Monday, June 24, 2013

Big bag of static grass required

Chris Carrdus wrote: More a suggestion than a question. See the slideshow of abandoned
places at:
http://myscienceacademy.org/2013/04/14/the-33-most-beautiful-abandoned-places-in-the-world/

Scroll down to picture #16, the Polish rail yard.

Might be a fascinating thing to model, with no operating problems!


 
What a picture! OK, so it's been a bit over-processed but it's still fascinating. All those trains. All that infrastructure. Just abandoned to nature.
 
Or is it?
 
A quick look at Google maps suggests that the area isn't as abandoned as you might think:


View Larger Map

According to Wikipedia, "Częstochowa is a major railroad hub, located at the intersection of two important lines - west-east (from Lubliniec to Kielce) and north-south (from Warsaw to Katowice). Also, an additional northbound line stems from Częstochowa, which goes to Chorzew Siemkowice, where it joins the Polish Coal Trunk-Line. There are six railway stations in the city, the biggest ones being Częstochowa Osobowa and Częstochowa Stradom."

So it might be that the photo has had a bucket load of virtual static grass applied to it. Despite this, it is a haunting image which explains it's appearance all over the Interweb.

The question is, why are scenes of dereliction and decay so much more appealing, especially to model makers, than those of new, neat and tidy railways?

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