I have seen the future of model railroading and it is digital. The future isn’t quite here yet, but it is just a matter of holographic displays getting good enough and cheap enough. Once displays are good enough, then it will just be a matter of creating model railroading software to simulate model railroading virtually on a holographic display.
A virtual holographic model railroad is the only way to achieve my ideal model railroad in terms of space, money, and physics; like flowing water, changing weather, animated people, vehicles and animals, trains hundreds of cars long that won’t derail, and loading and unloading trains.
Virtual reality model railroading currently exists with the game Rolling Line. But my preference is for holographic model railroading and for realism more akin to Train Sim World.
The way I envision a holographic model railroad is one display per operator. I envision software that allows building a fully customizable layout (perhaps built using Unreal Engine and probably ideally open sourced so modelers aren’t at the mercy of a software company). The software must allow a layout to be divided into scenes since that is how they must be viewed on the holographic display to mimic a physical model railroad; like looking through the window of a shadowbox diorama. However, this shadow box will extend to the horizon in all directions. Different scenes could have different scales. The visceral experience will be indistinguishable from dealing with a physical model, except that the model will be behind glass and so untouchable.
Here are some videos of potential holographic display approaches.
Holographic model railroading is still in the future. In the meantime, I’ll continue to tinker with 3D printing as a means of modeling; especially since 3D printable models will also be usable with a virtual holographic layout. But I’m eager to skip the costly and time consuming aggravation of physicality and go fully digital as soon as possible.
