Layout compromises

[barney121e]

Hi

Interested to hear what sort of compromises people have made regarding their layouts, especially if based on a real place. What is a compromise too far?

Cheers

David

[End2end]

As a beginner I have no rail bridges or inclines on my layout and all bar 1 or 2 pieces of track are set track.
Thanks.
End2end

[Richard08]

Hi

Interested to hear what sort of compromises people have made regarding their layouts, especially if based on a real place. What is a compromise too far?

Cheers

David

Size is always going to be the biggest compromise. Without making your own points and crossings how the ready made bits have to fit together is going to be far more influential on what you can/cannot do, enforcing a lot of compromise that will likely end up with a layout that bears little resemblance to the original. The radius of curves ditto - if you stuck to prototype radii (outside docks/industrial settings) curves will take up a lot of space. Even a simple block post (signal box but nothing else), from distant to distant, would be at least 2 miles long (on a line over 60mph)... I looked at the idea of modelling somewhere specific, Mells Road near Frome (freight only branch in the dying days of the remains of the Radstock line), but even in N it would have take some getting in and would have to have been curved, unlike the original, and then geometry would have kicked in. I guess it depends on one's own 'artistic interpretation' as to where the line between 'based on xyz' becomes crossed to it really being fictional.

Eventually, lockdown did serve some purpose I guess, I built an entirely fictional layout in O based on a general 1980ish run down branch terminus vibe rather than anything specific - my ideal layout would have involved trains of 2 x class 37 with 37 PGA wagons and such. More reality check than compromise! With no room for passenger coaches the platform is there, but no passenger service is ever seen (even a DMU would need to be parked somewhere when not in use!) - another compromise. The next compromise was there is no fiddle yard, things just get shunted about, as having one would have left the scenic section impossibly short. I made one set of points for a Templot design I came up with, but hated the process so used Peco as a compromise. None of my engines match the period of the layout, but I like them (I'm not sure if that's a compromise as such). I went for O as OO track looks all wrong to me (my P4 Templot design would have required a lot of track-making and faffing about with rolling stock) so that was where I was unwilling to compromise (a purely personal thing, everyone else seems quite happy with OO track!). Kind of regret not taking the bull by the horns and going Gauge 1 but hey ho!

[ChrisGreaves]

... from distant to distant, would be at least 2 miles long...

Assuming a 1:72 scale and that I have done my sums right, a 2 mile stretch of straight track would require a shed at least 147 real feet long - longer than the average town/city domestic lot in the UK I would think.

Australia's (the world's?) longest straight at about 300 miles would require 22,000 real feet, or around 4.2 actual miles to model, not to mention the 7,333 lengths of Peco FlexTrack. You'd be forced to model it IN Australia in order to find 4.2 actual miles of dead-flat surface (" no rail bridges or inclines") with no risk of shorting (which rules out Florida).

Still and all, a Distant signal would at least be distant although a five-hour wait while the train shrank to a dot perceptively smaller than an atom would be draggy.

The Medina Model Railway in New York State is close to 150 feet long, being housed in a re-purposed station building.

Cheers, Chris

[stuartp]

As far as compression goes, I think the trick is to keep the key relationships between buildings, track structures etc as accurate as possible, and shrink the large expanses of length and space which characterize railway stations.

This is part of the LMS rating plan for Newton Stewart in southwest Scotland, currently taking place (very slowly) in my shed:
https://flic.kr/p/2nLJ243
Dead scale, the entire station and loco shed complex would be 26 feet long. Unfortunately the shed is only 13 feet, so it's been tweaked a bit. From the footbridge at the left hand side of the plan to the road bridge in the middle should be 18" on the model, it's actually about 10". Likewise from the road bridge to the right hand end if the signalbox should be 30", it's actually about 15. Most if this has been achieved by using Peco Streamline large radius points rather than scale length pointwork meaning that relationship between the bridge, track layout and signalbox is still correct - the crossover still ends right outside the box for example, and because of that it looks correct.

Likewise the station throat between the road bridge and footbridge has been shortened, again largely by Peco's geometry. But the arrangement where the footbridge touches the station building and the end of the island platform has to be exactly to scale otherwise it just doesn't fit ! Apart from anything else the footbridge goes through the canopy on the building at the top if the plan, so that relationship is fixed ! The long part of the footbridge, where it crosses the goods yard throat, can be tweaked a bit if necessary.

So in practice the station building, footbridge and track centres were drawn out full size on a very large sheet of tracing paper and stuck to the baseboard, and everything else was plotted off that.

The island platform should take six coaches, it takes 5 which just happens to be the longest formation which require to run round. There is a loading dock at the east end which should accommodate 2 x 57' full brakes, it takes one, and the headshunt is just long enough to take one of these and a Black 5, which is the longest loco which is likely to shunt it.

The whole formation is bent around two sides of the garage rather than being in a gentle curve, but all the buildings and structures will be in the correct places, although some if them will be a bit closer together than they were on the real thing. The only compromise in the track plan (apart from length) is that a three way point in the goods yard has been replaced with two ordinary point as this fitted better.

[Bigmet]

I agree with much of what has been posted already, that subtle compression to retain relationships within the modelled location ground plan is the trick. Our own vision introduces compression on objects as they recede, and this can be used by the modeller if the layout is designed with a viewing position in mind,

In the matter of track, and using OO, while the 'large' radius point offered by Peco is actually about minimum radius for a large loco (and then only at dead slow!) and has an exaggerated crossing angle: but provided it isn't under the nose of the viewer it doesn't call undue attention to itself (our vision's distance compression helps us). These can also have the diverging road trimmed slightly for better track centres spacing, and will take a small curvature too; this really is useful when they are in a running line with a 'miles radius' curvature, eliminating the 'threepenny bit' effect. (The hopeless items are the crossings and slips, fortunately I model a railway which didn't much employ these, the single one I need made by the soldered copperclad method.)

[Bufferstop]

The compromises we have to make are often counteracted by our automatic attempts to believe. I reckon you can take out about one third of the length in open platforms and two thirds on plain track and most people won't notice. I try to eliminate any views of the corners of my layout. Any curve of less than three feet radius looks wrong the moment you put something on it, unless you stick to 0-6-0s and four or six wheel stock. Left as empty track and if viewed from close to scale eye level the appearance is very similar to the foreshortening effect of a camera lens, I don't recommend trying to get the same view in the real world, other than through a telephoto lens.

[Bigmet]

...Interested to hear what sort of compromises people have made regarding their layouts, especially if based on a real place. What is a compromise too far?...

...a purely personal thing, everyone else seems quite happy with OO track!...

'Adequacy' is what drives my compromise use of OO. (If there was a RTR range in EM to match OO, that's where I would be.)

I want a layout for the purpose of operating to timetable, with a decently realistic assemblage of stock for the place and timespan chosen, that will fit within the space available.

I don't particularly want to be the surveyor and constructor of the line, but it is too expensive to hire in contractors for this, so I am resigned to that.

Nor do I want to run the loco, carriage and wagon works, so it has to be RTR for as much as possible, and fortunately we now have competent mechanisms in RTR OO; and OO is the right size in terms of my ability to work on it and build any essential models that are never going to appear RTR.

Also OO is good for the space available, and the flexible track available in code 75 when viewed 'broadside' from a lineside eyepoint looks OK. I would like a more realistic choice in pointwork - something like a B6 in OO - but hey, 'perfection' will have to wait.

A discovery I made decades ago is that scenery is unnecessary to the enjoyment of train movements in timetable operation. There have been platforms and the odd loco and goods shed on my layouts, but the farthest I have gone in scenery 'outside the railway fence' are a half dozen appropriate road vehicles in the way of buses and trucks around where the station forecourt would be, if I had modelled that building and forecourt... Is that a compromise? Not for me, you cannot shunt a tree, couple on a building, or work a train of road vehicles, so what's the point of doing much of that when so much more interesting stuff is yet to be completed?

Choice of location, biggest compromise is one 'scenic break' concealing the way underscale 'end curves' to enable a continuous run, which are best not seen. There are in reality two overbridges which at true scale are 22 feet apart and can be so positioned. One is a corker, lovely brick structure with whopping great advertising hoardings, that you could hide RMS Titanic behind. The other is a skinny little affair, but to better suit my purposes will be a second bulky brick build. Otherwise the ground plan involves little essential compromise, just a few out of use sidings eliminated to reduce the width.

[centenary]

Initially, wanted a layout where one line crosses above a lower one. Decided building it was above my pay grade so compromised on a single level.

Next, wanted a storage sidings below the main layout and the only viable way was to use a helix. But the helix would have taken too much space in the garage so the sidings are on the same level as the main layout.

[Richard08]

Initially, wanted a layout where one line crosses above a lower one. Decided building it was above my pay grade so compromised on a single level.

Next, wanted a storage sidings below the main layout and the only viable way was to use a helix. But the helix would have taken too much space in the garage so the sidings are on the same level as the main layout.

I was gutted when I 'upgraded' my two-level 6x3 Super 4 layout to a cellar-filler with Peco nickle silver track as a kid. As 'magnedhesion' no longer worked, train lengths (I had a lower level for storage via scenic section) were somewhat limited despite filling the engines with most of the lead from the roof - until traction tyres came a long came along and fixed it. I gather traction tyres are out of fashion now, but they do serve a very useful purpose when space is restricted and hills desired. Probably doesn't help you at all, but I'm having a pipe and slippers sort of day.

[Bigmet]

There's a better option for magnahesion now, iron strip under the track, neo magnets under the loco. None of the rail dirt, stretching and slipping of UK
'gungy polymer' traction tyres. (There's vastly better materials available, found on HO product.)

[pete12345]

Regarding curve radii, I've always found that curves always look better when viewed from the middle of the layout. You are looking along the radius and curves then wrap around the viewer. This makes both the curve and the layout itself appear bigger as the track disappears out of your field of vision to the left and the right.

My loft layout is designed in such a way, running between the roof trusses and along the gable ends, thus leaving the middle of the floor clear. Fundamentally it's intended to be run as a terminus to fiddle yard, but the route is a 540° spiral which is joined together so continuous running can be done to lengthen the journey. This of course compromises the accuracy of the modelled route, but gives operational flexibility and I'm willing to live with that compromise.

[Bigmet]

...Australia's (the world's?) longest straight at about 300 miles would require 22,000 real feet, or around 4.2 actual miles to model, not to mention the 7,333 lengths of Peco FlexTrack...

Somewhat less if you do ' Treefree Flat ' at the 1:87 of HO, 6002 lengths of streamline for the 297 miles (the 1mm gapping between the lengths saves you six yards) so that's 1331 lengths fewer required. For this saving on the track, my consultancy fee is 20% of the saving: unmarked notes in a brown envelope always acceptable.

Strange to relate much the same idea has been on my mind, concerning the many fine 4mm models of the ECML's stations. Wouldn't it be good to have them connected London to Edinburgh at scale for the 404 miles. Thanks to all the grubbing away under London over the past 160 years for the purpose of operating trains, there are now many abandoned tunnels. If we can find a double line section three miles long with conveniently located unused stations it's fully possible. All undercover in slightly repurposed underground electric train tunnels...

[ChrisGreaves]

Size is always going to be the biggest compromise. ...

Hello again Richard. Further thoughts:-
Given that a model will be housed in a fixed human-scale space (for example a 20-foot by 16-foot garden shed or garage or basement) I reason that the best compromise - shifting the model towards reality - would have to come from choice-of-scale.

T-gauge (3mm), which is currently occupying my mind, at 1:450, seems to offer the best possibility of a long stretch of track carrying a long rake of carriages - I think of an LMS train (UK) with 12 coaches and perhaps a goods van, hauled by a 4-6-2. Something I have never witnessed in real-life. The Intercity starter set as an example, if one bought six such sets, would provide an abundance of powered units and enough cars to make a facsimile of a real train and enough straight track to run, well, a long way. Buying individual parts might be cheaper, but the principle remains valid.
A 20-foot garden shed would accommodate almost one-and-three-quarter miles of passage through a variety of English fields.

Of course, while the T-guage sets boast attention to detail, back at the human-eye level of scale, as the train flashes past and recedes into the distance (that is, three real feet away from the viewer), the details fades, just as it does in real life. I remember seeing this on my two visits to the Medina Model Railway

Based on this thinking I put forward the idea that the primary factor governing realism will be the scale/gauge chosen for the model. I for one would shy at constructing a 1:1 scale model of a real railway.

Cheers, Chris

[Bigmet]

Consequent on attending Remembrance services, I caught up with an old mucker who had long ago moved away - but has now returned to the town.

...I reason that the best compromise - shifting the model towards reality - would have to come from choice-of-scale...

His compromise, wedded as he is to EM gauge, is to have built a lightweight box on the flat roof outside his layout room, so that all the 'run round' lines don't eat scenic layout space.