Is less more? or am I crazy?!

[RhB_HJ]

Hi all,

This one has been on my mind for a while.

Looking at the garden railway scene today, here in North America or in Europe and Australia I ask myself what's with the "moaning"? The mfgs come up with larger engines we moan, they make things closer to scale we moan. In the former case because the critters won't fit on our layouts, in the latter because we need more clearance. So what!?

If one starts out building a "cutsy, ringy-dink" garden railway ( I don't mean that in a belittling way!!) with tight radii, small rolling stock etc. and then discovers the "monsters", is it realistic to expect that the two will complement each other i.e. the "monsters" will run on the same track as the cutsy stuff?

If one has a limited amount of real estate it is realistic to expect that the monster engines together with 10 streamliners or 20 boxcars won't be chasing their own tails?

With as many of us coming from smaller scales as appears to be the case, would it be reasonable to assume that we all learned something about "limitations" in the smaller scales? Or does everything in Large Scale have to be reinvented (including the wheel [}:)][8)] ) because we have such short memories or things don't scale up in our mind's eye?

Question is: can't we build good garden railways within the space at our disposal with what's out there, provided we set some reasonable limits for ourselves? Which perhaps means we don't get to run the "monsters" of whichever! Whoever stipulated bigger is better? must have been some marketing guy!
In my book a small well executed layout that makes good use of the space is better than a larger layout that's crammed to the gills because one just had to fit one more engine, one more structure and one more gimmick.
In short less is more!

And we haven't talked about money, yet!

[Anonymous]

HJ

I have a pleasant feeling in my guts today and i seem to be agreeing with everyone on every thing and i won't spoil it in this instance. You are quite correct, less is more and even the experts will tell you that.

I have really taken it to heart and I have a very clean layout of 65 m (200') it is based on what i have seen in my travels around the Orient. I have made my Railway fit my garden not the other way around and it works for me but maybe it wont work for others .

This is what makes this pastime so great, you can do what you like in any way you like and please yourself; on the downside if it doesn't work out you have to live with the results (mother in law like).

If you send me your email address i will send you a photo or two of what i have done, it is very different to any other that I have seen, this doesn't make it good or bad, just what suits us.


Regards


Ian

[e-mail]

[Anonymous]

HJ

I think you hit on something there. When I designed my HO layout, I planned for modern six-axle power and 89 foot auto racks. When I started designing the GRR, I am putting wider curves than I need, because I expect the manufacturers to come up with that "Gotta Have" Loco that needs 10' or 12' curves. Maybe I have an advantage in that my backyard is a blank pallet. I am getting into this when there is a wider range of big equipment than five or ten years ago. I will run USA SD40-2's and Aristo Dash 9's. I also expect to have Mikados and Pacifics. Dare I buy a challenger???

[bman36]

HJ,
I really enjoy these discussions. So many different views on any given issue. The reality is just like cars...tomorrow someone else will make something to overshadow what we have here today. I don't really feel there is a way avoid this. Will be very interesting to see where this goes from here. Later eh...Brian.

[vsmith]

Yes, you are completely NUTS![:D]

I dont think my rant was a "moan", more of a "what do others think" of this topic?

I am far from moaning about the availability of items today, I am greatfull of all the goodies out there.

As for me, my indoor layout is 4 foot diameters, only 8 1/2 feet by 20 feet, I only run the smallest engines on it and I am quite happy with it. I am planning a small outdoor layout in an 8 foot by 25 foot area with 6 1/2 foot dia curves so I can run my 2 Annies and hopefully a Bmann American or a squeeling Connie on. I cant go with 8 footers because of the final configuration of the layout thru the obsticals. 6 1/2 footers is it.

I dont want a DASH-9 or a Mallet or a PA1. I like my narrow gauge and wont be changing that so I dont have to consider changing everything to wider diameter.

So I guess overall I am quite happy with my little Dog & Pony Show of a layout.

[RhB_HJ]

QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith

Yes, you are completely NUTS![:D]

I dont think my rant was a "moan", more of a "what do others think" of this topic?

I am far from moaning about the availability of items today, I am greatfull of all the goodies out there.

As for me, my indoor layout is 4 foot diameters, only 8 1/2 feet by 20 feet, I only run the smallest engines on it and I am quite happy with it. I am planning a small outdoor layout in an 8 foot by 25 foot area with 6 1/2 foot dia curves so I can run my 2 Annies and hopefully a Bmann American or a squeeling Connie on. I cant go with 8 footers because of the final configuration of the layout thru the obsticals. 6 1/2 footers is it.

I dont want a DASH-9 or a Mallet or a PA1. I like my narrow gauge and wont be changing that so I dont have to consider changing everything to wider diameter.

So I guess overall I am quite happy with my little Dog & Pony Show of a layout.

Vic,

That's what my friends say, too![;)][:D]

When I say "moaning" I mean the general tenor, not yours in particular. I know you're doing the NG thing and so am I.

When I designed our layout one of the first things I did was figure out what the longest car will be, then I made a CAD mock up of how much overhang on which type of curve. Which worked out to 1750mm (5ft 8+"), with the exception of my curved swing bridge which has 1524mm (5ft). That's as large as that spot would allow.
BTW since the prototype has the same problem, the cars won't be getting any longer, guaranteed! [:)][:)]

On the matter of minimum radii, doing the easement bit will help with better operation.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by RhB_HJ

Hi all,

This one has been on my mind for a while.

Looking at the garden railway scene today, here in North America or in Europe and Australia I ask myself what's with the "moaning"? The mfgs come up with larger engines we moan, they make things closer to scale we moan. In the former case because the critters won't fit on our layouts, in the latter because we need more clearance. So what!?

If one starts out building a "cutsy, ringy-dink" garden railway ( I don't mean that in a belittling way!!) with tight radii, small rolling stock etc. and then discovers the "monsters", is it realistic to expect that the two will complement each other i.e. the "monsters" will run on the same track as the cutsy stuff?

If one has a limited amount of real estate it is realistic to expect that the monster engines together with 10 streamliners or 20 boxcars won't be chasing their own tails?

With as many of us coming from smaller scales as appears to be the case, would it be reasonable to assume that we all learned something about "limitations" in the smaller scales? Or does everything in Large Scale have to be reinvented (including the wheel [}:)][8)] ) because we have such short memories or things don't scale up in our mind's eye?

Question is: can't we build good garden railways within the space at our disposal with what's out there, provided we set some reasonable limits for ourselves? Which perhaps means we don't get to run the "monsters" of whichever! Whoever stipulated bigger is better? must have been some marketing guy!
In my book a small well executed layout that makes good use of the space is better than a larger layout that's crammed to the gills because one just had to fit one more engine, one more structure and one more gimmick.
In short less is more!

And we haven't talked about money, yet!

Hay there guys and gals, some of us have been in this garden RR thing for 10/15/20 years and back then we didn't have a clue where this hobby would be going.
If we did know we could have built our layouts to suite the longer wider rolling stock now available. On our line we used the Bachmann Big Hauler as a clearance gauge and are now forced to rebuild our existing layout or limit our rolling stock to the smaller offerings.

We didn't build our "cutsy" railways on purpose but because we were unable to see into the future.
Garden railroading even ten years ago was very different than it is today. Standard gauge models were almost nonexistent and so was the interest in such models. I believe an influx of small scale modelers has created the current demand for standard gauge along with some garden railroaders who had an interest but didn't say much about that fact.

May all your weeds be wild flowers.... OLD DAD

[RhB_HJ]

OLD DAD,

True enough!

OTOH to me it appears there are quite a few people who change scales (the best one, that I'm aware of, is two people swapping LS stuff for N scale) and while they hardly ever grumbled about 85 footers requiring 24" minimum and 30"+ to look OK (in HO), they expect to run similar "stuff" in LS on 4ft radii. Not too blooming likely!

I can see where the people with long established layouts have a clearance problem with all the new stuff. Just one more instance of proof that "G" is a stupid moniker. And those mfgs who dare not list the scale of their products are doing the newbies no favours. Least of all those who arrive without modelrailroading baggage.
That's why IMHO brochures that address the novice should have a comparison drawing of how the bulk of different scales affects the required clearances.
For instance 1:20.3 looks like this compared to 1:22.5; 1:24; 1:29; 1:32 and then add the length factor by showing typical overhangs in the various scales and the minimum required radius.
I've done that on occasion on fora, i.e. nice CAD drawing that shows how ridiculous a GG1 will look on R1. Sometimes this happens to a chorus of "We don't care"; to which my comment is "yeah, we know".

Will it sell a lot more LGB? Perhaps, perhaps not!
If it does and people "build" on R1 there will be more moaners down the road when one day they discover real scale models. It's like anything else in life, you make your own bed and you get to lay in it.