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Model Railroader 1938 February
CONTENTS
STARTING A LAYOUT
PEORIA & WESTERN RELOCATION
THE LAYOUT GREW AND GREW
THE ERIE & EASTERN RR
MODERN SMALL LOCO
ALUMINUM CAR SIDES
THE CALIFORNIA CENTRAL
THREE NARROWLY EXCAPE DEATH IN FREIGHT WRECK
Lay Out Your Track to Fit Your Requirements.
TRACK layout is one of the major problems
1 confronting the model railroader, and yet it is a problem which is incapable of any general solution and which must be solved by each individual to suit himself, his equipment, his gauge, and his space.
One, two, or all of three fundamental purposes must be served by any layout: First, the mechanical necessity of running locomotives or trains smoothly and efficiently; second, the operating purpose of making such train and switching movements as will most nearly approximate real practice; and third, the scenic purpose of making t h e layout seem part of a real life but small scale picture.
Best layout for most of us will probably be one combining all these ideals, but for you in particular one purpose may be enough. You may like to build loco-motives and test them out. A plain oval of track, well laid, and with few or no switches, will allow you to run your locomotives smoothly and efficiently and as continuously as you may wish.
I may want to simulate actual operating practice and at the same time have a layout that will allow mechanically perfect running, so I'll have to add to your ideal layout more switches and a rearrangement of line such that I can not only have smooth and consistent operation but also making up and breaking up of trains, meets between trains running in opposite directions, setting off of cars, and so on. A layout of this type may not be possible in the average space without sacrifice of some of the purely mechan
ical points of perfection. For instance, every addition of a switch carries the idea farther from the ideal of the man who merely wants to test equipment.
The classification where scenic perfection is the goal is hard enough to plan by itself, but if it must be combined with mechanical simplicity and operating realism it is a talking point much aimed at and seldom achieved.
Unless you have the municipal auditorium for right of way, you must make big concessions if you hope for any degree of success in building a layout which is a real small scale picture of railroad operations and scenery. Try to imagine yourself on a hill looking down over a stretch of railroad, getting an over all view of the scene, the trains, the right of wav and accessories. That's what you want your model railroad to look like.
We think the best way to tackle the problem is to reduce the extent of what you try to model. Instead of trying to reproduce an entire railroad, concentrate on one portion. Model a terminal, for instance, and do a good job of it. Have only enough main line to get trains out of the terminal and into it again. Make a scenic excuse which indicates that the main line goes on farther, for instance a tunnel in which the trains can stop for a time and apparently come out from a different direction. Or model main line with a small division point station and yard, thus providing only sufficient terminal facilities for necessity and not obstructing the main theme of reproducing a main line.
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