As I’m gathering more and more resources and putting more thought into a future layout and the current modular setup I have available, I have started to have some questions about the liberties available for how accurate I can represent the towns and locals along the tracks.
My initial plan was a complete freelance with fictional cities and towns, yet have some interchange with prototype railroads. While I am intrigued by the possibilities, I believe my direction has shifted towards the “purchase abandoned track and revitalize” type of layout. I have a name in mind for the railroad and have a tentative idea of where the railroad would run from and the areas I’d like to model.
The railroad would run from Winona, Minnesota to Mankato, Minnesota along the former Chicago Great Western lines. From Mankato east, the line was mostly abandoned after the CGW/CNW merger while some of what remained of the CGW line may or may not still be in use today in some capacity (part of what I still must research). My thought is the layout would represent 1980s-Present with some CNW stuff floating around the layout as well as a few other railroads. My modular section would model the city of Faribault. In the future, the layout, depending on size, would include the yards in Winona and Mankato along with a few spots in between for operations purposes.
When thinking of a back story and for what I currently have, how accurate must I be when modeling the city? Ideally, I’d like to include rail served businesses of my own idea, not what was/is prototypical today or in the past. I like the idea of using real cities and towns, but freelancing the industries and layout plan. Searching the internet and looking at many track plans, I have an idea for my current setup, but would likely look more prototypical in track planning for a larger layout.
Bottom line, is it silly to only model the cities/towns along a route, but not the actual track plan and industries when doing so
No. While it is often nice to model track arranagements it is not always possible given our space restraints. Also actual track arrangrments and industries do not always provide enjoyable operation on a model railroad.
I have been modeling a free lanced railroad for over thirty years, and five layouts. I am planning layout number six right now.
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All I can tell you is that it has taken me half of a lifetime to figure out exactly what I want to model, and what I truly enjoy. This has nothing to do with free lanced or prototype, just evolving tastes, reality of time, changing fanances, etc.
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It sounds like you have an idea of what you want. Go with that. No one else can know what you truly enjoy.
Most of us don’t have the room to model a very small town, let alone cities or the full-sized industries in them. On my room-sized layout, I’m hard pressed to include even a bit of a residential area… all the factory workers, shop keepers, and railroad employees seem to live “somewhere else”.
Even representing a good-sized industry requires more real estate than we have available, so you’ll learn pretty quickly to improvise and even cheat a bit when it comes to making things look plausible.
I chose to use real place names and in many cases, real industries, but I made almost no effort to make them look like their prototype. I also included some made-up industries, but I did try to make them look believeable.
Here’s a drawing of my layout room, about 560 square feet…
There’s no trackplan (it was built without one) but it’s a point-to-point-to-point line, partially double-decked (the area in grey has the second level above it). There are staging yards at all three end-points, plus two tracks representing unmodelled industries and four tracks (two each) represe
No. All model railroads are compromises. No matter how much you want to follow the prototype, you can’t be 100% accurate. How much you deviate and where is part of what’s called the Art of Model Railroading.
If you are trying to capture the flavor of Minnesota, then you probably want to follow the style of buildings there and use industries that could be found in Minnesota. That is adobe stations and steel mills wouldn’t really cut it.
OTOH your layout is a chance to have models and scenes that appeal to you.
I think the best model railroads are the ones that satisfy the builder.
No.
I’m just adding my voice to the previous posters that have pointed out the impossibilities, so therefore the compromises that have to be made, due to the lack of space, and think that Paul has summed up my feelings by referring to the need to capture “the flavour” of your modelled area.
Have Fun,
in modeling the Tropicana operation in Bayonne NJ for example I realized that could not accurately model the building and the yard next to it So I compromised and made a similar shaped building by combining a warehouse structure with an oversized locomotive shed and putting a spur next to it to represent the yard.
IMO, trackplans should be about maximizing the space available to suit your modleing goals, not necessarily copying prototypical arrangments precisely. Since you’re freelancing off of a specific location, its also more important to capture the overall feel of the area instead of modeling towns and cities precisely. Most freelancers pick several landmarks to model, either bridges or buildings, to help capture the feel. But those landmarks don’t have to be copied to a precise location.
If your railroad has purchased a previously abandoned line, it would make sense that it did so because a new large industry sprung up and wanted to be rail served, allowing the economics of the situation to work. I would pick your favorite type of industry and use that as the railroad’s major source of income, then, as the railroad was running, other smaller industries along the line sprung up as well. This basic concept can also be helpful in creating an operating plan, in that many of the trains would contain cars to serve the big industry, and a variety of other cars to serve industries along the line.
You can have any type of layout with this back story. You can model the industries or not, and switch them or not. The large industry can be switched or represented off layout by staging. You can have no switching at all, and have run through trains from staging to staging. The trains could pass through non railserved towns where the buildings act like scenery, or have no buildings at all and just landscape.
IMO, the idea of the railroad’s back story is to develop the content of the trains that are placed into the operating style of your choice.
Why not focus on one city? Maybe put your staging on one side and the town on the other side. 1.) You can have larger trains run through your layout. 2.) Larger trains also can add operational interest (the local having to avoid said trains) 3.) More industries and switching. I don’t know how big your layout will be though and we may be able to get two towns in depending on space.
Every model railroad is an exercise in compromise. Where you make the compromises is a matter of individual preference. Prototype and freelance aren’t opposite poles of a dichotomy, but a palette from which the designer and builder draw elements to varying degrees in different aspects of the layout.
I’ve visited and designed model railroad layouts that combined prototype and freelance elements in many different ways: totally freelanced; accurate-as-possible trackage, industries, and names; track arrangements reflecting the prototype, but with different place names; real-life place names with freelanced track arrangements; and every other conceivable combination and blend. Nearly every blend can work, I think, if acceptable to the builder.
So this all depends on your preferences – and the compromises with which you personally are comfortable
[Personally, I’m least comfortable with prototypical place names combined with completely freelanced and out-of-character* industries, but that’s only for any layout I would build for myself.]
a. what makes you happy should be your aim in all you do in the hobby. Knowing what that is is the trick. Find it and it should all come together;
b. nobody guarantees that your happiness will last more than a few weeks or months. Things change, whether personal circumstances or a new appreciation for train layouts that you didn’t have previously. Often it’s that last bit that has us frowning instead of smiling. We know something now that we didn’t know (or appreciate) when we solidified our plans, and what we see in front of us just doesn’t work well any more; something isn’t right, or something’s missing.
There are few good shortcuts in the hobby. We all have to learn with each layout what we like and what isn’t appealing. So, a first layout, even if carefully researched and planned, is almost certain to be relatively short-lived with a lifespan of several months to a couple of years, depending on resources and continued motivation and interest.
Thank you everyone for the incredible posts, motivation, and reassurance.
I used to teach in a school district that once had the CGW run through the towns; Waterville, Elysian, and Morristown. Now, there is a great running/walking/biking trail that follows the former CGW tracks. I guess there is even a few remaining signals or other odds and ends that were missed for many, many years hidden in the trees.
At the moment, I only have three 2’x4’ moduals. Nothign is operational as I am still working on my masters degree and we’re still trying to survive the first few years of marriage financially. I have been told that if/when we move that I can have an extra bedroom as long as there are enough for the kids, or I can have the third stall in the garage to turn into my train room. Who knows if/when that will happen or what the dimensions will even be.
With what I do have now, I’d likely model a city, Faribault, that would be rail served on a bigger layout. I like the idea of including real cities because it makes the railroad, especially a freelanced railroad, seem more real. Understanding the compromises needed for any layout, I would still like to include some semblence of realism on the layout. One such building could be the old depot in Faribault that was turned into the State Farm Insurance building or the other depot that is now a restaurant. I could potentially model the cheese caves, too in some capacity. Knowing that it isn’t completely frowned upon to model real towns but take liberties to make the track work and buildings fit personal interests is reassuring.
I’ve found a few track plans in MR and online that really pique my interest and offer the opportunity to do some switching in a small space. I really like gondolas and hoppers, so the two main industries will be a scrap yard/recycle facility and a grain elevator. I have one of the small steel sided elevators from Walthers as well as the ADM facility, so a few options to choose
My next, and most likely final, layout will only feature one city. There will be a yard where freights will drop off and pick up. There will be a trasfer run from a nearby yard, and an interchange track (maybe). Operations will consist of switching the waterfront and sending local turns into and out of staging.
