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Last Day: 10 x 12 Layout Contest: We need your vote: Close race.

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Posted by concretelackey on Thursday, January 17, 2008 7:27 PM
 marknewton wrote:
 stilson4283 wrote:

3) Kintetsu Utsube Line - Like many said it has great lines and has some great curves.  Plus you got to love a layout that you cannot pronounce.


LOL! I can pronounce it - badly! The lady who teaches me Japanese pulls some great faces when I mangle words... Big Smile [:D]

But then again some might find Susquehanna hard to pronounce.


You're not wrong - I wouldn't attempt it!

All the best,

Mark.

Basically just sound it out...

suss (sounds like fuss), kwee (wee with a k), hanna (just like banana but with out the bana and with an H). Lived within 25 minutes of that river all my life...

Ken aka "CL" "TIS QUITE EASY TO SCREW CONCRETE UP BUT TIS DARN NEAR IMPOSSIBLE TO UNSCREW IT"
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Posted by marknewton on Thursday, January 17, 2008 7:48 PM
Thanks for taking the time to analyze the entries and post your coments, TZ

As you say , the Rice influence is fairly obvious. As I was saying to Stein in our PMs, I'd just finished reading a book of his, with the rather long-winded title of "An approach to model railway layout design; Finescale in small spaces", published in the UK by Wild Swan. Also, I was lucky enough to see his layouts "Butley Mills" and "Woolverstone' at exhibitions in the UK some years back - they had a profound effect on my thinking about every aspect of layout design. As did having a yarn with him and his mate Bob Barlow at Scaleforum. I rate Rice, Barlow and a few others of their ilk as the leading thinkers in the hobby today, at least as its practiced in the UK and Australia.

But I'm not sure I understand your comments about "curvy" sidings and house tracks being "non-North American". I've seen plenty of both on railroads there. Are you referring to North American model railroad practices?

I agree, Hinaga is an interesting location, but I can't take any credit for its design - I simply copied what was there before the line was closed beyond Nishi-Hino. These days the branch platform is just a single track, the loop has been removed. (Which is a pity, because it was not uncommon to see four trains at once there...great fun!)

I think if I were to build this layout I probaly would not have the track and benchwork curves so closely aligned, but I didn't want to spend too much time on the drawing, in case I missed the deadline. And as Chip will confirm, I almost did!

As I said, I'm glad you took the time to think about the designs and offer your comments. I'm looking forward to the discussion after the competition closes. I think we'll all learn something. Smile [:)]

All the best,

Mark.
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Posted by SpaceMouse on Friday, January 18, 2008 11:11 AM

Chip

Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.

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Posted by oleirish on Friday, January 18, 2008 11:58 AM

Cool [8D]

Chip

Your contest is cool,BUT have you ever throught about a contest where you are given an area that is allready scenic and has hills mountains ECT,ECT then servay an railroad and build it???Like the real thing? We all have built layouts and then add the suroundings.

This might be a chlange??

JIMSmile [:)]

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Posted by Driline on Friday, January 18, 2008 12:01 PM

 SpaceMouse wrote:

He's tapping his foot...........that scares me Shock [:O]

Wonder what kind of music he's listening to?

Rap?

Hip Hop?

Lawrence Welk?

Modeling the Davenport Rock Island & Northwestern 1995 in HO
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Posted by stebbycentral on Friday, January 18, 2008 1:24 PM
 Driline wrote:

 SpaceMouse wrote:

He's tapping his foot...........that scares me Shock [:O]

Wonder what kind of music he's listening to?

Rap?

Hip Hop?

Lawrence Welk?

It's quite obvious,... it's a polka band!   Headphones [{(-_-)}]

I have figured out what is wrong with my brain!  On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!

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Posted by ChrisNH on Friday, January 18, 2008 2:22 PM

All the entries were excellent, but if I have to pick.. 

 

n-scale: Snover & Plover

HO:  Buffalo& Susquehanna

Overall:

 Snover & Plover

 Buffalo& Susquehanna

 Kintetsu Utsube Line

I felt the Snover & Plover gave a nice balance of scenery opportunities plus staging.

Buffalo & Susquehanna only lacked more of a sense of distance between destinations but otherwise excellent and included staging.

Kitetsu and Utsube was beautifully drawn and a lot of fun to look at, it just didnt have the the same operating potential the other two did, at least to my taste. 

I liked the progressive rail plan too.. but felt that it needed better interchange with the mainline to really realize the operating potential. The Appalachian Central was a very nice modification of the original.

My choices all met my preference for walk-in design and good operating potential. I also tend to prefer stuff that is not multi-level and doesn't double back on itself. 

Chris 

 

 

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Posted by SpaceMouse on Friday, January 18, 2008 10:13 PM

 

Chip

Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.

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Posted by steemtrayn on Friday, January 18, 2008 11:53 PM
 Driline wrote:

 SpaceMouse wrote:

He's tapping his foot...........that scares me Shock [:O]

Wonder what kind of music he's listening to?

Rap?

Hip Hop?

Lawrence Welk?

He's listening to lumberjack music (logger rythms).

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Posted by SpaceMouse on Saturday, January 19, 2008 9:22 AM

Chip

Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.

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Posted by Texas Zepher on Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:30 AM

I think this thread has lost its focus and the recent posts are discouraging rather than encouraging others from participating in the voting.   hmmm maybe it needs some hampster pictures to attract attention.

We could be bumping it with further comments on the actual entries themselves. 

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Posted by Autobus Prime on Saturday, January 19, 2008 11:41 AM
 Texas Zepher wrote:

We could be bumping it with further comments on the actual entries themselves. 

TZ:

Very well.  </silly hat>

I think it's great that these layouts were all so different.  This happened last time, too, and it was a surprise both times.  I expected more overlap.

They're all pretty good, too.  I'd say I could have a blast running 3/4 of the entries if they suddenly appeared in my 10 x 12 spare room with one door on the left end of one long side. I even think the S & PF could be fit in if the curves and track centers were tightened up.  The plan submitted has reasonable HO figures for these dimensions.  I feel a bit bad for shortchanging the S & PF in voting; it's a good railroad, but I would have liked it a little better if it could be run continuously, somehow.  (Of course, PR and K-U couldn't, but...)

The K-U probably got an unfair advantage for the stylin' art, but it's also really unusual in being slanted toward passenger trains.  It's pretty much an interurban, with some trolley thrown in, as far as I can tell. To properly run the K-U, you'd need dense, scheduled traffic, and lots of meets. I'd love to see a backdated version, run with small Forneys or other steam tanks. You could remotor and add trailing trucks to some Lifelike Teakettles and come close for cheap.

Regarding the K-U, I also think that a fork pointing the other way somewhere around Tomari would be a good addition.  Perhaps it could serve a very small station in the UL corner.  This would detract a little from the elegance of the plan, but it would allow four different routes for trains or MU cars.  A double back-to-back fork is a classic trolley plan.

One thing that detracts, in my mind, from the K-U, that I did not notice before, is the presence of corner view-block backdrops.  I know why they're being used, but I find them to be visually jarring.  When I'm running a train, my focus is continuously on the train.  Discontinuities in the scenery are distracting.  I think this sort of vignette scenery is popular today because it looks good in photos.  However, the view-blocks could easily be removed, and the scenes blended together in some plausible if abbreviated why.  Imagination can gloss over the compression.

The LS Works, which I didn't vote for, would be a really neat layout to build in portable form, on one level, and take to train shows.  You would really wow the rubes and experts alike with something like that, with trains going every which way switching cars from point to point in the mill.  To increase the action a little, a fast clock could be used to schedule movements and plant operations, but these themselves would take closer to 1:1 time.  I think animation of mill equiment and lots of lighting would do a lot for this layout.

I'll see if I can collect any more thoughts... 

 

 

 

 Currently president of: a slowly upgrading trainset fleet o'doom.
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Posted by Driline on Saturday, January 19, 2008 12:52 PM
 Texas Zepher wrote:

I think this thread has lost its focus and the recent posts are discouraging rather than encouraging others from participating in the voting.   hmmm maybe it needs some hampster pictures to attract attention.

We could be bumping it with further comments on the actual entries themselves. 

Don't be an old stick in the mud! I vote for more HAMPSTER PICTURES!

Modeling the Davenport Rock Island & Northwestern 1995 in HO
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Posted by stebbycentral on Saturday, January 19, 2008 3:33 PM
To bump, or not to bump, that is the question...Wink [;)]

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Posted by steinjr on Saturday, January 19, 2008 3:53 PM
 Texas Zepher wrote:

Snover & Port Fuller - DQ for being too large HOWEVER, it certainly looks like this is HO scale.  The turnouts are almost 9" long, the track centers on parallel track is 2".  I believe if this was done using 6.25" long #6 turnouts, and making the parallel track on 1.25" centers, reduce the radius of the curves to 15" or so and it would easily fit into the given space.  Why is the staging yard double ended on a point-to-point operating scheme?  Seems a lot more could be fit with stub ended yards.  Maybe make one run around for use when making up the trains before the operating session.

 Turns out it actually was designed as a H0 scale layout, hence curve radii and track spacing. At least according to the submitter, who mentioned this over in the Layout forum. So it probably should have been listed in the H0 scale section instead of N scale section.

 But I agree with TZ that it could have been changed to N-scale, curve radii and spacing reduced, and then it should have fit fine in a 12x10 foot room.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

 

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Posted by steinjr on Saturday, January 19, 2008 5:05 PM

Status voting Saturday 23:59 hrs Central European time:

34 people have voted this far (at this time the last to vote was ChristNH). As of now, there are four layouts running neck and neck in the overall category (within a spread of 5 points - ie one single #1 vote can change who is in first place). Voting will continue until 23:59 hrs EST Monday (05:59 AM Tuesday Central European Time).

 Not everybody has followed SpaceMouse's voting instructions, so a quick recap of his voting instructions: "Vote first for your overall #1, #2 and #3 favorite, then add which layout was your favorite H0 scale layout and which was your favorite N scale layout", ie:

 Overall #1:
 Overall #2:
 Overall #3:
 
 Best H0:
 Best N:

 Here is a link to Chip's web page with all the layouts (right click on link & select "open in new window" in several web browsers, if you want to leave this window in this thread in order to vote after you have studied the designs).

http://www.chipengelmann.com/Trains/10x12Contest.html

Smile,
Stein

 

 

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Posted by marknewton on Saturday, January 19, 2008 10:59 PM
 Autobus Prime wrote:

I'd love to see a backdated version, run with small Forneys or other steam tanks.


I'm about to head off to work, and I'd like the time to reply to your post properly, but in the meantime, here's a quick comment. The Utsube line did start out as a steam tramway, with trains powered by these little engines,





A Japanese-language page on the early days of the line is here:

http://www2.cty-net.ne.jp/~muramasa/index.html

I realise most of you won't be able to read it, but you can all enjoy the pictures!

Cheers,

Mark.
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Posted by snagletooth on Saturday, January 19, 2008 11:55 PM

Overall #1: Kintetsu Utsube Line (HO #5). This trackplan seems very versatile. With just slight changes in scenery, it could be a European tramway, or a turn of the century American interurban or county seat trolley line. Being narrow gauge, you just add one switch somewhere for an interchange and turn it into an industrial narrow gauge or Maine two-footer. Anyway you do it, it's definetely a detailers layout.

Overall #2: Altoona & Jonestown (N #2). Modeling mainline operation in a bedroom with it looking like a spaghetti bowl, even in N scale, is a tough job, and he tackled that hurdle nicely.

Overall #3: Buffalo & Sesquehana (HO #3). IMHO, I feel the staging needs some rethinking, but overall a real nice switching layout.

Best in N: Altoona & Jonestown

Best in HO: Kintetsu Utesbe Line

 And some real good ideas all around to everyone    

Snagletooth
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Posted by stebbycentral on Sunday, January 20, 2008 10:31 AM
 steinjr wrote:

Status voting Saturday 23:59 hrs Central European time:

34 people have voted this far (at this time the last to vote was ChristNH). As of now, there are four layouts running neck and neck in the overall category (within a spread of 5 points - ie one single #1 vote can change who is in first place). Voting will continue until 23:59 hrs EST Monday (05:59 AM Tuesday Central European Time).

Here is a link to Chip's web page with all the layouts (right click on link & select "open in new window" in several web browsers, if you want to leave this window in this thread in order to vote after you have studied the designs).

http://www.chipengelmann.com/Trains/10x12Contest.html

Smile,
Stein

So as they say in Chicago:  "Vote early. Vote often." Smile,Wink, & Grin [swg]

I have figured out what is wrong with my brain!  On the left side nothing works right, and on the right side there is nothing left!

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Posted by SpaceMouse on Sunday, January 20, 2008 5:28 PM

I figure I should probably vote.

First of all, I want to say that there were a couple designs I liked but figured there were problems with the execution. I liked the Lower Susquehanna Works, and would have ranked it high, but I didn't think the small diseil switcher could make the 5% grade with any kind of load especailly on a helix. I liked the Progressive, but it did not take advantage of the space.  Nor did River Valley. In the end, it worked out this way for me.

Of all the layouts, The Kintetsu Utsube Line is probably the best thought out, but it lacks the two elements I like about model railroading, continous scenic running and the ability to make or break trains. I could live without one but not both. In the end, the few switching moves would become monotonous. I does however, make for some great modeling.

The Snover and Port Fuller is an nice plan despite the fact that it uses 20% more space than the guidelines calls for.

Okay, enough jabbering

N-Scale: Altoona and Johnstown

HO Scale: Buffalo & Sesquehana

G Scale: Drunken Trolley

Overall:

1. Buffalo & Sesquehana
2. Altoona and Johnstown
3. Kintetsu Utsube Line  

 

Chip

Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, January 20, 2008 5:39 PM
Lets count up the votes! Who wins!Smile [:)]
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Posted by SpaceMouse on Sunday, January 20, 2008 5:47 PM

 TrainManTy wrote:
Lets count up the votes! Who wins!Smile [:)]

Voting ends Monday Night Midnight

Chip

Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.

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Posted by steinjr on Sunday, January 20, 2008 11:29 PM
 SpaceMouse wrote:

 TrainManTy wrote:
Lets count up the votes! Who wins!Smile [:)]

Voting ends Monday Night Midnight

Or to say the same in a totally non-ambiguous way - voting ends at 11:59 pm Eastern Standard Time on Monday Jan 21st - not quite 24 hrs from now.

 By request from SpaceMouse, I am keeping a running score. 36 people have voted so far. Top three layouts are still within 5 points (1 single best layout) vote of each other.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

 

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Posted by SpaceMouse on Monday, January 21, 2008 10:11 AM
Your vote counts.

Chip

Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.

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Posted by DigitalGriffin on Monday, January 21, 2008 10:36 AM

My votes:

Overall

#1 Big Fork & Diehl

#2 Philadelphia & Erie

#3 Appalacian Central

For Scale:

HO-Big Fork & Diehl

N- Appalachian Central

Honerable mentions: (I know these don't count)

Kintetsu Utsube Line - It's a model in simplicity emphasizing scenery.  Problem is I'm a continous loop kind of guy.  Sometimes you just want to watch the trains go.

Lower Susquehanna Works - I really like steel ops, and I think this is a clever layout.  I know how really hard it is to get a full steel works into a small space.  I've gone through no less than 6 plan redos myself.  But two levels is a bit much for a 10x12 room. 

Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions

Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!

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Posted by SpaceMouse on Monday, January 21, 2008 1:14 PM

Chip

Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.

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Posted by beegle55 on Monday, January 21, 2008 2:52 PM

Some very interesting trackplans... Here's my vote

Scale:

N-Appalachian Central

HO-Philadelpia & Erie

Top 3:

1.) Appalachian Central

2.) Philly & Erie

3.) Big Fork & diehl... very interesting trackplan to say the least

 -beegle55

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Posted by SpaceMouse on Monday, January 21, 2008 4:44 PM

Chip

Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.

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Posted by vsmith on Monday, January 21, 2008 9:30 PM

If this was Chicago, I could have voted 2 or 3 time by nowWink [;)]Whistling [:-^]

   Have fun with your trains

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10 x 12 Layout Contest: Voting ended - link to results.
Posted by steinjr on Monday, January 21, 2008 11:24 PM

 The voting has ended, result tabulated, and posted in a thread of it's own. Here is a link to the results:

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/1332632/ShowPost.aspx

 Smile,
 Stein

 

 

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