Mostly for the larger layout folks...but hey I'm listening anyways so anyone can pipe up How do you (who have cities & towns on your layout) decide how far apart they go? And which to include? And what building(s) are included? Inquiring minds want to know!
"Towns" on a model railroad often mean two different things. In a non-railroading sense, towns are conglomerations of business and residential buildings, and we can of course model these. For model railroading track planners, the term "towns" often is used to refer to operating areas, especially to passing sidings and spurs along a mainline which is often single track. Incidently, on real railroad employee timetables, the term "station" is often used not to refer to a building, a depot, but to a Named Place on the railroad where a train might be ordered to stop, or to which it might be scheduled to run. And in today's railroading, there is often no station building there, even in an important town. Layouts often have what might be called unintended selective compression between town areas and the ount-in-the-country areas between towns. Our passing sidings or operating areas or "towns" are less than one short train length apart! Which doesn't seem quite right. Yet they are admittedly not quite as interesting to look at as the buildings in the "towns" and the switching of a yard or spur. On the other hand again (as Tevye said in "Fiddler on the Roof") we like to see our trains running moderately fast once in a while and in real life, they do this more out in the country than through towns. More to come....
I do not have a large layout yet. Don't have the place to put it. But here is an N scale layout I designed for a 16' x 24' room I don't have. And in fact, this is only the main lower level! There are two main towns, in fact cities. Santa Vaca is by far the larger, a city of a million people, a population, manufacturing and distribution center. Karankawa is an island seaport of 50,000 people. Main traffic is import-export through the port, NOT manufacturing. Mainline through trains run from staging at Norton (Mnemonic for "north end"), make dropoffs and pickups at 65th Street Yard and terminate at Karankawa. This makes 65th a yard where trains definitely run THROUGH, with hustle-hustle time-critical switching. There are several "stations" ie named points within the metropolitan area of Santa Vaca...Brownie Jct., 65th Street, Santa Vaca passenger, Plaza and Belt. SV passenger represents the downtown station and the BACKSIDE of warehouses, etc in edge of downtown. Karankawa likewise is all city scene (though a smaller city) until track leaves the island via the Bacardi Bay causeway. Here is my conception of Karankawa downtown passenger terminal at night. So how much is left to give the feeling of country running between Karankawa and Santa Vaca? I put in one more "town", but not exactly a town. Tidelands is a refining center on an inner bay. I wanted a suitable place for petroleum industry switching (and look big too) but not take up much of the layout. I drew Tidelands as one passing siding (to allow flexible mainline operation) and one double-ending industrial siding to drop off and pickup refinery area cars. I image that this is just interchange point for a switching branch. A concentrated bunch of refinery structures, as if this is one corner of a group of competing refineries that goes on out of sight. Maybe a one-room station. Maybe I could squeeze a Navy blimp base- a recieing point for helium tank cars- into three feet of layout length. (I have modeled this scene already on a 2' x 3' portable layout) This leaves two lengths of mainline about 12' each (just under 2 train lengths each) for a feeling of space BETWEEN cities and towns. In those areas, I want a balance between something scenicly interesting and something plain enough to be the "in-between."
Kenneth, What a nicely thought out and illustrated design. Do you do designing as a commercial venture? Sure hope you have the opportunity to build your layout. Denis
A little more about the in-between running around Karankawa. It is based on Galveston, a barrier island reached reached by a two-mile long railroad causeway (with parallel auto highway). This is part of the Galveston rail causeway with the Texas Limited tourist train in 1990. I propose an N scale model just under 8' long, a little longer than a train length, a little shorter than can be stored standing on end in a room with an 8' ceiling. Causeway arches from the top portion of Atlas viaduct. I have 9 sets stockpiled, plus the old AHM Scherzer rolling lift bridge. This would be a signature scene but would still represent "out of the town" running. Galveston had colorful "pleasure piers" with dancing, dining, souvenir shops, (and illegal gambling) on the GULF side of island where railroad didn't go. I would relocated one "pleasure pier" to alongside island end of causeway, on what would be the inner bay side of the island. Not quite accurate but it's something I gotta gotta have, if at all possible. "Estuary" on the plan is a marshy area with a few "stilt houses" built to be above storm tides. NOT a place where train stops. Just goes through. This rendering was from a slightly different configuration than the plan I posted. For relative "plainness" in between towns, yet still something that gives feel of Texas upper coast, I would want to work in a train-length or so of rice fields, and the number one piece of plain everyday railroad scene from the pre-Interstate highway transition railroading period-- a stretch of two-lane highway and telephone poles paralleling the railroad tracks.
Tidelands is based very loosely around Texas City JUNCTION, the first point on the Santa Fe line from Galveston after it gets to the mainland at Virginia Point. Three railroads, Santa Fe, GH&H (jointly owned by Missouri Pacific/Missouri Kansas Texas) and Southern Pacific all converged at Virginia Point to cross the causeway. About five miles further inland from Virginia Point was Texas City Jct, where the Texas City Jct switching railroad had a wye to connect with the Santa Fe. Texas City Jct also crossed GH&H and Southern Pacific and connected with them, then ran into Texas City to serve the refineries and chemical plants. Just a set out point, not a town. I thought of it as a place to model a little refinery scene, not much as a town, but as if there is more nearby. Texas City Jct once had connecting passenger service and there was a station-- actually just a shelter, where passengers could transfer back and forth from mainline trains to the connecting train. I think at one time it was an automobile on railroad wheels. Next town is Hitchcock which really did have the Navy blimp base. The base headquarters building, vehicle garage and concrete water tower I modeled are all still there though in poor shape. All that is left of the blimp hanger is the corner posts and frame of side sheds. But those corner posts are 20 stories tall, 300 feet apart across where the door was, and with two ends 900 feet apart. Hard to get it all in one picture. A few more of my model shots are at http://www.railimages.com/gallery/kennethanthony
Here is a little more on the original question of this thread...cities and towns. My existing 3x7 layout is mainly a scene in one town, an east Texas courthouse-square county seat town. I decided I wanted to do something I have not seen done. Not saying it is necessarily a good thing to do for a town scene, and I would probably never do it again to this extent. I wanted to model the public "INFRASTRUCTURE". The physical stuff of the public life of the town. The public buildings that would be there in any small town. My town of Johnston, Texas includes these public buildings: County courthouse U S Post Office Public school Sheriff / Jail Water supply (municipal watertower) Other "infrastructure" items which could be included but I don't have them: (City hall) (garbage dump) (sewer plant) (county road crew or state hwy dept equipment yard)(could be a railroad served "industry") Commonly found rail served industries at Johnston: Bulk oil dealer Farm implement/ tractor dealer Other Commonly-found rail served industries in small towns Lumber yard/ building supplies Concrete ready-mix plant Farm supply dealer/feed store Grain elevator in grain producing areas (Above might be found in any rural town) (Below depend on area of country) Cotton gin in cotton producing areas Stock pen in livestock producing areas Produce packing shed in fruit-vegetable producing areas Cannery in fruit-vegetable producing areas Commonly-found businesses in Johnston not directly rail-related: Grocery store Bank Movie theater Drugstore Service station Café/ restaurant Church One uncommon business: a chain saw/logging saw dealer store Nearly always underrepresented in town scenes: residential areas. I have only 5 residences in what should be a town of 1500. Johnston also has SPECIALIZED industries particular to give the feel of the part of country being modeled: Peanut Butter plant Creosote treating plant (Phone poles & ties) Pulpwood loading
