I was at the Library and I came across a book about the Carolina & Western (ASouthern subsidiary). I traced a couple of trackplans on some paper. How many have used prototypical trackplans in their layout?
Gary
My fictional road (the Autumns Ridge Railway & Navigation Co.) is based on the Belfast & Moosehead Lake RR, and several of my proposed towns (I’m still building) are duplicates of the track arrangements of that line. The towns that aren’t duplicates are adaptations from the real arrangements that I had to tweak to fit my space.
I see some compression. Some of the trackwork is crazy. At one section it looks like a pair very short siding staggered on opposite sides of the track. It looks like it is barely large enough for a medium steam locomotive and a wye serving an industry, which I was planning on keeping. I would like to get a small steam loco, which I could turn on the wye.
Gary
The Ma and Pa helped me alot here.
Gary,
If you are talking about my layout, I am fudging a little by moving the turnouts to the hardware store and food distributor to the sliding portion.
Not small steam, though, smaller: an Alco S1.
I use the prototype for inspiration, and modify as required to fit. I try to keep things in relative positions and if there is a key element try to retain that. That ends up retaining the operating essence of the prototype (often to great benefit) and still allows for the compression required to fit in a basement. Plus if the model trackplan approaches the real one it is often easier to scenic the area to more closely resemble the prototype. If there is a key signature elelment in the track plan, then by all means capture the essence of that feature so the viewer will be more easily transported to the era and location.
If 75% of the prototype pictures on your chosen area are taken on a sweeping curve on a fill, including a sweeping curve on a fill will increase the chances of people identifying your layout. Once they have accepted the layout then other shortcuts or liberties will not be as obvious.
I was fortunate enough to visit Doug Taylor’s PRR and EBT layout. I cam down stairs adn alooked up and directly in front of me was a multiple main track going around a huge tree covered mountain. Instantly I knew I was in Pennsylvania looking at the PRR. That element tied it in for me and I could “suspend disbelief” on any other inconsistencies.
On my current trackplan (soon to be revised by a backdate from 1952 to 1905) a key element is the three tracks thru Coatesville with multiple crossovers. I approximated the prototype and then discovered how flexible that track plan was for working two yard jobs and working a through freight.
Dave H.
[#ditto] with Dave Husman’s comment.
I have the (dis)advantage that few people are familiar with my prototype - the Upper Kiso Valley is not a big draw for foreign tourists. However, there will be a few items that will clearly identify it as being in Japan (there aren’t many five-tiered pagodas in the Appalachians.)
While I have had to compromise on most of my trackwork (I have a double garage, not a hangar) there is one item (below) that will be reproduced almost exactly. Thanks to being crammed onto a ledge between a tall-piered bridge and a tunnel mouth, the little rural station at Yamamoto (model name, not prototype) has both a scissors crossover and a double slip switch in its trackwork. That is something I just HAD to model!
- tunnel down [- (Tunnel entry track is actually straight)
- \
- --------------------------------|
- X covered high station
- &nb
Like Chuck, I’m modelling a Japanese railway, but an interurban instead of the mainline JNR. The advantage to me is that many stations and yards on Japanese private lines are crammed into very small areas, which means in model form they don’t require any compression.
On my track plan shown below, all the yards are taken straight from the prototype. Only the street trackage at Hirokoji is slightly modified.
Chuck: Yamamoto looks like a very interesting place to shunt! [:)]
Cheers,
Mark.
Following a prototype’s track plan is one of the major advantages of following a prototype railroad in the first place.
I am in the planning stages of a model railroad centered around the operations at the New Haven Union station. I don’t have to “imagine” what the track plan should be, because I have the actual plan that the New Haven used. It has escape tracks for the electric engines to get out of the way for the steam or diesels to connect to the head end and then go back to the motor storage area. It has engine pockets where the steam or diesels waited to move down and couple up. I certainly never would have “imagined” those features, or any other of the actual features of the New Haven station trackage. The New Haven RR has done all of the work for me. hat could be better?
Most importantly, by following the prototype, I am able to replicate the operations as they actually were performed, not “imagine” some other scenario. The right buildings are in the right places, the coach yard and the Water Street yard are where they belong. Anyone familiar with that area will know at a glance what it represents.
Stations along the line have the actual track plans from the New Haven’s own diagrams. Nothing has been left to my “imagination”. Why, because I certainly do not have the “imagination” to design a railroad like the real railroads did.
My Senator consist from Penn Station pulled by an EP-4 electric pulls into the Track 4 station platform. The engine uncouples and moves onto the escape track over to Track 6 and then backs down to return to the motor storage area for servicing. Meanwhile a pair FM 5 axle diesels slide down from the pocket track and couple up awaiting the all aboard for Boston from the conductor. Now, that’s a lot more fn to me than “imagining” how it might have been.
I couldn’t agree more, Rusty. I see so many layouts where the track arrangement is like nothing any real railway would ever build, and the operations are like nothing a real railway would ever do. No matter how well built, detailed or finished these layouts are, I find they don’t interest me at all.
Cheers,
Mark.