Sort of N Scale Question of The Week 7/25

[chuck geiger]

Hope Del doesn't mind if I pinch hit...

"How far will you bend the LDE curve on the building of your layout, if
you're following the Layout Design Element practice?"

I have had to bend it several times on The SD&AE, had to fudge track
plan, river scene, backdrop and now buildings. I can't scratch build every
building in a scene from BING or GOOGLE EARTH.

[delamaize]

Thats fine, we had a nasty thunderstorm come thought yesterday (it is thursday here now, 1am) I just got my internet back.

Anyways, as for the question: I bend the rules a whole lot, consitering my short line I am modeling never existed, and basicly is the reminantes of old logging ROW stiched together in google earth. Although, IMHO it is beleivible, and it was consitered in the 1920's.

[mark dance]

I bend the LDE approach "a lot" on the C&W although I still try and follow it as closely as I can where space allows.  I try to retain thing in this priority:

- order of stations, junctions, grades and major scenic features like rivers and lakes
- the minimum trackage necessary at junctions, yards, industries and stations to enable prototype car movement from my target period
- trackage to enable interesting car movements which may have been abandoned before my period but which I wish to reinstate to make operations more interesting
- specifically scaled down versions of railway physical plant (i.e. stations, shop, servicing and MOW buildings and trestles, tunnels, retaining walls and bridges)
- trackage in prototypically-correct orientation (i.e. relative location and lengths of siding and spurs to main trackage)
- industrial buildings
- other buildings & scenic features

So I throw out things in reverse order to this as necessary and to make everything fit.   This being said I would never compromise the order of stations or major scenic features as it would throw off my operators who know the prototype well.  And I would never hear the end of it.

Hope that isn't too confusing...the philosophy helped me squeeze most of 2.5 subdivisions into a 20'x20' garage.

md

[TiVoPrince]

Rule 
of more applies.

The more you want it the more you will do to make it fit...

[Bremner]

I am debating this myself...so far, my plans change a date of a fire to use a standard SP depot instead of an art deco one built in 1939...

[packers#1]

I've never tried the LDE system...no wonder my layouts typically suck in terms of trackage

[BCRail_FSJ]

I follow as closely as I can given a 12 x 10 room.

Priority is to get all LDEs in the correct order.  Yard track diagrams are taken and then edited back to the minimum trackage that can fit in the space.
Viewblocks are used to separate scenes that, in reality, are spaced several miles apart.   Bridge lengths, building sizes and overall structure density may be reduced to avoid crowded scenes.

Nice-to-haves include 'representing' prototype grades via hidden helix climb to upper deck

Things that irritate me but which cannot be helped include curves that have to bend the 'wrong' way to negotiate walls (i.e right turning yard leads on prototype that have to be bent left in the modelled scene.

Overall LDE goal is for the scenes to be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the area.   In my case I am putting a large emphasis on achieving this look via the backdrops.   If someone walks in and says "Hey.. that's that rail bridge over the Peace River near Fort St. John" I know I have done my job (Even though the bridge is one full span short).

A.T

[chuck geiger]

Bremmer, doing the same thing in El Centro, the depot there was of the Colonaide design, I'm thinking
how one of those yellow SP Combo depots would rock there. I ain't no architect!

[Bremner]

Bremmer, doing the same thing in El Centro, the depot there was of the Colonaide design, I'm thinking
how one of those yellow SP Combo depots would rock there. I ain't no architect!

I know the feeling, the SP had a type 22 in Casa Grande that burned down in the 1930's, replaced it with a modern depot in 1939, that burned down in 2009. Walthers has announced that they are going to be selling a built up type 22 in N based off of a 1970's kit. There is also a craftsman type 22

and a type 23

so I am pondering, build a craftsman kit, scratch build what is correct, or wimp out and let a Chinese factory worker that has never seen a SP depot build it for me...