This one made me smile!

Too funny (and too true!).  Very clever.  Thanks for the smile.  

If you think about it...

Train simulators are the high tech version. Any size, any era, any location.

Reverse Running: An imagination model railroad

Back when I actually had color in my hair, I think they referred to it as "armchair model railroading" and you didn't actually need a train set to do it.

Mike

This is the vast bulk of my

This is the vast bulk of my model railroading through the years. Lack of space, money, time and, honestly, inclination, have made this my standard MO.

I did this for way too long.

I did this for way too long. My interest in imagination railroads now run in the direction of my own world, I am not modeling the prototype of anything but I am trying to model with great detail. It doesn't bother me at all to have engines on the rails that would never have seen each other either in that time period or that geographical locale. My hero as a boy was John Allen and he simply made his up and then created it. Counting rivets on a freight car does not speak to me at all. Allen's humor and attention to detail does.  For me that's imagination railroading.

Where I do feel badly is for railroaders with no railroad for whatever reason. That makes me quite sad. Not being able to swear at your cat standing in the middle of a hump yard or batting trees out of the ground are something no one should miss in life although I bet people can imagine it pretty well. Any 1960's Japanese monster flick will give you a good notion of the action that ensues if you want to count reptilian scales to ensure accuracy.. 

Thanks for the thoughts. 

paper railroads

The century has been full of "paper railroads" envisioned and never built. To this end I have much paperwork "built" for various model railroad . plans: Timetables, Employee handbooks, Maps, Lettering diagrams and color drawings of equipment, etc. I even had a powerpoint ready for a NMRA division meet for "paper railroad" "imagineering". PFMsig also is a fun place look for Imagination, as the model trains run roundy round clattering in the background. 

Picture

A classic picture