MODEL RAILROAD BEGINNING
TUESDAY NITE CHOIR BOYS CLINIC #1
Timing
Before Room Prep
Try to plan your Railroad before you detail your room, location and size of area required. Your Railroad definition can be reviewed to this Clinic #1 "Model Railroad Beginning".
It is important to define your railroad ahead of all else!
That Little Piece of the whole railroad history in all the world ?
You can only model a pinch (tiny bit) of all the real railroad world that ever existed in all the world for all time. This is because you have limited time and space to deal with your hobby in your lifetime. This bit when defined will focus your hobby efforts and size, time period, geographical location, portions of prototype you will model. It will set your standards, construction design, your buying habits, your scenery construction, your operation, colour schemes and many other aspects of your ultimate railroad you establish. The task is to make your efforts efficient as you have limited time. You want to make your railroad believable such as a play or movie presentation is, and perform as a prototype railroad would. Model Railroading is an art and you want your art to convey a believable message.
This being the creative stage and mostly a mind exercise you need to spend time thinking and doodling with your thoughts. After reading, travelling and researching you have a wealth of ideas in your head that need sorting out. You have ideas which rush to the fore front repeatedly as you sift through all the input and desires. You need to coral these and sort them into categories for which you can write a list of what you think your railroad needs to be.
Start by being realistic as to what space you possibly will have at a later time in your life for that ultimate railroad. If you always will be in an apartment or smaller condo, you desire a 2 story house rather than a bungalow, as your own desire and know that you will never have anything larger, then that will be your ultimate space available. If you are working up through your career and feel that you will have a larger space eventually than you may have immediately then the larger space needs to be defined in potential size and that will be your ultimate space. If you intend to seriously build a specialty building for your ultimate space then this needs to be rationalized and a size determinded which will be affordable with all respect to practical spending. This then would be your ultimate space. The point is work towards a goal with foesight rather than work with the present and restrict your insight toward the future. Don't bite off more than you can chew, you can have losts of fun with a moderate size plan.
Write a list of your own words that remind you of your ideas for a railroad. This may be a desire for a Display Railroad, an Operation Type Railroad, a Mainline Type, a Branchline Type, A Bridge Railroad or some other combination of ideas. It will be probably based on something you have seen or read about and usually in your past. Most modelers model from their past. Whether it is a display railroad or an operation railroad it should perform as the real railroad in its movements and visual effects. Running a train in a loop for no reason and conveying no message as to what it represents as a railroad will be very boring for the operator and your audience. If your railroad tells a story and demonstrates movements and themes that are typical of a believable railroad then the operation and viewing will be much more satisfying.
Now review your list and define your guidelines with words that cover areas such as - time, place, function of the railroad, any prototype connection, geographical location, country, cities and towns, route, terrain, water connections, and anything else that defines your railroad. With this list then give your railroad a name. The name can be from or include prototype railroads or be totally ficticious and may use place names and locations you choose yourself. These names can be of people, places or even be humerous in nature. Remember if you choose the real prototype then be prepared to have a backbone to fend off the nit pickers who will criticize. Also remeber you are going to build an empire around this name and will live with it for the rest of your life.
Now work out a logo or herald that incorprates your railroad name and insignia as well as a colour scheme. Pick the type of print font you will use on your equipment. This is easier if you are following the prototype railroad. Also the time frame for your railroad needs to be defined. Keep the time frame fairly restrictive from 1 year to a max 5 year period. You cannot model the present because it quickly becomes the past. If you keep buying the latest modern items then your current equipment will go quickly out the back end of your time period of modeling. You also can not afford to keep up with the manufacturers who are supplying new products at a great rate. Be true to your time period in all respects when purchasing all items for your railroad from rolling stock to people and animals. This should make your purchases more effective toward your ultimate goal. Remember a railroad is never finished. Revisions and technical updates will keep you going beyond your lifetime.
Now blend this railroad definition which you have developed with your ultimate space definition. The word at this point is scketch, sketch, sketch ! Draw plans for the track routing and town layouts to fit your ultimate space. The more you put your ideas down on paper repeatedly the more you will see newly created concepts to move on to. Talk the plans over with a fellow modeller or two and note their thoughts and try the ideas that come from these discussions. Some ideas will be born on the paper from the joint discussions. These are some of the best ones and you need to work at it until they appear. Once you have a railroad track plan then start to put in the towns and places from your definition and define the terminal trackage and track layouts for each town or village to serve the individual community and the railroad functions. Some will be terminal yards and others will be rural communities with industrial services. Provide for engine terminals, train storage, train meets and other traffic flow concerns. Provide space for scenery and structures to depict the scene for the play you are presenting. The trains are the actors and the scenery is the backdrop just like the theatre.
You are now able to start to documant some details. Start at the east end of the railroad and number the stations for 1 to ? going east to west. A rail line going north and south still operates east(s) to west(n). These numbers will allow you to organize your construction and operation of the railroad. Staion 1 - has blocks 101,102,103 etc. for block numbers and wiring. The turnouts are numbered for id and wiring as 101T, 102T etc. This allows expansion of wiring in each area with logical numbers and not running out of numbers. The block id can be for electrical blocks and or signal blocks even with DCC. The schedules for your operation and running of trains will be based on station numbers on the schedule. Dispatcher terminalogy will include block numbers and tower numbers as well. Now define your trains that will run on the railroad. Set up through freights, wayfreights, local yard functions, passenger movements and any other train movements. Study when these trains will run in a 24 hour scale(5 minutes=1 hour) day and how their meets and arrival and departures will work. Define what equipment is required to perform all these movements in cars and engines. Cars are required to service each type of industry. The industries are established by your location, geography, and time frame. Now match your concept with the track plan and space to define standards such as curve radii, train lengths and passing siding lengths, gradient, locomotive pulling power and inclines on the mainline. when you have matched all these requirements you now know what equipment you need to purchase, what scenery materials and structures you need to aquire or build and some definition of controls and other details.
If this plan now fits your ultimate space and allows ample space for operators and visitors then draw the plan for the room and the trackage. Yes you will always have visitors. To have fun you will need operators. If you can make one long side of you plan an open wall (no wall) which fits with an open lounge area to accomodate visitors this is great. Plan for a social area for these visitors and for crew off duty time, slide shows and eats. Also allow space for a workshop area separate from the layout area (keep dust away from layout room). Also plan for a dispatchers office with a desk, track display panel and communications to the stations and crews, CTC panel, order board control, and a computer calendar clock system. The same computer can be used by the trainmaster to print out switch lists and setup locomotives using DCC. This area should be enclosed away from the layout room.
Once you have planned all the above then look at how you can start building by maybe building only a portion of this master ultimate plan. You currently only may have space for one yard or one town to start with. At least all your work and material efforts will contribute to the ultimate plan when the time comes. Remember you do not live long enough to do it once leave alone more than once. The average modeller moves at least 3 times in his life so make it sectional and moveable. Now you know where to start and what to purchase without waste or buying useless items. You can see the other stuff that does not fit your plan run on the other guys' layouts. You may even own a few items that you run on his layout when he has the guys in.
Remember you have a plan, a theme, operation, and a paint scheme which includes rolling stock and railroad buildings as well as literature you may develop for advertising or operation. This process will give you a lifetime set of goals and a life time of enjoyment. With this process you will build a railroad that will take on its own identity once it is scenicked and the enjoyment will multiply 10 fold or more. As you follow through the next clinics you will find out how to support the railroad in a space with a mechanism that works well. This mechanism is not a table, it involves L-girder, joists, risers, spline all of pine and homoste roadbed with pine ties and handlaid track. This is the biggest investment you need to make and learn how to do as it allows you to run equipment without frustration of derailments and other frustrating problems in operating your railroad. It is here that you will make that expensive locomotive show off without a hitch. It pays to scarifice one or two expensive locomotives and invest in a good support system for the track. This is the base that you will live with the rest of your life.
Take your time and build with skill and learning. Build only when you are in the mood, if you force it you will not do good work. The dream of building that ultimate layout when you retire is not usually possible. The majority of older people can at best if they make it that far maintain their layout and run it only. Build it when you are young and enjoy many more years of a great hobby. This will give you many more memories when you are in that retirement home.
The following clinics as they are added will help you through all the areas of planning, construction, rolling stock building and maintenance, operation and scenery.
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Enjoy Model Railroading
Bill Ackland MMR
