Okay, I open my April MR, and flip back to Cody Grivno’s piece on reviving ARTZ Lumber for the MR&T Layout. Immediately the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
I know you HO guys like to carry on about how nice N scale is because you can pack so much action in a small space. This is true, but it’s a very one-dimensional look at what N scale is really capable of. Take a lumber yard for instance…
The first thing I noticed about Cody’s article wasn’t the terrific details, or the craftsmanship of the modeling (Both outstanding). What I noticed was the lumber yard wasn’t big enough to stock all the material that came off the flat car!
Maybe I’m just biased because a number of years ago I worked in a retail lumber yard, so I’m going to notice things like that. But as a model railroader, or as a scale modeler more specifically, it makes me bananas when I see something visually flawed like that.
Granted, selective compression is a part of all of our lives. But more often than not, HO scale layouts are riddled with “industries” that aren’t much bigger than the rolling stock that serves them!
Here’s a lumber yard I scratched out a few years ago. I wanted to make sure I had room to represent a reasonable amount of storage, a big enough yard for a tractor trailer to get in and out (as much as we hate to admit it, not everything ships by rail…) Plus have a few extra details
I agree. I’ve been arguing this for years. Among others the Walthers HO scale power plant, packing plant, and steel mill are much better sized for N scale. Our club even bought the machine shop that goes with the new engine facility - talk about an undersized structure. The look is even worse when one shoves a camera into the scene. That is when things really start looking runtish.
84 Lumber? We’ve got one of those on 104th street! I thought they were an independent, I didn’t realize they were a franchise.
Lee, first of all great work on the lumber yard. It is very good and I like very much the extra details that you have put in. Your previous employment served you well in making a believable scene.
As for your main point, I think it goes without saying that smaller scales allow for greater mass in the same space. I am in HO and it amazed me how few real miles of track were actually modelled in my round-the-walls layout. Large industries like coal are really represented rather than accurately modelled. It is one of the compromises we have to make. The skill is in trying to pull it off effectively.
I think it depends on the person doing it. If he/she recives gratification doing it they should do it. Since I want to run iron ore on my layout and do not want just something small to represent a mill I decided on a dock instead. And that will mostly be represented by a large crane. Correct, maybe not. Fun for me? Yes.
The awful truth for most of us is that we don’t have the space to model full size the businesses served by rail.
There are ways to get around this.
One is to have an undersized structure, that you’re talking about.
A second is to have it next to the background and make most of it a picture.
Third, you can have a spur leading off to it that disappears behing a hill or some trees and not model the business at all.
Fourth, you can model pre WWI say 1900 when even small businesses received shipments by rail since it was the only practical mode of transport. The rail cars were smaller too so they don’t seem so overwhelming.
One of the reasons for the railroads switching from mileage to per diem in 1902 was to stop businesses from using the railroad cars as storage facilities.
Model railroading for many of us is an art form and part of the art is representing the world in a compressed space. All scales have strengths and weaknesses. The hobby could be subtitled The Art of Compromise.
It’s all about illusion. All the ideas above (thanks IRONROOSTER!) are very good. No it does not make sense to model a steel mill in a 2x2ft area, BUT you can model a portion of it, just enough to suggest a massive structure lurking “just beyond”. I once saw a 1/35 scale model of Berlin, 1944 in a 4x4ft area at an IPMS show years ago. The real Berlin scales out orders of magnitude larger than 4x4 can possible represent, but the quality and balance of the model were of such a high caliber, it was still a fully believable representation of downtown Berlin in 1944.
The same holds true of our modeling. Now without wanting to start a debate on model railroading doctrine, I will say that the tendency of builders is to try to do too much. Too much industry, too many structures, too many trains. Focus on a theme for your railroad, logging for example, and stick with it. I’d rather see a 40x40 ft superbly done HO railroad with 2 towns and 3 industries than one that is so crammed with things I can’t see what it’s supposed to be doing. In the case of the sawmill example, if you need one for your railroad, then it should be a priority for the real estate, not the KFC or hog farm.
Thinking through the design first, and sticking with it, pays big in the believability department. Figure out your theme and purpose for the railroad, and stay true to the philosophy.
Roads are one of those things that always seem to be afterthoughts. I actually planned roads while I did my trackplan. Of course, things evolve and neither the trackplan nor the roads ended up exactly where the paper said they would, but I did make the effort and as a result I didn’t get stuck with grade crossings on turnouts.
I realize now that my roads will also have to “represent” a real highway system. The rail yard, team tracks and freight house can’t be connected to the rest of the road network. In some places, the semis at the loading docks could never make it to the roadway. Like many of us, I’ve got roads which “run off the cliff” at the edge of the layout, too. To me, that suggests a bigger world that doesn’t just end at the “shores” of my island table.
Easy NEWBIE! Dave Vollmer already has given your “type” a forum on The “N” Crowd. Nice pics by the way, and I too model the CONNELLSVILLE SUB-DIVISION in O-scale…and I’m putting some time on a N-scale 4x6 depicting the area around Westernport and George’s Creek.
I started looking at the N Crowd thread, but quickly got mired in 3 pages of posts about what a good idea it was to start the thread…[|(]
I’d like to see some shots of your O scale… sounds awesome…
Yes, there are compromises in every scale. I think my point was best taken up by the idea of creating the illusion when space is limited. I absolutely concur. I’ve often felt that building a model railroad is akin to building a theatre set. As long as it looks good from a standard viewing distance for the “audience” the purpose is served. The tricks to the eye as outlined are all good solutions.
But a wee building that’s served by large freight cars fails on almost all points (see the pre-1902 discussion…)
As for roads, I don’t even worry about them. On my layout, unless I’m doing an urban scene, I find it unnecessary to connect all the points on the layout with a highway. (My son and the drivers of his Micro Machines would disagree, but I digress…) I try to provide a reasonable amount of space when a truck loading dock is involved, and in a city scape I make sure there are two lanes for traffic and parking on at least one side of the street. Other than that, streets and cars are just part of the scenery. That’s my compromise.
Here’s my paper mill complex:
I kitbashed together some nice big structures, then combined them in an arrangement that is totally un prototypical (paper making is a very linear process, usually in long and low buildings) yet massive and busy enough to adequately represent a heavy industry. I had to shoe horn the complex into a return loop area that ove
Lee and Mark,Both of you make excellent points that is worthy of study and discussion…Rail serve industries still come in all sizes and shapes and its in that realm we must chose industries that fit our layouts.
Heres some food for thought…Instead of lumber company why not a DIAPER manufacturer? These are small industries that receives boxcars.Instead of a steel mill why not a steel distributor? Why not model a coke plant by having a track to disappear behind a small hill with stacks above the hill? How about a dog food manufacturer?
The list of every day rail served customers is endless.It is this list we must study to find the best industries that suits our likes and size of layout.
Yes and still a nice size lumber company that recieves lumber in boxcars or bulkhead flats.You see there are other ways of shipping lumber other then a 73 foot center beam flat car.
On the Canton Railroad in Baltimore, I recall a corrugated box company that was a very compact building, with a modest outdoor storage yard. It received rolls of corrugated paper in boxcars, about 4 cars a week if I recall. That’s very do-able in any scale. There was also a mayonaise and salad dressing plant in a 2 story brick building about the size of the Walthers Brach’s Candy that got a couple tankers full of vegetable oil a week. All the outbound from both of these was by truck.
A small cement terminal could also be practical in any scale.
Ive hauled lumber and finished wood products in, out and around yards, railheads, teamtracks and more places than I care to count with a flatbed. All I really worried about is tarping that fancy Asian plywood against rain, figuring something is like 400 dollars a foot that would come out of pay… but getting ot here…
A hell of ALOT of wood can be moved out or INTO a place. I remember a tiny lumberyard up on a ridgeside near Altoona that required several tractor trailer loads a week. I would show up every morning ice or shine with a GREAT big bulging load of wood manuvering into a TINY place FULL of tight spots and corners and wood everywhere. Everyday it looks like the stuff I delivered the day before did not move. Yet they unloaded me and found a spot for all that stuff.
With those volumes there HAS to be house building going on nearby.
Now.
The thinking along the lines of making an industry look like it can accept the volume of the cars on the siding is a wonderful thing. We should not sneer or snicker at the tiny atlas lumberyard that is overshadowed by 3 Opera House CenterBeams groaning with bundled wood next to it. Nor should we try to build a great big yard that is populated by one forklift and two people and hard to find that spotted car.
I remember another yard that was basically a field that has been gravelled by a bunch of dump trailers, rolled flat and fenced. A gate was set and the telephone called in the roundup on the dogs to run in there with a bunch of flatbeds and make the wood disappear. All of it pretty much went out of state across that Harpers Ferry Bridge (Weight restrictions be damned) when I was there trucks going in and trucks leaving with such volumes of wood in maybe… 3 acres. Convoy anyone? I know that the new Harpers Ferry Bridge must be complete by now or darn close to it and it will only increase the cargo capacity coming and going.
I say model what you can with the space you have the
wm3798 - I posted my work sometime ago. Type in The Britains are coming! The Britains are coming! in the search block, bottom of the page. Mine is a trunkated rendition of Keystone Viaduct. Liked your paper mill, and I will be modeling WESTVACO at Luke on my N-scale pike. Sounds like you are around Baltimore, and probably have seen you trackside thereabouts.
You have certainly put your finger on the big advantage on N scale - the smaller you get, the more stuff you can accomodate. I think if I were inclined to model a big, massive, modern operation (like, say 1950s N&W, or Horseshoe Curve), I would definitely want to go with N. HO is great, but I model an age when engines were small, businesses were run by families, and trains were short.
But I also prefer HO scale because it feels like the view I usually have of trains at a slight distance. N scale feels like the view from an airplane.
If the industry spur is placed properly, you only have to model a relatively small portion of what might be a BIG industry. For example, you can model only a few of the oil loading racks of a big refinery, if the spur is placed so that the refinery would be in the aisle.
But you could also model a local fuel oil distributor more completely in the same space… A few propane tanks, some vertical storage tanks for heating oil, and the same short spur for two or three cars. You still run the same equipment carrying the same freight, but much more plausibly.
Plus, you get to actually SEE (and research and model) the industry, rather than relying on your imagination, or having a gigantic refinery painted on the backdrop that can only generate 2 tank cars full of product…
