Like the title says, what layout inspired you? Was it the Virginian and Ohio, the Goree and Daphited, or another? FOr me, It was a combination of the Pennsy layouts that have been shown in the magazine over the years, and the Virginian and Ohio. (Edited:I Had Virginian and Ohio, but for some reason it didn't look right to me)
(My Model Railroad, My Rules)
These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway. As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).
Jimmy_Braumand the Virginia and Ohio.
McClelland's layout was the _Virginian_ and Ohio. Great layout, worth getting the name right.
To start MRRing? None, in particular. I just enjoyed looking at any and all layouts and drew my own conclusions about what I wanted to eventually model. Course, that's taken a number of years to congeal. Now realistic layouts like the MA&G and Iain Rice designs turn the cogs in my head, not to mention a few very talented forum members on here like doctorwayne and jon grant.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
This is my 3rd time into the hobby, this round the retirement one. Just back to it in the last few years, the MR Virginian was an inspiration as to what I might do with a moderate size (mine is 5-1/2/x 10-1/2 HO) layout. Multiple levels, scenery, ballasted track, etc. Plus details such as the benchwork approach. A good example for me, including that I can take on things I never attempted before.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
The "Red Rock Nothern" was my base. I modified to fit my wants/needs. It is 9' x 11', i started mine at 8' x 10.5' but recently had to move it to a climate controlled out building that we aquired and it will be 8' x 23.5' when done'. Love my wife's idea for the out building being she wanted the spare room where the layout was being built.
The layout that inspired me was the layout my father would put up for Christmas. Probably a 4x6 set on bricks in my living room. It switched every year. One year it would be HO Tyco Santa Fe Passenger. Then the next year it was an O gauge Lionel switcher from the 50's. An O scale Plasticville(before Bachmann) city was put up even when the HO train was set up. We had the red school house, church, ranch home, farmhouse, barn, the impossibe to build chicken coop, and train yard house. My father's layout was special in my youth. And even though it wasn't that fancy, it will be the one I always remember. No offense to anyone, but I would give up all these layouts built or highlighted on this website to run trains again on my father's. Love you Dad! Rest in Peace.
Joe C
For N Scale it was the Clichfield project layout in MR.I had a HO switching layout at the time and shortly there after I was back into N Scale building my freelance Clumberland,Dickensonville & Bristol Ry or CD&B Ry for short on a 36" x 80" hollow core door..
As far as HO.Its gotta be the Kinnikinnick Ry and Dock that MR did as a project layout in the early 70s.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Dick Elwell's Hoosac Valley. I like all of the craftsman structures on his layout and how each one fits very nicely with the rest of the layout. He does not overdo anything, the weathering and detailing is just right.
I grew up just south of Chicago, so I always saw plenty of real trains while out on the roads being driven around as a youth. I also played with my dad's late 40's-early 50's Lionel, then my older brother's HO Tyco stuff. By age 11 (1984) I had my own Model Power N scale set. That held my interest for a few years, but by the time I hit high school, any train stuff I had was only collecting dust except at Christmas. All during that time my twin and I dutifully went to the grocery on Friday evenings with our mom just so we could convince her to buy the latest Model Railroader or RMC on the magazine rack.
Then about 5 years ago, in my mid 30's, for some reason I remembered something about my early interest in trains, so I picked up a few current issues of MR and realized the layout I was remembering was the San Juan Central. And that led me to build up a little fleet of Blackstone HOn3 stuff, and I'm currently--while biding my time in Texas temporarily--working on an Inglenook Sidings layout to have fun with. My goal a few years down the road is to do a version of the San Juan Central, but a little more practically--wider curves so locomotives can actually run, etc. But the atmosphere and ambience of that layout is what did it for me as a kid and got me back into the hobby later in life. In a summer of 2010 issue of MR, there was an article about Rick Huntrod's layout based on the SJC, and I thought that was phenominal.
Bruce
Three clubs in southeast Pennsylvania come to mind...since I am native to Reading PA. The RSME outside of Reading was probably the place I learned the most from and continue to apply that learning in my current ventures. The GATSME in Ft Washington (now looking for a new home) and the Chelten Hills club in a northern Philly suburb have been a tremendous influence for years. One other layout that was of private ownership in Mt Penn, PA was a fully automated analog layout of the Pennsy. Just relays and elementary electronics. I saw that incredible layout 35 years ago and have never forgotten it.
Mark H
Modeling in HO...Reading and Conrail together in an alternate history.
I loved reading the layout design articles in MR and RMC which combined a location (real or imagined), historical context, roster, and operational scheme.
None of the local clubs really inspired me because I could not translate big ideas to a home layout.
For period modeling, Irv Schulz's St.Clair Northern was a wonderful inspiration.
Another favorite was the work of Hayden and Fray.
Kevin
The biggest impact for me was seeing the many articles and pictures on the St. Clare Northern by Irv Schultz and Bob Hegge's Crooked Mountain Lines. They were both so well executed and highly detailed especially for the period they were built. I also was motivated by the old layout of the Baltimore Society Of Model engineers. I visited it many times during the late 1950s and 1960s. It was the first outside 3rd rail O scale I'd ever seen.
Roger Huber
Deer Creek Locomotive works
Dean Freytag's South Ridge Lines
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)
A couple of years back, I had the opportunity to visit the Franklin and South Manchester by George Selios. This is one of the great rich-scenery models. I was always interested in this kind of scenery, and had already started trying to do my own this way. Seeing George's work with my own eyes, and seeing it in action, showed me what could be done, and pushed me to make my own work better.
But, I would be remiss if I did not mention Weekend Photo Fun. Week after week, I see my fellow modelers raising the bar of what a quality model railroad scene can be. Perhaps we can think of WPF as a "virtual layout," an aggregate of scenes from around the world, coming together for a weekend to show off and inspire. To me, this spirit of sharing and discussion is what the hobby is all about.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
The Tehachapi Pass layout at the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. It was not that I wanted to build the layout, or even a small part of the layout, but that I wanted explore the hobby.
Richard
For me it would be the HO layout in the basement of the Colorado Railroad Museum, the Denver HO Model RR Club. My father would take me there on Thursday nights on occaision. That layout along with the Gorre and Daphetid inspired him and me. A little later on for me it would have to be the Cat Mountain and Santa Fe, as well as the Utah Belt.
At first, Gorre and Daphetid
later, John Olsens Mescal Lines and Jerome and Southwestern
Malcolm Furlows San Juan Central.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
Folks have mentioned a lot of layouts that have inspired me, many from different aspects of the hobby, ranging from the V&O to the Jerome & Southwestern. But if I had to name a top 3 that most inspired me, for different reasons, they would be the Kinnickkinick Railway and Dock for the variety of switching possiblities and the concept of the car ferry staging; the Sunset Valley for the realistic operations concept; and Carrabasset & Dead River for the outstanding, yet very simple, everyday scenary.
Mine was /is Cliff Power's MA&G.
And Members here, Kentucky Garry (CB&Q), Grampy's Trains, and Dr. Wayne, never fail to impress me.Crandall too.
Johnboy out.
from Saskatchewan, in the Great White North..
We have met the enemy, and he is us............ (Pogo)
Well, for me, several come to mind. Probably the most impressive to me was Harold Werthwein's Erie RR; also Lionel Strang's Allegheny Lackawanna Southern. And, as I have limited space, so I'm into small switching layouts, probably most notable is a layout featured in the May, 2001 issue of MR: Jonathan Jones' Atlantic and Western. I do have one regret, however. I lived in the Dayton area of Ohio when Allan McClelland was an active modeler and I never got to see his layout first-hand. Allan lived in a southern suberb of Dayton, either Miamisburg or Moraine, but I can't remember which one.
I've drawn from so many over the years but three standout. John Allen's G&D for it's magnificent scenery, Allen McClelland's V&O for its operating concept, and George Selios' F&SM, for its urban settings.
The last several project layouts have inspired me, like the Virginian, Winter Hill, and Bay Junction. I have also been inspired by a switching layout described under the title Voodoo and palmettos in the "how to" section of the MRR site.
Well for me, It was my fathers lionel set around the Christmas tree, then follow by my Uncle's Liionel basement layout. then I discover the Gorre & Daphetid, San Juan Central, both of which started me with my Atlas Yardmaster layout. For a more modern look I like the Utah Belt.
The East Bay Model Engineers Society layouts of the early 60s. The layouts were housed in a large Santa Fe owned industrial building that straddled the city limits of Emeryville and Oakland, Ca. Visited those layouts when I was about ten, couldn't get enough of the magic and came away idelibily marked.
regards, Peter
" No offense to anyone, but I would give up all these layouts built or highlighted on this website to run trains again on my father's." - Joe C
Great answer, Joe.
Mike
Modelling the UK in 00, and New England - MEC, B&M, D&H and Guilford - in H0
Gate 5
Without a doubt, John Allen's Gorre and Daphetid.
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Irv Schultz's St Clair Northern piqued my interest and Jerry McGee's P&P showed me that early rail (1900's) was really possible.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
For me it was Tony Koester's AM. My first issue of MR was the second part of his two part spread, to which I still have the origional issue. Now the cover was lost years ago. And to a slightly lesser extent Allen's V&O.
I haven't read every reply, so maybe I am the first to say this, or maybe I am not, but nobody's layout inspired me. I just decided to enter the hobby and started building my first layout. Sorry.
Rich
Alton Junction