SeeYou190Close should be good enough. I think the room shape would be critical in order to capture the feel of the GORRE AND DAPHETID.
I would agree Kevin. So I will assume you took the time to actually look at my plans and have seen they are very close to the exact configuration of John's.
John had a very strange shape to work in with large alcoves on either end of his cellar that created a hard to copy diagonal room space. Even with the excavation work under the house he had only a 7'4" ceiling height and three main support posts remained within the layout itself, one directly under his living room floor was later removed and this became a subject of humor and repeated warnings to visitors to walk near the walls as they entered.
I am very lkucky to have an 8'3" ceiling height and no support posts here at all to deal with. So my Devils Post Pile and Eagles Nest Restaurant will have nothing above them and they will look as they should, as a mountain top. I am sure John wold have liked to have had that option. Any changes I had to make to fit the room might create changed angles of approach or differing radius's as some place may sit slightly askew to John's original. I will also have narrower asiles in some places. But there are many improvments and lucky enhancements that fall into place as well. I now have access to the wall beind the entire Great Divide Yard area where John had to use a difficult access hatch. Also access behind what he called "Cold Shoulder" and Andrews. I also have a full floor beneath the layout so I do not deasl with the humidity problems in the summers here and I can run wiring in shorter runs wiyth easy access. John's rather "odd" cellar floor plan did required three additions added to the second floor of my garage to create a similiar space. But it worked and so far everything is fitting fairly close.
I credit John Allen for my lifes best work in museums, and the opleasure this work has brought me as a livelihood. I am trying to simply repay this gift by honoring his legacy and bringing his incredible fantasy world back to life using these same skills that were, in many ways, created by John himself. John deserves to have his layout brought back to life. His story is so incredible and full of wonder the catostrophic ending, we all know of, has got to be changed a bit.
I can't remake his legacy nor charm nor magic, but I can make a model that will give everyone who was ever curious, a place to come and see what was lost so long ago. I hope this rebuild will gain it's own magic and bring along with it, some new young faces who will see this model and read Johns story and can totally "get" why he was so famous and become inspired to get into this hobby. I think John would aprove of that.
Please follow the build, I realise it is an odd thing to see. How many copies of someone elses layout do you ever see built? I hope that seeing one done like a museum exhibit build in a "behind the scenes" look in real time will be a fun for every modeler who cares about our hobbies history.
I welcome any information that helps me make this build as perfect as possible. This one is for all John Allen fans.
Randy Decker
https://www.facebook.com/Great-Divide-Lines-423511918192732/?modal=admin_todo_tour
John had a large portion underneath the house excavated to a deeper depth to allow a bigger layout to be built, and some portions of the layout were built on a built-up concrete section that was not excavated.
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As far as I know, the actual size or shape of the basement was not changed during this preparatory work.
If you know more about this, please add to this conversation.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
SeeYou190I wonder how much would have been different if John Allen would have had a rectangular room, and did not have to get creative to make it all fit and work.
I might be wrong, but I thought I read that John Allen had his basement built - or at least, greatly modified - to his specifications before beginning building the layout?
Great DivideThe room is not exact... but it is close...
Close should be good enough. I think the room shape would be critical in order to capture the feel of the GORRE AND DAPHETID.
I wonder how much would have been different if John Allen would have had a rectangular room, and did not have to get creative to make it all fit and work.
nycmodelI would love to see onging status photos in this forum.
NYC Hey I am in upstate NY NYC homeland... ! Please just click on my facebook page... it is set up so anyone including non members can see things. I will drop in a photo if I can find the link. Thanks for the kind words and check it out. https://www.facebook.com/Great-Divide-Lines-423511918192732/?modal=admin_todo_tour
Beautiful work on the N scale car ferry.
One of the two towns on my next layout will be named "Port Anabel" as inspired by John Allen.
My car ferry will be named "Mary Alice".
Just to illustrate how much the GD has had influence on me, I scratchbuild the famous Anabel ferry.
This was my first ship project for my port, made a long time ago; this ferry is in N scale.
Unfortunately, I didnt found any other pictures; the ship and my layout are in a container and on the way to come in Canada around the end of september.
This is a copy of the car ferry Anabel of the GD lines; I scratch this ship more than 35 years ago around 1983 - 85 from pictures of the book of Linn Westcott about the GD and some others find in MR and RMC published 40 years ago for sure.
This ferry started out of a LEGO ship hull where I glued micro plywood sides and scratch all the rest including the board by board wood deck which cost me a piece of 1.5cm of my thumb, cut away with a big cutter when cutting the wood parts of the deck.
When I will be able to take it again I whish to put and add some details on this ship which I havn't done 30 years ago.
Very nice work Randy. I've been enjoying your Facebook page and the layout looks great. Since John never did finish his G&D, the missing "high bridge", I guess you will finish the project for him. Seems like a fitting tribute to a man that did so much for this hobby.
-Mark
Great DivideThanks for the thumbs up Kevin.
It looks like the building the layout is in was built to replicate the shape of the room John had available for the Gorre & Daphetid.
How accurate is it to the size of the room John Allen had? Did you make it a little larger to accomodate smaller grades and wider aisles, or it it true to the original?
SeeYou190 Great Divide: I looked at your Facebook page, and I love what you are doing. . Please keep us updated. I really wish you would have moved to Florida when you retired so I could be a part of your project. . -Kevin .
Great Divide: I looked at your Facebook page, and I love what you are doing.
Please keep us updated. I really wish you would have moved to Florida when you retired so I could be a part of your project.
Yes sir, every time I pay my tax bill after working all my life, so I can now support those who did not, I wish I could leave NYS as well. It is the layout and some family that keeps me here.
Thanks for the thumbs up Kevin.
Randy
nycmodel Randy, I admire your attempt to recreate John Allen's G & D. I always wished I had the space and time (not to mention skills) to do that. So far it looks good but boy do you have a long way to go. Do you plan to recreate the mountainous region all the way to Andrews? You will have your work cut out for you reproducing that rock work. Do you plan to build all the bridges including the never built bridge from Scalp Mountain? I would love to see onging status photos in this forum.
Randy, I admire your attempt to recreate John Allen's G & D. I always wished I had the space and time (not to mention skills) to do that. So far it looks good but boy do you have a long way to go. Do you plan to recreate the mountainous region all the way to Andrews? You will have your work cut out for you reproducing that rock work. Do you plan to build all the bridges including the never built bridge from Scalp Mountain? I would love to see onging status photos in this forum.
Yes Sir the whole room will come back to life here. I have the facebook page and I recently joined the modelrailroadforums.com site and the G&D group on the IO groups. I will have photo's there. I just can't keep up with so many locations. This year should have a great deal of the city scape established. The 1 year mark is January 1st... so the Second year will be hard and heavy working across the back wall all the bridges and scenery to scalp mountain... and I plan to get the Devils Post Pile in with the tall wood trestle. I figure a hard push for four years and I will have most of it up and running and the scenery done. This man was a model making fool.... I have a lifetime of scale model building as a carreer and I am up to my neck keeping up with John. He was good at everything...! What a pleasure and an honor it is to build this. I owe the man a good part of my livelihood and my enjoyment of a carreer in museum work. So "from the ashes" will rise the Great Divide. I hope it can hold a candle to Johns work and capture some of that magic Johns layout seem to have on everyone who saw it. We'll see. I am trying.
Right from the Varney catalogue ads, featuring Varney products on The Gorre & Daphetid layout, John Allen was a big influence on my model railroading.
My layout bears no resemblance to what he built, but viewing pictures of his layout helped to build, in my imagination, ideas of what could be possible.
There were, of course, a lot of other influences, too, but his in particular stands out.
Wayne
Even in Belgium,
John has had a influence on serious modelers.
You must know the book of Linn was translated in french by a friend of mine, Jacques Leplat.
The GD is my friend since more than 40 years, in fact I received the original Linn book from my dad.
During my obligatory military service, this book was my bedside book and the source for my first real plan of my Maclau River.
He inspired by many facts my Maclau River in N scale.
This include my "Port Allen" and a N scale version of the car ferry Anabel.
Now I move in Canada and have the chance to bring my layout with me; new home and a huge layout room which allow me to largely extend the Maclau River.
Plan is on the way and I whish to include the famous "Sims loop"in the new design, not to gain elevation but because I have always be a fan of this turn around track around a hill; this hill will be a nice feature to do in N scale with good proportions.
One thing we must admit, the work of John was amazing for his time knowing most of the things needed to be scratch and the cars and locomotives needed a lot of tuning to run right, an achievement he realised including the whole handlaid track work.
But even if I'm a inconsolable fan of his layout, I must admit many things were crude and not perfectly modeled on his layout when you look in details the pictures.
One thing which was amazing is the whole effect of the layout and his consistency in the construction and scenery, but when looking at precise spots, the modeling is well under today standard and this is not the fact because of no disposal of materials to build or scratch models.
Anyway one of my bigger regrets is to not have the chance to see this layout in person.
A few months ago I see on this forum, for the first time some pictures of the burned basement and even if explained in the press I have never think about the layout was destroyed to such a point; this was somewhere a real chock to see these pictures.
I have had the same feeling when seeing the "snatchell" bag of burned locomotives.
This is a big lost for the model railroad world, but hopefuly the influence and the results of the influence of John work are still strong and very present for all young and older train modelers for sure.
SeeYou190 The book "Model Railroading with John Allen" by Lin Wescott has all the information you seek, but it is copyrighted material. .check with local library . -Kevin .
The book "Model Railroading with John Allen" by Lin Wescott has all the information you seek, but it is copyrighted material.
.check with local library
check with your local libray... my library (big city) has one copy at one branch...but it can be transfered to what ever branch when requested..
also seems to be checked out a lot as well
A good reason why you shouldn't leave jury-rigged stuff around. YOU may know not to use something, or how to get around the quirks, but if you're not there - then what?
Of course, that little beyond the photos survived, only adds to the whole mystique of the G&D. Or maybe you CAN take it with you, and somewhere up there a smiling John Allen is running the G&D 4, with a whole host of his former operators like Andy Sperandeo.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Trainman2005The fire was supposedly started by some heater that was never used, right? I almost feel like, somehow, John knew he was going to die, and set the heater on. Well, we can only speculate.
The original police / fire report was that the model railroad had faulty wiring that caused the fire. John's brother had a private investigation done that determined the faulty space heater was to blame. As I recall the story re the heater, some friends of John's were at his house after his death (helping go through his possessions etc.), and it's believed that one of them turned the heater on when they left in the evening without knowing it was defective.
Bob really nice work. Randy Decker
As a teenage model railroader in the 1950-60's, I was into collecting model railroad passes from other modelers. It was a big thing in those times. I had my name posted in magazines who listed those wanting to exchange passes. Got them from all over the world. Years later when going though my collection, I realised I had one from John Allen. Guess I didn't know it at the time. It was actually done on photo paper, looks like he just made small photo prints of his hand drawn pass. Quite exciting!
I sold the actual pass on eBay many years ago to a collector of things G&D. I did make a high quality scan of the pass, and printed it for my collection, which numbers around 1000 passes.
My brush with celebrity!
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
it wasn't about making the model look better, it was about the the model being realistic. I believe the modeler knew how realistic he wanted the model and John helped him see it.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
gregci also read that a modeler asked what john thought of his scratch built locomotive. John returned the model with a photographs taken of it on his layout at a scaled persons perspective. Flaws were glaring
That is interesting. Usually I can make an average model look better in a photograph taken at scale eye view with properly placed props.
I wonder if John staged the picture purposely to accentuate the faults.
SeeYou190John had a certain magic realtionship with the camera, and that made his great layout look even grander.
john was a professional photographer
i read that he was asked to photograph a billboard (or something). He spent a day watching it to determine the best time of day to photograph it.
i also read that a modeler asked what john thought of his scratch built locomotive. John returned the model with a photographs taken of it on his layout at a scaled persons perspective. Flaws were glaring. The modeler added many more detail parts and won an award for the model.
Kevin,The G&D showed up in some manufacturers cataloges,magazines on a routine bases.. I think that's why a lot of modelers in the 60s was turned off toward the G&D.
Another great modeler of that time was a SP modeler by the name of Paul Jenson or Janson.. A lot of his photos showed up in magazines and some cataloges. A pity that we don't hear more about this gentleman because he was one of the top modelers back then.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
MJ4562t was the way John photographed his layout that captured my imagination. The typical layout room overviews and construction in progress photos made it look like just another layout. But those staged photos were truly awesome.
Absolutely. The pictures of the GORRE AND DAPHETID that were taken by visitors and other modellers were awful, and the layout looked terrible in a lot of them.
John had a certain magic realtionship with the camera, and that made his great layout look even grander.
The Westcott book notes that John Allen's health was in decline for a year or two before his death. John had contracted rheumatic fever as a child, which left him with a very weak heart. He tried several times to enlist in the military during WW2, but was turned down each time because he failed his physical. Unfortunately, people who went through rheumatic fever often lead shortened lives.