Model Railroad Blog

Model railroading is a miniscule portion of the much larger universe of design in general.  Art, architecture, engineering, interior design, landscape design, etc. all fall under that umbrella. In the big boy world of design, the one where people and companies actually make their living at it, the process is driven by a foundation of five guiding principles, generally known as “The Five Principles of Design”.  Those are balance,  rhythm and repetition, proportion and scale, harmony, and emphasis/focal point. Our life becomes easier if we approach layout design the way the pros in other fields do.

The principle of “emphasis” is particularly crucial to successfully composing a model railroad scene.  There are several strategies for emphasizing something of importance to us. Those deal with strategically managing the subjects of: size, location, color, and contrast.

Size. Although its colors are muted, and there is nothing spectacular about the architecture, the sheer mass of this grain elevator draws attention to it.

Location. If you have a structure that is near and dear to your heart, one that you’d like to emphasize, place it in a prominent location. Make it the first thing you see front and center when you enter the layout room. Try to avoid tucking the prize in a back corner.

Color. The peach tone of the warehouse makes it stand out among the dull grays of it’s neighbors. Had each structure been painted an equally bright color it wouldn’t stand out as much.

Contrast. Contrast means “different from” an adjacent feature. This could encompass a number of facets but for our purposes let’s talk about an area modelers really struggle with. There are so many cool structures and scenes out there. It’s understandable to want to include as many as possible. Not being able to prioritize can work against you visually though. If you have five “cool” structures and place them next to one another they compete with each visually for attention. No single building will pull your eye in. Your eyes will dart all over the place. On the other hand, if you pick one as your favorite, and surround it with low key “mundane” structures then it will stand out visually because it “contrasts” with its neighbors and becomes a focal point.

Depending on where we are in life, the amount of time we have available to devote to our hobby will vary.  Regardless of our circumstances at any particular moment, however, we all want to have the satisfaction of knowing that we are getting at least a few things accomplished.  That can be much easier said than done if you have other competing priorities such as family, career, home & yard maintenance, etc. Even during the busiest of times though, there are strategies that you can put in place to make the best of the few precious hours you do have.

• Understand your own personal clock in terms of when you’re at your creative peak.  Are you a night owl?  Earlier bird?  When are you feeling focused and when are you feeling fried?  It’s important to know. A good friend of mine made a good point when he told me, “Sure I have time in the evening but after a long day at work, and a one hour commute, all I have left in the tank is having a cold beer and watching television”.  We can all relate.

• Split your modeling activities into two groups, “Peak Productivity” and “Brain Dead Activities”.  A peak activity would be something that takes your utmost concentration and generally involves creative or delicate tasks.  Weathering a freight car, hand building a turnout, and structure assembly would all fall into this group.  Brain dead activities would include running to the store to get materials, preparing parts, cleaning, ballasting, etc.
• Limit social media.  Facebook can be a double edged sword.  On the plus side it gives you access to some great groups but personally I feel the negatives outweigh the positives in terms of its addictive and often toxic characteristics.  Nobody gets to December 31 and looks back with a sense of accomplishment for those hundreds of hours spent arguing about politics with strangers and looking at photos of somebody’s dinner at TGI Friday’s.  I’ve removed the app from my phone and check in once on my desktop briefly in the morning.  I get no notifications.

Knowing when you’re at your best, you want to be solely focused during that time on Peak Activities.  If you only have three hours free on a Sunday night you don’t want to spend half that time at Lowes looking for a part.  If you can spend your peak productive time from a point of total focus on creative production you’ll be surprised how much you can get done over the course of a year.

Last year I was swamped writing the design book for Kalmbach  much of which had to be done during off hours when I wasn’t at work.  I’m now at the tail end of a kitchen remodeling diy project that at times seemed to have no end. That took time away from modeling also.  In order to make any semblance of progress with my personal modeling I had to employ these strategies.  During my brain dead time during the week I make a list of all of the supplies I’ll need from the hobby store and hardware store and pick those up.  I pull all of the tools I’ll need and lay them neatly on my work bench.  If I’m working on a kit I’ll do some light parts prep such as removing things from the sprue and cleaning them up.  When I get those few free hours on Saturday morning or Sunday night I can then make the most of them.

If you’re interested in more depth on creative productivity:

There was a great article in the Washington Post this week on the subject.  You can read it HERE.

A very well done book on the subject is “Manage Your Day-To-Day”

Tolga Erbora catches the local passing Family and Son on The Downtown Spur in this August 2020 image. The fact that the line is still active, and so well documented, keeps me motivated.

What do you do when your layout is getting close to being “finished”?  The day is in site when there will seemingly be no more projects.

Much has been written about the importance of getting at least some of your railroad up and running, sooner rather than later, in order to establish momentum and keep morale high.  Not talked about as often is finding and adjusting to a new pace once you are up and running and have  hit “cruising altitude”.   I’ve been guilty of being so singularly focused on the launch that I lose sight of the fact that there comes a time when you should take your foot off the gas, slow down, and simply enjoy the hobby at a more leisurely pace.  In other words, the proverbial stopping to smell the roses.

The reason the question warrants some thought is that viewing our layouts as being finished is often its death knell.  When we get to that point we quickly lose interest….or at least I do.  After you hit critical mass, if you don’t get yourself out of mission mode all you’re doing is rushing towards the day when you’re out of projects and, shortly thereafter, no longer interested in the layout.

Some questions to ask are:

-Am I an operator or a builder?  If you’re an operator finishing the railroad isn’t an issue.  If you’re a builder, and there’s nothing left to build, then you have a problem.

-Next, does this theme still hold my interest?  If not, the answer is simple, start a new layout.  If you’ve found a new theme that interests you more, do the same.  However,  if what you’ve chosen does still have appeal, and the issue is a shortage of projects, then what? 

Here’s what I’m doing.  I started the Downtown Spur thirteen years ago, still find it interesting, and don’t see anything out there that I’d rather be modeling.  I would say roughly eighty per cent of the surface area is fully modeled.

• I’m working at a much more leisurely pace without my previous self-imposed push to get projects done.  I have no guilt about working slowly and spending a weekend on a small detail.
• I’m a better modeler now than I was when I first started the layout.  As the mood strikes I can go back and upgrade small portions of a scene or replace structures with efforts that reflect my now higher skill level.
• Layouts age.  I find it uplifting to take a scene that’s a little weatherworn or ratty looking and restore it to its former glory. In my case I make heavy use of photo laminates for structure coloring.  In the early years I used lower quality photo paper.  That, combined with humidity and occasional basement flooding, left about a half dozen structures that were badly faded and discolored.  I’ve gone back, stripped off the details and laminate, and restored them with new photo laminates printed on higher quality paper.
• I enjoy layout photography and am a better photographer now than when I took many of the images a decade ago.  As summer approaches I plan to go back and reshoot portions of it.

If you’re a prolific builder and feel a sense of stagnation setting in, be open to the fact that you need not be as “done” as you think.