Not a contest per say, more of a chance for anyone interested to submit a full battery of contest parameters. Right now this thread has seen a bit of “I’d like this or that” but only for certain aspects of the contest. Perhaps this suggestion would do 2 things…1- maybe more people would realize the challenge Chip faces and 2- it would place more complete package options on the table for consideration.
Then again, maybe doing this would confuse things even more?
I would have to disagree. I have condensed profiles of the MP Gulf Coast Lines and the International Great Northern (MP in south & east Texas) from the 1930’s and on both there is a fuel station about every 100 miles at the major terminals, and water stations are about every 15-25 miles, about every 3rd to 5th small town. About every other, every third station would have a stock pen and about the same number would have a loading dock /team track or, being Texas, a cotton dock.
I don’t like cluttering this thread with debate, but I didn’t think it appropriate to Email you directly either, so I’ll give a brief explanation of my suggestions. Maybe it will give someone some ideas.
I had suggested a small industrial area of a small midwestern town with several industries and a small service area on the premise that a small (0-4-0, or 0-6-0) Loco may be assigned to the town for switching or short branchline work, thus giving the additional opportunity to include such service facilities.
You may be wholely correct on the Prototypical placement of such facilities, but I was just trying to make a suggestion of something that could be modeled in the given 6’ x 6’ corner space that would be challenging and operationally interesting.
I think several people would be willing to do that, but to me it feels like I would be sort of like taking over SpaceMouse’s ummm, ummm, can’t think of the word. It’s Spacemouse’s deal, so I figure if he wants that level of participation from us he will ask.
I like the idea of a 2’ x 8’ LDE based on a PROTOTYPE location of some sort. A small Midwestern town would be fine by me, but not one with a heap of features added that aren’t typical of such places in reality.
Suggestions like adding loco facilities serving branchline 0-4-0s do nothing for me, as they are purely model railroad concepts. My preferences and biases are entirely towards proto-modelling, because I can’t see what benefit there is in re-inventing the wheel.
I truely sympathize with your situation (in trying to please everyone and pleasing noone in the end) as I can see now just how opinionated, and closed minded people can be. And as I never ment to presume that I had any say what-so-ever, and only tried to be helpful by making suggestions, I’ll step out of this discussion and steer clear of the rest of the debate/discussion. Good luck with your endevor, you’ve got more patiance than I.
With that being said…
Mark,
As I am from the East Coast of the United States of America, I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be, an expert on the MidWest region. I do however know that the US Prototype DID assign motive power to small towns with enough switching to justify it, and said motive power would need to consume coal and water to produce power. Your suggestion that these items are “purely Model Railroad concepts” is astonishingly uneducated. As for the “heap of features added that aren’t typical of such places in reality”, where and how do Farmers ship and receive their Goods? Where and how do small Manufactures ship and receive their Goods?
I believe the OP clearly stated… "The challenge is to design a small Midwestern agricultural-based town, either real or free-lance in 1950-1955 that provides operational and visual interest. We are assuming that the layout extends in both directions and there is
Relax. Only thing Mark (and Dave H) said was that having an engine support facility w/coaling, sand, enginehouse etc facilities would be too much for a (proto)typical small agricultural town.
Hence requiring (or recommending) such engine support features in the layouts would pull the designed layouts away from being prototype-based.
That is raising a fair point, not a personal attack on you.
Okay - I don’t have any really strong feelings on prototypical vs freelanced. Chip’s original suggestion (“real or freelanded”) was fine by me. Then those who wants real do real, those who wants freelanced do freelanded.
Summarized: 2x8 shelf for size, H0 (N scalers can do the same in 1x4 if they want - we all know that N is half the size of H0), assume that layout it is just one “scene” in a larger railroad (hence no need for staging etc), theme is midwestern small agricultural town between 1950 and 1955, and participants can decide for themselves if they want to stay close to prototype - then the people judging can decide for themselves whether to reward things being prototypical or not.
Oh - and participants will have to describe why they designed their layout/scene the way they did.
The Old Dog would suggest thatb the word “midwestern” be deleted. As “Texas Zepher” said in another thread;
Allowing any agricultual region might create additional interest. A eastern dairy theme could be interesting and provide a home for some milk reefers. The flat midwest scenery might be difficult to “pull off”. Also, some aspects of the grain elevator operation might be hard to capture since detached cars were often moved without the use of an engine.
The 2’ by 8’ might have greater interest and be usable by more modelers.
Specifying the “early 50’s” might not be a good choice. By that time most of
I concur with most of Old dog’s comments. Midwest is not a well-defined term. Does Midwest include the Great Plains? As far as Denver and Cheyenne? How about Minnesota and Wisconsin? Upper Peninsula Michigan? The Ozarks in Arkansas and Missouri?
Out in Oregon and California (2 states I know more about) there was more than one agricultural town that built its own railroad to link with the Class I that bypassed it. I suspect this happened other places as well. These are ideal for short line and agricultural town LDEs. But these had long passed their peak traffic-wise by the 1950s as roads were built and trucks took over. 1900 to 1915 - when there few alternatives for overland transport - would have been their heyday (and of course dearer to my heart), perhaps earlier in the Midwest and East.
But those are just my preferences. I don’t think we are going to reach a consensus on preferred parameters, so let he who is running the contest set the rules. Then it is time to put up or shut up. Spacemouse, what say ye?
That kind of defeats a purpose of a LDE though. You need a prototype from which to model.
I would still like to suggest Frederick Maryland and/or it’s outlying towns that support it. There should be something for everyone with the vast variety of operation. You could model from early 1900’s to 1950. You can do modern day commuter service (MARC train) Or do regional Maryland Midway. http://www.mmidrwy.com/ .Heckyou could even do the Civil war:
“President Lincoln visits Army of Potomac @ Frederick Maryland”
I would be willing to supply photos, maps, as well as historical records for the town. Since this would give me an unfair advantage to everyone, I would of course recuse myself from the competition.
You guys would have to give me at least a week however, as I would need to call the Frederick historical society and get times that they would allow me to peruse documents.
Midwest. Isn’t that defined as being somewhere between the Appalachians and the Rockies? After all, the, “Northwest Territories,” became four states - all east of the Mississippi.
Small town. Having grown up in New York, lived in Tokyo and presently residing in a VERY fast growing metropolitan area with close to 2 megafolks for neighbors, my definition of, “small town,” would encompass every settlement in half the states between the Mississippi and the Front Range, and most of the settlements in the rest. If I can drive across the city boundaries in fifteen minutes at freeway speeds, it qualifies.
“Typical small town.” That’s like defining a, “Typical,” human being. All of them have unique characteristics which define them and separate them from all others.
Of course, someone said, “Beyond the ocean,” which is far from being the American midwest. If I pursue that, there used to be a cute little 762mm gauge railroad that served an agricultural region north of Kasaoka in Okayama Prefecture…
My preference here is to add a little more challenge to the contest, but it seems the more specific you become the less peopel want to participate, especially with those us who never lived or even visted the area.
I like the idea of taking a specific idea, like Fredrick and creating a layout. In fact, that’s what I did with my PRR layout (and 2 x 8 is a pretty tight space to do it.) However, I fear that only 2 or three people would take the challenge. It might attract some of the LDSIG interested, but I think they are pretty much thumbing their noses at our silly little musings.
Okay, we’ll serve this one up and where it gets whacked.
2 x 8 agricultural town no era no locational boundries HO scale (N can scale down to 13" x 52")
There are 2 opposing schools of thought going on here. One is to take a specified prototype setting - whether it be Frederick or a 1950s generic Midwest agricultural town or some other - and may the best interpretation win. It’s really a pretty good apple-to-apples comparison. But those who have no interest in the specified prototype or model constraints may well skip the contest, limiting the number of entries.
The other school (my preference) is really an open challenge. Define or choose your own prototype, and then interpret it. If you twist yourself enough, you could end up justifying any desired layout for the space. But that would be for the judges and comments to decide. Like the previous contests, there would likely be a large variety of submissions, which would make comparisons difficult, and perhaps meaningless. But there would almost certainly be a greater number of submissions as each person submitted an LDE based on his favorite scene or prototype. Leaving scale open also encourages greater participation.
One of the reasons I favor the second approach is that the work in submitti
My objection to the Midwest idea was not the local, but rather the lack of prototype information as I know nothing of midwest operations, and none was supplied. Hence forth why I suggested Frederick since I could supply so much information to put everyone on a level playing field.
Whatever you guys come up with is fine. An LDE, or not.
[quote user="exPalaceDogThere are some Sanborne Insurance Maps at
[Digital Sanborn Maps
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(Digital Sanborn Maps)] The maps at this link are for subscribers only. However I can’t seem to find out how or how much it costs to subscribe.
Access to Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 is available to authorized users at subscribing institutions only. Subscribers are required to sign a User License. Please contact your ProQuest Information and Learning representative.