Just the Same, Only Different!

I've had an interesting run of five spare-room-sized custom layout design projects recently. Although all were roughly 100 to 150 square feet in overall size, they spanned the country from the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania to the California desert and eras from the 1930s to nearly the present day.

While I'm usually too caught up in the design process on a particular project for much reflection, looking back now on the finished designs I am struck by the wide variety of ways to enjoy
model railroading. The choices and trade-offs required for model railfanning vs. operations vs. replicating a place and time (or balancing all three) makes for very different solutions to the challenge of a similar space. And all that is compounded by a variety of eras, scales, gauges and even design approaches (twice-around, multi-deck, etc.).

I think the resulting layouts will serve well their specific builder's particular interests and desires. But not one of them would satisfy any of the other owners' needs. And in my mind, that diversity is one of the best parts of my job and our hobby.

The next projects in process and in the queue are larger and bring their own unique challenges. But the breadth of these recent track plans reminds me that even a layout in a more-modest space can have a unique personality and tell a compelling story.

Madera Flyer

I recently finished up an N scale layout design for a contemporary era shortline. One of the elements I wanted to include was a job that would require a shoving platform, since the real-life railroad serving as inspiration for this layout owns one.

For those unfamiliar with the term, these cars are used at the end of trains for long shoving moves to give the crew a place to perch. This role was once served by cabooses, obviously, but those have pretty much gone by the wayside in modern railroading.

Photo from Frank Orona's Railpictures gallery

As seen by the photo above, some of the shoving platforms are pretty spartan, with barely any shelter for the trainmen. Others are ratty-looking older cabooses that have had little tender loving care over the years. Sometimes these old cabooses are gutted and welded closed, so basically only the platforms are usable.

Photo from the Cabooses of Alabama web page

Then there is the Madera Flyer. In May of 2008 I was driving between Southern California and the Bay Area and stopped at the UP's (former SP) Fresno Yard for a few minutes of casual railfanning. A lone diesel appeared, moving at a fairly fast clip with a single car and what appeared to be a bright Armour Yellow caboose in tow. While the crew started organizing a train from cars in the yard, I maneuvered for a slightly closer look.


Emblazoned on the side of a very spiffy-looking caboose that didn't seem to be of either UP or SP origin were the words "Madera Flyer". Shoving platform, indeed! In searching the web, I found Alex R.'s interesting write up of the ex-MoPac caboose and its duties. (Photos above and below are from his blog.)


Modern-day railroading has lost much of the atmosphere and character many of us strive for in our layouts. But there are still some real-life railroaders who are proud of their traditions, craft, and equipment, and it shows in examples like the Madera Flyer.

There should be warnings ...

There are some perfectly dreadful track plans being published on the Internet lately. If only these were required to carry a mandatory advisory:

If you won't stop the CAD for yourself, please, do it for the Newbees you are misleading.

A Railfan Sampler

I've had the pleasure of having another article published in Issue #2 of the Model Railroad Hobbyist e-zine. The layout design project itself was a bit different from most for me in that it was a very specific railfan focus practically to the exclusion of any traditional operating elements.

There is one fairly large yard, but it's meant to be a place for consists to be changed or power swapped, not as a base of local switching operations. And the scenes are famous railfan locales (Tehachapi, Cajon, etc.) rather than the more common towns and industries found on many layouts. The overall layout is quite large, occupying a floor in a commercial building, but the effort to capture the essence of famous scenes like The Loop and the horseshoe curve at Caliente demands a lot of space.

Model Railroad Hobbyist is a free download here and you can see the track plan and read more about the design itself. While working on the project, I snapped some railfan style photos during a pass through the Tehachapi area on a "slightly intentional" railfan trip I wrote about here earlier.

You can also see two different approaches to large HO track plans featuring Tehachapi in my Layout Design Gallery.

It was an interesting project with a unique layout vision and concept and it's great to see it in the "pages" of Model Railroad Hobbyist.

Over the weekend I happened to pluck the Georgia Satellites' eponymous 1986 debut release from a teetering stack of CDs. AC/DC meets Allman Brothers Band in a torrent of power chords and 12-bar blues! I suppose many would consider the band a one-hit-wonder, but there's a lot more here than just the radio-friendly "Keep Your Hands to Yourself". Lead guitarist Rick Richards shows off his "Dixie-fried" chops throughout, and the tunes where lead singer Dan Baird and Richards join voices are particularly effective, such as on Terry Anderson's "Battleship Chains" and the turn-it-to-eleven rocker "Can't Stand the Pain" (aided and abetted by Richards' stinging slide work). Unfortunately Baird left the band after two less-successful later releases, but Georgia Satellites shows they were really on to something for a while.

Selective Obsession

We've often heard of "selective compression", the modeling concept of reducing the size of something (a structure, for example) to better fit the layout. A nine-bay factory building becomes five bays wide, for example. A concept I use fairly often is "compressive selection". This is choosing a smaller example of something because it's more achievable as a model. For example, if considering a mainline junction with a branch as a subject for a layout, I might focus on the branch and only suggest the heavily-travelled mainline for a more achievable scope.

But many folks fall prey to "selective obsession". This is where one idea, one element, one town, one industry becomes stuck in their minds and they refuse to consider any change. This leads to compromising the entire layout for this one prize, even though the end result is unsatisfying overall. The other elements are squeezed into less and less space; the operating connections become ever more convoluted; and any logical fit to the real-world exceedingly remote. Yet they hang on to that one idea, come what may.

This might be the guy who wants to handle forty-car grain trains on his HO 4X8, or the fellow who insists on a division point yard, even though it shrinks the rest of the layout so severely that the yard makes no sense operationally. Or the poor soul who clings desperately to an admittedly lousy design from an old book because he already built the benchwork.

Becoming too locked-in to anything too early in the design process restricts your flexibility and creativity just when you need it most. Balance is the key. When you find yourself resisting logical ideas and alternatives because you say to yourself, "But I can't give up Chicago!"; you may be a victim of Selective Obsession.

Progress is Being Attempted

There's finally a small bit of progress to report on the N scale Brooklyn Basin Oakland Harbor Belt layout in the office. My friend Bart Thurber and I (and the trusty laser level) installed the wall brackets that will support Brooklyn Basin and the lower deck layout early in February. Not much has happened in the meantime, since our whole family has been down with a nasty virus. But it's great to have a bit of visible evidence that something is developing.

Bart does the precision eyeball work below while I prepare to supply the brute force with the drill motor

What's going on the lower deck, you may ask? We'll talk about that next time.

"Ye Knows too Much"

OK, I admit it; I'm a big fan of Disneyland. I think the same is true for many model railroaders, because the idea of creating the world in miniature is common to both. I was thinking about one of my favorite attractions, Pirates of the Caribbean, the other day while working on a design project. At one point, a voice intones a warning that goes something like this:

Perhaps ye knows too much. Ye’ve seen the cursed treasure, ye know where it be hidden. Now proceed at your own risk! These be the last friendly words you’ll hear … you may not survive to pass this way again!

It's not surprising that this particular project brings these words to mind: it's a fascinating prototype, the client has lots of detailed background information, but there's just no way that we are going to get all of it into the available space. Sometimes the more one knows, the more difficult it is to leave anything out. Indeed, many folks I talk with are afflicted with "analysis paralysis" – they know so much about their prototype that they can't decide how to begin.

Often, a big part of my job in working with a client on these prototype-inspired projects is to help with the process of prioritizing and trade-offs. What will meet the client's interests best, whether that be replication of favorite scenes, operations that suggest the prototype, or some compromise. "Knowing too much" can indeed be a curse, me hearties.

On the other hand, a deep understanding of the prototype can create serendipitous opportunities for capturing an element of the prototype in a perfect spot. On a recent project set in the Colorado Rockies, I remembered a segment of the prototype where the tracks curved around a series of swampy areas on fills and short trestles. When an empty spot in roughly the right location became available, I was able to drop in this atmospheric scene.

Another danger of knowing too much is that it can make you want to know more. And with the vast proliferation of prototype information becoming available in books, magazines, and online in the last twenty years or so, there will always be more to learn. How do you know when to call it "good enough"?

The key, as is so often the case in model railroading, is finding the right balance. And that, unfortunately, is a personal value for each of us. My client on the project that kicked off this "knows too much" reverie already recognized the dangers himself, because he included in the background materials an article by John Edwards (no, not that one) from the January 2003 Railroad Model Craftsman. Edwards laments that in the process of learning so much about his prototype, he was also learning all that he didn't know – and he almost came to feel he didn't know anything.

Hopefully, Edwards found the right compromise for himself, as I'm sure my client and I will find for this project. And after some twists and turns through the pirates' lair, we'll pop out into the sunlight at the end. Yo ho, yo ho, a designer's life for me …

New Track Plan Articles

I'm pleased to have two articles published this month in the commercial press. By coincidence, each of the articles deals with a smaller shortline or terminal prototype, each of which was once under wire! Each of the layouts was also designed primarily for switching operation by a small crew.

The Visalia Electric (VE) is the subject in Kalmbach's Model Railroad Planning 2009. The VE was a Southern Pacific subsidiary that once operated interurbans under wire, but later was a freight hauler primarily serving the citrus growing areas near Exeter, CA. The layout design is for a fairly large basement, but with the odd protuberances and access needs typical of these spaces. As John Armstrong often recommended, a long room-filling spiral proved the best way to capture some signature prototype design elements and use the space efficiently.

Joe Fugate's new Model Railroad Hobbyist mediazine issue #1 features a design for the Hoboken Shore Railroad (HBS), an interesting little terminal shortline serving shoreline industries in its namesake New Jersey city by the Hudson. This little railroad had both car float and on-rails interchange, unique industries and operation, even a setting with some topography. The layout design is the third HBS track plan for this client, who had to deal with some (happy) changes in life circumstances and domiciles along the way. The layout was a bit compressed to fit the spare-bedroom-sized space, but managed to capture some of the signature scenes and a flavor of the prototype's operations.

You can also read more about this HO switching layout track plan on my web site.

Writing for the commercial press is always a lot of work, but I seem to enjoy the finished product enough to do it again (and again). I hope you'll enjoy these, too.

That Empire Has No Clothes

One thing that frustrates me when I see folks ask for layout design help on the Internet is the apparent unwillingness, or inability, for people to give direct, constructive, negative feedback. It's almost as if we've all been so conditioned by the Little League everybody-gets-a-trophy attitude that we are afraid to offer people the "tough love" they need to make their plans better. (Full disclosure: if not for everybody-gets-a-trophy, I would have received darned few in my meager athletic career). Instead, it's "attaboys" all around, even when the plan offered for comment has serious flaws.

Partly it's an unwillingness to ruffle feathers, but part of it may just be a lack of attention or experience on the part of those giving advice. I see this again and again. A plan is posted, unfortunately with serious flaws that will impact reliability, operating enjoyment, or appearance. The comments start rolling in, some of which may even be on topic. But a day or two and twenty comments later and nobody has addressed the obvious lack of concentricity of the double-track curves or the 2-foot long HO staging tracks intended to hold twenty-car trains. Just like the story of the "Emperor's New Clothes", nobody seems willing, or able, to state the obvious.

When someone (like me) finally does mention these issues, our empire-builder is frequently (and understandably) crestfallen. Rather than depend on a forum Geek Chorus, I often encourage these neophyte designers to build their own understanding of layout design through layout tours and study before tackling another CAD revision. Few take that path, unfortunately, instead opting for the ear-tickling pleasantries dispensed by their forum mates.

To use the psycho-babble terms du jour, that's enabling, not empowering. If we are going to offer help to these folks, we owe it to them to invest a little time and focus in our study of their plan – and to have enough integrity to tell the truth respectfully.

No Visible Means of Support

Over the last few years, I've had the opportunity to design a number of multi-deck layouts. Sometimes one of the major challenges is figuring out how to hold the dang thing up. The areas around the walls are straightforward, of course, some sort of bracket usually works well. But the island and peninsula areas can be a bigger puzzle.

This becomes even truer when I'm working with upper and lower decks somewhat independently. It's easy to make a change on one deck, forget to reflect it in the other at the moment, and only discover much later that you've created "no visible (or invisible) means of support".

There are oodles of doodles on the Internet where layout design neophytes posit extensive gravity-defying multi-deck islands and peninsulas. Not only does the 3D model railroad layout design CAD allow these folks to draw untenable decks, but also to view them from impossible angles. This makes these unbuildable designs appear deceptively practical.

But it's not just limited to layout design tyros. I've been involved now in a couple of large layout projects where an otherwise innovative design lacked only one thing: a way to support the upper deck! Eventually, these layout owners resort to all manner of skyhooks and other appurtenances when the ¼" wide masonite backdrop on the lower deck proves unable to bear the weight of a few hundred pounds of plywood and plaster. How much easier it would have been to design in proper support from the beginning – but even experienced designers hate to give up lower deck real estate for upper deck stability.

For my own part, I've learned to use CAD to my advantage. I often use a straight or curved studwall to support backdrops and upper decks in island and peninsula areas. Once the general footprint of the design is defined, I'll draw in a rough location of the studwall in its own CAD layer. By keeping this layer visible and on top of the other layers most of the time, I avoid paining myself into an overhanging corner (to mix my metaphors.)

Multi-deck designs have been a great addition to the layout designer's toolbox. But applying multi-deck concepts thoughtfully includes always keeping track of what's holding them up.

I've written before about one of my favorite streaming Internet audio channels, Devlar Surf Sessions on Live365. Modern instrumental ("Instro") Surf music includes such subgenres as Spy, Space, and Tiki along with terrific band names such as the Atomic Mosquitoes, the Aqua Velvets, and the X-Rays. I thought this stream was being discontinued, but I've had the good news that it will carry on. So an even heartier "Thanks for the cool waves, Dude ", to programmer Ray Dukes. Definitely worth a listen.