I look at all of this in retrospective of what I do as a model railroader. I model HO scale, and space seems to not be to big of an issue, other than me having to supress my want to take up an entire 60' by 40' building (it will be done someday)... I don't mind N scale, I havent ever modeled it but have seen some layouts based in N scale and I think its ok, but I'm not leaving HO. Size is relative to budget and reality. Neither do I have enough funds to invest into a 60' by 40' layout, in all reality it just won't happen. I'm a model railroader because I like to have fun, and as far as the lumber yards size, I didn't notice it, good point, but it doesn't really cause any major conflict with me. I model what I want usually how I want, and if that means drifiting into fictional or non-prototypical situations, that doesn't hurt me. Being exact and true to the last inch is good and all, but that isn't why I'm in the hobby..... Just my
-beegle55
MidlandPacific wrote: You have certainly put your finger on the big advantage on N scale - the smaller you get, the more stuff you can accomodate. I think if I were inclined to model a big, massive, modern operation (like, say 1950s N&W, or Horseshoe Curve), I would definitely want to go with N. HO is great, but I model an age when engines were small, businesses were run by families, and trains were short.But I also prefer HO scale because it feels like the view I usually have of trains at a slight distance. N scale feels like the view from an airplane.
You have certainly put your finger on the big advantage on N scale - the smaller you get, the more stuff you can accomodate. I think if I were inclined to model a big, massive, modern operation (like, say 1950s N&W, or Horseshoe Curve), I would definitely want to go with N. HO is great, but I model an age when engines were small, businesses were run by families, and trains were short.
But I also prefer HO scale because it feels like the view I usually have of trains at a slight distance. N scale feels like the view from an airplane.
Or on the other end of the spectrum that is also a great reason to go outside with G scale. Nearly unlimited potential for a layout! Bigger space for bigger models- more detail also. Anything that can be done in any indoor scale can be done in G.
This all gets back to my earlier post, find a theme for your railroad and stick with it. You can model modern big time operations in a small space, using the proper illusions, just as easily as you can model a small branch line in the same space. It all depends on what you want to do with your railroad. Anything is possible in any amount of space, but you must have a concept to follow. Whether or not this is accurate portrayal of a real railroad, or the most whimsical of lines, they must have a purpose. I like the allusion to a theater set, this is very appropriate to what we do and I believe all model railroaders should get a few books on set design for study.
The Dixie D Short Line "Lux Lucet In Tenebris Nihil Igitur Mors Est Ad Nos 2001"
But you could also model a local fuel oil distributor more completely in the same space... A few propane tanks, some vertical storage tanks for heating oil, and the same short spur for two or three cars. You still run the same equipment carrying the same freight, but much more plausibly.
Plus, you get to actually SEE (and research and model) the industry, rather than relying on your imagination, or having a gigantic refinery painted on the backdrop that can only generate 2 tank cars full of product...
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
http://mprailway.blogspot.com
"The first transition era - wood to steel!"
First off. Good pictures. Great work.
Now.
Ive hauled lumber and finished wood products in, out and around yards, railheads, teamtracks and more places than I care to count with a flatbed. All I really worried about is tarping that fancy Asian plywood against rain, figuring something is like 400 dollars a foot that would come out of pay... but getting ot here...
A hell of ALOT of wood can be moved out or INTO a place. I remember a tiny lumberyard up on a ridgeside near Altoona that required several tractor trailer loads a week. I would show up every morning ice or shine with a GREAT big bulging load of wood manuvering into a TINY place FULL of tight spots and corners and wood everywhere. Everyday it looks like the stuff I delivered the day before did not move. Yet they unloaded me and found a spot for all that stuff.
With those volumes there HAS to be house building going on nearby.
The thinking along the lines of making an industry look like it can accept the volume of the cars on the siding is a wonderful thing. We should not sneer or snicker at the tiny atlas lumberyard that is overshadowed by 3 Opera House CenterBeams groaning with bundled wood next to it. Nor should we try to build a great big yard that is populated by one forklift and two people and hard to find that spotted car.
I remember another yard that was basically a field that has been gravelled by a bunch of dump trailers, rolled flat and fenced. A gate was set and the telephone called in the roundup on the dogs to run in there with a bunch of flatbeds and make the wood disappear. All of it pretty much went out of state across that Harpers Ferry Bridge (Weight restrictions be damned) when I was there trucks going in and trucks leaving with such volumes of wood in maybe... 3 acres. Convoy anyone? I know that the new Harpers Ferry Bridge must be complete by now or darn close to it and it will only increase the cargo capacity coming and going.
I say model what you can with the space you have the best you can.
Right you are, Larry...
On the Canton Railroad in Baltimore, I recall a corrugated box company that was a very compact building, with a modest outdoor storage yard. It received rolls of corrugated paper in boxcars, about 4 cars a week if I recall. That's very do-able in any scale. There was also a mayonaise and salad dressing plant in a 2 story brick building about the size of the Walthers Brach's Candy that got a couple tankers full of vegetable oil a week. All the outbound from both of these was by truck.
A small cement terminal could also be practical in any scale.
Midnight Railroader wrote:...and just think, "Artz" was Art Schmidt's effort to essentially double the size of the stock Atlas lumberyard kit!
Yes and still a nice size lumber company that recieves lumber in boxcars or bulkhead flats.You see there are other ways of shipping lumber other then a 73 foot center beam flat car.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Lee and Mark,Both of you make excellent points that is worthy of study and discussion..Rail serve industries still come in all sizes and shapes and its in that realm we must chose industries that fit our layouts.
Heres some food for thought..Instead of lumber company why not a DIAPER manufacturer? These are small industries that receives boxcars.Instead of a steel mill why not a steel distributor? Why not model a coke plant by having a track to disappear behind a small hill with stacks above the hill? How about a dog food manufacturer?
The list of every day rail served customers is endless.It is this list we must study to find the best industries that suits our likes and size of layout.
I started looking at the N Crowd thread, but quickly got mired in 3 pages of posts about what a good idea it was to start the thread...
I'd like to see some shots of your O scale... sounds awesome...
Yes, there are compromises in every scale. I think my point was best taken up by the idea of creating the illusion when space is limited. I absolutely concur. I've often felt that building a model railroad is akin to building a theatre set. As long as it looks good from a standard viewing distance for the "audience" the purpose is served. The tricks to the eye as outlined are all good solutions.
But a wee building that's served by large freight cars fails on almost all points (see the pre-1902 discussion...)
As for roads, I don't even worry about them. On my layout, unless I'm doing an urban scene, I find it unnecessary to connect all the points on the layout with a highway. (My son and the drivers of his Micro Machines would disagree, but I digress...) I try to provide a reasonable amount of space when a truck loading dock is involved, and in a city scape I make sure there are two lanes for traffic and parking on at least one side of the street. Other than that, streets and cars are just part of the scenery. That's my compromise.
Here's my paper mill complex:
I kitbashed together some nice big structures, then combined them in an arrangement that is totally un prototypical (paper making is a very linear process, usually in long and low buildings) yet massive and busy enough to adequately represent a heavy industry. I had to shoe horn the complex into a return loop area that overall is only 3' wide x about 4' deep. There's also enough siding space to move about 20 freight cars around (or more...) during an operating session. There are things about this arrangement I would like to have done differently, but I think it makes a much more plausible scene than a 100' long building with a 50' boxcar next to it, and calling it a paper mill.
City scapes are another issue altogether. When Bachmann introduced its City Classics line of downtown buildings in HO, I thought that the same models in N scale would be ideal. But they discontinued the line saying that they didn't sell enough of the HO buildings to justify doing them in N. Apples and Oranges, I say. Most HO layouts don't have room for such large buildings, while N scale, even N Trak modules, can be very effectively representative of major downtown centers because of the scale. Walthers used the same excuse for not issuing their automobile plant series in N. To me, they both should have started with N scale, because that's the size that such large complexes can be adequately modeled!
I built this auto plant at the Delmarva Model Railroad club in a space roughly 3' x 4'. In addition to the large plant complex (which is part of a scenic divider... some illusion there!)
but there's also enough yard tracks to handle a dozen 89' auto racks, and another bunch of 85' and 60' auto parts cars. While this is part of a large club layout, the same scene could be done on a modestly sized home layout in N, and still have plenty of mainline to run the trains to serve the plant. In HO, such a scene would require either a huge club layout, or nothing but staging loops to run trains in and out of the scene.
I'd like to see some other examples of what youse guys are doing to convincingly model large industry on your layouts, and explain some of the tricks you employ to pull it off. Regardless of scale.
Roads are one of those things that always seem to be afterthoughts. I actually planned roads while I did my trackplan. Of course, things evolve and neither the trackplan nor the roads ended up exactly where the paper said they would, but I did make the effort and as a result I didn't get stuck with grade crossings on turnouts.
I realize now that my roads will also have to "represent" a real highway system. The rail yard, team tracks and freight house can't be connected to the rest of the road network. In some places, the semis at the loading docks could never make it to the roadway. Like many of us, I've got roads which "run off the cliff" at the edge of the layout, too. To me, that suggests a bigger world that doesn't just end at the "shores" of my island table.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
It's all about illusion. All the ideas above (thanks IRONROOSTER!) are very good. No it does not make sense to model a steel mill in a 2x2ft area, BUT you can model a portion of it, just enough to suggest a massive structure lurking "just beyond". I once saw a 1/35 scale model of Berlin, 1944 in a 4x4ft area at an IPMS show years ago. The real Berlin scales out orders of magnitude larger than 4x4 can possible represent, but the quality and balance of the model were of such a high caliber, it was still a fully believable representation of downtown Berlin in 1944.
The same holds true of our modeling. Now without wanting to start a debate on model railroading doctrine, I will say that the tendency of builders is to try to do too much. Too much industry, too many structures, too many trains. Focus on a theme for your railroad, logging for example, and stick with it. I'd rather see a 40x40 ft superbly done HO railroad with 2 towns and 3 industries than one that is so crammed with things I can't see what it's supposed to be doing. In the case of the sawmill example, if you need one for your railroad, then it should be a priority for the real estate, not the KFC or hog farm.
Thinking through the design first, and sticking with it, pays big in the believability department. Figure out your theme and purpose for the railroad, and stay true to the philosophy.
The awful truth for most of us is that we don't have the space to model full size the businesses served by rail.
There are ways to get around this.
One is to have an undersized structure, that you're talking about.
A second is to have it next to the background and make most of it a picture.
Third, you can have a spur leading off to it that disappears behing a hill or some trees and not model the business at all.
Fourth, you can model pre WWI say 1900 when even small businesses received shipments by rail since it was the only practical mode of transport. The rail cars were smaller too so they don't seem so overwhelming.
One of the reasons for the railroads switching from mileage to per diem in 1902 was to stop businesses from using the railroad cars as storage facilities.
Model railroading for many of us is an art form and part of the art is representing the world in a compressed space. All scales have strengths and weaknesses. The hobby could be subtitled The Art of Compromise.
Enjoy
Paul
wm3798 wrote: But if your space is limited, does it make sense to try to model a steel mill?Lee
But if your space is limited, does it make sense to try to model a steel mill?
I think it depends on the person doing it. If he/she recives gratification doing it they should do it. Since I want to run iron ore on my layout and do not want just something small to represent a mill I decided on a dock instead. And that will mostly be represented by a large crane. Correct, maybe not. Fun for me? Yes.
Magnus
Lee, first of all great work on the lumber yard. It is very good and I like very much the extra details that you have put in. Your previous employment served you well in making a believable scene.
As for your main point, I think it goes without saying that smaller scales allow for greater mass in the same space. I am in HO and it amazed me how few real miles of track were actually modelled in my round-the-walls layout. Large industries like coal are really represented rather than accurately modelled. It is one of the compromises we have to make. The skill is in trying to pull it off effectively.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
wm3798 wrote:Granted, selective compression is a part of all of our lives. But more often than not, HO scale layouts are riddled with "industries" that aren't much bigger than the rolling stock that serves them!
84 Lumber? We've got one of those on 104th street! I thought they were an independent, I didn't realize they were a franchise.
Okay, I open my April MR, and flip back to Cody Grivno's piece on reviving ARTZ Lumber for the MR&T Layout. Immediately the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
I know you HO guys like to carry on about how nice N scale is because you can pack so much action in a small space. This is true, but it's a very one-dimensional look at what N scale is really capable of. Take a lumber yard for instance...
The first thing I noticed about Cody's article wasn't the terrific details, or the craftsmanship of the modeling (Both outstanding). What I noticed was the lumber yard wasn't big enough to stock all the material that came off the flat car!
Maybe I'm just biased because a number of years ago I worked in a retail lumber yard, so I'm going to notice things like that. But as a model railroader, or as a scale modeler more specifically, it makes me bananas when I see something visually flawed like that.
Granted, selective compression is a part of all of our lives. But more often than not, HO scale layouts are riddled with "industries" that aren't much bigger than the rolling stock that serves them!
Here's a lumber yard I scratched out a few years ago. I wanted to make sure I had room to represent a reasonable amount of storage, a big enough yard for a tractor trailer to get in and out (as much as we hate to admit it, not everything ships by rail...) Plus have a few extra details
The other thing that is modestly irksome is that some of us spend a great deal of time studying railroad operations, or researching exhaustive dissertations on what the various pipes on a steam locomotive do, but we overlook a simple fact such as that most lumber is shipped by rail to a huge reload yard, where it is transfered to trucks to be shipped to small yards such as Artz. My model is based on the prototype stores that I worked in. We had a rail siding, but in the 3 years I worked there, we got one carload of studs (The market was good, so we ordered a carload instead of a truck load). So really, even my model is a stretch.
Anyway.. the point of the point of the point is, that in N scale, you have the opportunity to create a much more believable scene related to rail service. Your warehouses can be much bigger, your yards can be bigger, etc.
I've heard it said that in HO you can model trains, but in N you can model a railroad. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that, and see a discussion of what compromises you have to make but still have enough left to have a satisfying experience with your layout.
...or do I just need to get back on my meds?