hey, im fairly new to the hobby… well not new… i used to collect train from when i was a kid… im 21 years old now… and i have a pretty limited space for a lay out… i want to build a shelf lay out in n scale… one that has lots of switching… if any one has pictures of their shelf layouts or a webstie i can go to that has lots of pictures… it would be great !
i want to try and get an idea of my options i have … im not good enough to design my own track plan yet… so any nice shelf switching layout track plans would be good too thanx !!!
This site has lots of plans for small layouts. Some are VERY small. Remember that it’s easier to expand a layout to fit your space then it is co reduce one.
It’s not my intention to start an argument, but I just had a look at that website for the first time in months and some of the layouts are simply dreadful. There are some good ones, too, but it requires some experience to tell the differnce.
For a newcomer (welcome,thyatts!), it’s important to recognize that not everything that’s drawn in CAD or published on a website (or even in a book) is automatically a layout that will be interesting to operate. Some of the designs on that site are overly full of switchbacks, for example, or lack a key runaround.
One way to get some insight into how interesting a layout will be to operate is to consider those designs that have been reviewed by a knowledgeable editor or have been designed by someone with experience. Neither of these is a sure thing, of course.
Other good candidates are designs that come with some description of how they are intended to be operated. By reading this, one may discern whether the author/designer took the time to think through the operating part of the layout.
There are a couple of shelf-style designs on my site http://www.modelrail.us/gallery/index.html
… that you may find interesting. Some of these are for HO scale, but of course could be adapted to N.
And although you suggest that you’re not ready to come up with your own design, thyatts, a reading of John Armstrong’s book Track Planning for Realistic Operation (Kalmbach) would give you a great idea of what you are looking for in a published design.
I think Byron just trying to educate tyhatts on his favorite aspect of layout design and maybe didn’t use the most tactful way of expressing it. I found your link to be a good one. I learn something from every layout that I look at, whether I deem it to be a good one or not. I happen to have liked what I saw on your link. Byron obviously likes operations, and maybe the ones that he looked at on your link didn’t feature that aspect as much as he would care for. That would probably make it a weak design in his eyes. On the other hand, that same design might be perfect for someone who likes to railfan, or do massive switching, or whatever. It’s the old “One mans food is another mans poison” deal. I think Byron, who appears to be an excellent modeler in his own rite, was trying to highlight HIS favorite aspect of the hobby, and I don’t think that he meant any ill will towards anyone else.
Byron
I’m sorry if I stepped on your toes. I’m quite sure you are very capable of fighting your own battles, so to speak. I know that sometimes my words are heard differently then I mean them, so I just butted in. Sorry about that.
Now I think I’ll just go back to my corner if you don’t mind…
Wow. Harsh. Obviously I wasn’t clear in my comments. What I said was:
emphasis added
I’ll stick by what I said. Some of the layouts posted there are good. Some are awful. I took care not to point out which are which. All in my opinion, of course.
It’s not obvious to me that the operator of the site edits the layouts that are submitted. If you want to put a design up, it’s published as-is, by all appearances. That’s fine if that’s the way he chooses to maintain the site, but it offers no guarantee of fitness of the designs on the site.
So I was pointing out to a person relatively new to the hobby that not everything published on the web is a design that will operate well.
I would not have thought that point would be interpreted as “fraught with condescension”.
Well, I think everything here is all with best of intentions.
Byron, I think you might consider that anytime the words “simply dreadful” start to emerge from your keyboard, you should reconsider. Personally, if anything in your post created a tone on condescension or derision, that was it. I know I would react poorly if someone referred to something of mine as “simply dreadful” (even if it was).
The fact is, most of your points WERE good advice for a newcomer to consider, but you’ve masked the value of your information by presenting it in a way that tends to bias the reader against you.
If you wanted to make it clear that you felt the designs were not the best examples out there, were not up to standards of current layout design, or failed to meet your desires in layout design, you could have said just so. All those (or other words to that effect) would have been equally (if not more) clear and less likely to get an emotionally-charged response.
And suggesting an “even better” alternative is always a good way to approach something sub-standard. “Hey, some of those designs are pretty good… but there are some even better ones available at ______________”
Think of it this way… if you walk up to a parent like, say, me… and you say “some of your kids are great, but some are simply dreadful…” the fact that you said 'some" is not going to prevent your nose quickly becoming broken… If you tell me some of my kids are a bit on the hyper side, I won’t like hearing it, but I’m not likely to have an unfortunate reaction either… especially if I also see your point and think maybe it’s not 100% wrong… But I’ll never get to that point of “consideration” if you use charged language.
What really steamed me was not you offering up your insights – which were actually very good. It’s the fact that you offered them by route of criticizing someone else’s work (even though it was only “some”). I just don’t understand why you thought it necessary to do this in order to give advice?
Someone obviously spent a lot of time, effort , and expense putting a layout site together as a free service to modelers, and you can only remark how if offers no “guarantee of fitness” (whatever that is). And you wondered why I used the word “condescension” before?
And I was pointing out that there are more constructive ways to express this.
You may have noticed a little heated conversation going on around here.
We are passionate people by nature and sometimes it leads to misunderstandings. Part of the problem is that we aren’t face to face and so a large part of our usual communication, body language, is not able to be used. This makes the choice of the words that one uses very important.
Normally things go very smoothly around here. It’s kind of amazing really, when you concider that there are people here from all over the world and from many different cultures.
This thing will get ironed out and all will go back to normal. But it’s during things like this that we learn about each other and what makes us different.
These are all fine modelers, and the ones that I’ve met are very nice people. We just all have different ways of expressing ourselves.
In the mean time I’m just going to take a step back a little.