Jetrock: Thank you for sharing all those interesting pictures of your layout.
I would love to see you begin to share your efforts in the Weekend Photo Fun and Show Me Something threads in the General section of the forums.
Your work looks great.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes. I prefer having scenery determine much of the layout over a specific industry. It's kinda cool getting "lost" just looking at the layout even withou any trains running.
I'm a big fan of urban scenery. When I made the decision to model the city where I live, it was because a lot of my "railfanning" was done in an urban environment: while I like a train weaving through mountains and tunnels, blasting through desert or prairie, or puffing through a forest as much as the next foamer, most of the time I railfanned by watching trains going through cities. My other point of reference was riding light rail or long-distance trains through parts of town that were architecturally, culturally, and aesthetically appealing and beautiful, although many would call them "the wrong side of the tracks." Whether they were passing through historic districts of Victorian architecture or acres of industrial red brick that looked just like the models in the Walthers catalog, I liked the view from the train. So I modeled a city, that just happened to have a bunch of railroads running through its heart: Sacramento Northern's belt line through Sacramento, CA, which I have posted about here plenty of times before.
This view shows a switching yard shoved into an alley, rapidly descending on a 4% grade from a waterfront wharf on a levee to street level. I made a conscious decision to put the trains behind a row of buildings, with the neighborhood blocking the view of the trains, to emphasize the congested and claustrophobic nature of an urban railroad.
This photo of the wharf warehouses and track serving the wharf, actually very much simplified from the original, was where Southern Pacific and Western Pacific steam trains switched alongside Sacramento Northern and Central California Traction electric trains on Front Street. I just included the SN tracks. The wharf building is a repeated plaster casting made from a silicone mold of a 6" master section. Switches on this street are hard to reach from the layout's edge, so I added manual control rods to switch them from the fascia board.
The neighborhood in front of the trains is the West End, a real place that I've spent probably far too much time studying and writing about instead of playing with my dang trains. The architecture isn't exact copies of what was there, but kitbashed or modified approximations and a few out-of-the-box kits that fit the feel of the time and place.
Interurban curves can be very sharp! This 12" radius curve is tricky even for 40' cars and little B-B freight motors, but it was tricky for the prototype too. The levee in the background, with its pass-through tunnel, becomes a view block that prevents a visitor from seeing the whole length of the layout from any point unless they're sticking their head under the lighting valence.
Interurban freight yard. Another notable geographic feature of Sacramento is its tree canopy, and I wanted to simulate it on a shelf only 1 foot deep. Multiple layers of Woodland Scenics sheet grass mat, accented with applications of scenic foam, behind flattened and 3-D lichen & foam trees add a little depth, with photo backgrounds taken from prototype locations squeezed in between trees and buildings on the backdrop (note the backdrop photo in between the boxcar and freight house half-flat, behind the cats.)
Because the SN belt line ran through residential neighborhoods, I got to exercise my love of Victorian-era residential architecture. Each house has its own cat somewhere on the property.
These are railroad tracks as scenery: this double-tracked three feet of Southern Pacific Railroad's B Street route to downtown Sacramento, oldest part of the old Central Pacific transcontinental route, ran over the SN mainline, and in a city without hills, it's basically the most dramatic physical landform feature of downtown Sacramento except for the rivers themselves. So this SP switcher and Budd RDC are basically scenery here, the track isn't powered but, as mentioned above, serves as a useful view block to break up the scene visually.
This is another section of basically scenic track--Western Pacific's main line, which runs tangent to the SP mainline in the photo above (and runs under it about 400 feet east of the SN line.) The track on the left, the WP main line, is unpowered. On the right is the SN/WP interchange track, curving from the WP main to the SN belt line tracks, which are functional, as cars are dropped off and picked up here. I may decide at some point to extend the WP tracks into the middle of the room and model more WP right of way. I live a couple blocks from the prototype WP tracks.
hornblower How about a milk can platform where local farmers can deliver their daily milk production to the railroad. Such "industries" would give your trains a reason to exist as well as opportunities to work these industries (switch cars). The compactness of these "industries" would not take away from your rural landscape either. Good luck and enjoy!
How about a milk can platform where local farmers can deliver their daily milk production to the railroad. Such "industries" would give your trains a reason to exist as well as opportunities to work these industries (switch cars). The compactness of these "industries" would not take away from your rural landscape either. Good luck and enjoy!
Engi1487I learned in the 2019 issue of Great Model Railroads, that you dont need to start on operations starting out, as watching trains is better, after dealing with work, as adding the complexity of mimicking these opperations, adds more work.
This comes down to personal preference, and neither approach is therefore "right" or "wrong".
However... if you plan to maybe have operations "at some point" it's best to plan the layout to include for them as well as some scenic "railfanning" type scenes. Trying to add realistic operations to a layout that was never planned for them, can sometimes work out, but can also be awkward, or require some changes to the layout to accomodate. Just food for thought.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
NorthBrit'Just like the real thing'.
I forgot to mention that Paul's layout was N scale.
It was a great place to watch trains, and it proved that Model Railroads really are personal creations. Few people would like a model railroad layout with zero operational potential, but Paul loved it.
SeeYou190 Paul just liked to watch trains run. -Kevin
Paul just liked to watch trains run.
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
There was a man named Paul in Iona Park, Florida, that had a scenic layout. It filled a purpose built 22 by 22 foot room. The layout only had two turnouts for one passing track on the visible layout.
He had over ten tracks in staging, and it took about 5 minutes for a train to go over the whole layout. It was a scenic wonder and Paul enjoyed building and detailing all the scenes for more than a decade.
My new layout will be about 1/3 urban with industries, yard, and passenger terminal, a model of a small Appalachian piedmont city that is a division point on the ATLANTIC CENTRAL.
The other 2/3rds will be the rural country side leading to and from that small city.
No attemp to model both ends of anything, trains will appear on the scene from staging and disappear from the scene returning to staging.
At the city there will be interchanges with the B&O and C&O, elsewhere a short section of the WESTERN MARYLAND will be modeled, and will connect off stage with the ATLANTIC CENTRAL.
The layout will fill about 1500 sq ft, the visable double track mainline will be about 300' long.
Sheldon
I decided to model part of the west end of Rio Grande because I really like the scenery of the deserts and canyons, in particular, Ruby canyon.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Designing a track plan, laying the track, then creating the scenery around the track are all enjoyable aspects of the hobby and you will likely enjoy watching your trains creep through the finished terrain. However, you will eventually finish creating your terrain and the only remaining part of the hobby will be to run your trains through the finished landscape. It is at this point in the hobby that most of us start to get bored with just watching our trains roll by. Is that all a layout can do? Heck no! You may not be interested in building industries now, but you may want a few in the future to continue to keep you interested in your layout. For this reason, I would at least plan for specific areas of your layout to eventually host track spurs and industries for future modeling. You can landscape these areas now but these reserved spaces could later be cleaned off and redone with the new industry. Such industries could be small to better fit your rural landscape. Maybe something like a coal dump where trucks from a nearby mine or quarry can dump their loads into waiting hoppers or gondolas for more distant diliveries. How about a milk can platform where local farmers can deliver their daily milk production to the railroad. Such "industries" would give your trains a reason to exist as well as opportunities to work these industries (switch cars). The compactness of these "industries" would not take away from your rural landscape either. Good luck and enjoy!
Hornblower
I like to focus on my trains going over, under, around and through things. I like "tight" model railroading, typically not wide open spaces. Bridges and tunnels are great, but also trains passing behind buildings only to reappear further down the line.
I usually build one industry at a time, or just an urban building that complements or fills out a scene. But, I have a pile of scenic stuff, from trees to Envirotex to Gypsolite and static grass, always ready to finally finish a scene.
I like to think about and place the large industries first. But then, the scenery around is just as important.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Modeling the various industries that the railroads service to transport their goods from place to place, from mine to refinery, from factory to depot, steel, coal iron and various other commodities is something that is replicated in model railroading, along with passanger services. This in turns leads to having activies in which model railroaders can role play the various opperations that happen in real life scale, thus adding to the hobbies immerse appeal.Where I live in New Brunswick Canada, the railway tracks are a respective one hour (Canadian National Mainline) to an hour and a half (NBSR Shortline), and I dont see any industries beings served, other then switching at the junction or just using a passing siding, and the occassional NBSR excursion train. Not to menion that the major indjustries are blocked off with not much accesable views, and watching for too long might be a issue of concern for the railway police/security force.I realize that one of the major reasons I am facinated by trains, is waiting for them, and the site of finally seeing one immerge out of the woods going by on the tracks. When ever I aim to visit the nearst railway tracks, that are surrounded by tall forests and trees, it seems mystifying to look down the track hoping for something to come, almost like being on a safari or birdwatching, as you might see something, you might not. My idea for a layout would combine the best scenic parts of the NBSR (New Brunswick Southern Railway), and scenic areas on CPR and CN I like, thus making a mostly scenic layout that models my favoruite Canadian railway scenics. I do feel that as times does on , I will model various industries to give the layout more meaning and opperations to immerse in, which adds to the experiance.I learned in the 2019 issue of Great Model Railroads, that you dont need to start on operations starting out, as watching trains is better, after dealing with work, as adding the complexity of mimicking these opperations, adds more work. Further note, I will post a picture of a track plan with more detail in due time for your guys critique.