Design influences: 2003-2005

This is my final posting under the “design influences” theme. I have covered pretty much my life story from a railroad perspective, starting at age 9 months and ending just before the design of my iNdoor layout began in November 2005. Probably I wrote too much, but what the heck, it’s my blog, and in the process I’ve gained some insight into why I designed the iNdoor layout the way I did.

The years 2003-2005 were frustrating for me from a model railroad perspective. I very much had the itch to build, as I was inspired by my new discovery of N scale, but I had minimal space and we knew we were going to move out of California “real soon now”. As a result I put some effort into designing 3 layouts during that time, each intended to be portable to allow for moving them later. None were built, but each of them taught me something that I used in the layout I’m building today.

The first layout design was done in early 2003 with an “Espee” (Southern Pacific) theme covering the line from Klamath Falls to Eugene, Oregon in 1944. I'd been reading from various of the model railroad "Elders" about how Real Model Railroaders(tm) built pure prototype layouts, so I kinda felt I needed to do the same. I was looking for a prototype that would support realistic model railroad curves and was attracted to the Espee because it had been, until recent acquisition, the dominant railroad in the part of California where we lived. The line from Redding to Mt Shasta is great for model railroads, but it has already been modeled by many people and clubs. The Eugene-Klamath Falls line offers tons of tight curves, including at least two horseshoes, plenty of tunnels, and one really cool train town (Oakridge). Since the steam era ended the line has become pretty bland, but in 1944 the town of Oakridge was a hotbed of action, full of cab-forward locomotives. Here's a shot of Oakridge yarda few years later, when it was still interesting.

I went to topozone and downloaded images of topographical maps of the area, and printed and taped them together into a scroll of the line. Then did some research on the line itself and went to work trying to put it into a layout. In the end I gave up the project, although I still have the drafts. The main problem was trying to build a layout with a long, steep climb on a portable platform. I actually tried designing a portable mushroom layout (if you don’t know what a “mushroom” layout out is, just understand that this is extremely difficult to design and build in a fixed location, and probably almost impossible as a portable layout).

I also had certain other nagging doubts about that layout approach. Did I really want to limit myself to a single railroad modeled in a single year? Did I really want a layout that, while a pure prototype, was limited in terms of operational variety? And did I really want to deal with yet another mountain layout with steeply-sloped track? As it turned out the answer to all these questions was “no”.

My next layout inspiration arrived with the October 2003 Model Railroader, which included a feature on Hutchinson, Kansas, including a sample N scale layout. It was so interesting that I went out and bought that month’s copy of the sister publication, Trains, which had more details on Hutchinson.

There is nothing special about that town, and looking back on it now the layout doesn't seem so interesting either. But at the time what made the layout so attractive to me was that it featured two major through lines – the BNSF and the UP, both with lots of trackage -- plus a regional and a branch line, all in a compact city space. The layout featured lots of junctions and operational possibilities, plus the ability to run through trains at full speed. Although it included a one loop helix it could be easily have been modified to use level track exclusively.

I pulled out graph paper, a ruler, and a compass and went to work. I quickly realized that the designer had assumed sharp N scale curves and short consists. No matter, I thought, I’ll expand the space. Realizing I’d need to make the layout portable I assumed a set of 4x8 tables in various configurations, and tried minimum radius standards of 48” then 44”. I had one possible solution that required lots of hand-laid, curved switches, which I was excited about until I bought some rails and ties and found out how hard it is to actually build such a switch. Once I realized the challenge involved I redid the design using Peco code 55 switch templates.

In the end I didn’t build it as I realized it would take a long time and all of my garage space just to assemble just the benchwork and trackwork. However, I did love the idea of a Midwestern city layout with junctions between main lines, industrial districts, and without major slopes. After that time I did not consider any other theme for the iNdoor layout.

So, things kind of idled until the March 2005 issue of Model Railroader, which included a review of Kato’s 1950s era N scale California Zephyr. I suppose it’s the same for all of us – there are certain prototypes that we think are just the coolest thing on the planet, and for me this was one of them. Maybe it was watching the Zephyr fly by the tracks in LaGrange, Illinois during its last, pre-Amtrak months when I was just an 8 year old boy. For whatever reason that version of the Zephyr has always been my favorite passenger train – ahead of even the similar-looking Super Chief and the 1930s era Pioneer Zephyr. I *had* to have it.

So I looked up N scale shops on the web and located Wig-Wag, who has been my primary N scale dealer ever since. I got the train and loved it. Now I needed a place to run it.

At this point the need for a layout NOW was suddenly bumped to the top of my priority list, so I was more willing to sacrifice most of my other layout desires. I designed a 4x12 -- the minimum I figured I could get by with since the Zephyr was nearly 9' long with engines. It was a congested city layout, with dual track in a folded figure 8 (that is, it looked like a 4 track oval but at one side there was a crossover) with 1% grades, one through station, and industrial tracks in the center. I actually ordered some code 55 track, extended the 4x8 in the garage to 4x12, and started the process. Then we very suddenly decided to move immediately and the project was permanently scrapped.

A couple months later we moved to a corporate apartment in Kansas and built a temporary 2x16 layout just for play and to learn about new building materials and DCC:


Only a few months after that photo we were moving into our house in Colorado and I was finally planning my permanent layout.

So what did I learn from this time period that influenced my current model railroad design?

1. Learn to ignore the Real Model Railroaders(tm). Most model railroaders are accepting of pretty much any way to do model railroading. The cliche is: the only rule of model railroading is that you are doing it right if you are having fun. This is especially true of the garden railroading community. Alas, as with most human activities, there is a subset of the group who think that their way is the only "real" way. You are a much happier model railroader once you have the confidence to do it the way you want, not the way the "Elders" think you should do it.


2. A city makes for fun model railroading. In the prototype, I love lots of complicated, congested trackwork. The operations are interesting, the track itself is interesting, and the whole question of how the engineers figured out how to make it all work in that tight space is interesting (and very similar to the challenge we have when we design our model railroads). Throw in the fact that cities are usually places where many railroads -- sometimes literally dozens -- interact and interchange and the modeling options are almost endless. I decided that the best layout design for me would be to focus on a mainline going through a congested city.


3. Simplicity should balance ambition. The first two designs described above were trying for way too much. The third design featured all kinds of compromises in the interests of having something that could be built and running in a shorter timeframe. Of course, the third design wouldn't have been that satisfying by itself, but this was due primarily to space limitations not to the design approach itself. I realized I was going to need to contain my wildest dreams if I was going to come up with a feasible layout design, which meant that things like hard-to-build custom structures and track should be avoided.


4. Subtle grades are a positive. My first layout was absolutely flat, and that didn't look quite right. My next several layouts had grades from 2% to 5%. While these are prototypical in some situations they are also unusual and require special operational considerations. Trying for grades less than 1% is a design challenge, but there are aesthetic rewards. The gradual changes add a clear, if subtle, sense of realism while at the same time not adding operational challenges. I'm not saying steep grades are bad ... I'm just saying I hadn't realized that gradual grades could be cool too.

So that takes us to November 2005, when we signed the contract on our current house and I started actually designing the layout itself. That will be the topic of the next design post.