John Gray’s Modeling and Collecting
John GrayDescription
John Gray, owner of the Union Pacific Cheyenne Division model railroad mentioned to Allen Keller that he started out as a collector. Allen wonders if he considers himself more as a modeler or a collector. John thinks he is a bit of everything, both a collector and a modeler. There are various aspects of collecting that are challenging. One of the big problems is trying to find pieces, but more than that, it’s trying to encourage and get specific importers to produce particular models that they are interested in. Collectors spend a lot of time on getting plans, getting drawings, and gathering the materials necessary to produce a model. After this they must provide the materials to the importer who then passes it onto a manufacturer.
Beyond that, another difficult aspect of collecting is modifying existing models to make them fit specific prototypes to the specifications they desire. Examples of this can be seen on the layout. Another part of that is being able to create scenes that may have occurred that have very little documentation to pull from. By having specific prototypes, modelers have the ability to put together combinations that have potentially occurred, even without the photographic evidence behind it.
You mentioned that you started out as a collector. Do you consider yourself more of a modeler now, or more of a collector, or a little bit of everything? Well, I think a little bit of everything. The problem with collecting, there's various aspects of collecting that we're involved in. One, of course, is just trying to find particular pieces.
But, more than that, is trying to encourage and incent and incent importers to produce particular models that we're interested in. We spend a lot of time on that. Oh. And getting plans, getting drawings, getting the material necessary to produce a model. And then providing that to the importer.
Providing that to the importer, who then provides it to a manufacturer. Oh. Usually, of course, a Korean. Sure. That's part of it.
The second aspect beyond that, is to take models and modify them to fit specific prototypes, if they don't already have the details that we like. So there's a lot of that, that both Phil and I, and a couple of others do, that you'll see in some of the equipment that we have on this layout. And I think the other part of it is to be able to create to be able to create scenes that may have occurred for which there's very little documentation. By having specific prototypes made, you can put together combinations that probably the pictures don't exist, or you can recreate it. or you can recreate it.
And with digital photography that's our hope, that in a lot of these cases we can put together scenes that probably occurred, but which there's no photographic evidence for it.
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