Hi guys I’m looking for a bit of input on new layout structures so the layout has a good purpose and thus making the layout be good for lone operations. At present I have for my main structures 2 coal structures, sawmill, chemical, and lumber , fish industry as well I have many smaller structures that are also wood related as well as a small ore mine. But my main large diorammas are listed first. With my new track plan I find the way I’m going to build it up being very populated with industry being more of a branch line I will have plenty of space for many more structures.
So again whats the secret to making a layout have purpose? ie what are some examples of what would service what?
Not sure if you want to spend the time to look through my now mostly disassembled layout listed in my signature but it may give a better indication on structures I presently have to work with plus.
Thanks
Lynn
I doubt this is what you expected to hear.
I wonder how important the structures are to operation. Tony Koester has spurs near the front edge of the layout that serve industries where the structure is presumed to be in the aisle, imagined.
If you want operation, how much would it matter if you drop off a tank car next to a freight house or a car next to an aisle industry? During the next session, the tank car is removed.
I think the other extreme is Pelle Soeeborg’s layout which appears designed for realistic photography.
I think the layout serves many purposes. Scenery and structures aren’t needed for operation, but we enjoy creating both. We lay track and make it controllable to varying degrees to exercise our design and building skills so that it’s operable. We operate the railroad, but most layouts are too small to model real operations, so we imagine the cars are coming and going to locations all over the country. In each of these cases we’re satisfying a different purpose, and i’m sure there are many more
Have you read Frank Ellison’s The Art of Model Railroading where he talks about purpose.
You need an ethanol plant. Not just any plant, but Red Train Energy in Richardton.
Red Trail owns three tracks right next to the BNSF mane lion in Richardton.
They receive Corn and Coal in hopper cars and ship Ethanol out in tank cars and Dry Brewers Yeast out in hopper cars.
The siding also receives pipes and chemicals for the oil industry. Quite a busy place. They lease two locomotives of their own, and BNSF switches at the plant almost daily. For a few cars, the conductor inspects the train, for bigger trains a car-knocker drives ouf fro Dickinson to do the honors. Most switching is done at the east end of the plant to avoid fouling the grade crossing, but outbound trans need to use the west switch. Ususally that can be done with a lot of back and forth across the crossing, but not always.
Nice mane lion too. Coal, Oil, Grain and Sand are major comoddities that move across the tracks all day long.
PS: Coal is stored in a heap next to the tracks, (lower right hand corner) at the moment there is some burning coal hiding in there. I guess they will just have to use up the pile until they get down to the burning coal and then do something about it. A nice touch for a model, you think?
ROAR
To my mind structures plays a leading roll in believability and defining the railroads reason for being and there is no exceptions to that simple truth.
So,in that light should we focus on several mini industries that is dwarf by a freight car or should we go with less is better by using larger industries with several car spots? Also the industries should be the type that is found in the area and era we model.
These industries should ship/ receive freight cars through interchanges and not tied together-there are exceptions such as loads in/out such as coal mine to power plant and vice versa and logs from load out to mill.
Now come the oh boy part…
Fitting the industries to the type of cars we own.
I have always thought we should carefully choose our car types and buy those that fits our industries but,the majority of us buys what we like and some times that’s based on eye pleasing–that’s the only way I can explain having 231 IPD boxcars and that count keeps going up.
That means my choice of industries uses boxcars along with my other favorite cars covered hoppers and tank cars.
Some times I wish I could sell everything and start fresh and used all the lessons learned over the 50 plus years I been in the hobby. [sigh]
The OP’s pictures show steam engines, so an ethanol plant would not be era-appropriate.
This thread http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/227395.aspx over on Layouts and Layout Building discusses some of the same issues. As several posters pointed out, it’s often better to ship to and from staging, rather than between industries modeled on a layout.
I have only a couple of “linked” industries. There’s a small coal mine, and a small coal-and-oil dealer. Also, I have a slaughterhouse and a tannery.
In the steam era, your fish industry, like many, would ship in ice-bunker reefers. Regardless of whether the fish is going to a plant on the other side of the layout or staging on the other side of a wall, you can add operational “purpose” with an icing platform. On my layout, reefer-served industries include a brewery, the slaughterhouse and express reefers from Railway Express which adds switching interest to passenger trains. Also, an icing platform can even provide a stopover for reefers on what would otherwise be through freights.
I also have a carfloat terminal. The carfloat holds 15 cars or so. In a way, it’s like staging, but also like a fiddle yard. It allows a modeled aspect which can accept or provide any kind of car.
I think the answer to this question depends a good deal on who sees the layout and what sort of imagination they have. If the first half of the answer is “mostly just me,” then the second half is more easily answered; if your layout gets viewed by regular operators, neighbors, relatives (especially young children), “visiting firemen,” and so on, then you have some guessing to do. For some folks, seeing coal hoppers and a building that says COAL COMPANY or MINE makes the connection. For others, a siding with a hopper sitting on it, close to the aisle, is sufficient–stop building that two-hundred-dollar retail coal dealer complex.
There are good articles about how to introduce some less obvious structures, too. In a steam setting, the sand house (and maybe a sand and gravel outfit somewhere) will be a revelation to younger people, and yet everyone grasps the use of sand in tractive effort. This is part of the “railroads are customers, too” category that can get overlooked.
The main point, though, is that some of us have to have it spelled out and some don’t. Look at the videos of operations, for example, on Rob Spangler’s layout or Joe Fugate’s, where stretches of beautifully rendered structures and scenery alternate with places that are just plywood and track and perhaps an index card reading “nuclear plant.” You don’t see operators closing their eyes as they roll their consists through the latter. On the other hand, you may sense a certain disappointment or impatience from people (I confess I’m one) who can’t fill in the blanks in their heads. On the third hand, little kids just want to see those choo-choos roll, and the rest is just as real to them as the prototype, or Thomas’s set, or whatever.
(A minor point: I think those of us who model steam and/or remote locales have a slight edge. Yesterday’s towns, especiall
If you have several industries, but don’t want a crowded looking layout, how about changeable scenes. Have a set size base and interchange different industrial scenes build on like size bases. You could have several locations with the same size base or you could have different size bases in a couple of different locations. Change the on layout industries with stored ones or move them to different locations for variety in operations and appearance.
Just a thought.
Have fun,
Richard
Yes.Early railroads was built on a shoe string linking small cities or even towns together hoping to get business that never materialized and soon became fodder for the scrap man.Their once a day train was usually a combined and 1 or 2 cars.
Some of these railroads flourish for years hauling few passengers and freight only to lose their place after paved highways started linking the same towns or smaller cities and their freight went to trucks and their passengers to the automobile.
Linked industries seem to be a theme here, and I agree. If you have one industry that produces something, a source of materials and a customer for that product somewhere on the layout would operating interest. For instance, you mention a sawmill. This may be a sequence of loads asssociated with that plant:
- Logs from the forrest to the sawmill(could originate from staging unless you want to model a woods operation)
- Boards from the mill to a furnature factory
- Furnature to a wholesale distribution warehouse and/or exit staging
ON the Boothbay Railway Village layout we have a concrete plant, and the operational sequence we plan would be:
- Limetone from the quarry rock crusher to the cement plant (open hoppers)
- Portland cement to a storage silo and batch plant (covered hoppers)
- Thereafter, cement would go by dry bulk truck or cement mixer to customers
IN addition to limestone, the cement plant receives other aggregates to make the cement, fuel oil for the cement kiln and occasional equipment shipments. The plant ships out Portland cement or agrigicultural lime in covered hoppers or bagged cement or lime in boxcars.
I chose to make my railroad unique and service only mines, but mainly major Uranium mines and concentrators during WWII and just after when the Uranium effort was climbing to a near peak on this product. A total mineral hauler with 80% being Uranium ore. 10% other minerals and 10% human and freight, but only as an aside, not money makers.
Buildings, other than those at small waysides and two tiny railroad towns, will all be uranium based mines or concentrator mills. Stock cars converted to explosives haulers, a single combine caboose for local passengers and small local mechant’s supplies, etc. No vast armada of rolling stock or engines. Mostly low and high side gons.
I don’t understand the problem. Why not just choose a favorite RR line, install the types of customers that actually exist (or existed) on that line, and operate the way the prototype does (or did)? If your personal vision dictates that you delete something or add something extra, you can do that too. If the whole thing comes out making sense to somebody else, or pleasing them, then that’s just fine. But after all, whose RR is it?
My thoughts too!
I am modeling a fairly obscure Conrail line from the 1984 era in western PA and have the Conrail Zone Track Spot Maps (ZTS) from 1984 so I know exactly which indutries the Conrail Lowgrade line had and it was fairly easy to come up with what these industries would ship or receive!
While a Freelance layout is fun to build as one can just throw down any track arrangement - It is sometimes not very believeable as a Company would never ship by rail if the receiving Industry was close enough to ship by truck !
But it is your layout and you can do what you want!
So just throw down the building and make things up as you go!
BOB H - Clarion, PA
Sometimes, less is more. It is possible to try to cram too much into too small an area to seem realistic. Whether you are modeling a prototype or freelancing, you should have a concept of where your layout fits in the real world and model industries that you would expect to find in that area. The smorgasboard approach is unlikely to yield realistic results.
To make your layout more meaningful, think about how your layout interacts with the rest of the would. Ask yourself these questions, what raw materials does each of my trackside structures need; where does the raw material come from and how often; where does the finished product go to and how often. Next determine how your layout interacts with the outside world i.e. junctions, staging, carfloats etc. Finally think about the freight trains that enter your layout in terms of what cars it will drop off and pick up.
If we all did that there would be no GMR,MRP or any Oohing and awing over great layouts featured in the pages of MR…
I would rather have a realistic ISL then a unrealistic layout that features no rhyme or reason for being and has spaghetti bowl track work.
Larry, Thank you for words of wisdom.
Thanks Greg, while designing for an operations based layout it has to make scence to me and have a story, this is very important. Starting over on my 5th layout and learnign from all the others means its time to do it right for myself.
Thanks for the links, I will belooking them up.
Roar that is some good information, You got me thinking for the Stuffy’s Brewery structure with grain.
Larry you make some excellent points. I model the 1920’s to late 40’s. Most of my cars will be replaced one day to correct era, one thing at a time. Not sure how I can change such a small layout to have interchanges and still have the feeling of long distance between industries which is why I decided to model in a branch form of sort of one large similar area.
MisterBeasley you are quite correct I am modeling with steam and ethanol would not have been around. The structures from the 20’s I would imagine we’re quite specific. I do have an ice platform for the layout and also brewery so maybe heading down the right path or started.
erosebud only I will visit this layout and I have a pretty good imagination. I also have a TT but it won’t be going on unless it fits in right with everything else.
Richard I don’t mind the crowded look in fact I invite it in the next few years as I build up the scenes. Also I’m not a big beleiver in changing scenes.
Another good point Larry of how times can change the RR, fortuneatley I’m hoping for good times with this layout.
Thanks George great suggestions.
Richard I’m not so sure your railroad is going to survive financially but it does sound interesting enough.
ACY I don’t have any favorite RR lines but only areas with vaste mountain
No favorite specific railroad? That’s fine. But in a Keller video, Paul Dolkos once said “it’s always good to drive your stake in the ground and that way you can focus and you don’t get distracted by going in other directions.” In other words, set your railroad in a specific region. The geography and topography will dictate some of the physical features of your railroad, as well as some of the equipment you’ll need and the industries served. If your line handles bridge traffic, i.e., traffic that originates on another line and runs over your line to get to a third carrier before final delivery, then you can have freight cars that represent a pretty broad range of types, owners, and ladings. The industries will represent what naturally occurs in that region. No waterfront scenes in the Sonoran desert, and not too many citrus packing houses in Canada. Some industries are OK no matter where you locate your railroad: quarries; food distributors; team tracks; etc. But stick with what is plausible and you’ll be OK. And even then, you might find some room for whimsey. It’s a hobby after all — not a PhD dissertation.
I have one linked industry on my layout. Cattle are loaded onto stock cars on one side of the layout and unloaded at stock pens at a packing plant on the other side. There is also an ice house and icing platform for the reefers which haul off the finished product from the packing plant. May invest in a couple of gondolas for hauling off hides. There is also a cannery complex, with two spurs, and a freight station. I envisioned mostly an agricultural related railroad. the canneries process the fruits and vegetables that are grown in the area, and also provide for tank cars delivering corn syprup and vegetable oil. Just about all finished products end up on an interchange track for delivery to points beyond. I am not sure that all of this existed in the desert southwest in the 1950’s but I like it.
You may want to use boxcars instead lettered “For hide service only” since hides went to tanneries to be made into leather and then the leather was shipped to various industries that made leather goods such as coats,shoes,purses,baseball gloves,wallets etc.