It Ain't Necessarily A Binary Choice

While I agree that a good small layout can be fun to run and that it's probably easier to build a smaller layout to a uniformly high standard than a large one, it seems to me that it's not a binary choice. Layouts of all sizes can be built with qualities ranging all over the spectrum.

There also is, in this opinion piece, a conflation of large with complex. While larger layouts tend to be more complex in the real world of modeling, there is no law stating that large and complex must go together. It's quite possible to build a large layout that is simple in concept, design and construction. Jim Six's layout comes to mind (see MRP 2010).

There seems to be bias in the hobby towards class 1 mainline operations and the equipment available from most manufacturers seems both to reflect and re-inforce this bias. It's too bad, as a branch or secondary mainline can provide sufficient traffic levels to maintain interest without requiring a car and locomotive roster that rivals that of the UP or requires an investment of time and money usually reserved for large scale construction projects (.e.g. the Panama Canal).

Mike

I think as well

that you can still start small and plan for expansion and determine once you complete the first phase if you want to go on.  With each phase being its own self-contained piece, you may decide you just want to continue with the smaller size or not fully expand to each phase because it takes too long or money is short or you'd rather just detail your initial phase or two more.   

I suspect that many are influenced by the hobby press.

The hobby press seems to be fascinated with huge model railroads modeling class one railroads with long trains going vast distances.  The other extreme that is presented is the 4x8 starter layout.  There seem to be few layouts presented in much of the hobby press that are in between.  Moedel Railroader does a series of challenges to design a layout to fit a typically spare bedroom and all of the layouts seem to be aimed at filling that space, or at least all of the layouts they chose to feature.  I would like to see them suggest that same small bedroom but with the restriction that part of the room must be a work space and part of the room needs to be left as a lounge.  Lets see some more small layouts to medium sized layouts, bigger than a 4x8 but smaller than the monster layouts they so often feature. 

Poor argument.

Why is it that you think larger layouts have more derailments?  My layout is 38 x 70 and didn’t have a single derailment at the last run session. I think there are more problems with people trying to squeeze every last bit of track into small spaces. Quality of track work and painted rails have nothing to do with size. Granted it may take a larger layout more time to get to that finished look but you get really board running the exact same 8’ section of track for several months in a row. Larger layouts just allow more friends to participate and enjoy the layout. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that my operators were bringing 70+ car trains fully weathered to put on the layout so the desire to see their equipment in a scale environment exists. I have nothing against small layouts they all have there reasons for being built. Why do you have something against large layouts?

David, I think you missed the point a bit

Joe has a very large layout, so I would suggest he isn't "against" large layouts.  The point is, for many of us, large layouts are a dream but often not a reality.  For me at this point, I dream of a large layout, but reality is a mid-sized layout is likely all I'll be able to do.  I took this as more of a reality check - really examine if you have the time/money/space to do a large layout.  A lot of people dream of the big layout and end up building nothing.  

The point is, if you only have the space/time/money for a mid-sized or smaller layout now - build it.  Don't wait around for the time/space/money for a large layout because you may never get it and you'll have nothing.  Build the smaller layout and if you get time/space/money for the bigger layout, you've learned a lot building the smaller one.  I'm finding that the time things take to build are substantially more than I first thought.  Working on this smaller layout will allow me to get a better understanding of what it takes as well as learn what I'm doing.

Not at all...

David,

I know for a fact that Joe does not have anything against large layouts or any layout for that matter.  I'm sure Joe will be along soon to comment.

Bigger = more work for same performance level

My only point is that larger layouts will generally have more turnouts and thus more derailments - all things being equal.

You can certainly have a large layout with lots of turnouts and have it work well. But that's not an accident - it's because you either handlaid/jig-built those turnouts to a level of precision that ensures good performance, or you took the time to tune the commercial turnouts you used.

A good performing large layout is a little luck and a lot of work - and smaller layouts will be less work, and with fewer turnouts, a bit less luck will be needed, too.

I too was on my way to

I too was on my way to building a Very large Railroad but long story short, with an act of God and the economy I settled on starting with a 14.6 ft X 26 ft room and my  HOn3 Narrow Gauge Railroad equipment and will be building around the walls 20 inch wide shelf.

About the article "Bigger is not always better" I have to agree but too small can be just as bad as too big.

TOO MUCH is great for the Clubs but for the single home Pike where you can do everything on your own without it becoming a massive chore and still be large enough for a few friends to come over or have your Wife & son or daughter join you and have an evening of fun to where the following day if you take all the cars and put them in one yard or at one end of the layout your not messing anybody s waybills or car cards up.

At the same time if you build a simple single main line Pike with minimal passing sidings it means less turnouts to cross. Smaller slower speed trains and you can still have wide open areas between towns like I'm working on now with only 20 feet from end to end allows you to see everything and still have plenty of detail work to do but not so much that you spend years and years setting over a bucket gluing foliage to mini trees or tacking spikes into hundreds of thousands of ties.

After 18 months listening to the members here at the MRH forums I think it finally hit me that you don't need to build the whole US rail systems to be able to enjoy model railroading and you can break away from the 4x8 sheet of plywood once you find the room and money to get past the chain saw era of model railroading and still not run wild and keep the railroad manageable.

Joe has really said a lot for us to think about with this issues and especially with his Article "Bigger is not always better"  everybody needs to read it and then think about it after reading. Maybe more of us will get off our duffs and possibly start buy building a simple shelf railroad in a 10X12 foot bedroom with 18 to 24 inches wide shelf around that room as a starting point. Construct it with top of the line flawless track work and some perfect operating turnouts. Get a couple of Quality engines and follow the advice Joe has laid out and you'll have a lot more fun than just watching a train run at top speed chasing its own caboose around a small oval. As someone was heard to say that gets old real fast.

Great Issue and Really GREAT Article Joe.

Dan

It's easy to say "Smaller is

It's easy to say "Smaller is better" when you have the perfect sized layout in your basement already!!!

Huh?

Huh? If the basement layout size is perfect, how can smaller be better? You're not making any sense ...

Dan Wilson

The editor who wrote this

The editor who wrote this column happens to have a very nice layout in his basement - but it is anything but"small" or "mid" sized.  It's what I call "generous" sized, and otherwise perfect in proportion - particularly if you are in HO.    The only differnece between a large layotu and a small layout in terms of construction is that you have to repeat the process of the small layout a number of times to get a similar product - but the amount of time to get a small scene "complete" is relatively small if you have a good organized system of operaiton and a good work space where your tools are stationary an in the right place when you need them.

I've played with 10x10 sized areas...and I long for the days where I have 20x30 or more...because then it gets really fun in how "far" your trains get to travel.

I have figured out a way to use all those unrunning locomotives in teh collection...I'm planning a locomotive servicing area and by putting them there, they'll be "On Deck" where they can wait for me until I get to rebuilding them!

But it's scary how much space such a terminal consumes, and fast!!!  Roundhouse, turntable, backshop, boilerhouse, powerplant, transfertable, carshops, tendershop, and then the main locomotive shop...But that's where the fun all begins!!!

That depends...

That depends on a number of factors. Just because a layout is smaller doesn't mean to say its always better. Too many modelers try and cram too much track onto a 4 x 8 board, or even some of the shelf-type switching layouts in the belief that more spurs means more action.

I know I will never have a large layout, but then again I will be a single operator. If I want more then I go to my club. I have a room 13' x 14'. It also doubles up as the guest room and the laundry area, with certain walls out of bounds. Currently the layout is 13' x 5'6" but planning permission has been given for a shelf layout along three walls and a peninsula! I could easily fill the area with masses of tracks but would I be able to operate it? No! So it will be fairly minimal (along similar lines to Dan mentions above) but enough to keep me busy.

Yes, I wish MR and other magazines would show layout designs that take into account that spare bedrooms are just that, and not just a spare room! They do invariably with basements.

Brian

Yes, I wish MR and other

You mean like the one on page 61 of the April 2010 issue?

tend to agree from a personal standpoint

I'm without a doubt that some guys can get their VLL's running like a swiss watch, but the upkeep would have to be a constant. The largest I've built was HO modern shortline in a 10x16ft room. The theory that a layout runs better the more you run it is also proving true.

My current N scale pike fits in a 3mx3m (9ft sq) space. It's about as large a scale area as I want really. I'm very pleased and proud of the scenery that I've completed and ops should be fun too..  but I've got the bug to get back into HO and try a N/E urban layout.

I read Iain Rice's article in the MR supplement about making smaller pikes and the waste of materials when a large layout needs to go but can't be moved. If they're made in modules of what ever size, they can be sold to someone else to enjoy if all else fails. The idea of a larger pike but done in stages has become very appealing to many. In fact after over 25 years modelling, I'm excited by the prospect of a 4x8 with an extension. I've noticed a trend to smaller layouts anyway, but the idea of an operating diorama is very appealing. I don't have a factory floor like area that Mr Selios does (sigh),but the skills I've aquired over the years and can be all pushed further with a smaller pike because I can cover all the stages more rapidly. Once done, there's space for sure, so I can extend it and have at round two...and so on. The other bonus I've figured is I can more readily move the pike to a show or two every year. Just hire a truck ,van or trailer and away I go. Mind you, my secondary driveway rolls right into my shed..but you get my drift I'm sure.

btw, my big plan is to find some more space somewhere and build a modified version of the "Fund raising layout" by the chaps at Scotty Mason's Show and adding a modified port extension from the Jerome and SW. It will have little swivel casters so I can move it about when needed. This will be then taken to shows with the pitch that it doesn't take a lot of room..or what can be done on a 4x8 sheet...

cheers

Andrew.

and another thing..

I would also venture that this article also had in mind that there are more layouts out there that never get anywhere near completed before the change bug strikes.. been there done that.

I might wager that this might be a larger percentage of them out there..I could be wrong of course.

So angling "back" to a smaller layout which can be completed to a satisfactory level in less time would be a good thing.

cheers

Andrew.

Sounds nice

Andrew, your N scale layout sounds nice! Got any pictures to share (on a different thread)?

Charlie

Spare room

I'm not sure how to say this, but that hasn't stopped me before.

I don't know how many times I've seen threads on various model railroad forums where the person who started the thread wants to model a class one with what seems like multiple lashups of the latest 6 axle monster power, or a steam era Big Boy,cab forward, or Allegheny, pulling long trains on a 4 x 8 board in ho scale!  Living in the Los Angeles area, there is no way that I can afford to buy a big enough house to have a large dedicated railroad space.  Any long trains or big power that I run will by necessity have to be operated on some sort of club layout.  I have space for a medium sized switching layout that I will build in my home once I finish all of the "honey do's" my wife comes up with.  I guess I would like to see the modeling press recognise that in some parts of the country a basement is virtually unheard of, and property is expensive enough that constructing a building in the back yard to house a model railroad is not an option economically.  If all of my model railroading ideas came from the modeling press, I would think that a model railroader must be a millionaire. 

Agree

Andrew, I agree, I agree and I agree.

Did I mention that I agreed with you ?

Yosemite Valley

Well, it's bigger than a shelf layout in a spare bedroom, but Jack Burgess' Yosemite Valley RR is constructed in a SF Bay Area 2 car garage (rather than in a basement). MRH covered Jack and his layout in issue #3. So, there's a layout we covered that isn't in a $xxx,xxx special purpose building or in a 3000 sqft basement. There'll be another garage dwelling layout in issue #7 (Jim Dias' Western Pacific).

If we find a high quality bedroom or switching layout you bet we'll be happy to cover it.

FWIW

Charlie - MRH Layouts and Media editor

_No_ small layouts?

Perception is a funny thing, I guess it always depends on how each of us sees the world. I've been reading (and writing) a number of articles on smaller layouts over the last year or so.

Of course, if you're not considering N scale, it rules out a number of them. But it's sure intriguing to see what can be done in N scale on a hollow-core door ... maybe on casters to pull out into a spare room (my M-K-T in Dallas article in Model Railroad Planning 2010)

In that same issue, Donovan Furin's HO scale layout is two shelves in a room -- each shelf less than two feet deep. Not to mention my friend Bart Bakker's nifty HO shelf layout squeezed into a tiny Dutch garage (with the car!). That could easily fit around two or three walls of a typical spare bedroom in the US.

As mentioned, there is an HO room-sharing 9'X11' layout in the April 2010 MR.

The HO shelf layout in the October 2009 MR is a bit larger, but would fit easily in a garage bay (certainly a popular layout space prevalent in California)

The N scale plan in the November 2009 MR is 18" X 96", but a surprisingly similar plan could fit in nearly the same space in HO (without the elevation).

Iain Rice's recent book is nothing but shelf plans in a variety of scales, many of which could share a room. Likewise Lance Mindheim's shelf layout books.

[And of course, some guy wrote an article about a 5'X7'X2' deep HO layout in the July 2009 issue of MRH].

Not so recently published (Great Model Railroads 2006), but I thought of his layout when I noticed Bruce Petty posting on the MRH forum. His San Fernando Valley inspired layout is just terrific. Before he added the continuous-run and Sun Valley extension, I think it was about 10'X12' in HO in a spare room.

And those are just the articles and books that came immediately to mind, all published by the commercial press. So it seems to me that there's a lot of inspiration out there for those with less than a basement to spare, but of course that's just my perception.

My layout 15x9x9 U shaped is

My layout 15x9x9 U shaped is in a one car garage and it is N scale. I have to deal with what i have. Yes i have dreamed of a much larger space but this is it. I would also like to see more medium sized layouts in the magazines. The huge layouts are just a dream for most people but they do give me some ideas that just may work on mine. I like seeing the huge layouts but please sprinkle in some medium sized also.

Dave 

Size vs Complexity

Also.. lets not confuse size and complexity.

I have seen small N scale layouts that have more track then anything I have designed for my 13x20 space.

If a lot of the layout involves single track running through one foot deep scenery then you are going to have less complexity then one where the track doubles through scenes and is packed with switching and industry at every foot even if it is half the size.

As I build my layout I have tried to avoid getting trapped into excessive complexity. I know that my space exceeds my current time and budget allowance.. so I design to my ability to produce. One of the reasons I am working on a Northern New England prototype is I can avoid dense urban scenes and excessively complex trackwork. It is easier to achieve a higher scenery to structure ratio.. structures being a huge time sink..

My goal is not to pack as much as I can in the space I have.. my goal is to keep 5 or 6 folks busy. That doesn't take as much as one might think..

Chris

Wisdom

I believe Chris speaks wisdom when it comes to cramming complexity into ever square foot. If I'd designed the BC&SJ with something (besides countryside) in every foot of the layout, I think I'd have no chance of finishing it (instead of merely a half-decent chance).

George Selios is a king of scenic complexity. I admire his craftsmanship (greatly admire) but that's just too much for the three of us working on my layout (me, myself, and I).

So I'll happily keep the fairly long runs through 'scenic vistas' in between the towns I do have.

Cheers,

Charlie