Model Railroad Blog

Car Forwarding Systems

The Fish Market Seafood Restaurant on East Rail 2

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about carforwarding systems and paperwork. How should the movements be designed? Dice? Computer? Other? What type of paperwork should I use? Prototypical? Car cards? Waybills? Other? Let’s break it down. It depends on the size of your layout and whether the operator is just yourself or a visiting guest.

As far as coming up with an overall scenario for moving the cars, the key issue is layout size. The larger the layout, the more daunting the task is, and the more likely you’ll need some form of computer help. That said, most of my blog readers have small or average size layouts that focus on modest branches or industrial parks. In this case the answer is simple, no dice, no computers…..you generate the movements manually. By far it will give you more plausible scenarios. It’s faster. It’s easier. In most cases you simply aren’t looking at that many cars. Also keep in mind that prototype movements tend to be very repetitive day in and day out. There isn’t much mystery. In Miami you know low-side gons go to FP&T, high side gons go to Miami Iron, LPG tanks go to the only LPG dealer on the line. I don’t even need a list really and doubt the prototype crews does in most cases.

As far as paperwork goes, it depends upon whether you’re operating by yourself or will have guests. As a guest I’ve been handed “prototypical waybills” and spent half the session scratching my head wondering, “what the hell am I looking at? Where on this sheet or card is the information I really need? I don’t care what route the car took or will take two days down the road”. Save the complicated “prototypical” paperwork for when you’re running by yourself. Your guests will appreciate it. A new person is going to be disoriented as it is. They only want (and need) to know two things. When I approach an industry do I pick up any of the cars? When I approach an industry do I drop off any cars and where do I drop them? By default if a car on the layout doesn’t have paperwork that means it stays where it is.

This is the paperwork I use on my layouts and mentioned in my operations book. Three things can happen: you pick up a car, you drop off a car, or if it’s not on the list you do nothing.

Bottom line, if you’re layout is small or of modest size, design the car movements manually. In most situations a super crisp, easy to follow, work order works best for paperwork. You don’t get style points for making things hard to follow and your guests will thank you for it.

More Horse Before the Cart Talk

Conductors don’t have wings. They can’t fly. In this view, the conductor is taking a final look at his work before walking back to the locomotive. Motion isn’t constant. Pauses like this are frequent. Incorporating even a touch of this reality effectively stretches a layout requiring fewer elements to keep you entertained.

Drawing a track plan is the last, and easiest, aspect of layout design.  Planning is the hardest because it involves doing some soul-searching and requires a level of self-awareness that we all “think” we have but often do not…myself included.

Drawing, sketching, and daydreaming is easier and more fun than planning.  I get it.  However, if you don’t have a clear objective in mind as to what you want to accomplish you’re setting yourself up for trouble down the road. Here are some questions you should be able to answer before you start designing.

1. Where is your enjoyment and satisfaction going to come from?  Building the layout and models?  Looking at it? Operating it? A combination?  This is a tough one that even experienced modelers don’t have as much of a handle as they think they do.  For me, the Downtown Spur is for operating.  East Rail 2 and the LAJ are 3D art and photographic platforms. I enjoy them all but in different ways.

2. If some form of operations is important to you, what type? Casual train runner and rail fan?  Semi-prototypical?  If prototypical, what type of operations do you enjoy most? Yard, branch line, mainline/through, industrial?

3. Will you be running solo or with the occasional guest operators?  I’ll answer this for you.  The vast majority of the time it will just be you.  A cautionary warning not to overreach and build in more elements than you can absorb.

4. How long will your running sessions be?  Again, I’ll answer this for you.  Generally, people go thirty to sixty minutes when running by themselves.

5. How much operational variety do you need from session to session?  If you need a ton of variety and visual stimulation you’ll need a lot more elements and layout to feel entertained.  In the prototype world, they tend to do the same thing week in and week out.

Armed with the answers to these planning questions you are better positioned to come up with a plan that is focused on what you enjoy most.

Exaggerating the Ordinary

In August of last year I wrote a post on the topic of caricature, caricature being defined as an artistic style leaning towards the exaggeration of features. In model railroading terms it’s an orientation that focuses more on fantasy and whimsy.

Styles fall on a spectrum with modelers spread out among various approaches depending on their personal tastes. We tend to view the ends of that spectrum, the boundaries, as having caricature on one side and a prototypical orientation on the other. That’s not the case, and that reality offers the opportunity for a third stylistic approach. If caricature is an overemphasis, then following that same logic, it has a counterpart. That counterpart is underemphasis.

Decades ago I was watching an Allen Keller video on my friend and mentor, Chuck Hitchcock. During the interview, Chuck made the statement that, “The key to achieving realism is to not just represent the ordinary, but to slightly overemphasize it”. It’s a pretty profound insight that has stuck with me to this day.

What would “emphasizing the ordinary” look like? Take an example where you have a city block with six mundane, white, shotgun houses, one yellow one, and one red one. The white structures are the “ordinary” elements. The eye will be drawn to the red one. A stylistic approach of dialing things back would be to make the entire block white structures. If a section of town has a few faded, rusting corrugated, one story warehouses, you might emphasize those and give them more visual priority, more square footage, than something that is more eye catching.

Let’s take another example, illustrated visually. In my last newsletter, I discussed how vehicle colors played out by percentage, the numbers being supplied by one of the paint manufacturers. On a percentage basis it breaks down like this: silver 20%, white 16%, gray 13%, black 13%, blue 10%, red 10%, other 18%. In other words, two thirds of the vehicles on the road today are silver, white, gray, or black.

The left photo is caricature approach with no attempt to be prototypical as far as color percentages go. It’s overly saturated. The center photo matches the prototypical color percentages exactly. On the right, I’ve overemphasized the ordinary and used only “ordinary” colors (white, silver, gray, and black). Even though it’s technically not prototypical, in an odd sort of of way, it looks even more realistic, almost an optical illusion.

There is no right or wrong to any particular style. No style is superior to the other. If you’re enjoying what’s in your layout room then that’s what it’s all about. However…..what IS important is that the style you choose be by conscious decision, by thoughtful intent, and not out of benign ignorance or following the herd.

Curved Structure Faces

Streamline Moderne industry in Vernon (LA)

If you model Miami or LA the odds are in your favor that there will be at least a few elegant Streamline Moderne industries along the right-of-way. The question becomes one of how to model the signature curved faces. I’ll start by saying the job would be easier if you have three hands. I spent an hour looking around for a plastic pipe or bottle of the required radius. No luck. On to plan B.

Begin by cutting two cookie cutter shapes of the correct radius out of .060″ styrene. These will be the formers that you wrap the wall around and then glue in place to hold the shape. Although I generally use .060″ styrene for walls, in this case I dropped down to .040″ for the curved wall because it’s easier to bend. Cut a section of .040″ styrene of the correct height and length for the curved wall.

Gently bend and roll it in your hands to start forming the curve. Although you won’t get it to stay exactly in shape, you’ll impart enough memory to get it close. Next, liberally apply MEK adhesive to the lip of one of the formers and bend the wall to its shape. Here’s where the third hand would be nice. Hold the assembly shape in one hand (maintaining everything in shape and tightly fitting) and then apply a few drops of thin CA at the connection point. Then immediately pop the joint with CA Instaset. Repeat with the second curved former.

As a final note you’ll notice a door on the left. I cut that in wall section before starting the bending process.