This looks a lot like the "N"

This looks a lot like the "N" Scale layout I built in 1976. I had alot of fun with it and the biggest problem is I'm a big guy with big hands and I was constantly knocking over strings of freight cars in the yards while using the 5 finger switcher. Other than that It was fun building up and breaking down trains and running them around the layout but I gave the layout away as well as most of the cars and went back to HO in 1977 or 78. My biggest gripe was I hated the huge out of scale couplers on "N" scale back then.

I thought about building the same layout in HO scale but went with a SP & Santa Fe across the southern & western part of the U.S.

Dan

The Long Reach

Maybe my plan would be better in N scale.  The mininum radius through the city blob is 32" on the inside track.  With  double  track centers at 2 3/16" , I ended up with a "square of  38 3/4 inches times two for a total width of about 78".  The yard throat behind the Union Station is accessible only for construction and maintenence as the reach in distances are excessive - not a place for problematic track work.

Although I designed my pike for multi-era operation it seems to be finding it's identity in the transition "golden age".  This allows for a robust and interesting passenger service, reefer blocks, overnight's on the SP, and any number of mixed freight dailies.

I also appreciate the appeal of the SP and ATSF through the southwest.  I really like the black and silver Santa Fe first generation diesels while the blue and yellow paint scheme of the seventies and eighties has to be my all time favorite.  I also liked the Walthers kit for a Santa Fe "mission style" depot so much that I had to get one despite having no place to use it.  Maybe when my pike is past the annoying loose end stage I'll build a linkable module to incorporate  a Santa Fe depot scene.

The Lilliput Logger

   Although I began my current layout during a month of rain in 2005, it's plan is a corrected and enhanced version of it's predecessor.  While I was well on my way to having a "finished" layout, it's shortcomings were insurmountable.    While 24" radius curves seemed generous in comparision to the 18" curves of a typical 4x8 plan, they did not support the larger equipment that I wished to run.  My tunnels were also too low for double stacks.  And while I had space in an adjoining room for staging yards, it just seemed preferable to tear the whole thing out and start anew.  This has proven to be a good decision even though it has taken five years to bring the new one into a comparable state of completion.

     While trying to settle the plan for the new layout just for fun I attempted to build a version of the "Liliput Logger" by Iain Rice that was featured in August 1998 MR. IMHO, it's the coolest plan that I've ever seen in a 4x8 format.  I had some Atlas code 83 sectional track components that came to me quite cheaply, some scraps of plywood and an old cork bulletin board so I gave it try in a couple of weeks when I was back in Hawaii between projects in California.

    The Lilliput Logger fell by the wayside once I took the plunge to demolish the old layout and start the new one.  It gathered dust on the floor under the new benchwork and gradually I cannibalized it for trees and structures. Finally I had to admit to myself that there was no point in keeping the illusion that I would ever get around to finishing it.  So I stripped out the track and turnouts to sell on Ebay.  But before I break up the rest of it and haul it to the dump I though that I would post a couple of photos here.

That's an interesting question.

I don't know if he'll answer you but Marty McGuirk sometimes checks in here on occassion.

Irv

I'm a little confused

If you're referring to my HO scale Southern New England plan that appeared in Model Railroad Planning 2000 the layout did indeed get built - in fact there are photos of it on the cover and with the article.

At the time the article appeared I'd only finished one scene on the layout - in fact the small sketch Iain did of a perpspective view of the town of Chagford was originally supposed to be the cover of MRP 2000 - but the art director and circ managers, both of whom have way more say over the cover than the editorial staff on any magazine, decided a finished scene would be much better. So, I built about 15 feet of scenery in record time!

That layout appeared in a number of short "beginner" type articles when I was on the MR staff - and we had a good time operating it. (I did finish a number of other scenes).

It was dismantled when we moved from Oconomowoc to Colorado - where I built a second version of the SNE . Several regulars on this forum were actively involved in that layout.

Between 2005 and 2008 the SNE was a simple shelf layout at one end of the basement of a rented townhome (that was a chunk of the layout from Colorado I moved here to the DC area).

When we built our current home I started the newest SNE, this one SNE #4 (it's bad when you name, and number, these things).

That railroad is presently in the early scenery/late trackwork stages - see MRH for a discussion of our first "Sea Trials" operating session.

Marty

Thanks for the clarification

     I never realized that the  2000MRP cover shot was of the planned layout. Iain Rice's sketches are so detailed that it never occurred to me that you would build it with different structures.  I did see a MR article of the creating the heralds for your Southern New England Railway but don't recall  seeing any other articles published on it. Post a list if you get a chance.  I'd love to dig through my magazine pile*and read them.

     It seems that in our changing world a person has to be pretty determined to get a model railroad built.  Did any of Iain Rice's track plan survive into you current pike?  If not at least it was probably a pleasant exercise.

     My goal is to stick with my current pike and get it from so so to better.  And from better to better and better.  It that regard people like Dick Elwell are my heroes.

Requiem For a Fallen Flag

At one time I had three model railroads; an 11x24 foot walk around style pike in Hawaii, a 4x8 one based on the "Lilliput Logger"  design of Iain Rice and an 18" by 84" English style switching pike was a John Allen timesaver adapted to another Iain Rice design.

I built this one during a nine month stay in California using Bachman easy track.  I had hoped to leave the track components completely unaltered but ended up glueing them in place and ballasting as well.  I did have fun with it for about four years during my extended stays in California.  At first it was strictly for switching but after a couple of years, I moved it into a 8x12 shed annex and joined both ends with an around the wall loop. I then mostly just watched a train go round and round.

About six years ago, I was sending a container of building materials to Kauai and included all of my accumulated train purchases and the switching layout.  Since that time it has sat gathering dust under the larger layout getting ever more forlorn.  So after dispatching my Lilliput Logger to the halls of memory, today I did the same for the switcher.  I made the decision to eliminate the distractions of these other two projects and put the enerrgy into the one layout.  It's kind of like they are fallen flags absorbed into the larger railroad.

While their real estate has ceased to exist the concepts explored have enriched my current efforts. I have learned to see a model railroad as a series of concise railroad events connected by a mainline.  For that alone the effort has been worthwhile.