And now for something completely different

After having spent a good part of the last year focused on fine-scale british practise, I’m now looking towards my ‘first’ obsession – the railroads of the USA. I’ve learnt a good deal of lessons from each of the layouts that I’ve constructed, tritely distilled as thus:

- Black River (HO Milwaukee Road): 1:87 is too large to fit mainline ops into my space
- Panhandle & Santa Fe (1950′s ATSF): Prototype fidelity is not an excuse for a lack of ops (and does not automatically guarantee engrossing ops)
- CSX: Miami: Operations alone to not a layout make

From those I believe I can get a distinct set of requirements for my next venture:
No fake mainline operations[
For example, having a double-ended yard bisected by a road bridge (which infact is the end of my baseboard) is a fine compromise in design. Having a spur running front-to-back on the layout as a ‘mainline’ that I can park trains on for photo ops is ridicolous. A switch crew signing on, collecting papers, enacting the switch job and tying down is not ‘fake’, but pretending to get train-order clearance on a track which doesn’t exist is.

Defined, thought-out operational jobs and exercises
I believe Byron Henderson first introduced me to the idea of having discrete operational jobs on a layout which can be operated sequentially by a single layout owner – his Houston Port Terminal railroad has physically demarcated areas on a single board which interact with each other. I believe by not having to repeat the same actions for every operating session, boredom can be suppressed.

Pleasing models/paintschemes
I went into the CSX:M project deliberately not caring for CSX’s paint scheme or the aesthetics of the layout beyond simple physical representation of industries and roads – this carried the layout to an operational standpoint, but without any ‘wow’ factor it was incredibly hard to keep my suspension of disbelief.

Right now, my other givens and druthers are panning out as so:
- N Scale (I have a large investment in N-scale stock, track and tech)
- A shelf layout of no larger than 10′ x 1′ , with a possible 7′ extension in an L arrangement
- Modern boxcars, tank cars and hopper cars
- 2nd Generation GP units
- Ideally no need for staging tracks (branch crew tying down), otherwise integrated to scenic sections.

Further information will be posted soon.

 

LSWR C14 – This is a turtle race!

It’s been a while since I updated with any ScaleSeven shenanigans, so I thought I’d post the progress of my Connoisseur C14 (aka Nellie/Polly – I just can’t bring myself to call it Nellie, sorry). As of this moment everything above the footplate is complete bar a tidy-up, and the chassis is built with hornblock compensated bearings installed.

Left to do on it are:
Fitting the hornblock retaining plates and springs
Fitting the pickups, decoder and associated wiring
Fitting the brake hangers/linkage and sanding pipes
Fitting the coupling rods (they’re already built)
Priming, Painting and Lining

I’m off to see Peter Mann on Sunday, and will hopefully get some insight then. I’ve already learnt a whole bunch about kit building. Next up is something much larger – the current favorite is another Connoisseur kit, the LNER J15 0-6-0 Tender locomotive.

 

17 Square Feet – Part Two: Rumination

Hand-laid model railway track

Over the past few weeks I’ve been trying to allocate time to my model railway hobby, but I keep coming away feeling unfulfilled. I think it’s because I’m reading a direction to aim for out of all of my previous experience but beyond that initial push I’m essentially rudderless and drifting.

My experience with track laying in S7 and in EM has shown me that I quite enjoy the entire process and particularly the end results, and my experience with building the Connoisseur Models starter kit has shown me that brass kit construction isn’t all that hard either.

Having recently signed up to the EM Gauge Society I’ve also come to read that valve gear can be transplanted from one wheelset to another without undue stress (my experience rewheeling a jinty was alot more brute force-based when it came to factory-fitted coupling rods).

This means that steam is no longer completely out of the picture for any future designs. I think it would make sense to cut my teeth on a pre-BR design with inside valve gear to ensure that I can actually do it all properly, but I can’t see any major hurdles to re-gauging a Standard 4MT (my holy grail) with some practise.

So, my givens at this point are:

Functional at no more than 11′, extension for increase operational ability permitted (i.e. double ended fiddle)

No more than 18″ wide

EM Gauge, hand laid track that’s not too complex but authentic

Design-wise and aesthetically I have a few points in mind too:

No belpaire fireboxes on non-tank locos (firm)

Mainly-inside valve gear steam locomotives

Not bucolic in layout design

London, Manchester or Edinburgh based

Yet more decisions.

 

17 square feet – what really IS possible?

10’6 x 2′ isn’t a large space, but it’s one I can dedicate freely to a layout without having to worry about ‘setting it up’, or converting a room by hanging L-girders off the walls, or clearing the junk out of my spare room or spending the next 20 years building it.

“Nothing is Enough for the Man to whom enough is too little” goes the quote, and I’m trying to find positives in this choice of space. It will be manageable and cheap, disposable and easily stored.

The problem I seem to run into regardless of theme, scale or locale is that in such a small space there are compromises to be made which are almost inexcusable. There are three scenarios which seem available to me – either british in OO or EM, or N gauge American.

With the space entirely precluding 1:87 American trains and my large collection of post-transition era ATSF stock, a yard-based operations-focused layout set in the late 60′s would make the most sense. In the space available I could accurately model a branch yard, with local yard switcher duties being represented. The unfortunate lack of meaningful run either side of the layout would mean that no wayfreight or through trains could be run, which limits the appeal of yard ops and by extension – the whole layout’s purpose.

For an EM layout, all locomotives and stock would need to be re-gauged, re-wheeled or otherwise modified. This essentially means it’s a no-go for the steam era. By focusing on fidelity (which is why we’re hand laying the track) it would require similar fidelity in track plan and scenery to not seem incongruous. A greater fidelity in track layout and less compression means that really only a section of station or mainline would be possible to model in this space – which means that operational interest post-completion would likely be limited in nature.

The dark horse alternative is to create a layout with hand-laid OO gauge track – this would allow RTR steam locomotives without scary rebuilding for a nicer setting than privatisation or banger blue. It does beg the question however, that if I’m going to hand lay the track, adjust the coupling system and spend some hours on this, why not just learn how to re-wheel a steam loco and go the whole hog in EM?

Decisions, Decisions.