More satisfying layout

You could run this article once a year forever without exhausting its importance.  

The most satisfying portion of my legacy layout is 12” wide and was built because Joe said 12” was often more than adequate on Siskiyou 1.  It looks good and provides realistic, if limited, operation  

The great contribution of Lance Mindheim to the hobby has been emphasizing SCOPE:  you can’t realistically model either scenery or the operation of the Santa Fe from Chicago to LA, but you can model realistically what happens in 900’ of that route in 10’6”x 1’0” and not die before you finish.

The most interesting question comes from Joe:  why does the hobby press continue to emphasize basement fillers when thoughtful, achievable layouts will bring more satisfaction to more people?

Scope

Because many people want to model more than 900' of an industrial lead.

Mindheim is more about constraining or limiting scope than emphasizing  or expanding scope.

Modeling 900 ft of an industrial lead is like modeling a baseball game by focusing on the person that shags foul balls along the base line.  Yes, it is still part of the game, but there is a whole lot more to the game than just that one person.  Some people want to model enough that you can see at least the shape of the diamond.

One of the things that fascinated me about the railroad, and this is from my unique perspective from working on a railroad, was the "over the horizon", big picture, scope of a railroad.  A decision that I made on Monday in Laredo, TX would affect what happens on Thursday in Chicago.  Another aspect is the interconectivity of a railroad, it is many moving parts all meshing together.  I would never even begin to approach that feeling modeling 900 ft of an industrial lead.

Some people want simplicity and that's fine.  Modeling 900 ft of an industrial lead means that you don't have to worry about 99% of the car movement and blocking characteristics and your operating movement rules shrinks down to more or less one or two rules.  But there are a lot of other people who want a larger scope and the challenge of a larger operation.

A big railroad can cover 30,000 miles of track.  If all everybody focuses on is one limited, constrained point, how will people even know that the rest of it even exists?  If you focus on less than a quarter mile of railroad, will people be aware of the other 29,999.75 miles of the rest of the railroad?  

There is room for both

The Continuum

Well said, Dave!!

My observation after more than 10 years is the Joe is near the far right on the continuum. After studying this article and some serious soul searching I have come to the conclusion that I am nearer the 33% from the left.  An awakening!

Curious where others find themselves?

EDIT: I would place reliable running at the top of the list.  Whether you are a railfan or an operator, if the dang thing won't stay on the track without stalling, it just ain't no fun! 

That's right

That's right, this article says pretty much that. Railfans prefer bigger layouts, engineers can be happy with either.

Given that an engineer can also be quite happy with a smaller layout (a big point of this article), then how do we start small but grow it easily?

TOMA - The "One Module" Approach. Tailor-made for engineer types who don't mind small with a high quality of run, but easily expandable over time.

TOMA will tend to drive the railfans nuts because of the deferred gratification aspect. They would rather fill the room with benchwork, get all the track and roadbed down, and then dream about all the great scenic vistas as they run trains through their Plywood Pacific.

After being in a club for

After being in a club for several years and having a large layout to use, roughly 24x52 feet, I can say a big layout is not out of the question.

Many things can be designed at the outset to not be massive time sinks. Remember it takes less time to do it once than to do it twice.

The only thing I disagree with in the article is the premise that a big layout will be less well done than a small layout. It seems to permeate the article. I have also found that I like both options equally when it comes to railfan and being the engineer.

Sitting down and watching a long train run around a large layout is very relaxing. It is even more relaxing if your equipment can run with no issues for hours. This little trick is very important for open houses as the train can run all day with out issue. I have had trains operate in this fashion on our club layout for the entire open house.

Nearly all of the issues with the layout have come up from folks not following standards for grade and curvature or clearance requirements. These require someone to go in and do it again. This is just as likely to take place in a small area as a large area. The guys that get in a hurry to get something done instead of done right will carry that philosophy to what ever project they are working on. 

I have seen some nice small layouts that were fun to operate on. None would allow for me to run a 100 car train through them, and that is something I enjoy.

I can say I am in the big layout camp and right in the middle of the engineer/railfan group and do not believe that the pair of choices are mutually exclusive.

I do believe that a narrow focus is what is right for me. I am modeling a fictional line that runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes but only going to model approx. nine miles of the route with scenery. This layout will be large and not nearly as compressed as most layouts and designed for operation as well as railfaning.

The ground breaking for this project is getting closer and closer.

You can't change the laws of physics

You can't cheat the laws of physics on this one, sorry. Time and resources don't some out of thin air.

While a large layout can be well done, it will take an army -- or one person with A LOT OF HOURS per week available to make it so.

A large layout will also take a LOT MORE RESOURCES to do well. You can't just pretend that's not so.

That's why I like the TOMA idea so much. If I truly believe I can finish a large layout and do it well, then let's prove it by building a couple TOMA modules to a finished level in record time.

If it takes me many months or years just to finish a couple TOMA module sections, then I'm dreaming if I think I can build a large layout to a fine degree of finish, both in performance and in looks. TOMA forces me to get realistic as to what I can and can't actually achieve without spending a fortune on a large still-born Plywood Pacific.

I know model railroaders do not like to hear that a well done large layout is largely a pipe dream all too often, but it's the truth.

That said, well-done Plywood Pacifics are a lot more achievable, but that's another topic we often don't talk about honestly: that most larger layouts tend to be Plywood Pacifics unless you have tons of time or an army to work on it.

Sums it up

I've spent many years trying to figure out what I really want in a layout and its only been the last 18 months that I really started to figure it out - one layout won't cut it.  I like to do some switching and I like railfanning (especially loooong passenger trains).  Given my abilities, experiences, patience and physical space, an HO layout would do the former quite well, but wholly inadequate on the latter given my space.  In N scale, it excels at the latter, but my patience and experiences don't lend it to the former all that well.  

So two layouts it is - a fairly small HO switching layout and a planned larger N scale layout for railfanning.  They can also cohabitate one above the other in my space.  Might be 10 more years before both are in a state of mostly complete, but that's OK.  I have my little 3'x6' N scale layout to railfan now to get my fix and my HO layout to do switching.  And I can go back and forth in seconds.

Who cares?

So?

If model railroading is my hobby, what difference does it make?  The whole point of a hobby is to consume leisure hours.  Why the the obsession that one HAS TO FINISH a layout.?  Why the requirement that unless a layout is fully finished its not worthy?

Relax.  Enjoy the journey.  Reaching the goal isn't the important thing, its taking the trip.

I just had a wonderful evening with 7 friends operating my layout.  If I was building TOMA, that wouldn't have happened for probably another decade or more.  Why would I want to defer that? 

Yes I know that you can operate a TOMA, but you can only operate what you've built.  I would have about fourteen 8 ft TOMA sections to replicate my layout. If it takes 1 year to build each section it would take a decade and a half to replicate the operation I have now, after about 5 years of construction.  If it takes me 2 years per section that would be 3 decades to get to this level.  If I was building TOMA I wouldn't be able to have the operation I have now until I was in my late 80's or early 90's.  That's no fun.

Because it does matter to some

Because we're not all the same -- it does matter to some people.

Whenever I would walk around my Siskiyou Line 1 layout, I would quickly get very frustated as I looked at all the unfinished areas, the deferred maintenance areas, and the long list of projects yet to do. I deliberately had to shut my mind out to all that work yet undone or I would just get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Any time I walk into a larger Plywood Pacific layout, I get the same sinking feeling I had with SL1. I just see a ton of work and lots of dissatisfaction if this was my layout.

I am much happier doing TOMA. I know these one or two modules is the entire scope of what I'm doing right now. The scope is just right. And I'm noticing my pocket book is fatter, too. I don't have to buy an entire room full of anything at each step along the way.

Will I spend more in the long run -- yes, but who cares. I'm having fun along the way, and isn't that what a hobby is all about? You can depress just about any hobbyist if you try to slap a "total spend" number on them over the life of their hobby!

A plywood pacific is an unread book

Like a book,  Some people are skilled at filling in the story.  A plywood pacific is a book that is waiting for the next page to turn. your mind fills in the details. It is not my fault that all you see is a white page with black letters on it.

When operating on a layout like mine as well as a few others,  the story unfolds from a blank page into something that is beyond the page.

Granted I look at it like TV, some people need a laugh track to tell them that what they are seeing is funny,  If you read a book,  your brain will do that for you.

I see people are that way with a model railroads,  their brains can not grasp the concept of imagination.   

"The (Fill in the Blank) takes me out of the (Fill in the Blank)" 

Closed minded people that need to be hand held and shown every detail vs open minded imaginative people that can see the story in their minds eye.

Well said, Dave Husman! Your

Well said, Dave Husman!

Your baseball game analogy in regard to layout scope is spot on.

operators vs. modellers

That reminds me of the time I visited a layout that was complete: great scenery, lots of details, a real showpiece with everything finished.

My first reaction was one of sympathy: this poor guy doesn't have a hobby any more -- there's no room to insert another completed kit, no place to experiment with a new scenery technique -- nothing left to do except perhaps dust it off and run it once in a while.

I guess that's the difference in mentality between operators and modellers.

Engineer/Railfan

A lot of this hinges on the binary choice of engineer vs railfan.  Just because that's what the LDSIG did a survey on, it doesn't mean that those are the only choices.  There could be three (or more) viewpoints and while you can project the position of somebody on the other axes it doesn't necessarily represent their position or motivation.

For example I think there is a third viewpoint of "System".  The system modeler isn't trying to be "in the cab", just trying to model from the standpoint of the railroad.  To certain extent the "railfan-engineer" is railfan centric, because its focused on being an individual, either on the train or off the train.  The System continuum gives the different viewpoints of whether you are an individual vs. the group (System-Engineer axis) or part of the group vs observer (System-Railfan)  or on the train vs off the train (Railfan-Engineer axis).  Any of those axes will project onto the other, but may not represent the motivation of the individual on the other axis.

For example, somebody could actually be operating on a System-Engineer viewpoint.  But their position could be mapped on the Engineer-Railfan axis (the purple line), but they aren't really modeling from the perspective of the railfan at all.  On the other hand somebody else might be operating from the System-Railfan axis, trying to balance being part of the railroad from being an observer, but might not even consider trying to be "on the train" like the Engineer viewpoint.  Once again you can map the System-Railfan modeler on the Engineer-Railfan axis, but it doesn't really represent their motivation.

Model Railroader - - know thyself

Lots of great comments, and, in my opinion, depending on point of view they're all correct.  This is a hobby, as was said, that fills in leisure time.  Before starting a layout each of us should take a very introspective inventory to determine what we want for our railroad, and what will be satisfying.  Think carefully, and write out the world-famous "givens and druthers" for ourselves.  At that point, that's all that really matters.  Is the layout fully scenic'd?  Who cares, or rather, who should care other than the owner?  Is is good for operation?  Is it based on some prototype on a mile-for-mile, rivet-for-rivet, spike-by-spike exact replication?  Does it have signal lights and a full CTC dispatcher?  Does it run in an endless circle for hours?  Only the owner should care, and if they thought it out ahead of time they will be happy. I think most others will be "sort of happy".

I appreciate all directions that people's layouts can take.  And I understand that we each can put our own slant on things.  It would be sad for someone who really enjoys the details to also want a large, fully-finished layout they build themselves, as it is most unlikely to be "finished".  And I think it would also be sad for someone who is bent on serious operations to only build one module that might have very limited operation capacity.

For myself, I'm  in the detail camp.  I made my list of givens and druthers.  I made a model of the basement and layout.  The layout will use 1,000 square feet.  I already have collected 800 feet of flextrack, and 98 turnouts.  Right now I'm still finishing the basement before I can start construction.  I know I can get benchwork up quickly.  I have a couple friends who can help put down track accurately.  ONce the track is pretty much operational, I'll have my operating group over to start operations.  Yes, it will be pretty much plywood, albeit painted appropriately.

After that, I have the rest of my life to putter with my details and enjoy watching and hearing trains run while I work.  And that's what I want and need from my hobby.

I have to wonder

based on some of the comments if some of you actually read the article.  It seems a couple great leaps to conclusions that were in no way part of the article.

The triangle

Dave you nailed it, there is a third viewpoint.  I fall somewhere near the middle of your triangle but a bit closer to the engineer/system side than the railfan side, and a bit closer to the engineer corner than the system corner.

A very interesting question is how small / simple of a layout is it still possible to get a quality “system” experience from?  For example I’ve thought of building a layout that was just a single good sized yard with staging off each end.  Something tells me it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying to operate as the same yard with actual layout hung off both ends, because I think a good part of the system feel is interacting with the dispatcher and the people that bring in the trains as much as the trains themselves.

I just finished reading Lance Mindheim’s new book “How to Design a Model Railroad” (I ordered it from Amazon) and he emphasises the importance of figuring out what you really want out of the layout, and realistically estimating how much time/money/energy you’re going to have to build it, and how much realistically you expect to actually operate it.  Excellent book overall, and it goes a bit more in depth into many of the same points Joe makes in this article.

Oops! Photo technical malfunction!

"too soon old, too late smart....."

I made the model to see how the views look from various vantage points.  The view from the Crew Lounge (some folks might mistakenly call this a "family room"......) is important as non-railroading visitors will get a first impression from this point that might shape their total opinion of the whole effort.  I made the model on a copy of the architects print of the house foundation, which happens to be 1/4" scale.  Gee ..... O-scale!  The track plan was done with Cadrail and printed on photo paper.  It's not the best model, but it accomplished what I needed before starting finishing the basement.  ..... a couple friends already claimed who is going to be Batman and who'll be Superman ..... 

There are several areas for local switching along with the steam yard and diesel yard (with 2 transfer tables).  So I can have a few people over for operations, or just continuous running on the double-track mainline.  And when folks leave, I can build and detail models.

Like Joe said in the article, find what makes it more satisfying FOR YOU.

My nickles worth

A layout is just a place to display my models, as long as it goes round and round who cares.

Michael H

Joe said that we are not all

Joe said that we are not all the same. That is an undeniable fact my friends. A large layout is out of the question for me. I don't want one. I have never seen one that meets my wants and likes. And, . . . I don't have the time left to build one even if I could afford it -- which I can't. I will be 73 years old in three weeks. Time is very precious to me, which most of you as younger people have little feel for. I know the oldsters among us understand what I am saying. 

Unlike my friend Rob, I have little interest in 100-car trains. BORING!!! I an not into through trains either. What I like are small trains that switch small towns which means I have to model the steam era because in comparison, there ain't much left today.

Also, I like to work alone or in very small numbers. I like to operate alone or in very small numbers. For model railroading I don't like large groups -- unless attending a convention.

Do these opinions, likes and dislikes make me bad? I think not. No more so than Rob who loves his long trains on large layouts. We are all different. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Sheeze . . . 

Jim

Who cares?Tue, 2021-07-20

That last line reminds me of a James Taylor song - The Secret of Life:

Anyway, as much as I enjoy building a layout, I often haven't had sufficient leisure time to even get trains running.   I got that on one layout but plywood Pacific is good for a while but having scenery make running trains more enjoyable.

I wish my layout was complete to that level Chris!

I figure I have about 5 years worth of resin kits to build, followed by a whole bunch of tuning, painting and decoder installations in brass steam that should take, oh, a year.  

Couple all of that with just getting ready for sessions (about 8 hours set-up time, and I run 10 sessions minimum per year), and layout "maintenance", coupled with about one year's worth of plastic kits (Proto 2K, Intermountain, RC etc.).   I don't know how anybody with a completed railroad could be bored.

Oh, did I mention all the 3D printing projects I want to do? 

Regards,

Jerry

Not me

Boy, not me. I would be looking to add extra details to the layout, upgrade structures, upgrade rolling stock and locomotives ... the list would be endless.

Ever heard this statement: "No layout is ever finished."

But by having a layout that looks done, I can pick and choose my next project. I don't feel pressured by the clearly undone stuff.

Secret ??

We all 'discover' this 'secret' while building a layout what-ever-size.

The challenge is to 'design' and 'plan' something that we like and maybe be 'realistic' towards the goal we set ourselves. Big, medium or small... just like pizza. Consider your stomach and enjoy the pizza !

Not sure about system

I’m not sure that adding system as another element is helpful as much as it’s just confusing the question, and here’s why.

System is not mutually exclusive, while engineer and railfan can easily be conceived as opposites as described.

For example, I can see someone being completely engineer with no railfan at all, and another being totally railfan with zero engineer interest. But I can’t see someone being totally “system” ... without having a preference of railfan vs engineer. I can see a railfan being more big picture (system) oriented and I can see engineer having zero system interest.

Putting the three together indicates they’re all variations of the same thing, but they’re not. It’s apples and oranges. You can have railfans without any system interest or you can have engineers with a total system interest. But you can’t have totally system with no preference between railfan / engineer. I can’t even conceive of what an ALL SYSTEM person really is when they're running a single train on the layout.

Let’s get back to what this is trying to measure ... what’s in your head when you’re running A SINGLE TRAIN. By definition, system is out of scope.

And as further indication system is out of scope on this question, you can do system interest railroad stuff and you don’t even need to be a model railroader! And if you are a model railroader, don’t even need to be in the train room to do system stuff. It’s not the same thing at all.

The railfan / engineer continuum needs you to be in the train room and running a single train as its beginning premise. Now what are you thinking more of when you’re running the train and using your eyeballs to watch it?

Thinking about how this train fits into the overall system isn’t the question, that’s out of scope. That’s in your head and doesn’t even need your eyes.

Back to the question! You’re having fun watching this ONE train run — which perspective are you feeling most about this one train as you watch it?

P.S. I’m heavily engineer but I’m also very interested in the overall system, but that doesn’t affect my engineer —railfan leanings one bit. To be on the same chart says system thinking will color the engineer / railfan perspective, or even totally overshadow it, but that's just clouding the question and not helpful. By definition I'm focusing on this one single train that I'm running and I’m wearing a different hat when I’m thinking system thoughts.