What about his legacy? Well, his name and magazine articles are known amongst some older model railroaders. He's known fondly amongst a few, but others associate his name with low quality work in balsa. Hopefully if you're a long time reader here you'll be aware that although there were indeed some questionable projects, the majority of his work was of good quality, with maybe a half-dozen or so reaching into the craftsman category. I think the photographic technology of his era did many of his projects an injustice, as it did with the work of many other builders.
The plastic kits he had some involvement with appear to be all out-of-production now, although a few of the kits were manufactured for 50 or so years under one brand name or another. There is healthy buying and selling of the old kits online, although it's generally not known he designed them. There are a few exceptions like the AHM kits that credit him in a red box-top label. It's a shame that he or his estate didn't profit financially from the popularity of these products, although I suspect the amounts of money involved would be small.
His plastic kits were in the cheap-and-cheerful end of the spectrum when they first hit the market. But, these days it's not unusual for them to get harsh reviews on auction sites - not to mention be misdescribed - and if built unskillfully straight from the box, they can look crude. But, as with all kits, a bit of care and creativity can yield a decent and interesting model.
The plastic kits constitute a sort of invisible history. Throughout the '70s and '80s they appeared in numerous magazine photos, and as basic components in many kitbashing articles, but in most cases their origin remained unknown. They formed a sort of background music to the model railroading vibe of those decades. Many of the kits are still seen on layouts today, and even in the odd magazine article or two. Again, their appearance in articles, layouts, and at auction sites is an almost silent Moorian melody still playing through model railroading.
And he's credited with influencing the design of a few laser-cut craftsman-style kits. I've found a couple online, there might be more out there. Time will tell.
Overall, I'd say his legacy is somewhat modest, and a bit on the invisible side, compared to that of say John Allen or John Ahern.
An aspect of his legacy that seems completely lost is his approach to modelling and writing that I touched on in The Moore Way. This aspect isn't alive in the kits simply because they're mass produced consumer products. And, ironically enough, Mr. Moore hated to build kits, so you can see why it's odd that the most enduring part of this legacy, kits, are things he himself hated building.
John Allen had that fabulous layout that inspired everyone, but ELM brought scratchbuilding to the masses. Just like Art Curren brought kitbashing (or his prefered "kit-mingling") to the masses. Their techniques got written into the brains of that era's modelers, forever to be the basis of their skills. But where people only dreamt of building like John Allen, they DID build like ELM and AC. Even those who didn't scratchbuild ended up using AC's ways to modify kits designed by ELM!
ReplyDeleteAgreed. In 21st century new age lingo, ELM's projects were very accessible. And I like that. I was watching a youtube video recently by a famous modeller, and although his work in the video was great, I can't see me using a wondercutter and 3-d printer as he did. Those seem like barriers to entry to the hobby.
DeleteConversations about Moore, thankfully, do not seem to generate the strange fanatic/hater polarity that discussions about John Allen sometimes devolve into. There's a bit of a cult-like following for the Wizard of Monterrey, especially in the Yahoo group dedicated to preserving and celebrating all things G&D. I was once shunned from this group for daring to criticize one of the in-crowd leaders, a self-proclaimed keeper of the sacred knowledge.
ReplyDeleteI look at it this way - There are those who would build a "John Allen" engine house as described in his article or those who would build the tribute kit that George Selios produced through his company Fine Scale Miniatures. But very few, I suspect, are those who would be inspired by John's example and develop their own unique engine house design rather than have a copy of another modeler's work.
With Moore, I imagine there are those who would follow one of his construction articles and produce a model similar to his, and those who would build one of the plastic kits based on his design and be happy with that, but again, probably only a handful would design their own structures and build using his methods. Yet there may be more who follow E.L.'s methods as this was his stock in trade. Still more would kitbash using the Moore-based kits as by the time plastic was in vogue balsa was on the wane.
No judgement on one way vs another, whether to copy, kitbuild, emulate, kitbash, etc. When it comes to how we access these classic models and the masters who built them, we have an embarrassment of riches.
Thank you for the thoughtful commentary.
DeleteA few weeks back Vince sent me a link to a student's master's thesis. It was focused on some sociological aspects of model railroading, most of them well known. However, one thing that struck me as new was that it was suggested that the Allen and Selios layouts were layouts of dystopias, or at least had pronounced dystopian aspects, starting with the name G&D obviously.