Geographic Discontinuity In Layout Design...

[up1950s]

Thanks for the inputs...  Just some further info...   The layout itself is around the walls with an island, "blobs" on each end.  Essentially designed as a "dogbone" with the "return" that allows continuous running along a back wall.   The space is around 17x23 and the mainline length - including the semi-hidden return (behind a backdrop) is around 120'.   

This is a repurposing of my existing benchwork, with the addition of the blobs, which was done to eliminate a duckunder in the old layout. 

The railroad being modeled is modern NS, and the subroadbed (WS foam) is 85% complete - and laid as a double track rr  (most of the cork roadbed is in place). 

Recognize I was repurposing the benchwork, which leaves me with a number of "does this make sense here or there" type decisions.

I am leaning towards completing the RR as a "representation" of the NS Pocahontas District.  In fact, my son and I have planned a little vacation around the N Scale Convention
to spend several days railfanning there.

I have convinced myself that with little chance of an operating crew, I'm better off building a double track RR that I can sit back and watch and build equipment and structures
for.   One idea I have is to interleave a single "branch line" in and out of the backdrop to represent the many, many coal branches on the prototype...

- Lou

So that's about 4 real world railroad miles . Linear would be great for a yard and or business district . Most people would use all that space to have cameos of desired scenes connected and blended as best they can .

[Denver Road Doug]

I struggle with this same issue as I make design decisions for my next layout.   I have gone all over the map (no pun intended)... from creating a fairly generic representation of the overall area with no specific scenes or spatial order, to print-screening all the Google earth shots I can to make sure I got it right.   

My biggest problem is that one area I model is both very unusual (read challenging model railroad features) in its arrangement AND very well know with numerous railmag appearances and an annual railfan event.   So if I don't "get it right" then I might as well just go generic so that it is hardly noticeable what I'm trying to do.   I realize that some people don't get worked up over such things, but I do.   Like most of these issues, mine is nothing that cannot be solved with a little more space and right now I don't know exactly what that space will look like.   But I wonder what decisions I will make when I have the proverbial gun to my head.

And the other amusing connection here....my *current* layout is very much exactly the worst nightmare...I designed it with no particular prototype in mind, and then decided after the fact to cram my prototype onto it.  I'm mostly ok from the linear standpoint, but the with a couple of things out of order.  But as far as "which side of the track" things are on, I'm pretty way off.   But anyway, I'm happy with it...it's obviously a concession I'm willing to make in lieu of no layout at all.   

[Rossford Yard]

Again, on the realistic note, in your space, you will be lucky to get one, maybe two or three scenes in that really capture the prototype.  If faced with the choice, I would do those few really, really well over doing six or seven half way.  It always takes more room than you think.

When we started laying out the Blue Island Crossing, I started with 11.5 crossings, after measuring them at 12 in aerial photos (no, I would not build custom crossings to get within a degree....) I soon tried 22 degrees to save space, and ended up needing 30 degrees, which actually looks like the photos, given perspective that compresses angles in even real life.  Even that scene takes up one wall to do right.  I can't think of too many layouts with a better signature scene - however, in operations I now realized I have somewhat more limited switching ops compared to other layouts.

So that takes you right back to the typical MRR dilemma - would you prefer a lot of way stations for switching fun, or a prototype running layout?  Most would end up selecting more fun at the expense of realism, but it goes back to you pre-thinking every layout idea you think you wanted and setting priorities.  We hope to help with all this good advice, but as you know, its eventually up to you.

[randgust]

My first layout was very much the 'build it first and stuff the prototype on it later' approach.

It all started innocently enough.  I had one of the Pola swiss-looking stations on the layout for Flagstaff.   Then I corresponded with an NMRA member in Flagstaff that got me actual photos of the building, and I scratchbuilt a slightly shortened version of it to fit on that first layout.

The next year it was Winslow,,... then the tower at Winslow....   then the car shop at Winslow..... and before you know it I've got a handful of very accurate buildings in a very inaccurate setting.

So with the help of USGS topo maps I started designing a whole new layout that actually made any sense at all, for the scenes in the photos and some kind of operational flow as well.   And I designed it to be modular as I figured I'd move before it was done.  I was wrong on that one, I've now moved three times and it has survived.

It's really worked VERY well, I've been very happy with it, and years later I've been able to add more and more prototypically accurate features to it, and they FIT, because the track plan made sense from the start, even if I had no idea at the time how I'd ever do such as thing as, say, scratchbuild La Posada, which at the time seemed more than impossible to do.   Now it's done, as well as EVERY structure on Santa Fe Ave. in Flagstaff, seven running feet of accurate buildings, equally impossible 'way back then' when the layout plan was all paper and dreams.

The ultimate goal on this layout, and I may never live to see it, is tearing out an interior basement wall to make space for the Canyon Diablo bridge.  All 42" of it.   But, I designed the original track plan to be expandable to fit that scene on the outside edge of the existing layout with the chance that maybe, just maybe, possibly, I'd ever be in the situation someday to do it.

So the work you spend now in the planning phases is worth the headaches.   You'll never be happy to keep pushing forward unless you spend the time now.

[C855B]

FWIW, in designing the GC&W I eventually had to suck it up and reconcile, or rather, settle for, flopping a couple of locations out of sequence since the "eastern" terminus preceded where these important LDEs came in real life.

The rest of it? Compression compression compression. Some of you know I'm dealing with a very large space, but if I had decided to go whole-hog and do just one LDE completely to scale it would take the entire space, and then still be compromised in terms of curves in wrong directions and scenery bits on the "incorrect" side. It's just not possible to model every square foot of the prototype, that's padded-room and straightjacket material.

Anyway, my intended approach is "ambiance", where there is hopefully to be enough of a paraphrase of each LDE to hopefully be recognizable to somebody familiar with them.

[w neal]

Mr. Judice,

Your situation was exactly (nearly) mine as well. I too had to repurpose existing benchwork for a different part of the same railroad I wanted to simulate. It was scarry.

I was forced to compress the real mainline greatly. I was able to include the main passing sidings, one division point yard and one interchange that existed. These I considered the "baseline" type elements. From there, I selected the towns, major industries, river crossings, and even a couple road crossings that "spoke" to the modeler in me. I had to omit only a very few small towns and other locations along the real mainline due to space restraints. I found that the "natural" areas such as woods and farm scenes magically seem to fill in the gaps between these elements.

I should say also that I chose a smaller chunk of the prototype mainline (56 miles vs. 87 miles) to simulate.  Selecting this smaller scope helped a lot.

I suppose for me it was selecting the crucial trackagewise (is that a word?) elements, then selecting the scenic ones to "fill in the benchwork" was my formula. So far, it has seemed to work. At least two persons who know the prototype have verified that my simulation "works" for them.

I dont think in terms of "LDE"s , per se. I tend to think more about the scenes that stand out in my mind as a railfan. The woods and fields between them seem to fill in the "memory gaps" between the larger elements just fine.

One thing is certain, several trips to see the prototype helps one get an overall vision of the prototype. This vision serves as my mental baseline. It lets you know if your layout has the right "feel" to it.

[robert3985]

Lots of really good information in this thread.  Interesting how many have come to similar conclusions, used similar techniques and compromises when modeling a chosen prototype.  This is one I'll be referencing for a long time!

[rsn48]

This is one of those threads I have thought about a few times before replying and by serendipitous circumstance, I attend one of the last runs of a very well known local N scale layout, the owner moving from Vancouver.

Steve Stark's E&N layout was featured in the 1994 Great Model Railroads 1994 and has grown since then.  I can't pretend to know the layout well, I've only been three times but it is one of the better N scale offerings in the Greater Vancouver (Lower Mainland) area.

Steve handed out schematics of his layout and included a listing of cities and towns it served and the RR starts in Seattle then to Bellingham Washington, then jumps to  Courtney; Courtney is the furthest northern town the E&N served on Vancouver Island, then the towns descent southerly until Victoria and Point Ellis.  So geographically not "logical."

What I find is I respond to how a layout looks, does it have "wow" factor and is the track plan a good one; only then do I pay attention to other aspects like geographical continuity in design.  And that is how I responded last night to Steve's layout, the over all quality is quite good and geographical discontinuity all though present didn't bother me.

What I notice more is when layout owners come out with convoluted explanations as to why they are running certain equipment or RR lines that weren't part of the prototype they are modelling.  On my layout, sometimes it will be CN, other times CP, finally Montana Rail Link.  Rather than giving a convoluted explanation as to why this is, I'll just say I like these three RR's and I just want to have fun, forget the crazy explanations.

But I know our hobby attracts the Sheldon's (Big Band Theory) of the world and I know it would bother them, so I would say being geographically true will appeal to one segment of our hobby but they are a minority, so other than yourself, who else are you making happy?

[TiVoPrince]

Favourite
all time layout to operate was a collection of trackwork snippets.  Bits and pieces from all over the Santa Fe.  Some were correct original images, others mirrored with transition elements that were pure fantasy to knit it all together. 

In many ways I thought of it as a rock bands greatest hits album.  Some tunes were as originally recorded, couple of re-masters and a tribute or two.  All together a pleasing experience that may not be exactly in the original sequence but when distilling out stuff you don't want, take a chance to re-imagine everything. 

Make it yours, even if its just a mix tape...

[wm3798]

I think it's a necessary evil required by the compression of hundreds of miles of real geography into a few feet of layout space.  My Western Maryland layout started in Hagerstown, then 6' later you're in Cumberland, which should have been past Maryland Junction, but instead was before, then there were the coal mines right up the hill from the passenger station, which by rights should have been 100 miles away...

It's part of playing the game, really.  Not everyone has Tony Koester's basement, nor his OCD complex.

Bottom line is, there were vignettes I wanted to include in my track plan to make the operations function like the prototype, and vignettes I wanted to include in the scenery to make it appear like the prototype.  Because of limited space, I had to compromise on one to get the other in many instances.

In the above shot, Maryland Junction is the tower, which should be about 30 miles east of the Westvaco plant in Luke, Maryland.  Behind it is the Connellsville sub, which doesn't pass within 25 miles of Luke, and the coal loader shown in the foreground is at Shaw, WV, which is about 20 miles west of the scene. 

We do what we must do to make the railroad look and work the way we want it to, not necessarily how it looked in the real world.


Lee

[arbomambo]

I must agree with all of the above who have had to make concessions, to the point of modelling a 'mirror' image of the design element, to be able to include it...
I've ha to do the same thing on the HCD 'Kingman Canyon' ... the area that most folks, familiar with Kingman Canyon, know as the bridges over Holy Moses Wash, is not only mirrored on my layout-it is actually an amalgam of a couple of different areas in the Canyon where the upper/Eastbound tracks use plate girder bridges, and the lower/Westbound track uses ballasted deck timber trestles....
Although I would have preferred to model a particular location with super accuracy; the HCD layout wouldn't allow it-I decided to capture the flavor of the Canyon, using the unique rock formations to pinpoint the area.
~Bruce

[Kentuckian]

"Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story." - Garrison Kellior.

A good layout tells a story.  We are trying to give substance to what we see in our mind's eye, to communicate a vision.  An n scale mile is about 33real feet.  Even my "dream" layout is about 3 scale mile of mainline.  Shoot for the ambiance, the flavor.

[High Hood]

A good layout tells a story.  We are trying to give substance to what we see in our mind's eye, to communicate a vision.

Exactly!  I'm a modeler who definitely believes in capturing the feel of the modeled area. 

[Guilford Guy]

The RPI layout does this between Albany and Montreal with scenes from a wide geographic area. Honestly, watching the trains wind through the prototypical scenes means so much more than them teleporting wildly around the state of Vermont every 8 feet.

[Kisatchie]

I don't have a layout, but the one I'm planning will not follow precise geographical order. Most of my planned layout will be flat to rolling hills. I'm hoping I won't need to work in any mountainous scenery. I definitely don't want long tunnels, or any tunnels, for that matter.



Hmm... I bet Kiz's layout
will look lumpy...