At the tail end of the railfan’s photographic golden hour, Y120 shoves a massive reefer down the spur of Pan Am Frozen Foods on my Downtown Spur layout. Photography is a way to experience our layouts in a way that’s impossible with the naked eye. I used my backup iPhone6 for this shot and then combined multiple images with Helicon Focus.
Here’s the prototype photo that inspired the scene, taken on a railfan trip with Tom Klimoski (the tiny dot on the right) in January 2011. The spur isn’t that long, and the industry isn’t that big, which makes the massive reefer look so out of place. Deliveries to Pan Am were very sporadic in the late 2000’s. It would be months without seeing a car and then, just when you thought the spur was abandoned, something like this would show up. That’s what made Miami so unique back then, you never knew what to expect, what was abandoned and what was still active.
Pierre Koenig’s Stahl House and Vermeer’s “Woman Holding a Balance” are both fairly small dimensionally. Even so they’re held up as the pinnacles of artistic excellence.
The subtle psychology of semantics, word choice, can be fascinating. Often we slip into, and make very telling, word choice selections without even knowing it. Case in point, the terms “just” and “only”. A quote from the net makes the point… The words “just” and “only” come across as an apology, even when it’s not intended to be. For example, saying “I was hoping you could “just” consider raising your hand before speaking” can sound like an apology when it could be more directly stated as “please raise your hand before speaking”.
The issue always comes up in model railroading with layout size. It’s “just” a switching layout. It’s “only” switching layout. And then there is a well-intentioned email I got from a reader of the RMC East Rail article, “Sure, American homes keep on getting bigger but many young adults have not reached the salary level where they can yet afford the behemoth homes we see getting built seemingly everywhere. Until the day that a modeler has that large basement, layouts such as East Rail II fit the bill nicely.” Ouch…. sort of like saying, “Hey Lance you run pretty fast, ……for a fat old guy”
Switching layouts, because of their size, are often viewed as substandard ventures by those who don’t have them. They’re looked upon with pity. What’s worse, and the focus of today’s blog, is that those who own them give their own layouts the same negative connotation. They apologize for their work. If this is you, stop it, stop apologizing.
It’s a failing of human nature, particularly in modern times, to associate quality with size. Doing so is sign of artistic ignorance, maybe benign ignorance, but ignorance just the same. The Mona Lisa and Vermeer’s Woman Holding A Balance, considered some of the most brilliant works of all time, are relatively small (15” x 14” in the case of the Vermeer). Pierre Koenig’s Stahl House in LA, considered an architectural masterpiece, is a relatively small home.
There are excellent model railroads of all sizes, John Wright’s Federal Street and Tim Nicholson on the small side, Tom Johnson and Klimoski in the medium range, and Mike Confalone on the large side. Excellent each and all.
For those that don’t view layout size as a dick measuring contest, there are really two factors that come into play in planning and ultimately selecting your format. Surprisingly, available space isn’t often one of them. I would say that more than half of the switching layout owners I know are either financially comfortable or, cough, quite a bit more than comfortable. They have average to large homes. So, lack of space often isn’t the driver for selecting that format. So, what are the two considerations?
First, is the preferred rail fan style you like most. It’s like chocolate vs. vanilla, your tastes are what they are and won’t change. There are two groups. The largest is those who enjoy main line running. To them, watching a train (often a long one) go from A to B to C to D is where their interest lies. Math being what it is, this format requires more space, and a longer run to pull off, which makes for an inconvenient preference as a result. The second group, the switching layout crowd, is more interested in what happens at a single location. That’s me. I love watching the slow rhythm of a train working an industry and the crew dynamics. You can’t get this with a container training whizzing by at fifty miles per hour. From a railfan standpoint, switching operations give you a much longer “movie” to watch. A mainline train appears on the horizon and then passes by in minutes. End of show. With switching, you can watch a single operation for twenty or thirty minutes…or hours in the case of a yard.
The second consideration when selecting a layout size is resource-related. It’s available time. By virtue of their smaller size, you can bring a switching layout to critical mass more quickly. It’s easier to bring an intense level of focus to them. It’s easier to create a higher quality level of modeling to the table because you aren’t looking down the gun barrel of another thousand square feet of layout that needs attention. Many of the owners of switching layouts I know are successful professionally. Those professions don’t leave a lot of free time. They may have large basements, but they don’t have the time to fill them with layout so they make the wise decision to not bite off something they don’t have the time to work on…or maintain.
Make your layout format decision based on the operational style you prefer and the amount of time you want to allocate to the hobby. Stand by that decision, do good work, and stop apologizing for something that doesn’t need to be apologized for.
With East Rail 2 being the cover story in this month’s RMC I decided to put the layout to work so you could see it in action. Episode 10 of my ops 101 YouTube series focuses on OMNI logistics and what’s involved in working it.
I’m still experimenting with the YouTube format but for now I’m intentionally staying away from a highly stylized, highly edited look. The experience I’m after is that of having you over and handing you a throttle.
I’m human. I make ops mistakes. Rather than editing those out I think it’s more educational to include them. The first mistake I made was saying I was going to get the empty last. Wrong. The best approach is to grab it first and use it as a handle. That way it’s over and done with.
The second was trying to block the cars on the curve. The coupler were NOT happy. I should have shoved the cuts further down to the straight section of the lead. Enjoy.
Finally, I built OMNI with 50′ door spacing. This means the cars will still be coupled when I spot them. I didn’t have the room but wish I could have had a wider door spacing.
A tandem of York Railway GP15-1’s slowly glides back and forth as it works the NS interchange in York. Just as I got into position for this shot, a hole opened up in the clouds letting the sun light up the sides of the units. What can’t be captured in a photo is the amazing, deep bass, sound these units make. Photos are entertainment. Being there in person is an experience that you’ll remember forever.
Inertia: Objects at rest tend to stay at rest and objects in motion tend to stay in motion…or something to that effect. Probably like a lot of you I find it all too easy to let inertia set in and slip into a comfortable routine that’s neither unpleasant nor invigorating. I can grow roots in front of the computer and live my rail experience via social media, YouTube, and Google Streetview.
About a year ago, for whatever reason, I gave myself a kick in the ass, grabbed my camera, and pushed myself to get out in the field more often and so some rail fanning. I always feel so energized afterwards. There was no reason why I got out of it really, just slipping into a routine more than anything. The laws of inertia work both ways and once I got back into things it was pretty easy to keep it up.
Rail fanning, or just site visits, add such a positive dimension to the life experience. Photos only capture a sliver of being there in person. The way things actually look and feel when you’re out in the world is so much more encompassing. The sounds. The people you bump into.
I’m aware that by lucky circumstances I have opportunities that many do not. The Baltimore region is just loaded with shortline activity. It’s a community that embraces their industrial heritage and is very generous sharing information with strangers that are clearly interested. It’s also a landscape where you can get your photos and railside experience safely and unobtrusively from public property…including a Starbucks parking lot in one instance.
Earlier in the week I decided to play hooky from work and, with a little self-nudging, made the 90 minute drive up to York, PA. Catching a train is always hit and miss so I set my expectations low going in and hoped at best to get a few rail cars parked at industries.
At times I really think there are rail fan gods up in the sky that love to f$#@% with us and then roll over laughing about it. They’ll roll clouds in just as the perfect shot unfolds. They’ll roll trains by at the most inconvenient locations. They’ll send the trains in and out ten minutes before you arrive. But, every now and then, to hook you, to keep you coming back for more punishment, they’ll reward you.
The weather report for the York trip was “supposed” to be an amazing day with sunny skies. Not. I get up there and the clouds were pretty thick. The first location I picked was totally quiet so I did some walking. As soon as I got a few hundred yards down the track the rail-fan-god, court jesters, sprung their joke and rolled a train into the location I’d just been at but was now completely out of photo range. Next they peeled away the clouds. All well and good but I’m totally out of position. Fortunately, the job was coming in to do some slow switching of the NS interchange with back and forth moves that would last over a good hour. Pay dirt!
I hit a few more industrial spots and then went into town for an ice cold IPA and burger. Life doesn’t get much better than that! The other thing I’ve found is that pushing myself to get out and about greatly increases my enjoyment of modeling. I’m no longer just looking at a piece of plastic on a shelf. My mind shifts back to time to those great times in the field and makes that A to B association as to what the models represent.
When I arrived at my first photo location not much was going on. A quick scan to the west showed what appeared to be the typical situation of an industry whose rail days were a distant memory. Something lodged in the back of my mind though. When I came back later, there it was, shiny rail all of the way down the spur. I walked to the other side and it was a beehive of semi-truck activity. During a break I walked up to one of the guys and asked, “Just curious, do rail cars come in here?”. “Yep, all of the time”. When I got home Google StreetView confirmed it, a cut of four cars spotted there. I never would have picked up on that had I not been there in person.
After a successful day of shooting, I hit the White Rose in town for a craft beer, burger, and background info. from the locals. For those in the Mid-Atlantic, York would make for a great day trip with your spouse/SO.
A worker at East Rail’s team track takes a break to smell the roses and watch the sunset. The portable unloading platform was kitbashed using a mix of various Tichy Parts.
