but normal for an European. But quickly I feel that recalculating all North American sources would be difficult. So I switched to a scale of 10 computer-points equalling 1 foot. Not so bad, except for very small details. Converting inch to decimal feet is not always easy. Rounding up or down the figures creates sometimes small gaps. 

During last weeks, I recieved many very fine documents. They will permitting me to draw details of unthinkable precision. So I consider to switch to 1 computer-point equalling 1 inch, or 1 foot = 12 points. Older drawings could be reused after scaling up to 120 percent.

About this blog // Sur ce blog // Über diesen Blog

This page is dedicated to early electric railways called "Interurban" or "Traction Lines" who connected numerous towns and agglomeration) in the United States. These lines crossed cities or villages in the middle of the street as a streetcar, but got through fields and landscapes outside the towns.

You will find links towards documents seen on the Web, notes of my readings and some projects of modelling or model making. The languages used here are English, French or German.

Cette page est consacrée aux réseaux de chemins de fer électriques appelés "Interurban" ou "Traction Lines" qui relièrent des nombreuses agglomérations aux Etats-Unis. Ces lignes traversaient les villes ou villages en pleine rue comme un tramway, mais passaient à travers champs hors des agglomérations.

Ce blog réunit des liens vers des trouvailles sur le web, des notes de mes lectures et quelques projets de modélisation ou de modélisme. Les langues utilisés son le français, l'anglais et l'allemand.

Diese Seite ist amerikanischen Überlandstrassenbahnen gewidmet, die " Interurban " oder "Traction Lines", die zahlreiche Großräume in den USA verbanden. Diese Linien durchquerten Städte oder Dörfer wie eine Straßenbahn, verkehrten überland jedoch wie Eisenbahnen.

Sie finden hier Fundstücke aus dem Web, meine Lesenotitzen aus der einschlägigen Literatur und Hinweise auf meine Modell- und Zeichenprojekte. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch, Französisch oder Englisch.