Episode 2 - Slim Shelby is my Hero

My all-time favourite book on railway modelling is A.C. Klambach’s “Operating Manual for Model Railroaders” published in 1944.  Writing under the pseudonym “Boomer Pete” Kalmbach interweaves practical advice still relevant today on cleaning wheels and track, ensuring coupler heights match and how to handle delicate models, with rich insights into the way the prototype operated, all couched in a knowledgeable writing style full of enthusiasm.  I spent hours pouring over Dad’s copy when I was a kid, to the point where I can still quote from it today, though I do now have my own copy - one kept well away from glue and paint!

This is how Chapter 2 - “So You’re an engineer” begins:

“Have you ever watched Slim Shelby coming into the station with the 5:15 ?  Have you noticed how he keeps the Pacific working steam until just about the minute she stops so that the slack between the cars is all stretched out and there’s no jerk as he starts off again?  And have you watched a freight train starting out?  Watch the care with which the engineer inches the throttle and judges the feel of the train so that he won’t jerk the rear end apart by taking up the slack too rapidly…

…The conductor may be in command of the train but it’s the engineer who pulls the throttle and makes it go and that’s what you do when you run your model railroad.”

I was hooked!

I would also regularly read and re-read Linn Westcott’s “101 Track Plans for Model Railroaders” (Kalmbach, 1956), assuming one day I would build my own grand layout and never imagining for a moment that I wouldn’t.  I could cite other early influences from the pages of Dad’s Model Railroader magazines, such as Frank Ellison’s “The Art of Model Railroading” originally written in 1944 and later republished.  And I enjoyed the imagination Westcott and others invested in back stories for their layout designs, small or large.

Dreams were being formed that would last a lifetime, the dreams I still hold on to today.  But there’s a catch.  A particular view of model railroading was being shaped for me without me ever realising.  And it’s this: for me, model railroading / railway modelling is ultimately about seeing trains run, more than it is about modelling a particular place for them to run to or through:

There can be quite a difference between controlling the arrival or departure of trains at a given location, as opposed to driving a train while you watch it eating up the miles.  I’ve seen it described as being like the difference between “gods” and “heroes.”  The gods are those in ultimate control of everything that lies before them, while the heroes are down there on the journey, living the adventure as they travel from place to place.  It’s a metaphor, but one that makes sense to me, and I guess it means I’m with the heroes:

Of course there’s an overlap, and many of us will enjoy both approaches to operating a model railway, but in planning a layout I’m more interested in having somewhere for a train to stretch its legs than designing a model of a particular prototype or location.

How does this translate into the limited space (and budget) I have.  Frank Ellison suggested that “A run of not less than two scale miles seems essential” - and he was an O-Scaler!  That’s not the world I live in.  Kalmbach had a more modest idea, albeit one which requires more imagination:

“A real railroad is built to carry traffic from one place to another.  A model railroad should be so planned that it will give an illusion of doing the same thing even if it doesn’t.  The simplest layout is a circle or an oval with a siding, station, or yards at one point on it.  That one yard or station can be imagined as both ends of the line and definite orders can be made up and carried out for moving traffic from the one terminal around the main line and back to the same point.” (p41)
 

In practical terms - a continuous run (even if as part of an out and back scheme).  Fiddle yards didn’t figure - look through “101 Track Plans” and you’ll hardly see any hidden staging sidings even, although one track plan in Kalmbach’s own book had a scenic staging yard where a train could pause if needed.

Not all the past projects on my “Shelf of Shame” (see previous blog post) had continuous run designs, but the ones that got furthest did.  Over the past couple of years I’ve updated my reading with some excellent modern sources, two of which are worth a mention here:

Thomas Klimoski’s “Building the Right-Sized Layout” and Lance Mindheim’s “How to Design a Model Railroad” (which is not just about switching layouts).  But much as I enjoy reading about and watching US-themed switching layouts, I’ve not yet managed to remain interested long enough to build one.  For me, anything other than a continuous run design is a sure way to not build a model railway.

At the same time, it presents me with a design problem I bang my head against every time I look at a new idea - end curves take up space!

Next time I’ll look at another aspect of railway modelling I’ve discovered I enjoy, how this influences my choice of scale and gauge, and how it brings me back to the same problem I end with here.  Until then, have fun and keep modelling, whatever your aim, Keith.