Formulating a Plan
It’s like an old joke.
Q: What does a model railroader do with a spare room?
A: Fills it with trains!
And that is the plan, kind of. This spare bedroom is my model building space, so it needs to be organized to maximize the possibilities. In review, this space will contain a workbench, tools, storage for kits and building supplies, storage for resource books, and an HO scale model railroad.
Many people focus first on the fun part; the HO scale model railroad. Even after 35 years in this hobby, that is what I did first. The room was carefully measured and a scale drawing was created using a scale of 3/4-inch to the foot. I usually plot the data onto a sheet of graph paper and make copies of this for the doodle process. This time, Adobe Illustrator was used to create an electronic file to print out as needed. Click on the thumbnail for the room drawing:
All door and window locations are noted, as are electrical outlets and other details. Hash marks along the walls are at one-foot intervals. All but the wall with the closet doors prints onto a standard sheet of paper. With the printed sheet in hand, some old tools were employed to start the process. I enjoy sketching with a pencil. Circular cutouts are used for curve radii and a modified scrap of styrene is handy for adding quick turnouts.
With a few strokes, I can start drawing tracklines for a model railroad dream. Early sketches were kept simple. Click on the thumbnail to see the first result.
The first sketch can help you understand the space. I found more could be added, so a second railroad and interchange was considered to enhance operating possibilities. After some quick work, version two was ready for review.
Note that both plans utilize a staging track behind a viewblock along the window. With a limited area, space along the wall behind a view lock or inside of buildings will need to be considered. After creating these sketches, my focus switched to packing and moving for a few days. When I returned to these sketches I found something was missing. These were decent track plans, but they weren’t quite layout designs. My previous layout focused on a certain place and time; South Elkins, W. Va., on the Western Maryland Railway in November of 1926. This specific focus on a prototype place and time became the blueprint and inspiration for my modeling. The research brought a new dimension to the South Elkins project as I gained a greater understand of the railroad’s purpose. These two new layout sketches just didn’t offer a similar package. I think I made too large a leap too early in this process. I would be more satisfied finding a prototype location to model in the available space.
So I began to rethink this project, which was easy to do during the three hour drives between old and new homes while moving several carloads of household supplies. Since the new home is in the metro-Cleveland, Ohio area, there should be a number of possible locations along the many railroads that cross the area. The search had begun for a prototype location that combines operating potential and modeling possibilities, and will fit into an eleven-foot-square space. Impossible, you say? Not in the least. More details will be shared soon.