Run through layout or scale railfanning

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
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A lot of focus is pointed toward operation nowadays (well, to be exact decades!) and that’s quite understandable.

However, I wonder if I’m alone, but sometimes, I miss my old 4’x4’ twice around layout I had back when I was 7 years old (for us, a 4’x8’ was a monstruous thing!). The best part was watching the train emerge from the curve, pass the freight shed, run under the bridge, then the railroad crossing and reappear over the bridge with a spectacular underside view.

In fact, what I miss is “scale railfanning”. I could watch a train going around for hours, changing my point of view from time to time, the eyes at scale people height and watching the train running without having to bother about speed controls and other disturbing things. The point was to appreciate the rolling stock in action. From time to time, I reversed the train, changed a few cars, and it was the homebound train coming back from the other world.

Are they other people enjoying that part of the hobby, the one you don’t operate, you just appreciate the train. Also, have any of you built any special layouts with that in mind. I’m not talking about large layout with this function added to operation. Rather something where your train can “eat” mile after mile.

In fact, the large switching layout I’m building with friends is far to be fulfilling that purpose. After 5 years operating, I found out recently that “scale railfanning” was something that was important to my appreciation of the hobby.

What are your thought about it?

I often think about such a layout, depicting only a small city, maybe one siding, and one passing track to make trains meet. In some ways, it looks like what they are doing in England.

I’ll probably build something like that someday, with a staging yard behing the scene. Well, let’s call it an operationnal diorama. Track planning always talk about them in their introduction chapter but I never saw somebody really talking about a planning theory aroung them, at least

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That’s what I do, on a somewhat larger scale.

http://good-times.webshots.com/video/3051735240039019157rApKtE?navtype=search

Someday, I might even add scenery.

BTW, LOVE that ten-wheeler.

3

Matt, I am a model RR rail fan as well. I sometimes do a little switching, but I mainly just like watching the trains go around and around. My bench has nothing special for doing this other than having 2 to 3 main lines depending on how I have the turnouts thrown.

I like to run 3 to 5 trains (easy with DCC) and just watch them go. I try to match there speeds so they don’t gain on each other and just watch.

Cuda Ken

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4

I’m told that when I was little, I’d stop and start my train, much to the irritation of my father. He wanted to lay in bed and watch my old pre-war Lionel go round and round the 4’x7’ table that was set up in my parents bedroom.

Even though my current dream layout is still in the dream stage, it includes continuous running, so if I want I can just watch trains run. If you think about it, many layouts include a continuous loop, and I thimk the underlying reason is to sit back and railfan for awhile.

Used to go to my grandmothers sisters house, just across the river from the train tracks. Always alert for trains, unfortunately most went through at night. My next dental cleaning appointment should be over just before the train is suppose to run through that town. Haven’t seen a train running down the tracks for a long time. Would be nicer if I didn’t have to go to the dentist to see one, BUT, if I do see one it will make the trip much more tolerable.

Remember, a layout is for the person building/operating it. If they are happy with a 2’x4’ switching layout it’s the right one for them. If they aren’t happy until the entire 200’x400’ room is filled with track, scenery and operators, then that’s their dream. I think most of us fall in the middle somewhere.

I am with you though, sometimes it’s nice to sit back and just watch our trains run through our little dream worlds.

Have fun,

5

About sixty years ago the concept of one specific ‘pure railfanning’ layout was brought up in Model Railroader. Inspired by a visit to the Feather River Canyon, the design was, basically, a loop. The visible part was down in a canyon, a single track completely overwhelmed by scenery. Under the near canyon wall, at about ankle level, was a pair of layover tracks with a westbound on one and an eastbound on the other. Which one was to run was decided by flipping a toggle switch and pushing a button.

I will admit that the idea interested me - as a concept. As my one and only home layout, it would have a half-life measured in microseconds - IF that was all there was.

As my present, under construction layout is developing, I will have one aisleway that is pure railfan country. The single track leaves Haruyama, swings around the end of the peninsula, wriggles down the right side of the access aisle to the turnback curve at the end (which will include my impression of a concrete spandrel arch bridge in western Tokyo-to - wild country, not cityscape) then squirms its way up the left side of the aisle to the Tomikawa approach signals. Other than the single track, clinging to a cliffside by its fingernails while encountering a number of bridges and tunnels and battling upgrade at a continuous 2.5%, the only railroad-related objects will be pairs of ABS color-light signals. Other man-made objects will be at a minimum as well. Just the railroad and the terrain - and a schedule that will put a train over that stratch every twenty fast-time minutes or so, steam-powered local freights, brand-new DMU limited expresses and every possible variant of freight and passenger consist between. And, yes, the heavier freights will need helpers upgrade, and the helpers will have to drift back to Haruyama light…

The rest of the railroad(s)? Operators’ heaven…<

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I’m rebuilding the layout from a long point to point operation into a big dogbone for just the railfanning purpose, but it will still operate as a point to point. Now, of course, I’m dealing with the scenic challenges of hiding the dreaded reverse loops at each end and some of the returning mainline as well. I think it’ll come out OK.

Yes, watching model trains run round and round is what I enjoyed as a kid. As I “advanced” in knowledge and experience, I found I missed this basic element and want some of it back.

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I think that you should try to have some provision for continuous operation on any layout - a point John Armstrong made in his book, Track Planning for Realistic Operation. But if that’s all the layout does I think it becomes boring after a while, especially if you’re watching the same one or two trains making endless loops. For a railfan layout to be successful over time you probably need very large staging yards so you could run a large variety of trains. I would make them easily accessible so that the consists could be easily changed.

Enjoy

Paul

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As I have stated many times before in many threads, my layout is carefully designed to provide lots of both - prototype operation and great display/railfan running.

One special aspect of this is that most of the "switching is completely off the mainline, in the form of an urban industrial belt line. This allows both display and prototype operation at the same time when there are a limited number of operators available.

Five trains can “cruise” the mainline while three others work the yard and industrial areas.

Or, those mainline trains can also be “operated” via a dispatcher, engineers and CTC.

The secret to happiness is balance, in this case a a good balance of all possible operational goals.

Sheldon

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My thoughts…simple…if it doesn’t satisfy you…stop doing it this way.Rethink it and then by all means get it done as you’d like it to be or at least closer to your likings.This is a hobby and if you don’t like what it feels to you,then why would you do it?I know that it might be a heart breaker to litterally demolish things that we’ve put a lot of time to build but in the end if you really like the result,you quickly forget the wasted efforts.

I built a benchwork a while ago that was looking quite fine on the plans I had drawn to find out after assembling it that it wasn’t going to be right for many reasons that I won’t list here.After a few days contemplating it appreciating its few nice features and then weighing its disadvantages,the decision came…I dismantled it to the last screw.Then came the drawing of another plan adding what I had learned to the process to come up with a more fulfilling plan.The new benchwork is now done and I’m preparing to install the trackwork.It is not perfect,nothing is,but it should fill my purpose and this the whole idea behind this.

By the way,I realize that we’re living minutes away,so if you’re curious to see what I’ve done and exchange ideas,feel free to send me a message.I’ll respond to it in no time.J’aime bien discuter de trains et ce sera un plaisir pour moi.Tu es le bienvenu.Salut.

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Yes, I railfan on my own layout a lot. My scenery, which I find to be the most enjoyable and satisfying part of layout-building, is simply a “stage” for the trains to come across, “speaking” their lines with sound decoders, as I sit smiling in the audience.

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My layout is point-to-point, however I have a connection between the two end point staging yards so I can recycle unit trains.

When I am working on the layout or my workbench I like to run trains on the layout just to watch them go by (railfan). As stated above, with my DCC system I can set up multiple trains and space them out. I use my PC and the multiple throttles in Decoder Pro. If I need to adjust the speet of any of the trains, a few clicks on the PC will make the necessary adjustments. I can also use these PC throttles to blow the horn.

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Wow, I didn’t expect that much answers.

I think most of you all pointed out one important thing: balance. As I said, I’m not tring to go back to the oval. Tomikawa pointed it out, doing so would result in getting bored almost instantly (BTW, Tomikawa, it’s a shame we never see what this “exotic” railway of yours looks likes. When thinking about japanese railway, we often think of everything that came after the 60’s). However, I think the idea of a distinct main line going in the countryside isn’t bad at all.

Recently, we experimented a little bit with a second deck using bookshelves already on the wall. Quickly, we discarded the idea about using it for switching, however, the height was just perfect for “railfanning”. I think I’ll let the idea makes its own way on the layout. It would means building up an helix which isn’t the priority right now (still have to rebuild the entire harbor district we just demantled last week).

Thanks gain for your input.

Matt

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I’m in the design phase of a layout I will be building based on the Slocan Sub in BC. The layout will begin in staging(Nelson, BC) and end at the rail barge at Slocan Lake. Of course my long term plans are to extend the layout in both directions to include the other end of the lake and beyond when time, money, and space (neither of which I have much of currently) allow.

However I am also thinking to run essentially a loop of track around the room along the modeled Sub’s backdrop, below removable terrain and allow it to pop out in staging, railyards, and occasionally from tunnels and bridges high in the terrain for my own pleasure of watching and hearing the trains moving. Especially when building scenery and if/when I tire of operating.

I sometimes think this idea of having both is a bit selfish of me, and impure of the prototype. But the starry eyed kid in me say’s “why can’t I have my cake and eat it too?”

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I know what you mean! This week end, a few friends of mine came home, among them was a guy with whom I did some model railroading back in my high school days. We never talked about trains in the last decade. Then when he was alone with me in my workshop, staring at my locomotives, he took a faint voice and said: “You know, when you model trains, people thing of you as a retarded kid at best, but they just don’t understand how much it’s great.” The guy is now in the RCPM and still ashamed of his long-lost hobby. Well, we a good talk about the good old time and how we built our engine house out of cardboard back then.

Maybe the watching a train running is a simple thing: most of the time, we see a train, it is just moving between two destinations. Or maybe it’s because all stations and most of the industries were closed in my area. No railroad related buildings existed when I was a kid. To me, a train was a CN Zebra engine pulling a string of brown boxcar with CN, CV and GT wet noodles.

Anyway, today I checked what could be done with the limited space I have at home, in my office located in the attic). At a height of about 58", I found out I could merge a twice-around and a dog bone into a part of my larger prototype (QRL&PCo). I never thought about modelling the eastern part of the branch, when it leaves the St. Lawrence riverbed and climb the hills along the La Malbaie River. The Insurance Maps of 1953 gave me a hint at the station with its small engine facility. The Charlevoix Railway is well know as one of the most scenic trackage in north eastern america.

The reversing loops works as staging. That way, you can stage a train going to the Clermont Terminal (paper mill, steel cable, iron mine) and coming back with a different load. The train then go

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Several years ago MR had an article on just such a design concept. I think it also got reprinted in 48 Track Plans or something like that. The concept was much like the basic oval, but much larger. The visible section provided both railfan opportunities plus operations in a single town, while the hidden staging provided the source for trains. Such a concept could operate the full schedule of a prototype, with realistic train lengths – the best of both worlds.

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Exactly what I’m aiming at. Thanks for the hint, I’ve just found the article you were talking about, I think I’ll destroy the right reversing loop and work a little bit the staging in a better way with the space available. It’s funny to see

I think it’s easier to reproduce the schedule of the prototype on such layout that going through the problem of mixing larger switching operation with run though trains.

I did a little clean out after… I’m much more satisfied once the unprototypical reversing loop is out of La Malbaie. It was hard to integrate with the “operation” and was a hard to reach place to get if a derailment occured. I also moved the station in the other side, like the prototype with the engine facility connecting to the siding. It help to place the water tank at the right place.


Matt

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My railroad is as far from an operational set up as it could possible be and it makes no rhyme reason or sense but it does to me and thats all that matters

I have plans of some day building a large operations based layout in an out building I have on my property but thats a while down the road. I enjoy building what I have for now and when I do scenery and it comes out well I guess that classify s me as a rail fan layout. I operate on three different layouts on a regular basis and although all three are finished layout with scenery structures etc. none of them are highly detailed or all that impressive scenery wise. but rather it looks good form 3 feet away approach.

It’s all what makes you smile it running your choo choo’s around in a circle and blowing the whistle and admiring all your hard work done on structures and scenery then more power to you, and if you wanna play real railroad with your train orders and car cards etc. then thats great too. One of the greatest things this hobby has to offer is diversity.

Not the political correctness garbage but it has something for everyone. Heck I know a guy who is so into model railroading and he doesn’t even have a layout. He’s in our club and builds some of the most outrageous diorama’s I’ve ever seen. He’s modeled everything form wood burning steam to modern freight locomotives and his level of detail is impecable. Is he any less of a model railroader? It’s all about enjoyment and having fun thats all that matters.