Or How Practice and Experimentation Develop a Master Model Railroad Plan Over Time!
At this point in my life I have played with five different layouts, even though the bulk of the first layout was never built. Space has been my paramount issue, whereas I never seem to have any. Then somewhere in my second senior year of college, I struck upon an idea that transformed my room from that point forward. I built a loft style shelf, 2x4, over my desk, and then expanded it with a 4x7 over my bed. These lofts had a base height of 55”, which allowed me to sit completely up in my bed without hitting my head. With this space in place, my layout then had a home. I then designed three layouts in this space over the next year.
My first plan was too complex, resembling a merry-go-round that would have been fun for roller coasters but a logistical nightmare for any other operations.
The emphasis is on a small desert depot [complete with engine facilities in the desert lowlands [pink track], a junction line on the middle level [light blue track], and a mining spur on the highest level [green track]. The grades are horrendous, the accessibility is minimal, and this layout would have been a complete disaster.
My second could be called the plan that went just one grade too far.
I hould have known it was too complex when it took not one but three sub plans to make full sense of this monstrosity:
In short, this plan featured the same humble desert depot, but this time I moved the engine facilities so that I could build them along the visable edge of the layout. This way I would be able to remove the backside of the roundhouse to enable visitors to see inside – the benchwrok has a minimum height of 55”.
I got so far at to attempt the upper grade construction, but in building it I simply could not make the grade work, so I properly gave up and removed it. I then focused on just the bottom two layers, still ending with something that was not gratifying. In the end, this layout was both too wide for the room and it was built in a way that outside visitors could not see much of the layout itself. Onwards to the next plan!
For the third layout, I chopped a foot off the 4x7, making it a 3x7, and was content to build the final non-functional dust collector layout.
Those who are familiar with Armstrong designs will see a rather familiar friend staring back at them. I did not have the Armstrong book on hand and it was only after I drew this plan that I was made aware of Armstrong’s pre-existing design. In short, I have my now familiar desert depot, an orchard, a double track mainline, and a small branch line featuring an under-and-back-over spur line. I then went so far as to include a small narrow gauge highline running independently on top of the bluffs, connecting an area of burnt forest with an area that would have been a mining town nestled in a pine forest. The bridges would have been spectacular, but naturally my stay in this apartment ended before I got much further then finishing all of the lower track work, finally finishing all of the foam work, covering it all with plaster cloth, and getting the primer brown paint down.
This whole time the layout was supposed to be at least somewhat sectional to facilitate easy removal when the day came for me to move. The doorway and the large 4x7 quickly proved this theory impossible and it all quickly came apart in a matter of minutes. The scenery was broken into sections when I moved to my uncle’s house, where I figured I might put something back together.
At my uncle’s house I found an area in the library where I could put the layout. I rebuilt the bench work, making it simpler and better. This time I used pure 2x3s in the construction, which I found to be overkill but rather nice nonetheless. This layout moved along until I realized I really would not have an operating layout when I finished. One summer weekend I then dismantled this layout and moved it up to my upstairs bedroom. I cannot locate a plan, but this is not a problem; I incorporated this old layout almost completely into the new layout.
This plan provides the jsit of this layout: I kept the depot where it is in the Third Trackplan, but then I coiled the under-back-and-over into a curve; I turned the orchard and otherwise, that was it.
The upstairs layout came quite a long way as far as layouts come and represents my best efforts combined with my worst methodology yet.
This layout would have been fun but it never did get finished. Indeed, I did finish all of the proposed track work, and I was just moving on to proper wiring when I ceased construction. I did run trains though, so this was at least more successful than previous layouts. Major sections of scenery were also finally wrapping up, with the last rounds of rock molds rounding out the ridges. But in the end, my life took a different route and I moved out of my uncle’s house to live with my girlfriend. I found it hard to work on the layout at my uncle’s, and really disliked leaving the room unusable. I finally chopped the layout up one afternoon and moved my stuff to a storage unit.
I mentioned that this was my worst methodology yet; I say this because in my dismantling I identified no less then ten different styles of bench work construction. Indeed, noting seemed to be unified in constructing this layout except perhaps the width of the track gauge. In short, I did not plan the bench work, but rather simply built it to meet the tracks. The result did not survive the move very well, and I completely dismantled the entire thing when I moved out.
Thus I embark on Layout 6: The Storage Unit Layout.
