Backwards Layout Planning

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I find it more than a little amazing how many new users jump on to this site and say, “I have this new train set / layout plan / train room, now please help.”

I know I first got into the hobby 35 years ago when my father gave my brother and I a train set for Christmas. While that was fun for a while, I quickly lost interest in the “two loops on a ping pong table” and started something with some focus and a unified theme. I guess what made it work for me was that I wasn’t afraid to chuck everything and start over if it didn’t fit (yes, I still have a couple of structures, two locos, 6 freight cars, and a bunch of sectional track from that first layout)… This experience, however, taught me enough about what I DID want on a layout that my next experience (granted, it was 20 years later) was much more fulfilling.

So I though I might try to stimulate some discussion on this topic. For old hands, how can we get new entrants to the hobby to think through the basics (what railroad, what era, what location, what equipment), as well as some basic operational understanding (switching, yards, point-to-point vs continuous running) BEFORE they get in over their heads with a layout or plan that doesn’t suit their needs.

For newcomers to the hobby, what gets you started in a given direction? A layout at a train show, a pre-fab track plan, a train set, or what?

Ultimately, it would be interesting to see if we can minimize the number of newcomers who charge ahead and then get frustrated, or jump on the forums having absolutely no idea how to proceed.

Any thoughts?

2

Maybe we can get Kalmbach to reprint pages 2 to 6 of John Armstrong’s 1983 18 Tailor-Made Model Railroad Track Plans which discusses the concept of givens & druthers and relative priorities (operations vs. mainline, running, track vs. scenery, etc.) along with his four page questionnaire that he used working with clients. [The book is out of print but copies can be found.]

I do like your questions/topics for thinking through the basics. What was the inspiration/raison d’etre should be the first.

Alan

PS

Stein posted this in the General Discussion forum [link] :

“Here is a link to page of the type of questions a for-hire layout designer ask his customers - the kind of things you should think through, and decide on for yourself, even if you were to hire someone else to do your layout planning for you: http://www.layoutvision.com/id13.html.
Note that he says explicitly on his page that you don’t have to have an firm and final answer for every single question on the web page above.”

3

The problem is that newcomers don’t know what they don’t know. They have no concept of what “operation” is or how switching is done.

Most forums don’t discuss operations in any detail. On most forums the “operations” part of the forum is just a photo album of operating sessions, with little or no discussion.

One way to help is to try to have the modeler add operating features to the layouts or explain the use of various track features and moves. It is very common on this (and other forum) for somebody to post a plan of an operationally catatonic layout and 50 peole with “encourage” them with “Looks good to me.”, “Good job!”, “Looks fun to operate.” comments. The trick is to offer suggestions without offending them, especially when they are showered with comments reinforcing the operationally deficient plan.

4

Speaking as one of your newbies, I’ll definitely concur with this part. There’s an overwhelming amount of information out there on the technical aspects of laying and wiring track and an endless number of plans to browse. But, for those of us who didn’t grow up railfanning, there’s no convenient resource explaining how prototypical roads worked and how that translates into a simple model railroad track plan and/or operating session. Armstrong’s book covers the prototype part of that, but it’s in gruesome detail, and his application of those principles to layouts is aimed at much larger layouts than any newbie is likely to build. Koester’s book on realistic operations is similar - lots of good ideas, but way over the head of someone new to the scene. What would be really helpful is a simple example of an operating session on a small layout, two trains maximum, describing what the trains are doing and why. Because really… how many people get started by building a 15’x20’ walk-in with two yards, multiple towns, and service facilities? The best attempt at that that I saw was actually a little two-page article at the end of Kalmbach’s “HO Railroad From Start to Finish”. It was short, understandable, and free of unexplained railroad operations jargon (“the yardmaster”, “the dispatcher”, “waybills”, etc.). More articles like that, fleshed out a bit to illustrate different industry and railroad operations, to explain some of that terminology, and to look back on implications for track planning would have been extremely helpful to me. I’m fairly experienced when it comes to diving into hobbies I don’t understand and eventually pieced most of this together from various sources, but I think it turns off a lot of people. A short, newbie-targeted, and preferably free online resource o

5

I kind of get the feeling it bugs you to read those posts (like mine will be till I am up to speed)?

The internet is a new thing. Not too many years ago you could not post…“now help” so you had to just figure it out. I am doing both. There is so much new stuff out there, and some stuff you just don’t find without a tip from a seasoned pro. I look at the people that answer, as people helping people. I will one day pass that along. If we all just told everyone to go figure it out then why have the forum? I post questions I cannot quite find an answer to. I look to the exp. people to possibly open a door, or shine some light; and they have… so thanks!

If noob post bug you just don’t read them. Even better, get a members only area for seasoned people and police it so noobs are removed along with their posts. Everyone is a noob at something… Shoot every day I have to teach my boss how to do our job.

I posted a question about road/rail bed. I would have never thought of using ceiling tile! but one of the answers explained in great detail everything I needed to do. THAT old dog taught me a new trick.

6

When I first got back into MRR, I spent all my down time at work trying to come up with a track plan to fit my 15’ x 24’ space. I found it very frustrating because there was always something that would put the kybosh on my trackplan. Thinking outside the box I thought how about filling the room with as much benchwork as possible while leaving enough space to make it a comfortable place to be. So I started drawing designs of just benchwork and not worrying about a trackplan.

Thinking that in real life the geography of the country wasn’t made to accommodate the railroad, but rather the railroad had to work with the local geography. The only thing I worried about when designing the benchwork was that it had to accommodate minimum 30+ inch radius curves. I soon had my local geography in the form of benchwork done on paper. It covered the most surface area of the room while making doors and other things still accessible. By doing it this way I ended up with a much longer mainline than I had ever came up with by drawing trackplans.

The next thing to consider was industry. When the CPR pushed through to the west coast of Canada Industry soon started to pop up along the way. So not knowing to much about switching I started reading about it. I also went to Google Earth and started looking down at all the industrial areas to see what was involved with as far as sidings and access off the main line was handled. My conclusion was that in order not to foul up the main an appropriate amount of siding was always required. But in some places where you have a mountain on one side and a river on the other I did see sidings for some small industries go right off the main. I guess you work with the space you have in real life too.

I went back to my layout plan. Benchwork drawn up first and then a trackplan to fit my benchwork. I then looked at all the places I could put industries and the other things I wanted and boy did it all come together nicely. I had spots for lots of t

7

I think we need to lighten up a bit gentlemen and do for others that we wish some had done for us back in the day when we first got started. Let them profit from your years of experience and making mistakes. Tell me honestly that there isn’t one of you who did something you wished you hadn’t done and learned a lesson the hard way and would have much appreciated a senior or more experienced modeler say stop wait don’t do that and here’s why and this is what you should do. I recently met a world class celebrity modeler if you will who is building a new layout now after having torn down a very famous well published layout of 25 years. I was amazed when he told me and I’m paraphrasing a bit being it was so long since he had built a new layout that he was amazed at how much new stuff he didn’t know and was learning so many new things about building a layout. Maybe they just weren’t available way back when when a lot of us got started and maybe they were but we just didn’t know about them. The internet is a fabulous invention that has changed our lives for ever and it’s one of the greatest tools any model railroader especially the new ones has at his disposal. Think about way back when in the dark ages of model railroading when many got started and you wanted to build a certain structure or find the exact color of a Western Maryland Caboose used in 1954. You trudged off to a library and if you were lucky maybe you found something or you wnet to the hobby shop and had to purchase RMC or Model Railroader etc. hoping to find the right information. Now all you have to do is type in a search on Google.

I think it’s great that some of these new guys charge head first into the hobby with great exuberance and full of great ideas or maybe none at all but at least they want into the hobby. So it’s the responsibility if you will of more senior more experienced modelers to help them with their questions and be more helpful then condescending when ewbies ask what soem precive as stupid questions or don’t know what th

8

Good point.

Another challenge is that lot of people seemingly are not familiar with the concept of trying to define their goals before looking for ways to reach those goals. It is a bit harder to get to where you want to go, when you don’t know (even roughly) where you want to go :slight_smile:

And of course, even though some people might not like that I mention “the elephant in the room” : a lot of people cannot communicate very well in a written medium like a web forum.

If you can’t spell and you can’t use a dictionary or a spell checker, you can’t use search engines very well. Mind you - I am not talking about just the odd typo here, or people who don’t know the difference between “there” and “their”, or such piddling issues.

If you cannot formulate a clear sentence or break your thoughts down into coherent paragraphs, it is hard for others (and yourself) to understand what you want to accomplish.

If you have had a tortured relationship with written texts, it is hard to use books and web pages to gather information.

In short - if someone is has a lot of trouble with expressing himself in writing, he or she will probably also have trouble gathering and making use of information already in place.

So - you reply to each new poster as he or she comes online and asks the first questions. Some get up to speed fast, some at an average tempo, some slow, some never.

Smile,
Stein

(edited a little for clarity …)

9

… that´s life - you win a few and you lose a few … [:)]

Seriously, I admire the patience some of you guys show in answering the sometimes not so intelligent questions raised here. However, there is a risk of “dumping” just to much of our knowledge on to someone who has yet to learn the basic language of model railroading, which may be discouraging to some of the newbies in here.Does it make sense to explain the details of a real railroad operation to someone, who just wants to put up a “train set” to watch trains running around a loop? Maybe not, but how to tell, how serious a guy is about entering into this fascinating and rewarding hobby?

IMHO, this is not the job of a forum, but should be vested with the LHS or local clubs.

10

I’m not sure a lot of newbies are going to listen to all that sound advice. I didn’t. I read all kinds of good advice but I thought I knew what I wanted and I didn’t pay much attention to all that good advice. As a result, I started two unsuccesful layouts. With newbies, a lot of time enthusiasm trumps reason. Some people just have to learn things through experience.

11

And I’m not sure that isn’t all bad. A lot of people, such as the the original poster, are looking for a solution to “get it right the first time”. The LDSig motto is “only make new mistakes”.

Sometimes those mistakes aren’t a waste of time. Consider them practice It may take years of bouncing around for the modeler to decide on what he or she wants out of a layout (or prototype or era or region). There may be an extraordinary few who know from the very first 1x4 exactly what they want to do. The vast majority or newcomers, not so much. Unfortunately the RTR, immediate gratification society we now have doesn’t value the journey, They want to be beamed directly to the destination. I dno’t the think the majority of new modelers know where their personal destination is.

There currently is more information available to modelers than there has been at any time. The beauty of the modern internet over old school books is that research is just a few clicks away. The danger of the internet over books is that the internet is not permanent. About 15-20 years ago I wrote a letter to the NMRA and told them that they needed to start a project where they sought out dispatchers and interviewed them to see how they operated TT&TO. I suggested that they send an interview team to the dispatch offices of the major railroads and solict dispatchers to be interviewed. that was going to be the last time there was a critical mass of TT&TO qualified dispatchers in concentra

12

hi,

I always loved the cornerstones of good-design by Byron Henderson. His list can be made a bit longer; a short list with 12 points is all you need.

The NMRA-site is a prime exemple of what I do not want. Looking at the 10 points for good design I found them very abstract. And looking for data regarding radii and switch numbers i coudn’t find any standards. A list like:

1 Did you not only drew your trackplan, but also your room or space with all obstacles?

2 Did you apply a 2,5 ratio for your minimum radius?

3 Did you apply a 4 ratio for your switches? (Devide your min. radius by 4 and you have a matching switch- number)

4 Did you use a higher switchnumber when S-curves are used.

5 Did you provide for staging?

6 Do you have at least one passing siding?

7 Do you have facing and trailing spurs?

8 Do you have spurs to at least a teamtrack, a freighthouse, an interchange and a big landmark industry?

9 Is the reach-in distance never more then 30"?

10 Is aisle-width never under 24", with an average aisle-width of 30"?

Questions about grades, easements and footprints are still missing.

Keep in mind this shortlist is meant for newbies, an experienced modeller will know which standards he can ease a bit. To many times the old hats are debating these standards over the heads of those who still have never heard or realised a big 2-10-2 steamer is not able to run over a 18" curve with #4 switches.

If a rather short posting like this one, allready gives the impression of being as long as and as boring as War and Peace, we are facing a different problem.

Paul

13

Questions 2, 3, 4, 7, 8 are “technospeak” and probably mean nothing to newbies or even some moderately experience modelers. Actually I’m not sure a lot of new to the hobby know what staging is let alone a trailing spur.

Maybe I am not giving people enough credit for reading forums (or even MR), searching the internet or actually going out and buying a planning book (like those from John Armstrong or Tony Keoster ).

14

Right. I don’t think it would be possible to create a single very short list of questions you can give to someone starting out with track planning, which magically will make him or her aware of most issues he or she should think about.

And of course - most people learn more from their own mistakes than from the advice of someone else. As the old saying goes: “good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment” :slight_smile:

Still - it can’t harm people too bad to read a couple of pages of lessons one could possibly learn from someone else’s experience. Here is another such lists of tips, where things are explained fairly clearly as we go along - it comes from Byron Henderson’s Layout Design blog:

Track Plan Analysis: http://mrsvc.blogspot.com/2008/02/track-plan-analysis-indexed.html

Smile,
Stein

15

Stein, are we the forum peanut gallery?

Actually it reads well and is informative (seen this stuff somewhere else), highly recommended reading. I seem to have stumbled into some of his cornerstones and avoided some (not all) of his planning pitfalls all on my own (or is it because I read it somewhere and think they are my thoughts?).

16

hi Doc,

the questions you mentioned are technostuff?

When building a modelrailroad you have to learn a couple of things. I never said this list can be used without any explanation. It is just the kind of very basic knowledge you need. Very easy, very simple to understand; if you want to learn.

It is the kind of information you wil find in every book; problem is you can make this list very long indeed. But every newbie should become aware of at least the pitfall that they can’t run every train they fancy over every configuration of tracks. And that there is more then just laprunning.

Paul

17

For me it was a combination of things. While looking for O gauge sets to get for the Christmas tree, I started thinking back to my days as a kid and enjoying my HO and N scale trains. Then, while, window shopping at a LHS I started getting the urge to “play” with the N scale trains again. And after attending a local Rail Days, and seeing a number of HO and N scale layouts I decided building a small N scale layout would be a great way to spend some free time, help me relax, and bring the kids some enjoyment.

For me it’s not all about operation, or era’s, etc., it’s just about relaxing and having some fun. I spent most of the past weekend crawling around underneath my layout working on the electrical and control panel drawer. Tedious work in some ways, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

Overtime I’ve made it a point to learn as much as I can, either through books, forums, or even simulator software. I think the key to avoid frustration is to first accept the simple fact that nothing happens overnight, and if you don’t take your time and rush through it, you’ll a) make tons of mistakes, and b) fail to enjoy the ride.

18

Quite an interesting discussion we have going on here - I just hope, it does not get out of hand.

You can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink. We cannot prevent anybody from making costly mistakes, unless he/she is willing to listen, to collect information from various sources and to communicate in an orderly manner.

I guess, we all started out with an oval made of snap track, a passing siding and a spur leading to whatever type of industry. We started to make scenery by covering a table top with something “green”, put structures on it and glued some “trees” to it. In our days, the internet with its vast opportunities of information was not available, yet we learned - by reading a book or visiting a model railroading club. That´s the way I did it. Now we can share our knowledge, which we accumulated over decades. If we attach some small rules to the way we are prepared to share our knowledge with people who are asking us to do so, what´s so bad about it? IMHO, it is perfectly correct to expect properly articulated questions in a proper language, to expect feedback on the hints we give. We invite the posters asking questions to work with us - if he chooses not to, why bother to spend all the precious time in answering his questions?

BUT: We also have to learn to accept the fact, that not all members and guests in this forum thrive to become expert model railroaders. If they can get their fun out of that 4 by 8 with a loop or a figure 8 on it, so it be!

Enjoy!

19

Byron Henderson’s website article “Starting Ops on a 4X8” is along those lines.

I agree. Sometimes it seems like some people just don’t want to take the time read what’s offered, and the nice, meaty posts by folks such as Stein (our own Tolstoy [:)]) have no effect. But even if the OP doesn’t want to invest the effort, others reading the thread will certainly benefit.

Conversely I do think that some people, mainly those who have trouble defining what they want or narrowing their focus, will benefit from just throwing some track down and running some trains. I would just remind them that they may not necessarily be satisfied with the results in the long term.

20

Absolutely. A hobby is something we do because we think it is fun.Nobody should feel browbeaten into doing their model railroading in a way that is not fun for them, just because that is what someone else thinks is the fun way.

As I told another poster by PM a couple of days ago:

IMO, getting advice never hurt anyone.Being asked to clarify what your goals are never hurt anyone.

You can always choose to disregard advice you don’t want to follow.

It is harder to find any use of advice you never got :slight_smile:

Smile,
Stein