Railroading Enjoyment by Design

Why work hard building a layout I won’t enjoy?

I want to make sure my next substantial layout is a treat to operate. Don’t we all, right?

But for many of us railroad modelers, it is far from guaranteed that just building a layout will lead to endless hours of fun and satisfaction. You have to plan for the successful outcome and then make it happen. So let’s take a quick look at what actually constitutes that elusive successful outcome.

What’s a successful layout?

For me, a successful layout includes three essential things. It must

1. Replicate interesting aspects of prototype railroads
2. Be beautifully constructed and visually pleasing
3. Operate flawlessly - track, trains, signals, all working together to create a powerful illusion of the real thing.

This is also, by the way, a pretty simple expression of the basis of my urge to model. Those three things exist somewhere on my DNA. If it replicates a prototypic aspect I like and it’s well made, looks great and operates flawlessly, I’m as happy as a clam. Drop any one of the items off the list and I’m trying to think of ways to ‘fix the problem’. I have a lot more criteria that go along as part of the three items but at a top level this is it for me.

It should also be stated very clearly that this is the list that satisfies me. Your list may be the same or it may be different and that’s totally fine.

Small successes are more important than big failures

I have been actively railroading in  N Scale since 1972. To my endless regret, I am not a born railroading artist. I do have an unquenchable urge to model aspects of railroading that I am drawn to, but that is vastly different from having the creative talent to match. Fortunately, talent is over-rated, at least in the face of research, careful observation and a lot of persistence. In other words, if you want it badly enough, you will find a way. Railroad artists just get to skip all that and go straight to the killer layout! It’s an efficiency thing.

My early model railroading results were often disappointing. I ended up with a lot of partially finished projects, layouts that started well but later came to nothing and there was very little that I could point out as a joy to run. But I also had some successes and if I look back, each one maps perfectly to an item the list above. I scratch built some trestles and bridges, a layout got completed that I was pretty happy with, some weathering paid off, I started to collect Kato and Microtrains, I hand laid some track, etc. These are the heroin-like juicings that turn you into a life-long model railroader.

I filtered every issue of magazines like Model Railroader, Trains, Pacific Rail News and N Scale for evidence that supported my notions of railroading perfection.  There was no turning back, no matter what was thrown in my way. The key question is always how well could I avoid the traps?

Why is it so hard to build a killer layout?

From time to time I have found myself in the common traps that model railroaders are prone to. These traps include:

• Building a layout without a plan
• Changing plans part way through a layout
• Not following through on a design
• Attempting to build more more than I can afford
• Attempting to build more than I have time for
• Taking on challenges that were beyond my capability

Any of this sound familiar?!! It’s not that it is inherently bad to do any of these things. I learned a lot and did have fun along the way. The key here is that once in these traps, the effort was doomed to leave me unsatisfied with the result. In many ways, I was just delaying my arrival at that point of personal railroading perfection.

To avoid the traps, obey my laws, Coxy!

The big advantage of thirty years of less-than-stellar-modelling-outcomes is that I have plenty of material to look at to discern the rules of my own personal model railroading game. And, if I obey these rules, I should end up in my own little slice of model railroading heaven, right here in Richmond!

So having given this a lot of thought and having discussed the subject many time with Marto, I think I can boil my experiences down into three really useful Laws. I’ll call them Coxy’s Laws of the killer layout because they apply to Coxy’s efforts to make a killer layout! I’m not saying you should, but feel free to use them if you like.

Coxy’s First Law of the Killer Layout

The degree to which I can replicate my prototype of interest is controlled by my knowledge of the prototype and my vision of the prototype in layout form.

The more I know about my prototype, and the more I know about how it operated, the more chance I have of reducing it to layout form. If I want to have the prototype in my garage, then I have to know a lot about the track, the trains, and the operations. The research gives you stuff to draw from. Ironically, since it is all interesting, the more you know about your prototype, the more you may have to leave behind when you create your layout vision.

Translating a prototype to the confines of a layout is a truly amazing process.  I find the design process of compressing, deleting and distorting something so massive and imposing into what is always an impossibly small space, totally seductive. If you get this part right, you are on your way to RR nirvana. Get this part wrong and you are signing up for a lot of heartache. The layout vision captures the track and the trains and the operations that you will build. And by definition, it determines what is going to be left out. Let me state that again for emphasis…what is going to be left out! If it’s in, model it, if it’s out, forget about modeling it, unless you particularly like torturing yourself!

The layout vision includes which locations will be included in the plan, what trains will operate on your tracks and how will they operate on the parts that you model. Will trains be the same length as the prototype? Will they have the same number of locomotives? Will sidings be the same length? Will interchanges and industries generate demand for the same number of cars? Will your layout faithfully replicate each of the tracks? Will the tracks be switched the same way as the prototype. Does it matter how tangents and curves follow one another? In other words, you can’t model it all so be very clear about exactly which parts and what of those parts of the system will be modelled.

Biggest gotcha: Failing to balance the amount of track, makeup and number of trains, and operations of interest.

Coxy’s Second Law of the Killer Layout

The degree to which I can convert the vision of my prototype of interest into layout form is controlled by my modeling talent and modeling experience.

If Coxy’s First Law defines ‘What I should do’, Coxy’s Second Law defines ‘What I can do’.

The layout vision becomes the layout design by combining knowledge of the prototype with experience as a modeler. In other words, as I fill in details of my layout, I have to keep checking to make sure it continues to fulfill the vision AND it is within my capability as a modeller to make it.

My modelling talents, as I happen to understand them are a kind of filter. If the layout design demands handlaid track, then I better be able to hand lay track or else find someone who’ll lay it for me (a perfectly legitimate way of proceeding by the way). If I increase the amount of real estate adjacent to the track in the design, I have to be able to model everything that is contained. Sometimes, it is better to restrict the width of the layout and allow your modeling efforts to be focused more productively elsewhere on the layout.

My experience is what helps my dial back the number of miles of track, number of turnouts, the size of the yards, the number of structures and bridges. It helps me control the amount of wiring, the number of operator panels and the complexity of operations. It’s what I use to determine how the layout would operate when I am running solo as well as what happens when I have multiple operators. And it is what I rely on to tell my if I am simply running amok with the computer design software, again! Basically, if you haven’t felt the pain of going down the primrose path, you’re unlikely to be able to avoid it.

So once you have the layout design that matches your modeling capability and passes your reality checks, what next?

Coxy’s Third Law of the Killer Layout

The degree to which I can apply my my modeling talent and experience is controlled by my available time, money and space.

Having considered ‘What I should do’ and ‘What I can do’, the next Law of the Killer Layout will determine ‘What I did do’.

In the end, great research and vision, appropriately calibrated to my capabilities are part of the planning process. It is the process of aiming the gun. What actually gets built will be determined by whichever is in the shortest supply: time, money or space. It is the reality filter that really bites! The design needs to be something that I, individually, or with my friends, can build in a reasonable amount of time. The design needs to be affordable. Add up all that benchwork, track, all those structures, all that scenery and ask: ‘What will it all cost?’. As long as it fits in your budget, you’ll be fine. The layout must fit in your space. Are the aisle widths reasonable? Can you really get the scenic effect you want in the 1” of space between the track and the backdrop? Are the heights of all tracks best for lighting and viewing? Can you really reach 3’ to uncouple or re-rail a car on that spur?

Real Life Gotcha: When I was about 14, I tried to build something similar to the MR Clinchfield layout without actually giving much thought to time, money and space. Those pictures were just so seductive, I just had to build it! I liked the layout vision and had sufficient talent to make the layout but I was restricted in time, money and space, and never should have attempted the layout! In retrospect, a small success at this point in my modeling experience would have been much more beneficial to my approach than extracting some tough lessons from my short lived Clinchfield empire experience. There was simply no way I could have finished it.

Railroading Enjoyment by Design

So here I am prepping for the next layout trying hard to apply my own rules for a killer layout because it just doesn’t make sense to do otherwise. I’ll be posting ‘What I would do’ as I work through my choices of layout vision. As I work through my designs, I’ll be calibrating by asking ‘What I can do’. And finally, I’ll be applying more rigor to the final design by assessing the questions of time, money and space so that ‘What I did do’ ends up being a happy result.

Fortunately, these rules, if properly applied can identify and eliminate a lot of layout pain, leaving more time to build and enjoy the right layout, sooner.

- Coxy

Comments

[Michael Denny]

Hey Coxy,

I just spent the last hour reading through your blog and I'm impressed! I recently started building my first N scale pike, and I have to admit that its a real challenge actually finding decents sites to refer to. My layout is a small testbed for techniques I've never tried (which is pretty much all of them) so I can make a good number of mistakes on something small, rather then ruin something big. As such, I spend a good deal of time searching for resources. I'm happy I found yours!