Yes, Paul, technostuff (or technospeak). As has been said multiple times in posts on this forum, we all bring our own interests and concerns to model railroading. I’m not much of an operations person (see Stein’s post preceding). I enjoy building structures etc. and am spending far more time detailing than I did 20 yrs ago. My layout design will allow for some operations, but I won’t drive my design or scenery decisions on that basis.
As to the quote, I’m sorry but any site designed for new to the hobby types needs to be more fundamental. If someone wants to operate (as opposed to run) a layout, then they can go do more reading and learn about that. But to ask someone if they worried about leading and trailing spurs is not going to help them get started.
Personally, I think everyone should read John Armstrong’s book on operations and planning, or any good planning / thought process sites out on the web. And while experience is good for learning, so is ripping up and redesigning layouts in a CAD or design program. I am on version 12 of my layout design and it keeps evolving as I notice what doesn’t work, what is overly complex, what doesn’t serve the various structures (industries for the operations people) and scenery.
I hear the words of Spacemouse “even if you have the IQ of SpongeBob” or the words of a bitter ex HO-er “ït was not on the boxes”. If you want to play football you will have to learn the rules, if you want to enjoy baseball you have to learn the rules. If you want to have an layout without derailments and with just a bit more then doing laps, you will have to learn the rules.
Just as learning what a pitcher does, you will have to learn what staging does. Just as knowing what a base is you will have to know what a trailing spur is. All Americans knew what Meat Loaf meant by getting to third base, so all modelrailroaders should know the relation between the length of their cars and the minimum radius.
If you don’t want to know, your problem. Looking back never use the word bitter. And when learning some rules or words is immediately technospeak to you, you have the problem. If you want to find out your self, don’t ask questions on a forum.
A shortlist of questions can have a lot of different uses. If someone response is like: i just want to run some trains, great. Another might ask to explain the difference between trailing and facing spurs. A third might respond like: Is it really impossible to push a cut of autoracks through a #4 crossover?
To me the biggest problem making a shortlist are the old hats, War and Peace long debates whether a 1:2.5 ratio or a 1:3 ratio should be mentioned, or no ratio at all.
if you do not want to understand something, don’t try.
What you fancy, is your business. An easy question: do you have spurs and why do they all face the same direction?, is not meant to get them started. But when someone comes up in a forum with a design, it is an issue you can question. Or as was done in another design with lots of spurs going into different directions, you could question why a runaround or passing siding was omitted.
All very basic and very easy to understand. If it is techno stuff for you, great. If some one else thinks, hey sounds logic, also great.
If someone tells he is not much into operation I do not know what is meant by it. If it means: I like to sit in a armchair, with the cat on my lap, a cigar in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, I get the picture. If you want to have your trains looking great, you can enter the ratio debate. Again this is not helping someone to start; if you are happy with one foot long coaches on a 26" radius you are happy with it. If a new kid in town wants to run one foot long coaches it is so easy to say that an18" radius won’t work. Hundreds of postings with all different opinions will follow. Should we leave it for “newbies” by repeating tables by John Armstrong and Andy Sperandeo using a 30" radius and #6 switches. (and #8’s when S-curves are involved)?
By the time you need to know what that third base means, you’ve been familiar with the rules of baseball for over a decade. I’d hope.
But to keep the analogy going, you can enjoy or start to enjoy a sport without knowing all the technical stuff right off the bat. When you’re a kid and you’re going to play football, the uncle enlisted to be quarterback is just going to tell you go “go deep” because kids like to run in a straight line really fast. If you go out to play football with the kids and huddle up and start telling them to run go routes, slants, fades, and all that its just going to confuse them and be no fun. People can readily enjoy football on the “wow that guy tackled that guy right after he caught the ball” without going into “the mike linebacker who came in on the blitz bit on the play action and the quarterback was free to throw the screen to the flanker, but the corner was in tight man coverage and the play resulted in the loss of yardage.”
On day 1 of wanting to play football, you probably don’t know or even need to know what the difference between a flanker and a slot receiver is. To me, throwing all that stuff at a guy that’s like “hey I just put a sheet of plywood over a ping pong table and put the track from under the Christmas tree on it what now” is just going to be overwhelming. My favorite model railroad book HO Railroad from Start to Finish basically starts with this premise and eases into everything in a completely logical way. And it doesnt even have off layout staging.
I think many of the “newbie questions” are more of how do I do this or how do I do that regarding the construction aspect of model railroading. I would say it safe to say that most if not all newbies have no idea what is meant by the term “Operation” thats something you get in the hospital right would be the typical response. Most want/need advice on the correct way to lay track, make turnouts aka switches to them function correctly. How do I keep my cars from derailing how do I make a mountain or a tunnel etc. There are very few people who venture into any hobby looking to get into the complicated or more complex aspects of the hobby right off the bat. Does a guy who wants to build an R/C plane with is kid and go to the park not knowing anything walk into a hobby shop and want ask to start off with a top of the line stunt flying airplane or something basic and rudimentary.
I know seasoned modeler who are extremely talented who have built fantastic model railroads who don’t give a hoot about operation or doing this with that train or the proper length of a passing siding etc. etc. They do it for the love of building and the love of model trains. as long as it looks great and it works who cares and I tend ot agree with them. Model railroading allows you some free license if you will to create what isn’t real and to make things the way you want them not necessarily the way someone e says they should be or the way the prototype did them. Isn’t that part of the fun of the hobby creating what you want not what some else tell you you have to do, thats called work not fun.
Not everyone who ventures into a new hobby be it model railroading or R/C planes or riding motorcycles or anything stays in them very long and becomes very efficient at them or shal I say take them too seriously.
Lets be honest when you sit back and think about how much there really is involved in this hobby and how complex it can become it can be intimidating and the tail can definitely wag the dog no que
The debate so far has strayed in various directions, as forum debates tend to do.
Some people seem to feel that there are some “basic rules” (or at least, basic recommendations) to planning a layout, everybody should know those rules/recommendations, and if you don’t want to learn those rules, then by golly - you deserve a good tongue lashing [;)]
Well, okay - the tongue lashing bit is maybe going a little bit overboard [(-D]
Some people seem feel that the most important thing is to not scare new people away by overwhelming them, so keep things very simple, and just let the new model railroaders make their own mistakes and learn from that.
Whatever you do - don’t mention the war (*). Umm - I mean - don’t mention things like staging - that may send new modelers into screaming hysterics [:-^]
(*) - Sorry about that - just had a Fawlty Towers moment there …
I guess I fall somewhere in between. I do not feel that new modelers will have to learn by heart all design recommendations before they will be allowed to play. We are not in track planning boot camp here, and it is a hobby - it is supposed to be fun.
But I also feel that it is generally a good idea to ask some questions to get a clear idea about what the new modeler is actually looking for, rather than to make assumption.
The new modeler probably will not know exactly what he or she is looking for (and he/she certainly won’t know what he or she will be wanting to do 30 years down the line), but it i
As I said in a different post - any online forum is based on written communication. So, knowing the difference between 'there" and “their” or “to”, “two”, and “too” DOES make a difference in how the the person’s written communication is interpreted. The ability to formulate a clear sentence, to get one’s thoughts and questions into a coherent, intellegible paragraph is paramount to getting a good response. If I read a thread and it is poorly written, incoherent with poor grammar, spelling etc. I’m more likely than not will not respond to it. Typos are one thing, but if the OP doesn’t take the time to properly formulate their post why should I waste my time responding with something when I’ve already wasted my time reading and trying to understand their post.
Also, if, based on the OP’s post, it’s easily apparent that they didn’t bother trying to find an answer to their question before posting it for all to respond to, then why waste my time responding when the OP didn’t feel it was worth their time trying to find an answer on their own. There are forum members who have been on this forum for quite awhile, post a lot fo questions, respond to a lot of questions yet haven’t taken the time to be come familiar with basic terminology. They couldn’t tell you the difference between switch points and a switch frog. Some may say “Big Deal” but when you’re trying to explain something about a turnout then it becomes important.
My feeling is there are basic recommendations and they should be made; if the OP wants to listen or not is his problem.
However my biggest worry is all the well meant advices by “pro’s” or “would be pro’s” , and all of them different. It may be difficult, but when a new kid in town is asking about the minimum radius, he is not waiting for my personal view: so I tell him he’ll find the information for HO on page 17 in 102 Realistic TP’s. The beauty of the 102 TP’s book is another table with different values on page 24. For N-scale even both tables on page 17 have different value’s.
IMHO it is not to difficult to explain why plan 12 (Montadon Branch, in very same book) has more goodies then plan 13 (Great Northern Ry), despite its pretty looking picture. Compare the rough plan from a Penn Nut with the plan Texas Zephyr drew and built in Junior High. But how to tell him in a, to him decent or acceptable way? O’Dave felt himself put down by the NMRA table, while he liked the LDSIG table.
So I can read, I can listen, I understand most of the stuff presented, but for me it is sometimes hard to say things in a nice way. I know, “C’est la tone qui fait la musique”. OTOH we also have to accept that not every one masters that art.
I’m not sure why you find it amazing. I get a train set. Set it up on the floor. Watch it chase it’s tail around the oval for the 60 zillionth time. And I figure there’s got to be more than this. This doesn’t look like the display I saw at the club/museum/LHS. How do I get from the circle on the floor to the magnificent display I saw? In this day and age, the answer is I go search the Internet. I come across train.com - seems like a logical site to check. After wading through the ads, I come to the reader forums. Asking seems like the logical thing to do, since I don’t see my question on the 1st page.
How can I, the newcomer, possibly know what era, prototype, or region I want to model? All I know is that the colors for railroad XYZ looked pretty good to me at the LHS. And I probably know enough to match the engine and caboose with the same railroad name. But I want to build my own version of that display I saw - how do I get there?
I would guess it’s a combination of all 3. The train set (scale/gauge doesn’t matter) is the 1st concrete step for most. Th
Mmm. I guess the new user has at least two main options:
If the new modeler wants advice on one simple, consistent and mostly reasonable for many people path to building a layout, he or she should go buy a starter book and follow that.
Say Jeff Wilson’s “H0 scale Model Railroading - Getting Started in the Hobby” or Marty McGuirk’s “N scale railroading: Getting started in the Hobby, second edition”. Or one of the other starter books.
Any one of these books have the potential to lead the reader to a layout, provided he or she actually have the room for it in his or her home and is able to get the necessary skills.
If, on the other hand, the new modeler wants advice on at least some of the many alternate paths that can be followed, or customized/tailor made advice for his or her available space and wishes or dreams, he or she should ask questions in an interactive forum on the net.
And be prepared to get a lot of potentially conflicting advice.
Interactive user forums and books written by professional authors are different tools for different jobs.
As a newcomer to the hobby who’s been chewing over the many pieces of advice posted here on this forum, on various blogs and websites, and in a number of books, I’ll give you my opinion for what it’s worth.
I had a train set as a boy and never moved beyond “the ping-pong table”. My family was not wealthy enough to support a hobby like this for one of a multitude of children and I frankly, didn’t have the time with sports, academics, etc. to really get into it. Fast forward a few decades and now my son has expressed an interest in the hobby, which led to my resurgent interest in actually doing it this time, since I have some disposable income to dedicate to the hobby.
Thinking through the basics doesn’t occur until there is a readily-apparent benefit to some basic operational understanding. If I don’t understand something in a relatively short amount of time; forget it. If someone cannot explain a concept, a process, or function in a few paragraphs and why it is beneficial and cost-effective, it is not relevant for someone new to the hobby.
You have to break down your concepts into easily digestible portions that present the basic dumbed-down concepts and let the person figure out if that interests them or not. If it does, they will look for more information by and large. If you do not articulate a benefit coherently or if the person does not see the stated benefit as having a value to them, the concept will be ignored (until a later potential date when they have an “Aha!” moment.)
There’s not going to be any one answer. The only way to minimize frustration is to put the information out there for people to find and articulate why it’s important. Does it add to play-value, reality of their constructed world (hey, this really is not different that SimCity folks), or provide some other benefit to the person? If it does, it will be examined
Some very interesting points have been made above, including a couple of “Aha” moments for me.
I would like to apologize for my poor word choice in the initial posting. Just for the record, I am not intolerant of questions, and I love helping people, and am certainly not frustrated with “elementary” questions.
I do, however, feel that our hobby loses some potential members because their enthusiasm (and yes, enthusiasm is a terrific trait) because they get frustrated and don’t ask for help until it’s too late.
Excellent thread and excellent posts by some of the wiley veterans that I’ve enjoyed reading over the years. Without quoting his long thread, I’ll try to add to the overall feel I got from of Fred’s post on the previous page.
Sometimes it seems that the reponder to a thread, and I don’t mean the wiley veteran’s I spoke of above, is trying to guide the OP into the direction that they chose for themselves, rather than laying out various options for which the OP can choose. Choices that would satisfy the priorities they have, as silly and pointless as they may seem.
The noob gets into model railroading for a reason. He is already interested in the hobby before he posts anything here. Answering the question in a way that builds upon that reason (if we can detect it), rather than takes him away from it, is going to benefit the OP and will likely help him maintain his interest in the hobby until such time as he learns how to do things the right way, you know, they way we think he should do it.
My reason for getting into the hobby was, at age 6, visiting the Museum of Science and Industry and being awed by that awesome HO railroad they have. For me, there’s no point in modeling something that’s ugly. It has to look cool, which, of course, is subjective. Whether its a locomotive, mountain, building, whatever, being accurate to the prototype is secondary. Just like when I was 6, the layout has to look right. Didn’t care then how the operating schematic was then. I’ve grown since then and operations matter.
Most folks on this forum, whether members or guests, probably got interested in “trains” when they were a kid. They probably lived near a railroad, whether it be a switching yard or class 1 mainline, rode with grandpappy on his steam locomotive for a few miles
Well, asking a clear question is important if you want a relevant reply fast. Not being able to communicate well in writing is clearly a handicap. But handicaps can be overcome.
In my opinion, the most important quality if you want to get an answer to something is persistence - that you keep at it until people understand your question, and you have gotten an answer you understand.
If necessary, you look for information elsewhere too, and you do your own tests. As someone (Chuck?) said; an ounce of testing is worth ten tons of opinions.
I appreciate this thread. I am not a newbie really but then again I have not had a successful layout. To that end I have been lurking on this forum and others to try to do the proper research.
My list of issues and questions:
Issue – an unfinished basement is not conducive to a long term layout. Ad hoc power (long runs of extension cords) and the dust from concrete walls just doesn’t do it. So I am currently trying to sheet rock over the walls in my designated space (long story about what had to be done prior to my getting to this project doesn’t need to be repeated here).
Issue – running more than one train at a time is hard to do using DC. Switching to DCC before starting the current layout made a lot of sense. Even with my 4x8 test loop I could see that it was more fun. Of course that leads to questions on proper wiring, reversing loops, and power districts. Some of which I have answers to, some not yet. Of course this meant dealing with older engines that weren’t DCC capable. Some have been converted, some will not.
Issue – fixing a time and place for the layout simplifies the planning. Rather than trying to squeeze as much as I could into the space available (been there, done that, twice), I am trying to mimic something real or near real. I spent some time trying to build a plausible rationale for the tracks and the trains that run on them.
Question – how much do I want to worry about operation (switching) versus just running trains? I have had experience with a train chasing its tail (boring after a while) so while I want to be able to do continuous running I also want to be able to park a train and bring in another (hence a need for staging). That begs a question – how much vertical separation do you need to get down to the staging? My second layout had a switch on a downhill grade that constantly caused derailments. Lesson learned – don’t do that. I n
interesting thought ,Yes im a backwards planer in this scale. now I have built my own home including ,prints,land development,frame ,plumb,electr.,hvac,and everything else to get it to turn key…I did a back yard g-scale 100’x20’ drew a plan and more or less stuck to it…but I guess because of the reduced scale I just am having a little more trouble visualizing,not the problem with the house 21/2 acres a few stakes and some string …again in the g-scale plenty of room …but since Ive never done any thing this small and have only seen HO @ shows and videos just couldn’t imagine the amount of space and what could that space yield. bought ,gosh 10 of kelmbaughs books ,read and ask questions here every morning for a11/2 years ,marvel at other peoples work,but I think because I dont know anybody who has a layout so I could be up close to see ops &space management.so I had to abandon my so called computer generated plan an use thumb tacks to attach track too the bench work ,build a couple a buildings and now I can see it ,had I stayed with my original plan I would be ripping it out rite now totally frustrated because on paper looked good but in opts it was cramped and … well never worked. I guess what Im saying is it takes a lot more bench for a scale scene that I had ever imagined…Im learning ,having fun,spending a ton a money,but Im not frustrated and havent had to tear anything out ,(well nothing that removing a few thumb tacks couldnt fix)then I will make my finial plan and remove the temp track ,temp industries ,and start laying my foam board and road board ,and the part that makes it scenery…yes Im a backwards planner…Jerry
didn’t John Armstrong suggest that as an alternative to paper (or CAD) if you have trouble visualizing, i.e., a track plan laid out as 12 in to the foot on wood (or foam)?