Ground Deity

...

I eat steak every Saturday...

I have two Sacred Cows

....that I absolutely refuse to change.

One is the chosen scale for my home model railroad layout.  Though N Scale would be the better choice for the type of operation, the fact that HO is a struggle for me to model counts N Scale out, so I am sticking with HO Scale! That will never change!

The other sacred cow is PLAUSIBILITY.   If it is not plausible then it will not go onto the layout, no matter how much I might want something.  Now what is and is not considered plausible, that is a different story all together! ;->

Ken L

Plausible is subjective

Plausibility is a subjective thing - there are no hard and fast rules. Basically, if you can rationalize that it could have happened, then it's plausible.

Plausbiilty is more a measurement of your cleverness than anything else.

For me, "would it be fun?" trumps "is it plausible?" - as long as it's not unreasonable or too much of a caricature, then if it sounds fun, then I'm likely to give it serious consideration. For example, would the prototype have run single stacks down the Coos Bay branch - and would they have a container facility at the Port of Coos Bay?

How plausible is container traffic on the Coos Bay branch in the 1980s? I dunno. Would it be fun to model? You bet!

I thought..

...the SP had once considered putting a container facility in Coos Bay, but couldn't because there is a bridge that would need to be reconstructed to allow container ships to fit, and it would be too expensive.

Your example actually demonstrates my point.  For me, and I am one of the "weird ones", it's difficult for me to have fun, if deep down, if the likelihood of something to happen being slim that would allow the tweak in history to happen to justify something that did not happen, making it implausible in my mind. 

I am actually faced with the situation on the Ultimate P&A Layout.  I have a single track lift bridge (the one that has two towers and lifts flat).  Trying to find a plausible location for it remains to be difficult, and in the end I may just end up building it as a free-mo module or something so I can have a scene for it, but it won't be a part of the P&A because if it is not plausible, it will bother me to no end.  Many would say build it and include it anyways,  sacrificing that "cow".But I much rather have the milk from that Cow, than the beef it would produce!

I really should be modeling an actual prototype like my mentor does, but there is still some attraction to the proto-freelancing I want to do, mainly because of the years invested in research and developing a credible and plausible backstory on the creation of the P&A.

Ken L

Plausibility

I agree with Joe about plausibility. My chosen location for my layout is coastal Mexico circa ~1880 -1920's, and am modeling in S scale using HO 16.5 mm track which equals 42" gauge in 1:64. While I have not found any records of 42" gauge having been used in Mexico, there were lots of 36" gauge lines and other "odd" gauges  as well. 42" lines were used in several Central and South American countries, and of course here in the USA and Canada as well, so while I can find no evidence of 42" gauge in use in Mexico (except actually in mines- which is the #1 use for 42" gauge here in the USA- still today), it is definitely plausible that a mining company or such other small operation could have went with 42" gauge, buying up some surplus equipment from elsewhere for their operation. Along these same lines, I had mentioned the possibility of including a sawmill that would use logs rafted down from the west coast of USA and was told that it was "simply not plausible". In reality it is quite plausible, because it did in fact occur. Ocean going log rafts were commonly used to transport huge amounts of timber along the west coast , the most elaborate version of which was known as the "Benson" raft, some being over 1,000' in length and containing millions of board feet of timber. This was by far the most economical way to transport large quantities of timber to anywhere that could be reached by sea. While most of these rafts were floated down to San Diego, they were also pulled all the way across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, the Phillippines, Japan, China , Formosa, and yes even down to Mexico. I will probably not include a mill operation on my layout simply because of space limitations, but it was without a doubt plausible for my layout's locale.

CHANGE

Two many cannot try it. They are just toys to have fun with, but have rr friends who will not move into the 21 century because they are scared. Thus many do not want to play with them. 

Different kinds of fun

I've found that change can be a lot of fun, and a great motivator.  I really enjoy strict prototype modeling, so for me, change often comes about as a result of finding new information on a particular topic, or by thinking of a more accurate way to model something.  Either way, the increased accuracy gets me fired up about the hobby all over again, even when it means getting rid of models.  Those models are fun in and of themselves, but staying focused on my prototype during my era is, for me, a more rewarding kind of fun.

A few years ago I realized that a favorite locomotive of mine - a unit that was on the IAIS roster during my May 2005 era - didn't visit my portion of the railroad that month, or for several months after.  I'd already modeled it, but after a lot of deliberation, decided to renumber and redetail my model to represent a unit that DID visit the West End that month.  Sure, it's a detail that no one else would likely ever know or care about, but I knew.  While it was hard to make the decision to do away with that model as it was originally built, once I did it, I was glad I did.

I had a similar situation with the recent removal of the only visible grain elevator, and its associated trackage, at Atlantic, IA on the layout, discussed in my recent blog entries at  https://forum.mrhmag.com/journals-was-blogs-891775 .  I liked that elevator, but a big part of the fun of this hobby for me is to represent the prototype I enjoyed railfanning at a specific point in time, so anything that I know doesn't fit in that snapshot - no matter how neat the prototype was - detracts from that goal.

the prototype I enjoyed railfanning at a specific point in time

 There's two ways to look at the at problem.  One is model it the way you saw it and two is to model it the way you might have enjoyed it more? When I was a kid I missed seeing certain things on the railroad by a few years but I could see them now on a layout with a little time bending. Would I enjoy the layout more modeling the scene that was or modeling the scene I wish it had been? I guess some day I can do a scene both ways and see which is more fun :> ) ........DaveBranum

"would they have a container facility at the Port of Coos Bay?"

 Probably not unless it was necessary to ship lumber in containers. The rail route out of Coos Bay to the nation is not any easier than the rail route out of Portland or Oakland so I see little need for an international  container port at Coos Bay. A small ramp for local service might be more plausible as the highways in and out of Coos Bay are a pretty long haul for trucks so containerized  freight to be delivered by locally based tractors makes a lot of sense.I've always thought that they should do the same thing for Eureka by bringing in containerized stuff from the bay area. As for as plausibility in general   for layouts I think going with the most likely or the most common scene works better than going for the slightly plausible option. .DaveBranum 

Build your new staging yard on the work bench.

You have a functional, if flawed, staging yard on the layout.  Now build a sectional staging yard on the work bench, run it and make sure it is reliable and works for you.  Once you are satisfied, rip out the original and install the new one.  In the mean time you can continue operations on the layout while you work out any bugs in the new staging yard.  

I'm reminded of a conversation that I had with a member of the La Mesa club the first time I visited the San Diego Model Railroad Museum.  Apparently the member who designed the Tehachapi layout was employed in the engineering dept. at the S.P.  He designed bridges, tunnels, etc, not a train engineer.  He drew up the plan and various members of the club build it in sections in their garages.  The Tehachapi layout was the last on to be installed in the museum.  The other clubs were building layouts in place and wondering when the La Mesa club would get started on theirs.  People were really surprised when the members came to the museum one Tuesday night, put the layout up and had it running with scenery completed on that first section on Wednesday morning!

Yes!

Yes, you got it! 

I am of the opinion now that building a layout in sections at the workbench is the way to go. Building a layout in place is doing it the hard way. "Fill the room with benchwork" is an older mindset that comes from the early days of the hobby where we just took the table-top layout and filled the room with it.

With linear, narrow shelf design, the layout form factor follows real railroads a lot more closely - real railroads are linear. Toy railroads run around the Christmas tree and are circular - or if you get them up off the floor, they're a loop of track on a table.

But linear shelf design lends itself very well to the next logical step: build the layout in small sections at the workbench. We all tend to do our best work when we're relaxed and working in a comfortable setting - and I can get to the underside of a section easily just by flipping it over. A fair amount of layout construction work takes place from the underside, and as I get older, it's a lot easier to do if the layout can be flipped over instead of me.

It makes perfect sense to build the replacement shelf sections first, then replace the old staging yard quickly once the sections have been built and tested.

Excellent!

Creating vs. recreating

I was in the freelance and proto-freelance camp until a few years ago and really enjoyed it, but found over time that, for me, the real fun came from re-creating what really was rather than what might have been.  Yes, creating something in my mind, or blending things together from multiple eras, is also fun, but just not a good fit for me personally.  I started out with a completely freelanced prototype, then moved to modeling freelanced extensions of prototype railroads (e.g. the UP's resurrection of an abandoned Wabash line to Council Bluffs), then started modeling a prototype railroad on their own line, but enhanced to justify more traffic (e.g. resurrecting old customers and modeling those that came along after my era).  The transition from that last state to where I am today came about by whittling away one anachronism at a time until I eventually got to the point of simply modeling what was there in my era - nothing more and nothing less.  Each choice was hard to make, but I found my enjoyment level increasing every time.

I think it's fun to see the approach each person takes in this hobby, both the creators and re-creators.  As much as I enjoy prototype modeling, the layouts that most inspired me in my early days in the hobby, and some of my favorite ones to watch here, are proto-freelanced.  I think it was Bob Rivard's Soo Line, though, that really gave me the prototype modeling bug.

The Most Sacred Cow of all!

Joe Fugate said

This is the most revered Sacred Cow of all amongst the modern model railroading community. The idea that you can replicate something that in real life is hundreds or thousands of miles long into a space that is maybe a mile or two long in your average scale layout and say that it is "realistic". It isn't. Yes, real railroads are linear. They are also at a minimum, dozens of miles long, and usually hundreds or thousands of miles long. Even for huge warehouse size layouts that model maybe 10 miles of line, the reality is that there simply is no use in the real world for lines that short. I have been asking advice for my new layout, and the thing that I keep hearing over and over is that having turnaround loops "just isn't "realistic", and that "switching layouts are more prototypical". I beg to differ. Having a layout where the operations consist of going back and forth on the same mile of track is not realistic- at all. Neither is a layout of the same size that includes a way for the train to run continuously. It comes down to which part you want to fantasize about- that somehow material magically appears at point A to be hauled a mile to point B and that somehow this train just goes back and forth over and over on this same stretch of track on a switching layout, or that going in a loop represents a journey by the train to somewhere off of the layout to deliver things produced on the layout, and then returns with cargo from this imagined place. I prefer the latter, and have no interest at all in the former. I understand that many prefer the more realistic looking tiny slice of a railroad represented in a linear switching layout, and they have my wholehearted approval to pursue modeling this way. I would ask that this same courtesy be extended to those that prefer to have the dynamic of continuous running trains on their layouts.  

At the end of the day I consider model railroading to be an artform, the product of which is one's interpretation of something ranging from a static picture of real life, purely fantasy, or some "plausible" mixture of the two.

Stoker.

Now if you all will please excuse me, I am going to calmly screw the lid shut on my fallout shelter after having put the most Sacred Cow of model railroading on a spit and lit the fire......

Sectional

Now that I'm building three modules for a shelf switching layout, I'm overwhelmingly convinced that when I build the "final" layout, it will be built in sections and added to the room as I complete the sections.  There are just so many advantages to the sectional approach, from doing the wiring under the sections to completing sections in a fairly short time frame to get at least something running to making it much easier to pack it up and move if you happen to sell your house for whatever reason.  

"back and forth on the same mile of track not realistic- at all"

Unless one finds a prototype that did that then it can be very realistic. The New York waterfront had many such scenes and Alice Street at Oakland is a great prototype for someone wanting to model ATSF and SP in a small space.  Plausibility is not dependent on the space available , it's dependent  on the choices the modeler makes in that space..DaveBranum

A scene is not a railroad

I agree that a scene can be modeled accurately Dave, but a scene is not a railroad. I understand that a pure linear switching layout might represent a tiny slice of a railroad better visually than a layout with return loops, but not functionally. A railroad scene does not float by itself in the real world, it's only reason for existence is that it is connected to far off places.  These far off places must be imagined whether you run a train back and forth on a straight section of track or whether you run it in a loop with sidings and spurs. Either way there has to be a leap of imagination to give the section of a railroad you are representing purpose for existing.

You are , by the way, the only person who did not poo poo my original island idea for a layout, which consists of loops of course, and I appreciate that.

"Either way there has to be a leap of imagination"

    I totally agree. Staging can be dead end, reverse loops, or oval loops. I actually prefer a multi loop route or big oval railroad to a pure point to point as I can run train miles between stops if I want. The option to make the train run a number of times around the loop before stopping at the next town on the timetable is more fun to me than just pulling out of one town  and stopping a the next town after less than a train length of running. The New York terminals or Alice street are however complete railroads in one scene. Their traffic arrives and departs by railroad car floats so no connected  staging tracks are needed. The Harlem transfer, The CNJ  bronx terminal, and the Lehigh Valley bronx terminal even had continuous run ovals within their small self contained areas for the ultimate  modeling enjoyment. If one don't want the oval feature then there are many more small terminals to consider, some even used overhead electric wire, every major east coast railroad had some connection to the New York city area....DaveBranum 

Terminals are not railroads.

Dave, the "railroads" you listed as being complete railroads are nothing but freight transfer facilities. It is like saying that a parking garage is a freeway.

This is very cool, but it is not a railroad, and it is also entirely dependent on an imaginary leap to pretend that railcar floats are pulling up from somewhere off of the layout.

The "Alice Street" Oakland railroad, from what I can gather, was an actual railroad, and was indeed dozens of miles long, exactly as I had said earlier. Even it, the tiniest of actual railroads (entirely dependent on transfers from real long haul railroads and ferries) would only fit on the very largest warehouse sized scale model layouts.

The reality is that representing real railroads and real operations on a model railroad is simply not possible (maybe a small one on a Z scale warehouse sized layout, and even that is debatable), it is just a matter of where the leap of imagination is placed.

How right you are!

"The reality is that representing real railroads and real operations on a model railroad is simply not possible (maybe a small one on a Z scale warehouse sized layout, and even that is debatable), it is just a matter of where the leap of imagination is placed."

I have decided to model the Los Angeles Junction Rwy.  The entire prototype is approximately 2 miles long and perhaps 1/2 mile wide.  It may be longer than 2 miles, but the part that I want to model is even less than 2 miles long.  The problem is that after spending a couple of Saturdays with a couple of friends walking around and exploring the railroad right of way in Vernon, Ca. I found that I can't even begin to model it effectively in my space.  I have to compress.  I can either compress the distance between industries and the yard, or I can compress the industries, or both.  I am going to model part of the Malabar yard, only it is going to become LAJ property on my layout instead of belonging to BNSF.  Then I am going to model 4 nearby industries, including one chemical company that is no longer served by rail, but will be on my layout.

...

Terminals are not railroads?

Geez...

The number one requirement to enjoy this hobby is an imagination.  I hold steadfast to that requirement, too.  It is only by the power of imagination that you can the sacred cow might actually serve up well as prime rib...