Show me one good example of a loco that someone built without the original drawings that could not be significantly bettered by having used the "blueprints". You can't, because every loco created without the blueprints is a poor imitation and someone always comes along later and does a much better job if they use the real drawings and try to follow them. The old timer livesteamers that I grew up listeining to would never start a loco without the drawings, things are different these days and look at the junk that people are wasting their lives building! No one looks for drawings anymore wither, that is no coincidence, it’s the reason for the other. Rather than build junk, the builder should get a second job or spend more time with their kids, rather than creating future scrap metal and wasting decades. Do it right or save the effort is my motto.
These things cost too much and take too much time and effort to do a job that I am not satisfied with and that I can not feel great about having done. When you break a part on your freelanced quasi-prototype its not the same, that was your reengineering job that failed, you did not recreate a historical loco, and so you relived nothing, you just play with your loco that is a representation of an old loco. I build historic equipment in ¼ size. Playing with a reasonably sized miniature that is exactly like their prototypes, with the brakes that work the same way, have the same short comings, etc. is what I look forward to, building it that way is was is the challenge, anyone can freelance. I am a re-creator, not a modeler, I build by the plans and fudge nothing that I can find the drawings for. Thats why my stuff will be better than the other guys that cut corners.
I'll give you a great example, of a guy that I wrote a letter to as a kid and he never wrote back, (screw him) a well known 2.5" scale K-28, (there is only one) that just barely looks like a K-28 that’s on the west coast. I'd be ashamed to have created such a mediocre loco. Why waste the effort to build that. A model built to look like a K-28 is not a K-28 unless you use the real drawings and then do the best you can. I am not freelancer or I would come up with a loco that had no resemblance to and was certainly not numbered and lettered to represent any other preexisting loco, those freelanced locos done like that are fine and I might even do one of those one day.
We are, after all, in an artistic endeavor and maybe I accept less compromises in this, my chosen area of NG railroading, and I do strive for perfection, but I know it can never be attained, still I do my best and my best is better than most I guess. I'd scrap most of the junk I see being built these days, but that’s just me.
When you see the locomotives and cars I'm working on, you will quickly understand what using the drawings gets you and what you cheat yourself out of by not using them.
Here is a quote for you from a recent movie that sums it up;
"show me the blueprints", "show me the blueprints", "show me the blueprints",
Loco112
