Recap

Retirement probably wouldn’t be too bad. Three years ago we moved into a small house in a superb neighborhood with a 25’x50’ 6-foot-high ground level “crawlspace” underneath plus a single stall garage outbuilding, and an attic. Plenty to keep me occupied any time I decide to pull the plug at work. 

But I feel that if I can continue to develop my model railroad as a teaching tool and provide excellent academic, social and emotional outcomes for my students, then I am living the life of Riley and am already about as retired as I ever want to be. 

The peninsula

The question now is, should I “complete” the original design of the layout (as shown below from 2014), or concentrate on filling in what’s been built so far? Either way, operations can continue.

Jeff Allen

The dilemma

The Park Day Railway is a freelance, flexible era concoction that is a synthesis of operating scenarios that appeal to me and that I think illustrate concepts that students will find thought provoking and educational. The dominant influence is probably John Armstrong’s The Railroad: What It Is, What It Does. 

Last year we completed the town of Day, a branch line terminus focused on loading perishable produce. Three packing sheds, each on its own stub, an icing facility, a depot house track and a team track. A turntable for turning locomotives for the return. 

With Day now operational the major elements of the overall operating scheme are in place. Interchange with a class I mainline occurs at the port city of Idora, but the branch continues to the “distant” town of Park, which has a cannery serving its region. 

The dilemma of whether to build the peninsula hinges on that “distant” element. The peninsula won’t just make for a longer run, it will add two sidings along the way, which should provide just barely enough operating rationale for a teensie bit of TT&TO decision making. Plus a cattle loading station and a mine. 

Here's an up-to-date schematic:

 Not incidentally, it will also provide an excuse for some mountain scenery. The peninsula represents the geographic obstacle, Rock Ridge, that prompted the building of the branch line in the first place according to my backstory. 

The peninsula will require a huge liftout section in order to clear floor space during regular teaching time (95%). After successfully building a similarly huge swing gate (with the car float apron on it!), I’m intrigued by the engineering challenge. 

I worked out the benchwork framing long ago and estimate that working alone I could build it in about a week. So, working with a couple of dozen students I am confident that we can be running trains on the peninsula within a year or two. 

So, there’s my dilemma. There are way more projects on the existing layout than I ever expect to finish, but forging ahead on the peninsula fires my rockets.

Jeff Allen

Continue On

I haven't had much if anything to say about your class project. I do have some memory though of class mates sharing stories from bigger brothers and sisters about teachers we had a good chance of getting in the next year or two. Some we looked forward to. Some we crossed our fingers and hoped God was really listening and acting upon prayers said.

Yours is a class I would really have liked to be in especially if I had a bigger or younger sibling and could relay progress and up coming possibilities. Interesting Math? teachers are worth their weight in gold. I don't remember what you are teaching.

Jack

Interested in some light weight approaches??

Hi Jeff,

Rather than carving plaster, are you interested in some lighter-weight scenery approaches?

Perhaps make a couple of small test rigs with the kids? And do an evaluation process on which one is best for the layout and why?

Yep, math.

Jack, you guessed correctly, I teach math. 

John, I am definitely intending to use lightweight scenery, especially for the big liftout section. Probably aluminum frame and truss structural components with foam landforms. 

There are a few areas on the existing layout that have received the "traditional" plaster cloth/ground goop/static grass treatment with cast plaster rockwork on exposed cuts, and I usually have students play around with off-layout plaster castings while they experiment with rock coloring techniques. And we've had a few sessions dedicated to tree modeling, both mass production hill cover and carefully detailed foreground trees. 

But we've never really explored alternatives aimed at weight reduction and that might make an interesting exercise, good thought! 

I've learned that kids approach geology with utter naivete - they tend to think of rocks as far more random than they are in reality. It takes a lot of deliberate learning and observation before they are ready to create convincing shapes. 

Jeff