Episode 1: “The only way is up!” - a nadir is reached…

 

I’ve been interested in layout design and track planning for as long as I’ve been interested in model railways.  After all the books I’ve read, videos I’ve watched, and ideas I’ve doodled, I’d suggest there are two fundamentals to be decided on at the start.  Most importantly: what’s the vision?  What do I want my layout to represent, or achieve?  Trouble is I like a lot of different things and have far too many ideas, as demonstrated in the first five episodes of this blog (which collectively made up Season 1).

 

In this second series of Blog posts, I still aim to plan and start building a layout.  Soooo: what’s the vision?

 

I’ve settled on a theme for my existing H0e / HOn30 modelling, using the image of “the lonely siding” heading up this post.  I want to use smaller narrow gauge models to create an illusion of space - nothing crowded or busy.  I have just a few kits and bits to finish for my first, small, freelance HOn30 mini-layout (1m x 0.6m):

 

 

 

And I’m thinking of expanding it with a larger, second version (which will have more room for the church building):

 

 

 

But what about my other interests, and a ‘main’ layout project?  I’m impressed by many layouts large and small, on RMweb and on YouTube, but I’m not tied to a particular prototype, and my only non-negotiable is that I want a good continuous run.  I’ll return to the question of a vision later in this post.

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Before I do that, the second thing to settle on is: a scale and gauge.

 

The dilemma at the end of my first series of blog posts is that a small scale layout in N (or perhaps Z) would make sense for my space.  But when it comes to building kits and models, HO scale is the obvious choice for me.  There’s quite a difference between N and HO:

 

 

My thanks to @AndyB for suggesting a layout using 12mm gauge track after reading through my earlier blog posts, either in TT (Standard Gauge) or H0m (Metre Gauge).  I looked at both last year, and Andy’s encouragement confirms my enthusiasm for TT:120 is justified, while my dabbling in Swiss Metre Gauge modelling last year also made sense!  But I have my reservations, at least at present:

 

For TT, the UK outline models I’d like are some way off, so the building kits and track I’ve got have been put to one side.  I plan to return to them for a future project: a GWR Branch Line based on the Peco kits.  It means that box still has a tick against it.  What about now?  I was very impressed with Continental TT, but struggled to find a good source for quality second-hand coaches here in the UK.  When I slimmed down my project list last year, that counted against European TT for me (I don’t travel overseas much these days, which is when some modellers stock up).  American TT is very much a builders’ scale, and while @rodshaw’s layouts are examples of excellent North American TT layouts here in the UK and on RMweb, locos especially seem scarce and I’m already kit and scratchbuilding a bit in HOn30.  I have a Continental TT diorama to finish, and enjoy the American TTnut Forum, but TT’s not the way I’ll go for this next layout.

 

As for 12mm Narrow Gauge, it’s not a scale common with US modelling, as HOn3 uses 10.5mm gauge track.  @JZ’s DRGW layout in the Narrow Gauge Forum is an example here on RMweb which is making good use of scenic space and craftsman kits for realism.  It was lack of space last year that meant I didn’t pursue H0m: I didn’t have room at the time to run the prototypical trains I wanted to, or for both my H0m and 9mm gauge narrow gauge.  While I now have a bit more space, I do want to be able to run US trains sometimes.

 

That’s the catch.  Throughout my journey around the scales and gauges of European modelling, there’s always been a collection of North American HO from various sources lurking under my modelling tables and stashed away on top of a wardrobe:

 

 

 

My idea at the end of 2022 was to bring it up top and use it, and I have added to the collection with a mixture of quality second-hand models and kits. Note that the recent addition of a B&O RDC-2 means I’ve breached my ‘two-loco’ limit for new projects: 

 

 

I partly restarted American HO to save space on storage, even though the scale of the models is bigger.  While I could probably think of more North American prototype ideas for layout than for anywhere else, I haven’t managed to settle on a layout design. I keep trying to mix a switching layout with a branch line, and end up with a bit of neither.  I did reach a point of frustration and went out to the outhouse to just knock together a baseboard for a standard Inglenook switching layout, only to realise I’d used narrow gauge thinking and the baseboards weren’t the right size even for that.  But, doing a reality check, I’ve already got several years’ worth of rolling stock kits to tackle here, so it would be nice for them to have somewhere to run.  I have no interest in selling any of them.  US HO is in.

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While I was wrestling with ideas for an American HO layout, this also happened:

 

 

Listed alongside a retailer’s second hand American HO, this Roco HO ÖBB Class 1016 ‘Taurus’ resisted all attempts to avoid inclusion in my basket of purchases, and has perhaps come closer than anything else to providing me with some inspiration for a theme to pursue:

 

 

 

(I’ve seen a photo of this exact loco in this pre-2005 ‘pflatsch’ livery pulling an ÖBB red/black coach in just this pose).

 

Other purchases have followed, some of which appeared in photos in previous blog posts and elsewhere on RMweb.

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So it looks like I do have a scale: HO, and I do have a theme: Austrian / German / Swiss standard gauge railways c. 2000 - 2005.  It doesn’t solve the problem of how to fit a good continuous run in this larger scale into my limited space.  I realised I needed to do something about this when I caught myself idly leafing through a retailer’s eBay listings for other scales, while a recently delivered box of HO goodies was still sitting next to me waiting to be opened!  I hadn’t set out to be a collector, but was clearly becoming one!!!

 

So I thought it’d be a good idea to replicate my success with H0e / HOn30 and build a simple test circuit layout for starters:

 

 

Even designed for UK 3rd radius curves this is much bigger (and no transitions - which even my narrow gauge test layout has):

 

 

I used 9mm ply for the standard gauge version, compared to 12mm ply for the smaller narrow gauge boards.  It means there’s a greater risk of twisting unless I add more weight with diagonal bracing.  As it stands, the completed narrow gauge layout weighs 5.3kg, and the boards for a standard gauge version twice as much at 10.55kg.

 

This isn’t a layout design, but a placeholder to buy me some time while having a space to test run trains.  My layouts have to be portable, as the room I can use is sometimes needed as a spare bedroom, but my idea was to stack my two new portable test layouts against the wall when not in use, and swap them over from time to time.  This is when the wheels came off…

 

The nadir

 

It became very apparent when packing everything away in the outhouse after completing this new baseboard that I haven’t solved the problem of how to fit what I want in the scale I’ve chosen into the space I’ve got:

 

 

Even though the standard gauge test circuit is very much less than a minimum space layout, together these boards are just too big and too cumbersome for my liking.  Layout ergonomics are important, and I wasn’t happy with what manoeuvring these would involve.   If I split them into smaller modules the process of swapping them over becomes more complex (as there would be tracks across baseboards to line up and more individual boards to store).  Something had to change.

 

I’d ruled out a combined / interchange layout incorporating both narrow gauge and standard gauge circuits after ‘proof of concept’ testing highlighted the way the much larger standard gauge trains destroyed the illusion of space created by the narrow gauge line.

 

“The only way is up!” - where next?

 

So what’s my thinking now - what’s the message of this blog?  Having started this post by declaring a long-standing interest in layout design and planning, I have to admit this has been very much a blog about how not to plan a layout.  But I have one thing to do, and a  big question to ask myself as a result of my experimenting:

 

To do:  While it is not the focus of this blog, I’m thinking of slimming down the baseboard for my new narrow gauge circuit, reducing the width to 0.6m to fit onto an IKEA table (as with the first layout), and the length to 1.8m (6’) for portability.

 

The big question:  The question I now need to go away and reflect on is whether my insistence on a continuous run layout as my only real ‘given’ might now be the thing which is actually getting in the way of everything else a layout might give me?  Do I need to let go of that and look again at alternatives?  Is this the “Eureka!” moment I’m missing?

 

In my next blog post I’ll look at some more ‘proof of concept’ pictures and ideas, as I explore where I go next in designing a layout.  Until then, thanks for reading, Keith.