Does your railroad have a purpose in regard to transportation?

Sometime during the years since I began modeling in n-scale about 1973-74 and 1975* when I built my first home layout, I began to think about a model railroad as a transportation system.. Which simply means it has a purpose of moving people or goods from point A to point B.
I suspect it was the MR feature series on building the Clinchfield that started my thinking about this aspect. That layout had a coal mine that supplied coal that was delivered to a power plant; it was one set of interconnected industries on the layout.
Interested to learn how other see their home or club layouts in this respect.
* I was 36 years old back then and now am 75, thus this aspect of a layout is one that has helped me select
industries and structures to include.

 

I have a small layout, and am just starting a new switching layout. For planning purposes, my concept has been that everything flows to and from the interchange. I don't have any interconnected industries, because in my small space it would just look silly.

Having said that, I sometimes use the Simple Switchlist System (http://home.comcast.net/~candp2013/Notes/Boyd-SimpleSwitchlistSystem.pdf) just for the fun of switching cars in a not-completely random manner.

 

I have always modeled that way probably because where I was when a youngster that is what I saw. Commodities being loaded and shipped out, commodities arriving to be processed and then shipped out as other types of commodities. And the existence of local passenger service because the roads were poor and the weather threw an additional obstacle to travel plus the mail still moved by rail over distances.

So today with my concept of the island railroad I am still modeling that way. Logging on one end of the island provides traffic to the port area and sawmill on the other end of the island. That provides wood chips and finished lumber to the mainland by car float. The mine provides processed ore that is also shipped to the mainland. The quarry provides stone for riprap that is used locally to establish and maintain breakwaters and other building projects plus lime from limestone deposits. A healthy agricultural output is delivered to a cannery which is then shipped to the mainland. A small thriving fishing port supplies yet another cannery which again ships out. The return loads support the island industries. Passenger service exists because the road infrastructure is poor and inadequate and runs regular.

 

My first few layouts had no purpose in mind; just run the trains. This new layout that I'm building will have two purposes. Moving people to and from the places that I've spent my life, and the goods to sustain us all.

 

My N Scale copies the real world as much as it can.

The BNSF interchanges with my line (SCXY- real line, look it up) in Hinckley, MN.

The SCXY's biggest customers are a Flour Mill and a Frac Sand Facility. There are some other smaller customers on the line, but those two make up most of the traffic. I deliver wheat on one side, pull flour loads out on the other. All the cars go back to Hinckley for the BNSF to pick up.

 

I am PLANNING a layout with traffic generation in mind. But, it is really just an excuse to see trains move and be a part of moving them. So, there will be passenger traffic generated by a small college separated from a city by most of the length of a valley, which then supports the valley residents and industries in the intervening small town(s?) as well. There will also be an automobile-shunning Amish population in the valley, along with "Englishers" and some "Pennsylvania Dutch" (German decent) to generate both agricultural products and manufactured products (including beer). There will be a bit of high tech industy near the college, and older, low tech near the outskirts of the city. The only linkage between industries actually on the layout will be coal mine up the valley and a power plant near the city. Interchange with a major railroad will be near the city.

The plan is to have separate classes of short passenger trains to serve differing populations of users in a valley served by my fantasy short-line, particularly the miners and the college types, who are also on somewhat different schedules. College-city (with stops at town(s?) in between) will be on a business-like time table. "Miners' Specials" will run between the mine and city, with stops wherever the miners want, maybe bypassing a town and maybe stopping at a cross road to let a miner get on/off near his home.

Local freight trains will be made-up in a yard near the city and traverse the valley out and back. There will be a regular pick-up and drop activity for the mine and power plant, while other freight activites will be on a randomized traffic generation scheme. Freight to the mine may be included in mixed train "Miners Specials" or separate actions by the local freight trains. The mine may shut down for some periods, meaning that the power plant will need to get coal from the interchange railroad and the "Miners Specials" will not run.

Traffic on the interchange railroad will be out-and-back from a hidden staging yard. There will be passenger as well as freight traffic coming through the city. I hope to have a large enough space to make a long section of visible double track mainline for long trains to snake along between staging and the city, to satisfy that urge to see long trains run (one of my reasons for going to N scale).

I know this sounds ambitious. I don't know how much I will actually get done in my lifetime. I'm not young any more. But, I have just gotten access to an unfinished attic space that is 12' x 65', so my imagination is running a bit wild. But, to be practical, I am thinking of going to modules (NON-standard ones). My strategy is to finish as much attica as I can afford, and then build to fill it with a layout that expands. The first module will be the staging yard that uses Kato Unitrak and will never have scenery. The city with the interchange will be the first scenic module, so I can run switching activites whenever I want to run trains instead of build layout more. Ad hoc "end" modules with Unitrak return loops and no scenery will be connected as needed to facilitate trains running. The next scenic module will be the college town up the valley. It will have a wye to facilitate out and back operation, and might have an nonscenic end module with a return loop to simulate traffic going beyond the college.

From that point forward, I intend to build modules that get placed BETWEEN the ones already described, stretching the distance between the city and college and extending beyond the college. The mine module will go beyond the college, while the power plant will go between the college and the city. The visible run of the interchanging railroad will get stretched as convenient, prehaps disappearing and reappearing one or more times. But, it will have no switching outside the interchange.

I intend to make a "grand Plan" for all modules first, probalby filling the whole space that I will have available. That way I can minimize disturbance of existing modules when I want to splice a new one into the current layout. And, whenever I am no longer able (or alive) to use this layout, the modules will fit out the door to be sold or (sigh) junked.

 

I think mine does....time will tell as I have only had one true op session and a big one coming up for which I am preparing.

My IHB layout (and the one before it) gets cars from staging (which I will label with other Chicagoland locations, like "Clearing Yard" takes trains into the yard, and then sorts them for my six track Hammond staging yard, and some local industries. The Hammond staging is also, Michigan Ave. Yard, Whiting, Burns Harbor, Kirk Yard (EJE), Lake Front Steel, and the Cal River Branch. One other siding represents another branch line of IHB.

I find naming every thing helps make it seem like you are sending trains somewhere. I even went with real names over humorous ones on this layout. It helps overcome that fact that most of my on line switching is really transfer yards, drop offs (one track in a closet) to a larger Alsip industrial area with its own switcher, etc.

But, this is pretty large (10 x 20, plus lower and next room staging) and its my third layout, so I have some experience.

 

My layout was built mainly for switching. It is a point to point layout with hidden staging tracks which will allow for continuous running, although I rarely do this. I have a number of industries on my layout which supplies goods to other industries on the layout. My layout is set in a rural area where I live in southwestern Montana in 1957. I like the transition era also as I grew up in this time period.

For instance, I have a small log loading facility which supplies logs to a lumber mill. The lumber mill in turn supplies finished lumber to lumber yards as well as a furniture factory on the layout, as well as to locations beyond the layout.
Grain elevators supply grain to a flour mill. In this case the flour is also shipped to points beyond.
A number of livestock yards supply cattle to a meat packing plant. Out bound reefers are sent to hidden staging
Freight stations are an important facility in this time period also. There was no UPS or FedEx back then and the Railway Express Agency was an important company for small rural areas as there was no long distance trucking back then either.

In a typical operating session, I would have an inbound train come into one of the two yards on the layout from the hidden staging tracks. I have a yard at each end of the layout as well as engine facilities. The train would be sorted in the yard for drops along the main line. A local train would service the industries along the main line dropping off and picking up cars to the various industries and then would return to one of the two yards.

Any cars going to points beyond the layout would then be made into an outbound train which would then head to one on the hidden staging tracks. This train would be used as an inbound freight in the future. Any freight that would come from an industry on the layout going to a customer on the layout would be services by local freight trains also.

I am a lone operator so I don't have to really worry about clearing the mainline for a through train. An operating session can last as long as four hours depending on the industries being served. Each town was purposely built with a switching problem also.

I tried to give my railroad a purpose to exist. For me, personally, it would get boring to watch trains run in circles after a while. Those long trains have to get their freight cars from somewhere.

Guess that's where I fit in.

 

The Clinchfield series was a critical item in the growth of N Scale-- it was one of the first if not the first piece in a major magazine that "took N Scale seriously." Many previous layout articles dealing with 1:160 were more like "spaghetti bowls" than anything else, and rarely had purpose beyond lots of continuous run (not that that is a bad thing, necessarily).

My own Wilmington and New York has industries-- in fact, per my "story" it's mostly owned by them-- and serves them. There's enough traffic from the paper mill and the chemical plant to keep things busy, and other destinations, while shipping and receiving less frequently, contribute non-trivial additional traffic.

This has kept my (infrequent!) operating sessions sufficiently busy that I haven't even added the modest amount of bridge traffic I'd envisioned between the NYC and D&H. All of the cars that come onto the layout from staging wind up at a destination on the layout as opposed to just running across from one end of the layout to the other.

 

Well since I have time for a few weeks. ( in the hospital again, dang hernia surgery, 4 of em!) I gonna get more into this again. My current layout was for running trains and small switching ops for agriculture, depots and passenger, and meat packing. ( stockyards to reefer)
I am not to excited about the setup I currently have. I found I love to run trains more than ops. Maybe because it's to complex and not efficient. (I love efficient and simple. KISS theory rules)
I originally had three lines. A double that split between Carnage and Maudlin from Balderdash. And a branch from Carnage to a no name township. That was fun, bridges, viaducts, a canyon, tunnels gallore and always a train in sight.
So now I want that same concept again in a 10×13 spot. May not work seeing how I want staging for at least five, 5' trains. I shall be pondering and pondering....
I still want B.E. Coleye Beef and the pens and such. And ag service . Along with depot/passenger.. So. With that in mind. What is that type of setup? In my opinion. Its fun active and interesting. And is busy... ( p.s. Don't be afraid to shoot me ideas. I need em. I don't think I do so well with planning)

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

Mine is based (loosely) around a logging camp and sawmill. Have a small hidden staging area under the logging camp. I can run continuous if i want and have switching for the camp and sawmill town. Based on what i can remember when i was a kid. Somewhere in West Virginia. The one i worked at in WV is closed and gone. I have joined several ideas as to how the sawmill area was and the logging camps were pretty much the way i have planned mine. Still making some changes as i can and will always be a never finishing model of the 1920's

 

Thank you to everyone for the posts. My feeling is this aspect of a model railroad helps sustain interest. I agree the Clinchfield series in MR was a "water shed" for n-scale layouts. Gordon Odegard's work on it has been one of my points of reference since I saw it on tour in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN.

 

Well of course my layout has a purpose. The Karankawa Terminal District of the Santa Vaca and Santa Fe serves an island seaport, based somewhat on Galveston, Texas in the 1950s. I once planned a HUGE layout, but backed down to modeling one locality of that unwieldy plan, itself a condensation of real Santa Fe traffic patterns in Texas.



"Trainloads" ("layout-sized" trains of course) of grain to the export elevator for shipboard loading.


Large numbers of carloads of cotton for export.


Strings of special sulphur gondolas to the larger sulphur export point in the world.


A solid train of refrigerator cars north when the banana boat arrives once a week.

Empty reefers accumulated during the week. Often used for LCL shipments to freight station to provide an inbound load. And excess empty boxcars from grain and cotton used for LCL shipments out.

Plus other seaport related cargos in smaller amounts.
Imported raw sugar, raw coffee beans, jute fiber, exotic tropical woods arrive by ship, and transported inland by rail. Oilfield related tools manufactured in Texas and shipped out to the world. Oystershell dredged from the bays and shipped inland to Portland cement manufacturers.

Materials for ship construction, port construction and maintenance, granite rock, cooperage. And with my modeled city as the Playground of the Coast, there is an attraction to support the passenger train traffic.

 

Thank you for the photos and discussion.

 

Under construction, but operations will be based mainly around a major classification yard. 21 class tracks, 8 receiving tracks, plus a couple satellite areas to handle cars. There will be several sizable industries, some of which will handle unit-train lots of cars. I was planning to have every train (except unit trains) come into the yard to be classified, but I am now leaning toward maybe a couple run-through freight trains that may change power and/or caboose. There is staging on both ends to represent "the rest of the world".

 

Could the hernia be from laughing at all your own corny railroad names? LOL, and get well.

I am right there with you, although on my new layout I am trying to be more serious with names. It does seem to make it more like a railroad with a purpose to deliver to Purina rather than "Sam 'n Ellas Food Warehouse." A few of my structures, like the Eastern Illinois, Eastern Indiana and Ohio grain elevator have them as logos (EIEIO) and Shouza Cement (well, it is Chicago based layout....at least this version doesn't have bodies floating in the River....)

 

Ha! Of course they aren't florin in the river. The mob controls the cement company right? Those bodies end up in all that freshly poured concrete....
I picked those names because it's fun to dig through a thesaurus looking for words to describe my kids. (Who the towns are named after. ) My kids used to love the trains but now that they are in high school the interest has wained. The love of trains is seeded though.


Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

As far as ridiculous names, I have a Southern Pacific tariff of online industry spurs. One was a dog food company called "E. K. Wine." Don't suppose they used horse meat?