I love the glowing buildings in the foreground of the third picture. Now, I know the reason behind painting the insides of buildings with an opaque color (I prime mine, then paint a light color).
While I agree this layout doesn’t have any prototypical operational possibility I have to disagree that there’s no opertion at all. Seems it’s built for 100% operational reliability as in running unattended for 8-10 hours without stalls or derailments. Can your layout do that? I know mine can’t. Not every model railroader wants to be an engineer.
Obviously not built for play value but instead for entertainment by animation. And the slot car tracks point to more animation even if they’re not powered atthis time. Someone took the time to blend the track into the scenery for a reason and aside from the scale difference there’s no reason not to. Minatur Wunderland did it, why can’t this guy? A DCC system, some block detection and N scale decoders could bring city traffic to life.
Overall I find it pleasing to look at, the scenery looks ok and I’m sure there are lot’s of folks who enjoy watching it
There is definitely a place in the universe for this type of layout. Think of it as a permanent N trak display. The day/night lighting is always a cool feature for the uninitiated, (and me too, I love that stuff!) And the simplified track plan allows for bulletproof train running. It looks like the complexity is in the city scape, which a scenery and structure guy like me could spend hours studying the details, with the trains being a side show.
As for club layouts, a really good club layout is designed for operations for the members, and for running for the public. At the Delmarva Club in Delmar, Delaware (celebrating 25 years this year!) we have 4 major operating layouts, in N, O 3 rail, HO and tinplate. The HO is the best, because it provides a realistic operating platform for our monthly ops sessions, but by throwing a couple of switches to close a loop, it also can run roundy roundy during our open houses. Typically the ops sessions get manned by 15 to 20 crew, and it’s the most active part of the club.
Meanwhile, our N scale rig, which was once set up for interesting operations, was gutted to become a glorified circle, with the result being there’s only a couple of members left who still fool with it.
The key is to be interesting enough for the public to want to see it, and engaging enough to keep the membership involved.
Lee
HA! This one doesn’t come close to Northlandz for poor quality.
Northlandz is a thrown-together, sloppy, out-of-the-box dipslay intended for the one and only purpose of being able to claim it is huge.
The one you’re showing at least looks like some effort wa smade to make it look good.
Can there be such a thing as a bad layout?
Each layout serves some kind of purpose, be it a home layout, a club layout, or a commercial display layout. Commercial layouts just want to attract people and thus, to make money. Some of them are very elaborate, some of them kind of crude. Which ever way they are, all of them attract people to the hobby - and that´s a good thing!
Whether you would like to spend a buck or two to see it, is your own decision!
One could probably ding the rebuilt BNSF layout at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago as well. There is animation but no switching / calssifying / etc. The trains go round and round and they have plenty of $$$ and volunteers to mind the store.
Personally, I like the MSI layout even though it is just a display and it seems other visitors like it also.
It does include turnouts, however.
There is a differance between a Display layout and a Model Railroad. Kevin
I can sympathize with Philly Bill. I once drove about an hour to see a display layout that was worse that what is pictured in his post. It was a very large layout but not what a model railroader would like to see. Even my son and his friend that went with me (they were 13 at the time) were disappointed.
We went there hoping to see something to admire and inspire as far as model railroading is concerned but instead, I was educated about knowing your audience. The layout we viewed was built to be seen by a general public that really doesn’t take detail and realism into consideration. They generally just want to see trains going around and round. It was obviously built to be setup, viewed, taken down and moved on the next event.
I cannot say that this is a bad layout. Many public layouts have little or no turnouts to cause derailments during extended constant running operations. I bet that the people that built it even had fun doing it.
There are some of us that don’t mind having our own trains at home operate in a loop. Some great modelers come to mind like the late Lee VandeVisse and Malcom Furlow that built great layouts and enjoyed watching trains run. Limited operations don’t mean that I am a Neanderthal and more than my use of DC versus DCC. Model Railroading is still fun.
I’ve created a forum online at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/basicmodelrailroading/
for folks that like to run trains in an uncomplicated way, and for those that are just getting started.
Mike Habersack
Good points – my own MR work is very basic as well, and I ate some of my words earlier in the thread. Maybe I started the thread with a bit of buyer’s remorse having paid good bucks for the view. In some ways, it wasn’t the track per se, but the scenery layout with all these oval loops of non-running slot car trak in blocks in a row, that bothered me.
The last time I got sent on business to the Keewana peninsula, I got to stop in at the big layout builder just across the ship channel from Michigan Technical University campus in Houghton, Mi. They were in the process of rebuilding the old Flieschman display layout. That was a layout built sometime in the early or mid 50s, I think for a World’s Fair, to showcase their product line. Fairly small for portability, very compact but well done, for the time, scenery, including a dockside vignette, and basically a number of loops. I think maybe nothing with bigger than an 18" radius, and mostly 14" or 15", but designed so short European style trains could be run all day long without problems by maybe a single person as a monitor. The pics in their ads made a certain young pre-teen want to go out and buy a lot of Flieschman rolling stock. Just what it was built for. I actually did manage to buy a few pieces when I was in the AF. One of the locos I bought was a 2-8-4 tank engine. Spent about $30.00. Last issue of that Loco, according to a Walther’s catalog, about 2 years ago, was something around $600. Display layouts like those mentioned do fill a purpose, even if if they don’t meet the standards held to by the serious scale modeler. After all, the Cedar Point Amusement Park has a large loop that runs through the grounds, running about 2 trains of something like 5 or 6 open passenger cars pulled by real coal fired steam locos. One part of the loop runs through a somewhat hoakey “Ghost Town” with animated ghosts. (Strickly Tinplate?) But it is reputed to carry more passengers in a season than any of their other rides, including any of their many roller coasters. Don’t knock it. I hope the Yupper proprieters, if they read this, forgive me for having a senior moment and forgetting the name of their establishment, which I think I remember is in Lake Linden, Mi. I know they advertise in MR, but I’m away from my own computer which has the info. Today’s my grandaughter’s 2nd birthday party, so I’m not
I think it’s OK
Ever try to Operate with a crowd present? Like with 22,000 viewers at the Amhearst Show? Operation is usually best done with limited viewers and operators can concentrate on what is going on.
Our club operated a couple of HO, N & O scale modular layouts during the Xmas season (4-6 weeks) a number of years ago at the local college and malls. You should have seen the faces of the kids lightup and their folks who saw it run. I wish we could do it again but alas the school where we displayed is not avaulable.
BTW our layout was on display at the 2009 National Train Show. Not too bad for running trains around.
ah
Having worked as a volunteer on a museum display layout, I can vouch for the fact that no turnouts is a plus. There were two loops in this layout, with one crossover which was out in the middle of the display area. That was the place where locomotives would stall or cars would derail, and someone would have to climb over the plexiglass and walk across the layout to fix it.
Layouts–whether public display pieces or otherwise–are absolutely open to critique. However there are rules to be followed. When I’m writing a book review, I have to to review the book that the author wrote, not the book I wished the author had written or the book I want to write. The same holds true for layouts. Ask yourself, who is the layout intended for, what purpose is the layout supposed to fulfil, and what goals did the owner have in its design and construction?
With this framework, a layout can be ‘excellent’ and yet completely not you cup of tea all at the same time.
What I don’t get is the purpose of this thing. It may be a great display layout, but why does it exist? Does the club use it as a draw to get money (via admissions) to run their non-display, operationally dense “real” layout, or does it just feed itself?
KL
The point about continuous loops is valid, many layouts are built with hidden tracks to allow for continuous runninng during open houses or just because the owner wants to watch trains or break em in. Mine included.
As an aside, in my earlier post I mentioned the possibility of putting decoders into slot cars. Well it looks like our little brothers have beaten me to it. I just picked up a slot car magazine and they have systems to allow speed control (including momentum) of 6 cars on 2 lanes with the operational possibility of changing lanes. Huh, a simplistic system for sure but so were early DCC systems. But then why not just go to RC?
Interesting thread, specially since I’m in the process of building one. Many factors took place during the design face (and still change are made!). The first thing to understand is that a public layout is intended for non-model railroaders (MR cowans… ) that doesn’t care much about scheduals, timetables, rr rules, speed limits, and prototypical operations. “Normal” people just like to see things moving, and they like it big, fast and shiny. What we MRders consider “realistic” and “prototypical”, most “normal” people consider boring! For example, perhaps for us 4 SDs grinding up a 1.8% hill at 40mph pulling a 50+ cars train is quite a view, but a common folk will ask: “Can it go any faster?!” How many times I’ve heard “I like the new one better…” from kids when confronted with new and weathedered engines or rolling stock. Normal people just like things moving by themselves, and if they may control them even better. That’s why this new layout have “interactive” sections and accesories (like a couple of Heljan cranes) for people to interact with the layout. Maybe these are two different worlds we’re talking about… Of course, being a MR since ever, a lot of “prototypical” action and design have been put into this design, but some things are just inevitable, like the continous runs, over 'n under scene, double main line with passing trains in opposite directions, tunnels, bridges and lots of blinking lights and moving things. Automation is a must (or at least safe marry-go-round continuous runs), imagine a guy controlling 10 trains 8 hours a day 7 days a week with a handheld… Maybe for some of us is a horrible layout, but for our neighbor’s son is one of the coolest things his ever seen…