I gotta say I’m impressed.
I could take a switcher and a day and mess up his operations so bad it would take him weeks to straighten things out. But I’d have a blast doing it.
What a great layout!
I guess no one but me liked it.
Hi Chip: yes I liked it also. It’s a concept that I’ve thought about myself. I’d do the Beer Line in Milwaukee myself.
No, your not the only one.[#wstupid] I liked it alot. bout time someone did a switching laout that wasn’t just a big mess of unrealistic switch backs or a case of “lets see how much track we can jam on a sheet of plywwod”
Chip. I liked the Argentine layout also. Hummmmmm Maybe I will model the east Wayne NKP yard. Kevin
Chip
I’ve read and re-read that art,And of course this has thinking(this is bad) I liked it real well,it makes sence!
JIM
[#ditto]
As much as I liked his old Santa Fe layout, I think this new one is pretty good. When you think about it most of the “action” on a railroad takes place in the yards!
-George
Oboy, Chip, if only I had another addition to the garage so that I could do what that article did! I’d do something on the order of Roseville (besides that, I’d have a place to store all of my refrigerator cars in something besides drawers under the layout).
Great article–really liked it.
Tom
Chip.
I really liked the story also, my Layout is mostly one big city.
Chip,You are seeing history in the making…You see for years a industrial switching layout was frown upon as a lessor layout that rank below a beginners 4x8 foot “train set loop” layout and should never be taken as a serious way of building a layout.[:O] That was then.
Fast forward to the last few years and MR has once again sit a new trend in the hobby by publishing switching layout articles and plans plus a GMR issue that was mostly small switching layouts.Now what was once frown upon is now acceptable.But,hey little old me knew that for years it just took the trend sitters longer to figure that out…[:O][:P]LOL!
Yes I also like that layout.
I think it is part of a trend towards depicting more realistic distances in our model railroads. As the layouts become more sophisticated the distances modeled are becoming shorter. The trend is towards modeling sections of the real railroads with less selective compression. That means that modeling large yards and transfers is closer to reality for the space provided. this is in contrast to having having one terminal depicting Los Angeles and the other depicting Chicago. My latest model railroad was a model of about a mile of the B&O’s FM&P branch though Morgantown WV. The entire layout essential modeled one town. It worked great, operations were fun and it looked right because it wasn’t so compressed. I have operated on model railroads where the engine was in one town and the caboose was still in the previous town. - Nevin
Nevin,I fully agree and think that will be the next advanced LDE instead of trying to cram 100 division in a small area…The Argentine yard is a step in that direction…
I can’t tell you about trends, because as some are want to point out, I haven’t been around all that long. However, it wasn’t long after I started designing my see-how-many-loops-you-can-get-on-a-sheet-of-plywood layout, that I was introduced to Jetrock’s 2x6 HO switching layout.
That said, most of the small switching layouts I’ve seen since, are a modification of some dug-up time-saving Forest Gump and Horseshoe puzzle that would bore the poop out of me in about 2 hours.
It’s my opinion that a good switching layout takes a heck of a lot more thought, knowledge and planning. Because if you can’t imitate real-world operations, then all you do is move around cars–back and forth back and forth.
I’m thinking that if I were to design a 2 x 6 switching layout. It would be a high density urban canyon with tall buildings and an interchange–lots of action and lots of modeling for the space.
The level of sophistication and track knowledge exhibited by Argentine is beyond my ken. I could never conceive of such a
I had the fortunate opprotunity to operate the “Elevator A” job last year. It took me and a friend of mine over 5 real hours to switch it. The railroad is in my “top 10” list and it operates flawlessly. Everything is in proper proportion and the spaces were utilized very well. It’s huge!
Chuck Hitchcock is probably one the nicest guys you’ll ever meet. He’s a great host and his modeling efforts set some of the highest marks in the hobby. Top notch all the way!
Bruce
BNSF Chillicothe Subdivision
Chip,Don’t sell yourself short…Anybody can design a industrial district of a real railroad its not that hard.It does take research and close observation of the prototype and how they design their industrial track work,what switch jobs was involved and how they went about switching that industrial area.You see Chuck started from here to get there just like everybody else we read in the pages of MR and we are no exception to that rule other then our layouts may never grace the pages of MR,RMC etc.
Thanks Brakie,
I appreciate it. I’m learning all the time in this hobby. Probably the best time I ever had model railroading was working a yard for 4 hours during an radio dispatched ops session of 20 people or so. The action was fast and furious with multiple trains sometimes stacked up waiting. You had to figure your moves and not waste time.
I know I’m a yard goat–just one without a yard.
I like it alot!!! I just missed your post 
I’m still trying to figure out what this is all about. Is this in the latest MR?
Cover Story Feb 2007
Ain’t semantics wonderful? It goes from staging to EOT. Mainline, branchline, or running track? Same thing as far as purpose and use goes. But, yes! A terrific layout and use of concept! I would think something like it could even be built in modules for the space impaired, or as a set of Free-mo modules with x distance modules between, eh? All one has to do is go up to compliance radii. Sweet! jc5729