The Lure

Like many boys growing up in the 1950’s, I received a toy train set one Christmas. I can recall running trains in and out from under the bed in the guest room when I couldn’t have been more than 5 years old. I also remember watching New Haven switchers out the window of my Grandmother’s house in Easthampton, MA. Even with that, I would not say I was fascinated with trains or much interested in modeling.

Much older, I would walk across town daily from Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York to my workplace on the Eastside and pass the Train Store on 45th St. with its large street-level display windows. One day I went in – and then a model railroader was born.

I soon switched to commuting by train.

Seems like a millennium ago (it was – the 1990’s) when I quit my job in New York City and reconfigured my business to be totally freelance and run from rural Virginia. I had thought my model railroad dreams were over when I bought a house without a basement.

Born Again

When the contractor building my large new studio at the edge of the woods tried to appease me regarding the excessively high-pitched roof by offering to put a loft in that space, I knew before he had finished the sentence that I would build a model railroad there.

I had started 2 layouts before, neither finished, both abandoned, and I’d learned some hard lessons in the experience that I did not want to repeat.

My first layout was just about straight out of an Atlas HO plan book, a 4 x 8 foot plan expanded to 9 x 11, but still way too small to be satisfying. A fire in the rented house necessitated a quick move and the layout was abandoned.

The second HO model railroad was considerably larger, sprawling around a large basement sharing the space with my studio, laundry facilities, and utilities. I liked that the track plan really seemed to go somewhere as it wandered around the basement. Its most serious flaw was that the illusion was ruined by having to run around from one room to another (with a duck under at a door) every time the train went through a wall.

Command control was just coming on the scene and I was an early adapter of the CTC-80 system as described in a series of articles in Model Railroader in the 1980’s. Building such a system was beyond my abilities, so I bought components from a small supplier. Still, there was a lot of work for me to do. Locomotives had to be repowered with low current can motors and it was a chore fitting in those huge decoders. The system proved to be troublesome and I burned out decoders regularly and spent more time on maintenance than building the layout. Eventually, the whole project couldn’t compete with the demands of a busy career and a growing family and it was all torn down and packed up, eventually to be sold off at a moving sale.

Starting from Scratch

So it was a bit of surprise to realize that I still had that modeling itch. And I was soon looking forward to an all new and improved experience.

First of all, I knew I wanted to switch to n-scale and plan for long, slinking trains. Even though my last layout had been fairly large, I was never satisfied with 20-car trains. What I like most about trains is the way they move – and I need a long train to fully experience that.

Secondly, this layout would be designed for DCC. In trying to keep two trains running, I spent so much time flipping toggles at a frantic pace with my first small HO layout that there was little time to enjoy the trains. What a pleasure to discover that commercial command control had come of age and I expected (and got) reliable components that worked and could do amazing things.

Thirdly, I freely admit that I am not that much interested in prototypical trains. I just like building great looking models, scenery, and all that cool, underlying gadgetry. (Hey! What’s wrong with that?). So this would be a freelanced affair and I’d learn just enough to make it all plausible. Since then, I have picked up a fair amount of information on prototypical railroads and I have freely adopted and adapted appealing prototypical operational practices. It’s better to be informed and authentic, and I enjoy incorporating my new prototypical knowledge into the model railroad. I also have learned to scratch build specific prototypical structures. I guess the more accurate description of the railroad has evolved to proto-freelanced. As a bonus, the artist in me gets to design my own logos and paint schemes.

And fourthly, I would be very clear about my goals and, with careful planning, build a n- scale railroad that was truly satisfying.

Goals

My available space is about 225 sq. ft. – about the same square footage for the first and second iteration of this railroad – although they are different shapes. Probably all model railroaders will complain about limited space. I think this is about the maximum I can handle with any hope of finishing and keeping up with maintenance.  I want simple and reliable: switch machines only where needed, simple but ample wiring, commercial turnouts, generous and rigidly applied standards, easements for all curves, top quality locomotives, carefully laid and thoroughly tested trackwork, and access to hidden track.

I want broad curves – for appearance mostly, since modern n-scale diesels can handle sharper curves. I would like more, but I settled on an 18” minimum radius for the mainline and a 16” minimum for the branch line, while vowing to use broader, sweeping curves wherever possible.

Although I want to provide room and plenty to do for four or five operators, it is more likely that I would be operating the railroad by myself or a single train with a crew of grandchildren. I decided to include a variety of operations that could be carried out sequentially to keep myself interested for the long term. While I am involved with the job at hand, I wanted a provision for trains running automatically in the background. Even though those trains would essentially be running in circles, I wanted to hide that fact as much as possible. I wanted the appearance that the railroad had the purpose of moving commodities from here to there. I also wanted a large variety of traffic and those long slinking trains I mentioned.

These considerations lead to extensive hidden staging beneath the visible layout. That’s probably not as easily accessible as it could/should be, but model railroad planning is a lot of compromises. I was careful to provide easy access to turnouts and thoroughly test the trackage before moving on to build the visible railroad.

I wanted a large yard, exchange traffic with other real and imagined railroads, push-pull commuter train operations like I had experienced on the Pascack Valley Line in New Jersey, a container terminal, several large industries at which to switch strings of cars rather than puny industries that could only handle one or two cars at a time and could hardly justify rail service. I also wanted an older rundown downtown area that would be a challenge to switch.

That surely is an ambitious list, and layout design experts might criticize the lack of focus, but I managed to work it all in by modeling only the rail intensive parts of larger industries and relegating some to – or even behind – the backdrop.

I wanted a linear layout design with a clear direction of traffic. I did not want to see a train go through the same scene twice, supposedly miles away on the second pass. Likewise, I wanted loads and empties to move logically in appropriate directions. (I get very judgmental whenever I see loaded hoppers headed back to the mines.)

A key consideration was a desire for the illusion of distance traveled between towns and industries, so I needed to spread things out. This led to the decision to double deck the layout above staging.

I hate helixes in the middle of runs because, for me, nothing moves slower that a train that is out of sight. Unable to get to the upper level by putting the whole railroad on a reasonable grade (it’s just too short), I compromised and planned for a herniated helix with only a one turn hidden. But I must say that once I had that big circle in the middle of the room, I found plenty of other useful things to do with it such as adding a helix turn down to lengthen the travel time of trains in orbit in and out of staging, a broad scenic curve around the perimeter and a stub staging track for the commuter terminal.

The around the walls with peninsula layout design helps with the illusion of distance, as the operator’s back is to the rest of the layout keeping it out of sight and out of mind while he focuses on the scene and chores in front of him.

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

This is a well-planned railroad. For several years my business necessitated a lot of time away from home. Evenings that weren’t taken up by work were spent researching model railroad planning and designing the railroad. For hours on end, I would run imaginary trains over ever more precise drawings to test layout ideas operationally. I’d mock up 1:1 sections to test distance between levels and to align structures. I built dozens of kitbashed structures knowing exactly where they would go and how they would fit. (My attachment to that  had to be given up when the layout was moved and reconfigured.) The plans became so familiar that I could accurately contemplate modifications while driving or going to sleep. Amazingly, when I committed to a change on paper, the mental picture would be neurologically reprogrammed to match.

I thought I had it all figured out.

In building the railroad, things changed. Everything fit as planned, but new ideas came up when seeing the real thing. Most of these ideas would be considered but discarded in favor of The Plan which proved to have the better thought out solution. I expected and implemented small changes along the way, but every once in while…

After being built and thoroughly tested the whole operational scheme of staging was changed. I didn’t need to relocate too much track, but the turnout ladders were revised and an extra track in each direction was added. That was a lot of work that kept me from moving on, but it is so much simpler to program the automatic sequence of staged trains with those changes.

And now the entire layout has been reconfigured to fit into the new space. Thankfully, I didn’t need to start from scratch again.  I was very happy generally with how the layout was working out, and things like staging turnout ladders could be transplanted wholely. I was also glad to have the opportunity to tweak things that could use improvement. The most beneficial change has been wider aisles since the cramped loft could get crowded easily.

The first version of the model railroad, being in a loft, had the luxury of a staircase up into the layout room that did not interfere with the benchwork. The second version, being in a bedroom, has to accommodate a doorway. I have opted for a swing gate, that – so far – has proven stable and reliable.

In planning the helix to the second level, I decided that a 2% grade was too steep for a helix. I didn’t need to know the math the realize that the extra drag of going in circles meant that the 2% in the helix would in effect be steeper than the 2% grade maximum allowed elsewhere on the branch line. That and other design considerations lead inextricably to the addition of another turn in the helix. The resulting grade in the helix is a navigable 1.6% and other portions of the layout are improved. Too much helix, maybe (surely), but like I said – compromises.

Fanciful ideas that I had no hope of fitting in persist.

I saw elevated track I liked in an article and I found a way to fit in an elevated line and more city structures.

When Atlas came out with curved turnouts, I was able to redesign a few areas for better sweep. In fact, the whole railroad was initially designed for Peco turnouts and the main staging areas were built with them. To my eye, Atlas code 55 is much superior (being prototypically American), so I changed the specification on the rest of the railroad. Luckily (not really luckily, I’m just forward-thinking) the plan had enough tolerance built in that #7 turnouts fit in just as well as Peco large radius and I even found that #10s could be standard for crossovers.

I was inspired by an article in Model Railroader to add a staging elevator that added 5 storage tracks to a cramped space that could otherwise only fit one track.

The track plan was deliberately designed with tolerances built in. I drew track separations on the initial plan at 1.5″ – which was simple to do on my graph paper – knowing that tangent track would be installed with 1.25″ separation and curved sections would be at 1.375″ to allow for clearance. Only in the yard, where I wanted as many parallel tracks as would fit, was a very precise plan required.

In building the layout, easement curves are mandatory and the tangent (straight) track is usually given a slight curve. By being generous in the planning, these details did not need to be drawn out prior to installation.

For the revised plan, I used computer software which allowed for more precise, but less forgiving, track planning.  I am benefiting still from being as generous as possible with layout planning.

Fine tuning the track plan is done as the railroad is built. My construction method is to cut a piece of plywood the size of the area to be worked on. I photocopy turnouts and tape them together to verify that they are accurately assembled in the best arrangement then locate them on the plywood and draw the connecting trackage. Then I cut away the excess plywood and install it on the benchwork followed by roadbed and track.

The lesson here is that through track planning pays off abundantly, becoming locked into the track plan short-circuits fruitful innovation.

The Metropolis Atlantic was conceived as a twenty-year project. I can see that I need to add another ten years. Construction is accelerating now, I am happy to report.