I was just watching a few laps of the NASCAR race, and got to thinking: are you a roundy-rounder and a racing fan? I mean NASCAR, Rolex Sports car series, drag racing, F1, whatever, if it involves cars going around a track. I’m both a roundy-rounder and a racing fan. So, what about you?
Interesting question, Sawyer!
I wouldn’t be able to watch more than a few laps of oval racing. I don’t watch much TV at all, and have no interest in professional sports, except when Mike Weir is doing well. [:-^] Instead, I have always enjoyed participating or being active. I love watching people, but not hockey, tennis, football…I need more mental and physical involvement. Strangely, I do enjoy my folded roundy-round…folded to get even more roundy-round. The difference is that I have an investment that is both emotional and creative, not to mention all the skill-building and fact learning. And, I am very much involved running the trains chuffing around me. Additionally, I can impart several variations into the mix. About the only thing in NASCAR is an accident or a pit stop prior to the grand finale. Well, the ocasional pass is exciting, I suppose. But for me, I like to be involved, and even a roundy mainline serves that purpose.
-Crandell
I like truck racing. Not the Craftsman Truck Series, the big rigs.
If it ain’t burnin NITRO, it ain’t worth watching… NHRA, IHRA and IHBA all the way!
Gotta love a 500 cu." aluminum V8 that puts out more horse power AC 6000!
My trains can’t go roundy-round 'till I fix my yard…[:-^] The mainline is soon to be ripped up too…
My layout is point to point , but I like Indy car racing , NASCAR is too slow!!
I don’t watch that kind of drag racing, the cars are just too similar. But Pinks all out and Pinks on Speed are the best. Although I will sometimes watch it.
My layout has a loop for the freights and another down below for the subways. I enjoy railfanning, often on a quiet evening when the ladies are otherwise occupied, but I’m planning an extension with some staging to get more operating interest.
Pretty much the only sports I’ll tune to are pro football and the Tour de France. Yeah, I’ll watch the Sox sometimes if they’re doing well at the end of the season, and I might catch the occasional playoff hockey game, but most of my sports viewing is done from inside my hockey helmet.
Lately, I’m having trouble watching much TV at all. They are packing in so many commercial breaks, and making them longer, that there’s no continuity to sports viewing. Even the Tour de France, not a big-audience show by any means, was interrupted so often that I gave up trying to watch it.
But, the big TV shares the family room with the trains. So, I can get up and do some switching during the ads. Usually, I forget about the tube and lose myself in another era entirely…
I’ve embraced the Loop, as I love watching my trains from a railfan’s perspective. Switching and operations are also available on my layout, and on the plans for the future of the Stonycreek Valley, that way, if I feel the need to operate as an employee, I can. I can’t claim these terms, they came from Brian Scace, who learned the trackplanning game from John Armstrong.
Now, as far as racing goes, I much perfer a peloton on a road course, either a loop, or on town streets in a criterium. (Yes, I’m a crazy road racing bike guy)
Mr, Beasley, next July, come out to Altoona. I can guarantee some great cycling action, comercial free. (I’m the media director for the International Tour de 'Toona bike race)[:D]
I’m a roundy rounder, but wish they had more road courses. Us to to watch NHRA back in the late 80’s, but lost interest. Now that Karma Kyle has had bad luck 2 for 2, I’m even more interested. Looks like the Biff, or a Rousch car anyway, may wrap this up.
GS
I like NASCAR and Indy racing, my favorite team being of course: Scuderia-Ferrari.
To answer your question the answer is no. I have a 13’ switching layout (under construction) at home and the club layout is shelf/peninsula. While it does eventually make a loop, thats not what I’m thinking about.
In NASCAR it’s more about how long can the car and driver hold up, manitain… ect and how you have your car adjusted for the track and conditions you’re at. Take for instance Kyle Bucshs’ trouble this week with his car being too loose. Funny there’s a lot of #18 haters out there.
With trains I tend to follow the prototypical purpose: pickup and delirvery of passengers and freight using big brawny diesels moving not more than 70mph.
I prefer races in the wild. A 351 ford vs a 500 buick in the early 70’s is a interesting exercise. Or a 470 Detroit vs a 302 mustang etc. Pinks show is very good as some of the cars are real surprises. Or even Cat vs any of the desiels with the first to the top wins. Sometimes we race down grade as well throwing out normal rules of caution.
Round and round is for a few laps from staging to the junction and thence to the destination and back again. I ignore one side of the loop as it have several large structures helping to break that loop up visually.
NASCAR all the cars are restricted very close to each other, it becomes a exercise in watching drivers get tired. Sometimes the 1/4 mile brings out real fire eaters, the little bitty commuter vs the real rails.
Currently, I am building a point to point because the round ‘n’ round got boring. I may not like point to point either (this being my first one) in which case I’ll try something else like loop to loop. I find racing boring, in fact the only sport I watch on TV is NFL football all season and baseball during playoffs. Otherwise I watch PBS because there are no ads.
Enjoy
Paul
Ummm…drag racing doesn’t go around in circles…
Don Z.
I prefer a folded dog bone track plan. It is basically a single track oval squeezed in the middle, but with hidden staging at each end with multiple storage tracks. In the middle it is a double track mainline with industrial sidings that can be switched as desired. It was was signalled so that multiple trains could be operated following each other around with no possibility of rear end colllisions.
I was able to run a passenger train through a complete circuit and then park it in the staging and bring out a differant consist. It never got boring, because it was always differant.
I watched the race instead of working on the layout today, so I guess you could say I’m a NASCAR fan.
That said, my presently-available trackage is rather more like a drag strip - that somebody has picked up and tied a couple of knots in. The straight-line schematic is exactly that - a straight line. I have to build some more benchwork before I can close the loop.
But, there’s a joker in the deck. The ‘loop’ is actually a thoroughfare for staging maneuvers, not a true running track. In TTTO operation, no train will ever run all the way around the loop without holding on a hidden siding while other trains strut their stuff. Even then, very few trains will enter the netherworld and return to visible space without being turned 180 degrees. Catenary motors will not surface through the wire-free Haruyama Tunnel, and no steamer will ever smoke up the catenary by coming up from Minamijima. Only a very few diesel-powered trains will ever run all the way around. The only time they will do it without holding for clearance will be when I orbit a train or two for mundane visitors.
When I am operating, the timetable is God, and the scale time clock is its acolyte. Roundy-round running does NOT happen.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - TTTO, 24/30)
I agree with Operations is good to have on any layout. Straight line or rounders.
I experienced a hobby shop operation session once years ago on a 4x8 layout with a 6 man train crew complete from Conductor all the way down to brakeman with flag protection and train orders along side the waybills etc. We were able to complete the trip and return on the layout as a “Out and back”, ignoring for the day that little side loop that takes the train straight down the hill to complete one circut. With the right focus even the smallest of layouts can be alot of fun with the right people.
Well Crandel, you nailed it for me too, except I don’t know who Mike Weir is. At the same time, I designed my layout for operations with staging and industries to switch because sometimes I need more than to watch the trains go-round.
Ditto![}:)]
Interesting question from a philosophical point of view. In the real world about the only place you would find a racetrack design “roundy-round” would be an industrial belt line, of which there are examples in metropolitan areas. But the real purpose of a railroad is delivering goods or people from here to there, i.e. point to point. On the big oval setups one finds at shows, I suppose if there were “operations” inclined people running them one could do real industrial switching turns and locals, and maybe even keep an eye out and clear the main for a scheduled through train, but certainly not the same one every three and a quarter minutes or whatever it takes to go around, and around, and around! One realizes that at a show the visitors are mostly moving past or around the layout once or twice and going on their way, so it doesn’t appear to be “caboose chasing” but the truth is, that isn’t modelling the function of the railroad, only some of the appearance. That the Free-mo concept does come a lot closer to prototype action is one of the reasons for the phenomenal growth of that movement in this country and Canada. It has been a major player in Europe for many years. Food for thought? jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA