My life made a harsh and sharp turn in recent weeks, forcing me to abandon all previous plans for a model railroad I now see some light at the end of the tunnel. Not only is my business gone, my house is gone as well. But not my hopes and dreams…
I now have very little room for a layout - actually “only” 2´ by 8´6", but with the option to place 2´ long detachable switching leads at each end. What I am now looking for is some type of “scenic” switching layout, that does not only offer a good operation, but also some “scenery” - preferably of the urban/industrial type. Some “water front” would also be nice to have.
My brain is quite empty after folding down my previous life - is there anybody out here with some ideas to help me out?
thanks for your reply. I am still not completely on my own two feet yet, but doing some planning for the future keeps me from going insane, after losing everything I had been working for for more than 30 years.
The little cubicle my wife and I will live in (I cannot call it a house) does not allow for an L-shaped layout, just something straight forward. I know Lance Mindheim´s wonderful East Rail layout, but its setting is a little too rural for me.
Hmm - nautical flavor and industrial/urban. How about something like the Bush Terminal RR in Brooklyn, New York ? Bernie Kempinsky had an excellent layout based on this water/rail terminal in Model Railroad Planning 2003.
I made a plan partly inspired by Bernie’s plan back in March 2008, as part of a forum debate on how much layout you could get from a single sheet of 4x8 foot plywood - maybe you could steal some of the ideas from something like this to create a small urban/harbor switching layout ?
How about something like David Barrow’s South Plains Industrial Switching Layout? With its four 2x4 sections it is easily movable, and the two modules (South Plains and Industry Yard) may even be placed on separate levels on the same wall, with the detachable switch lead doubling as a cassette to move cars between the two levels. It might be better though if you had a 4’ lead on one side instead of 2’ on each side, I don’t know if that’s an option.
You could flip the track plan of one of the modules to ease the movement of the switching lead/cassette, and instead of an engine terminal or a grain elevator you could make a harbor scene. I think this layout offers both operation and scenic posibilities as it is, but changes can be done quite easily.
I’m sorry to hear about the loss of both your business and your home, that’s just to sad! I lost my job two weeks ago when my employer filed for bancrupsy, but I can’t even begin to imagine what you are going through. As Bill said, hang in there.
Thanks for all the good ideas and the warm words. Although my economical situation is, to say the least, very tight, I feel somehow relieved, now that most of the folding up work is done. Losing most of the posessions is not as hard as losing one´s health - which was my main worry. So I don´t have a big and expensive house any longer, I do not drive a BMW 7 series car any more. Now it is going to be a tiny house with three tiny rooms and a 15 year old Mercedes that a friend gave to me - so what! My wife and I will celebrate our silver wedding anniversary this year and we our closer together than ever!
There is even room for thoughts on model railroading. I will pick up the ideas and post the results here.
If there is more food for thought - it is most welcome!
I did some research this morning and came up with an adaption of a plan published in MR´s May 2003 copy. It is slightly larger than what I figured out I can do, but maybe I can squeeze out a couple of feet.
This is a very nice plan. You don’t need a lot of depth to set up a realistic scene. My shelf layout is set up with only 22 inches of depth from the wall. I am currently doing an adaptation of Lance Mindheim’s “East Rail”. However, this is how the actual “East Rail” looks in that the Seaboard Warehouse/Archive Americas complex at the far end of my layout are actually tied together with a breezeway that allows movement of materials between both buildings. The pastel green building is Colmar Warehousing and yes it is green. I went with East Rail only because it had palm trees and I wanted to do something different this time. It have included a link that shows the true building on 54th Street in Miami.
The May, 2001 MR has a layout article authored by Jonathan Jones, who lived at the time in NY City in a small apartment. His layout inspried me, as I live in an apartment right now and only have room for a small layout. This is an “urban corridor” that is 2’ x 10’. I have modeled my small 2’ x 14’ L-sahped layout roughly after his
So sorry to hear about your terrible misfortune. I too have been pondering my own business, which, in the last month or two has taken a seasonal as well as an economic downturn. I am just hanging on trying to keep up two households right now (my children, all grown, are going to college and live in my house two states away) and it is becoming very tenuous.
I have found that keeping busy with my small railroad is a good distraction from the troubles. I certainly wish you all the best.
I agree with Tom. That Jonathan Jones layout is a very good basis for a small urban shelf switching layout. Byron Henderson played around a bit with it the last time it was discussed here, to make it a little easier to switch. This is my interpretation of what Byron ended up with:
That could be made into an 8 1/2 by 2 foot layout with a nautical flavor fairly easily, maybe something loosely like this ?
Btw - “bulk transshipment” is probably not the right term - but some kind of transfer of stuff from rail to sea transport (or the other way around). Could be pretty much anything - stuff from flatcars, gondolas, hoppers, maybe even covered hoppers (if you put a pit with conveyors under the track).
There seems to be a family tradition in having to start up all over again. My grandfather lost everything he had and could save only his bare life in the wake of WW I and WW II, my father nearly lost his skin during the terror reign of that Austrian with this funny moustache and I seem to be a victim af the global financial crisis, which is somewhat like a war…
It is good to know that there are fellow model railroader and friends out there in the world, with whom we can keep in touch through forums (fori!) like this one.
Stein, as usual your plan is just … wow!
Phoebe Vet - I am a lone wolf - modelling US prototype is not very common in my area, most clubs have German themes. I have been dreaming of having a US model railroad since I was an exchange student to the US back in the early 70´s.
I’m currently building a shelf layout using this track plan. Although the plan calls for a 1’ x 6’ shelf, I’m using an 18" wide hollow core door as the base. This gives me some extra space at the front edge for some street and storefront scenery and a few inches at the left and right ends for additional structures to “frame” the layout. Take a look at this plan…it may work for you.
toughen up, things will get better. it all takes time.
now about your model railroad. my entire basement layout is done in the “urban grunge” theme. i have never enjoyed making trees etc. so my railroad’s neighbors are other railroads (as in E St Louis) and factory buildings. my walls are lined with walls and instead of pastoral scenery, i have streets and sidewalks.
justification for this idea came from two sources. when i first went to work on the old Big Four at Brooklyn Illinois, we had to climb through the Wabash yard to get to our yard and across the main line was the GM&O yard. at least four other railroads used our main line. second source was my first train ride from Philly to New York. almost a hundred miles and we were never out of town. every time i looked out the window all i could see was the back side of a building with an occasional street or highway.
Found another interesting one - from the Carendt site. Switching urban layout with elvated mainline at front of layout, looking down over the front structures for the switching.
An adaptation to 8 1/2 foot long with 2 feet cassettes and 30" deep (little deeper than the 24" you wanted):
Allows you to have a mainline train arrived on the elevated rail, run around its cars and shove the cars “onto a car float” or “into a siding” or some such thing (ie onto cassette).
Then move the cassette down to the switching area at the bottom rear, and have a smaller switcher come out and start grabbing outbound cars and inbound cars and do it’s thing.
I took your idea and transformed it into using Atlas Code 83 track and no.6 turnouts. Another step in the right direction.
Here it is:
A suggestion to MR´s staff - why don´t you run a series or even make a book about “scenic” shelf switchers? Not all of us have the space (and the money) to build one 0f those 15´by 30´ or even bigger layouts, filling an entire basement.
The do have a book out about Shelf Layouts. It is written by Iain Rice. It doesn’t have too many layout plans but does discuss the theory and a lot of options in building a shelf layout. I found it very useful as I try to design my first shelf layout. Good luck with everything.
I’m so sorry you are having problems. The economy is hitting a lot of us hard. It seems everyone, except retires, is effected by the downturn now.
The pier front switching layout you are working on looks like a good fit. I have several variations of a pier front I’ve done myself. The advantage of a pier front layout is you can use short wheelbase switchers which handle R18" well. So you can get away with #4 turnouts if you want. (Providing you don’t have anything over 50’->55’ scale feet cargo wise)
