Layout Ideas and Theory

Most modelers, urged on by the popular modeling press seem mass aimed at “prototype operation” as a be all end to the hobby. The ideas behind this movement are fine as far as it goes and as long as people are having fun at what they perceive are “prototypical operations” it is ok by me. I am not here to dump water on anyone’s fun.

I have a different take on the hobby and it comes from a long history of actual “prototype operation”. Most modelers seem to want to be real locomotive engineers. At least on the surface. Maybe you all are smarter than I at first thought. When I hear “prototype operation” I get a chill up and down my spine. I spent 38 years running freight trains ( and an occasional passenger train) for the Southern Pacific and, oh yes, big yellow. I am currently writing a book about those years and a lot of it has to do with explaining how physically exhausted a human being can get and still function. Function in an environment where the outside temperatures are over 120 degrees and the cab temperatures are 150 degrees. The air conditioner quit. Before that there were no air conditioners. The Sonora desert is below freezing a lot of the year, believe it or not. For many years not a single pay period went by that I wasn’t shorted. Some of those disputes took years to resolve. The company was earning interest on that money. When I was finally paid I got not a single penny of that interest. Some of those disputes were never settled. When I retired, through mergers and unsettled claims I had lost over $50,000. None of that was ever fun.

Was any of it ever fun? Why yes it was. West bound some trains were hot shots. The BSM, Texan (auto parts), Gold Streak (US Mail) and later came the Sprint train. West bound meant you were going home, mostly on green signals, and you were going fast, 70 + mph on the SP. In the real old days, as fast as the train would go. Later, we had to abide by the rules. Mostly this was going to be a short trip, 4 or 5 hours, tops. Going fast was fun. Getting called for a shooter was one of the few times I ever saw my fellow employees smiling about their jobs. Mostly we talked to one another about anything, just to be sure the other guy was awake.

When I hear modelers talk about operation I dream of setting up a pool, like a real one. Calling my crews at 3 am after I have turned up the temperature in the layout room to 110 degrees. You also get a random drug test on the way in. When you get here a member (designated Trainmaster) will hand you a stack of paperwork an inch thick and start bugging you to get to your train, even though it is paramount that you read every word of the stuff he just gave you. This actually happened to me once in Yuma, the Trainmaster was so frantic to get us on the waiting BSM he literally shoved us out the door and on the engine and we left town just ahead of Amtrak. We discovered shortly thereafter that he had neglected to include a set of train orders for us. You can also expect to get screamed at if you go by a red signal, get pulled out of service and not be invited back to the next session because you just got fired! I also do NOT operate with a fast clock. Twelve hour shifts here dude. Next call on your rest. Now we’re railroadin’. I’ve also set up some 1000 watt spot lights directly behind a couple of signals to simulate the sun. Try seeing those puppies. Better have your sunglasses handy. The bathroom here is mounted on hydraulic rams and tosses about most realistically or is that sloshes about? If you’ve been on the food binge for a little too long it may prove difficult climbing down into it but at least it’s prototypical.

You may be having fun with your operating scheme but you are not doing it in a prototypical manner. Be a model railroad engineer, it is a lot more enjoyable; so when I think about running a layout I don’t really want to impose a lot of discipline. I’ve had about all of that I want to deal with.

I like to see my models run. I subscribe to the “A few good models” notion. I once read a Tony Koester article wherein he was extolling the virtues of not much detailing and demonstrating this notion with a picture of a passing train blurred by the photographer who had failed to pan the camera (perhaps in an effort to emphasis the speed). By not detailing he was advocating getting to the operating part quicker and who could see all that carefully applied underbody piping when the train was going by at 55 mph anyway? Well, how about 70? Or Amtrak’s 79? Or TGV’s at 250? With a theory like that we could go back to the 30’s and print barely necessary detail on cardboard and slap it on a block of wood. Should suffice at those speeds don’t you think? A couple of problems. My head is not bolted down to a tri-pod just yet, arthritis not withstanding. When watching models it is in full swivel mode and at some point the trains have to stop if even to change crews. The lack of detail becomes obvious. This is not modeling. There is a difference between modeling and sport which the focused “operating” group seems most interested in pursuing. If that is so then I might suggest a disciplinary system to rate “players”. That would be “prototypical”.

Some of the degradation in modeling I have noticed manifested itself in the new Cat Mountain and Santa Fe with buildings represented by blank faced blocks, no windows or doors nor any detail of any sort. I might think that these operators would be more happy with a sophisticated simulator, no modeling would be required at all.

I used to build model airplanes and it came to this fork in the road a long time ago. Modeling vs. sport. What created the divide was the importation of inexpensive models from China that eliminated the need to actually build anything. Just buy the box and go fly. Actually there was no fork, there is still modeling and there is now the sport of model airplane flying. The modeling part is not growing very much though. We have outsourced it. Unfortunately model railroading doesn’t have the market volume to generate the kind of capital investment that could push a sport type involvement that would negate the need for model building at some level. Unless you pursue it like David Barrow does with the CM&SF, sans detail.

I have always pursued the acquisition and improvement of skills as a primary motivation in my involvement in this hobby. I have always tried to elevate my work to the level of art. It has never dissuaded me to see other modelers work that is superior to mine (there are a great many of them) and their work has always motivated me to do better. I watched my father scratch build a NW2 switch engine out of a coffee can when I was a kid. It was absolutely beautiful. That is where I learned draw filing and what Dykem Blue was used for. I went to a N scale meet in LA years ago when I’d first started in that scale and was stunned to see a Alco road switcher scratch built, in SP colors just like the engine I’d gotten off of earlier that day. It was a heart stopper and opened my eyes to possibilities I hadn’t considered. And then there was John Allen.

Allen taught me that it was possible to create a world that was visually absorbing enough to capture your imagination without the trains. That the real world had scenery all the way to the floor and up to the sky and night time didn’t make the trains stop. These were things my young brain hadn’t given any thought to at all and it changed everything. Allen was also funny and frivolous what with his dyno switch engines and such but he was also a social commentator. If you look closely you can see it everywhere. He also operated. He was a professional photographer, not a railroader, so his interest was like any fan. Mostly devoid of the reality of it all. In my estimation he was an artist. We have come a long way since Allen’s seminal work but I still look to it for inspiration. The sheer volume of original ideas it represents are staggering.

The second most significant layout and therefore builder is Jack Burgess. He proved to me that two levels could work and his skill level is so high in all areas that it is worth reaching for. I have even tromped around on the old Yosemite Valley right of way on a camping and fishing trip that also included the old Merced antique airplane fly-in. What a week end! His was the first Allen Keller tape I bought and I was not disappointed. I admire his Burgess’ discipline. You cannot accomplish what he has at the high level of skill displayed there without copious amounts of it.

These are two men who were or are obviously having fun but take the hobby very seriously. It is my attitude precisely, it is the attitude I have toward my boatbuilding. Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

NEW OR OLD?



I continue to see concepts in the modeling press dressed up in new nomenclature and paraded around as the newest idea. The “domino” system is just the latest in a long history of such things. Maybe it is a good idea for ideas sake, to rename things with catchy monikers. I don’t know. The handy sized building block notion has been with us for decades whether you call it a domino, a section, module, diorama or a pink rhino. To my way of thinking it is probably the best way to actually build a layout even if you have a barn to build in. Individual components can be done at the workbench and installed on the bench work as it is completed. Whatever form that bench work may take. As a quick aside while I’m thinking about it, the most rigid and spectacular bench work I ever saw was the old Narrow gauge club in Pasadena, Ca. It was made from scrap lumber and simply hammered together at whatever angle the pieces seemed to fit. What resulted was a sort of geodesic looking mass of every which way struts and beams that were so strong you could have driven a car over the roadbed. It was incredible. It was also one of the most beautiful layouts I’d ever seen even to this day, though internecine squabbling eventually killed it. Bad club vibes are why I don’t join those sort of things. Politics are everywhere.

The domino etc. notion is also, at least for me who doesn’t design with a computer, the easiest way to get layout ideas down on paper. The mainline simply connects the theme’s together through the scenery.


CULTURE AND SOCIAL COMMENTARY


One of the things that I want to do with the Tucson and Baja Northern is to point out cultural differences and make the occasional social commentary. We do this all the time, of course, without realizing it. We have cultural biases and points of view and we express them in numerous ways unconsciously. This area of the country is surrounded with native Americans and we are bordered by a foreign country. We have a huge economic trade with Mexico and massive social issues with the Mexicans and the Indians. Native Americans are gaining footholds in the economic system, mainly through gaming and all of these factors have a huge impact on the population of Arizona and the southwest and their economic well being. Border towns have really big problems to solve. How do you model this in three dimensions? Well, I think the dominate local tribe, the Tohona O’odham, is going to become a major stockholder in the railroad. This is a salt hauler remember and the salt “mine” is an evaporator pond on the Sea of Cortez, in Mexico. This is going to have major consequences in a lot of areas including operations, as a major portion of the RR is on reservation land and then crosses the border into Mexico. Who has regulatory authority? So how do you detail a model as regards say, grab iron clearances? Or air brake appliances or…….

There are slums, on both sides of the border, and we are going to lay track right through the middle of them. Didn’t think we were going to put them in the middle of a really ritzy neighborhood did you? Doesn’t happen. At least very often. There are lots more possibilities and I will exploit what I can.


THE FUTURE



What about the viability of a modern narrow gauge railroad? The US Gypsum RR tells a pretty good story and is the basis of the T&BN. Single commodity owner operated line that is less expensive to operate in it’s present form than changing over to standard gauge. The T&BN is about to discover a brine sink half way to the coast and what lurks there is lithium. The lightest metal in the universe and the key ingredient in lithium ion battery technology. The salt will still come but in time the tonnage of brine bearing lithium will outshine the industrial salt. That will entail acquiring tank cars because lithium will explode when exposed to air and must be transported in solution. It will be trans-loaded to UP tank cars for shipment to the processing plant. It would be virtually impossible for another shipper to get to the source. Remember, The RR is almost entirely on reservation land……………….more to come.