Ed's Florida East Coast interest . . .

[Erik W]

goes back a long way.  I was just perusing the January 1995 issue of MR and noticed that the Ask Paint Shop question on page 175 was an Ed Kapuscinski asking about FEC paint schemes.

What surprised me even more was a photo on page 182 in the same issue of a young Matt G, of Fox Valley Models fame, at Dreamers Hobbies in Greenfield, Wisconsin.  Nice hair Matt!

Erik

[tom mann]

Wow, Ed was probably 10 years old.

[Sokramiketes]

Oh man, we've been nice enough not to mention that photo in public...  But now that you did, we may just have to post it up... 

[AlkemScaleModels]

goes back a long way.  I was just perusing the January 1995 issue of MR and noticed that the Ask Paint Shop question on page 175 was an Ed Kapuscinski asking about FEC paint schemes.


Erik

I too am interested in the FEC. I was curious about Ed's comment that you would need a gymnasium or something like that to model it. I wonder if he could explain why he feels that way.

If you haven't checked them out yet, there is a FEC yahoo group with some nice oNeTRAK modules. They are down in Florida (no surprise).

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Why need a gymnasium? There are a bunch of reasons.


The FEC's ROW
Unlike mountainous (or even hilly) regions, the FEC mainline is FLAT FLAT FLAT and relatively straight. Their old tagline was "Speedway to America's Playground" and they weren't kidding. In the 1920-1970 (I think) era, they were a double tracked dragstrip. This means that in order to really capture the essence of the FEC, you'd need long linear scenes with stretches of double (or single) track. This just takes up lots of room.

FEC Operations
The incarnations of the the FEC that I like are as a fast railroad.
I forget what track speeds generally were, but I'm thinking at least 50mph if not more. Unlike most other railroads, the FEC was primarilly mainline running. It's not like it had a slew of branches into the sunny hinterland. There were a few, but it's not like CR where branches were sometimes like mini-mainlines full of interesting operations.  What this means is that if you want to model the FEC, you pretty much need to do the mainline.

Additionally, the true spirit of the thing IS this mainline action. Multiunit lashups of GP40-2s (and GP9s, or SD40-2s) and TOFC/COFC trains. These are NOT things that lend themselves to modeling in small spaces.


Florida Geography and Climate
In addition to FEC's arrow straight (mostly) ROW, you also have to account for Florida's topography and climate. In mountainous areas, you can hide things (like the back of the layout) with a ridge, or even tall trees. While Florida is full of vegetation, it lacks hills to hide things behind. This makes it tough to do things like hidden staging. In that case, the only option you have IS vegetation. Which leads to another problem.
Florida's trees are tough to do. There are plenty of live oaks, and the like, but the dominant tree species seems to be those tall pines with the branches all at the canopy. First off, common model tree construction techniques don't really lend themselves to building those, and secondly, since there's not much vegetation down low on them, you've got to rely on other stuff to "hide" things. Additionally, even moreso than northeastern trees, these don't lend themselves to vertical compression, meaning that they really DO need to tower over the equipment.

I mean, take a look at Lance's Miami layout (one of the best, if not THE best FLA layout I've seen), every photo I've seen has shown a lack of trees. I'd bet that not having to worry about that is part of the appeal of modeling Miami, actually...

[asciibaron]

I too am interested in the FEC. I was curious about Ed's comment that you would need a gymnasium or something like that to model it. I wonder if he could explain why he feels that way.

because you could actually model nearly the entire railroad in that kind of space.  351 miles compressed is totally doable in a gym.

-Steve

[wm3798]

I guess it would be too far inland to use a line of mindless lemmings waiting to get into Disney World as a view block...

Lee

[asciibaron]

I guess it would be too far inland to use a line of mindless lemmings waiting to get into Disney World as a view block...

i used to race bicycles and we had training camp in Mt. Plymouth every March.  back in 1991 on a training ride, i took a wrong turn and ended up at a back entrance to DW - security was freaking out cause they thought i wanted to ride my bike into the park - the map i had showed a road through the park that had long since been gone.

that same trip we rode to Daytona Beach - it was biker week.  we saw a car get creamed at the grade crossing on Route 42 in Daytona Beach - the train was easily doing 60mph and the driver was lucky - he walked away.  ruined our ride since we had to ride though massive traffic on the strip and up by the airport.

those FEC trains go fast.

[AlkemScaleModels]

Why need a gymnasium? There are a bunch of reasons.


The FEC's ROW
Unlike mountainous (or even hilly) regions, the FEC mainline is FLAT FLAT FLAT and relatively straight. Their old tagline was "Speedway to America's Playground" and they weren't kidding. In the 1920-1970 (I think) era, they were a double tracked dragstrip. This means that in order to really capture the essence of the FEC, you'd need long linear scenes with stretches of double (or single) track. This just takes up lots of room.

FEC Operations
The incarnations of the the FEC that I like are as a fast railroad.
I forget what track speeds generally were, but I'm thinking at least 50mph if not more. Unlike most other railroads, the FEC was primarilly mainline running. It's not like it had a slew of branches into the sunny hinterland. There were a few, but it's not like CR where branches were sometimes like mini-mainlines full of interesting operations.  What this means is that if you want to model the FEC, you pretty much need to do the mainline.

Additionally, the true spirit of the thing IS this mainline action. Multiunit lashups of GP40-2s (and GP9s, or SD40-2s) and TOFC/COFC trains. These are NOT things that lend themselves to modeling in small spaces.


Florida Geography and Climate
In addition to FEC's arrow straight (mostly) ROW, you also have to account for Florida's topography and climate. In mountainous areas, you can hide things (like the back of the layout) with a ridge, or even tall trees. While Florida is full of vegetation, it lacks hills to hide things behind. This makes it tough to do things like hidden staging. In that case, the only option you have IS vegetation. Which leads to another problem.
Florida's trees are tough to do. There are plenty of live oaks, and the like, but the dominant tree species seems to be those tall pines with the branches all at the canopy. First off, common model tree construction techniques don't really lend themselves to building those, and secondly, since there's not much vegetation down low on them, you've got to rely on other stuff to "hide" things. Additionally, even moreso than northeastern trees, these don't lend themselves to vertical compression, meaning that they really DO need to tower over the equipment.

I mean, take a look at Lance's Miami layout (one of the best, if not THE best FLA layout I've seen), every photo I've seen has shown a lack of trees. I'd bet that not having to worry about that is part of the appeal of modeling Miami, actually...

OK, I can see where you are coming from.

In my mind I would take a different approach. I would pick a couple scenes where there were interesting structures or industries to switch. I'd model those with little compression and high fidelity. Then I would connect a few of these scenes (or LDEs if you prefer) with a mainline run including at least one cool trestle, and lots of staging, preferably in a loop to make restaging easier. The high speed stuff would run through, while I focused on the local switch job, even if it is only one a day. The high speed stuff is almost "moving scenery" to quote Will Ayerst of Model railcast.

The last time I was in Florida I happened to chase a local switching near Melbourne. While he was working the local gravel/concrete industries an intermodal came blasting through.  That's the kind of action I would attempt to simulate.

I tend to disagree with your assessment of Florida vegetation. In my memory the tree lines tend to be solid walls of dense vegetation. The pine grove trees you describe don't jibe with my memory of Florida flora.  Sounds more like the terrain at Ft Bragg, NC.

The lack of elevation and dense subtropical forest works well for a narrow shelf layout, especially if it is at near eye level. In the prototype, since there are no hills, your line of sight is normally blocked by trees, buildings etc. At ground level you never have much of a view.  This becomes especially apparent when you try to get good rail fan shots. It's hard to find decent places to shoot due to all the obstructions.


That's the approach I would take if I wanted to do FEC in a smaller space.  If I ever do a volume two trackplan book, I intend to put a FEC plan in there using the above philosophy.

[TrainCat2]

And Don't forget the FEC Bascule Bridge and thru trusses in brass (you don't think I took all those picture for nothing, do you?).

As for vegetation, Ed is forgetting that central and northern Fla does have those pine trees. But under them is a thicket of low large frond palms and palmetto grass. Can be quite "slicing" experience to go through them. You find this type of ground cover until you get to Palm Beach where urbanization has removed most of the natural vegetation. Weeds and other trees are dominant south.

Lances Miami scene is really remnant of the 50's & 60's when the area was walkable. Today, you would need to include a police escort and Lance's layout would need a few murder scenes and drug busts.

[3rdrail]

Ed's talking about a "woodlands division" forest, managed by a paper company. If you look at a certain angle, you'll find that all the trees are in straight rows because they were machine planted. The underbrush is kept in check to permit the timber to be harvested. That's perhaps ten percent of the forest lands in Northern Florida and none South of Ocala or Daytona. The natural forest is a mixture of hardwoods, pines and tall palm trees, with lots of undergrowth of palmetto and yaupon.

The old ACL line from Perry South to Tampa paralleled 98 and 41 from Perry to Cheifland, at times about 50 feet away. In the 1980's, SCL had at least 20 miles of cars stored on it. You could only see them at creeks. You sure could hide staging behind about 3 inches of this stuff in N scale!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Well hmm... this is more doable than I thought I guess. I think one of the stumbling blocks I had was that I was thinking more about an "railroad operations" based layout as opposed to a single "job operation" based one (I'm gonna go trademark those now, btw... )

If you're only trying to do one job as a real interactive part of the play, and the other trains are moving scenery, then I think it may be doable. I'd actually LOVE to see someone try it like you mention, as I think that's entirely doable.

(Just for clarification)
Railroad Operation - The layout mimicks a "chunk" or a railroad's ops, including multiple "jobs" that would keep a few operators busy for a little while (ie, there's a yard job, a local or two, and some road jobs).

Job Operation - The layout mimicks one single "job" on the railroad. Basically a subset of the previous idea, where the focus is on one train, essentially. Other trains could be appearing, but, as mentioned, as "moving scenery". This is what Bernie is talking about above. 

[wm3798]

Sounds like a TTAMT entry in the making...  I'll work on illustrating the RR-ops angle based on my modest efforts...

Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Damn you Lee! I just started working on that...

[DKS]

I just started working on that...

But... but... you're not mad at anything.

Are you sure TTAMT can stand the strain of a positive story?