SMALL LAYOUTS & SHUNTING LAYOUTS |
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"...I
would like to build a layout - but I just don't have any
room for it..." Operational
concept: what a small shunting layout is all about |
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SMALL LAYOUTS |
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| "...I would like to build a layout - but I just don't have any room for it..." | ||
| Chances are that this statement will sound
familiar to you, no matter whether you're a seasoned
railway modeller or a newcomer to the hobby. In fact,
it's probably a key theme of railway modelling - even
just browsing through books and magazines on railway
modelling will quickly reveal that this is one of the
topics which keeps coming up again and again, often under
such headings as "finding room for your layout"
or "small layouts which fit anywhere". There's few railway modellers who don't marvel at those grandiose layouts which take up the better part of (or have indeed taken over completely) a spare room or a spacious basement. However, it is a simple fact of life that few of us could replicate such huge model railway empires. The immediate conclusion that we could never ever find the space for anything like these layouts graciously saves us from having to consider whether we would also have the spare time, financial means and artistic creativity to build a large model railway layout. Basically, this leaves you with two possibilities: either you forget about railway modelling because you find you can't model London's Victoria station or the Pennsy's Horseshoe Curve in full and won't put up with anything less, or you reconsider your initial plans and start thinking more in terms of what type of layout will fit the space you have available. One point often considered if space is restricted is to opt for a smaller modelling scale, such as N or Z, but sometimes, even this doesn't really help - the layout will just simply have to be small. But as in so many cases, necessity for some turns out to be a virtue. |
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| Small layouts are big fun | ||
| British and European modellers have always been plagued more by a lack of space than their American colleagues, who seemingly all had entire basements at their disposal. | ||
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However, the usage demands on living quarters has gone up considerably in the US over the past few decades as it has in Britain and Europe too, and therefore the number of American modellers whose layout space is at a premium has gone up markedly - where, for example, will your computer go if you give priority to your model railway layout? However, differences remain. In the USA, the label "small layout" is quite commonly applied to the classic 4' x 8' (120cm x 240cm) oval continuous-run layout.
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| In Britain and Europe, however, such a layout will normally be considered quite big, and the term "small layout" used here will more likely be meant to describe a "shelf layout" with a width of 1'-2' (30cm-60cm), ruling out continuous running and thus producing the classic British railway modelling concept of the "fiddleyard", i.e. an "off-stage" area where trains can be handled, turned by hand, etc. |
| However, this type of layout is apparent
more and more in US modelling as well. A very compact (4'-6" x 13" / 135 x 32,5 cm) example of such a shelf layout type is Dennis Beale's "Raikes Street" (an article on this layout appeared in the January 1995 issue of Railway Modeller) with a moveable piece of track concealed within a factory building. |
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| Even smaller - in fact just one little step up from a static diorama - is Tony Wood's Barber's Bridge. |
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Rail Express Magazine featured this absolute minimum-space layout in its January 2000 issue - the scenic section of this diesel fuelling point measures only 22" x 8" (55 x 20 cm), with an additional 14" (35 cm) of hidden track allowing for movement of the locos onto the three short sidings. The layout was built within a few weeks at a cost of just £20. Over the years, various concepts have been evolved around what used to be called "minimum space layouts" in British modelling terminology in the 1980s. Most of these center on how to run trains on a small layout in order to sustain interest in it, but some have taken up the question of how small a layout can get and still be workable, leading to a whole range of "micro layouts" which really are as small as you can probably get. If you'd like to read more on the subject, check out Carl Arendt's excellent website on micro layouts. |
| Operation: the key to sustaining interest in a small layout |
| On a big
layout, you can just sit back somehwere and watch the
trains fly by - and because there's 50+ of them, most
people will be kept happy for as long as a session of
running trains will take. But what is going to sustain
interest on a small layout, where train movement, quite
obviously, is restricted? In other words: what happens
after 5 minutes, when the locomotive has traversed the
length of the layout ten times? Apart from playing with trains (which in fact is what we're all doing but we'd never admit it in public, and the verb "play" is therefore an absolute no-no amongst modellers), there's the possibility of either running trains or operating them. "Running trains" obviously is a broad concept. All it really indicates is that model trains must be moving some way or another. At one end of the spectrum, they might just be orbiting on an oval of track at top speed, and the train might consist of an American diesel locomotive, a couple of Australian passenger coaches, one Swiss restaurant car (with pantograph for overhead electrification), and last but not least a British guard's van. However, in railway modelling lingo "running trains" usually indicates something at the other end of the concept, namely aiming at creating a coherent picture of both trains and the envirnoment they run through. This would mean that American locomotives of a certain period pull American rolling stock of (more or less) the same period while running through an American landscape of (more or less) the period in question. The amount of compromise allowed may vary, but in general "running trains" means that a layout will reflect some fair amount of accuracy. |
| "Operating trains" goes one step
further, although it doesn't necessarily imply a higher
degree of accuracy in terms of rolling stock and all that
goes with it. The word "operating" is used, above all, to indicate that models are run to reflect one very important and central aspect of any real railway: there's a purpose to it. In other words: rolling stock is principally moved to transport freight and passengers. On the real railways, trains hardly ever move "just like that", there's a purpose to the traffic. Maybe it's to earn revenue by transporting passengers - such as the EMU shown here, speeding up to London from the Kent Coast - or maybe it's to maintain the infrastructure, which is the basis of being able to run such revenue earning trains - such as the fresh ballast train double-headed by two Cl 33 diesels heading someplace south on the network. With only very few exceptions, "operating" trains is a must in order to sustain interest in a small layout. Perhaps the equation is a simple one: the lack of space needs to be compensated by more interest generated by the moves which take place on the layout. A small layout therefore needs to come closer to what railway modelling actually means: building and running a model of a real railway. |
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| Operational concept: what a small layout is all about |
| Copying the real rail transportation system's way of functioning requires a concept. This doesn't mean that things have to be complex or complicated - in fact, a simple concept usually works best. A good basic way of starting is to establish where the model railway system is located, the era, and how it is connected to the rest of the world, because these few points determine the traffic patterns of a layout and thus provide a reason for its existence, because on the real thing, traffic pattern means customers and revenues, and without those, railways usually grind to a halt very quickly. |
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There
are a number of operational concepts which can be applied
to a small layout. You could have mainly passenger
services, or passenger services with an equal share of
freight, or freight only, or even a specialised setting
with specialised traffic, such as a motive power depot or
a civil engineer's yard,. One possible example to illustrate this point comes from the preserved Kent & East Sussex Railway, where an English Electric Class 08 0-6-0 diesel shunter is ready in April 2001 to shunt stock at the railway's main station site at Tenterden. |
| All of
these options are feasible, but in practice layouts which have
a strong emphasis on freight operations or which are
freight-only - i.e. so-called "shunting" or
"switching" layouts - are the best choices if
the layout needs to be small because they provide a
"realistic feel" and even prototypical
operation within baseboard measurements which are open to
(almost) everybody. The reasons for this are quite
simple: shunters are usually relatively short engines,
and freight stock is usually a lot shorter than passenger
coaches. The example shown here is a Class 09 diesel locomotive at Stewarts Lane Depot, London, shunting two TTA tank wagons on a siding. Within the space of only a few yards details abound with loads of inspiration for a shunting layout. |
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SHUNTING LAYOUTS |
| Every country has its own approach and philosophy regarding railway modelling, which often reflects the basic characteristics of its own prototype railway system. |
| It is therefore hardly surprising that
mainstream US railroad modelling focusses primarily on
freight, whereas a British outline model railway layout
completely devoid of any form of facilities catering for
passengers is unusual to say the least. As a result, shunting layouts (switching layouts in US railroad terminology) are a popular facet of North American prototype modelling and feature frequently in magazines such as the Boston Union Freight Railroad, featured in the September 2000 issue of Model Railroader. Nonetheless, the earliest example of a freight-only concept for a layout seemingly comes from the UK: In the June 1926 issue of Model Railway News, A.R. Walkley, a member of the Wimbledon Model Railway Club (the second oldest in Britain), published an article on his "Railway in a suitcase". The layout wasn't just pioneering in terms of being H0 scale two-rail with a system of automatic coupling (which later on was marketed by Tri-ang, became known as the "tension lock coupler" and is still used as standard coupler on UK r-t-r models today), it can also be regarded as the ancestor of all shunting layouts, as it concentrated entirely on freight (thanks to Morgan Lee, longtime librarian of Wimbledon MRC, for much of this information). |
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On a
historical note, Walkley - together with two fellow
modellers from the then newly-formed Wimbledon MRC (A.
Stewart-Reidpath and Michael Longridge) - began
experimenting with models roughly half the size of the
established 0 gauge sometime in 1923. In the end, the three modellers found 3.5mm scale to be the ideal modelling ratio - and H0 scale was born. |
| A typical example of the "1' x 4'
shunting layout" type is Dave Howell's "63rd
Street Yard" - an urban yard with a couple of freight
facilities and a low-relief backscene for added
atmosphere. An American layout as the name implies, switching moves are taken care of by a GE 44 tonner and an S2, with 40' boxcars the staple freight stock. The 3-way point is both a space saver and an added bonus in creating the feel of a small and tight but sprawling urban yard. However, shunting layouts need not necessarily be small - they can be enormous too, if they incorporate large classificiation yards, for example. |
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| But even when you opt for a small, shelf-type shunting layout, it's not necessarily the lack of space which provides the motivation for this. A number of people opt for this kind of layout because it provides interesting operational possibilities. |
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This is certainly true for US prototype
modelling, but far less so for British layouts. In his
booklet 60 Plans for Small Locations (first
published in the late 1950s, revised in 1989) C. J.
Freezer - truly one of the grand old men of British
railway modelling in general and layout design in
particular - mentions the shunting layout under the title
of "special purpose" and points out that
However, only 3 or 4 of the 60 layout plans reflect this statement, and to this day, the vast majority of British modellers seem to suffer from horror vacui in the absence of passenger facilities on a model railway layout. |
| There is agrowing number of shunting layouts featured on the internet, illustrating the wide variety of layout design and operation possible (if you have a shunting layout featured on the web, let me know, and I'll add it to the list): |
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| Operational concept: what a small shunting layout is all about |
| However, as with any small layout, a small shunting layout requires an operational concept to sustain interest in running locomotives and freight stock on it. A good basic way of starting to build up a concept is to establish where the shunting layout is located, the era, and how it is connected to the rest of the world, because these few points determine the traffic patterns of a layout and thus provide a reason for its existence, because on the real thing, traffic pattern means customers and revenues, and without those, railways usually grind to a halt very quickly. |
| On a
small shunting layout, there's usually only a handful of
customers receiving and generating freight. If you take the "Timesaver" layout as an example, things might look something like this. |
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| The four customers here are represented by the first four letters of the alphabet, but you could just as easily use the four suits of a deck of cards, so that A = Hearts, B = Spades, C = Diamonds, D = Clubs. In fact, this is a variant of operating shunting layouts such as the "Timesaver". A deck of cards is shuffled and a card drawn for each freight car on the incoming track (e.g. the lower right hand track in the diagram above). Thus car 1 may draw a card of spades and be required to be moved to industry B (= spades), car 2 hearts (industry A = hearts), etc. |
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The
problem with the traffic flow generated by this system is
that it doesn't take into account the differences between
customers A - D, because rolling stock is moved to
locations regardless of its type and thus the goods it
may transport. However, if customer A is a book printer
(who would above all want to receive paper and ship
books), he will quickly turn his back on the railway if
it keeps sending tank cars and coal hoppers to his
loading dock. A good concept therefore indicates the specific types of freight received and shipped by each industry on the layout so that only appropriate rolling stock may be delivered at any given industry. In fact, even one single customer may have different transportation requirements at different locations. |
| In this following example, still based on the "Timesaver" layout, the entire layout serves just one customer, a paper manufacturing plant. |
| Building "B" is the loading dock for the finished product, i.e. it ships paper. Building "D" along with the adjacent tanks is the storage area for both liquid and solid chemicals used, while "C" is the unloading dock for collected paper to be recycled and "A" the unloading dock for cellulose. |  |
| While this is obviously a simplified layman's idea of how a paper manufacturing plant might work, it provides the shunting layout with a clear concept of what is and what may be moved where and why. On the basis of this traffic flow concept, a detailed list can now be drawn up, indicating which type of rolling stock may be used where. For example, tank cars will only be dropped off at "D", whereas covered freight cars may go anywhere (possibly arriving full, dropped of at "C" first and then, once unloaded, moved to "B" for loading). Special consignments (delivery of heavy machinery or spares) may allow for special freight stock. |
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Here are four views from a prototype
example, taken in April 2002 of the internal rail service
at the cardboard factory in Deisswil (Switzerland),
illustrating typical aspects of this type of traffic. Motive power is provided by a small company-owned shunter (which was acquired new in this specific case, but which could well be a second-hand shunter bought from a larger private or state-owned rail company). The track is both covered (in places where road traffic needs to have access) and ballasted, with fencing present prominently - after all this is private property. The factory buildings represent a mix of older and more modern structures, and different types of freight rolling stock to meet the requirements of the rail customer - in this case tank cars (for liquid chemicals), covered freight cars (for solid material which needs some protection) and open freight cars, covered with tarpaulins in some cases, for material which will not suffer from exposure. |
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| The advantage of an operational concept governing traffic flow is added realism and an extra challenge when switching. The setback is just as evident: the example above is definitely not suited for a layout which boasts a collection of 20+ coal hoppers - unless the plant does actually operate on coal. |
| Traffic flow: what goes where and why |
| Once an operational concept for a switching layout is drawn up and established, the only thing needed to finally do some interesting and challenging switching is to generate the traffic flow. Over the years, a number of systems doing precisely this (generally referred to as "car forwarding systems") have been established. To the best of my knowledge, they have all originated with American prototype modellers, and adaptations for other prototype modelling have been rather scarce - which is a shame, because all of these systems work equally well for any kind of standard railway system. |
| Basic switch list |
| This is
probably the most basic system of all (described in the
May 1984 issue of Model Railroader) and really
is just one small step up from the operational concept of
a layout which already determines specific spotting
locations for designated car types. The basic switch list
simply provides the specific number of cars by type to be
dropped off and picked up. Even if the system is enhanced by adding reporting marks (i.e. identifying specific cars) and special handling instructions, it won't be able to sustain operational interest over a longer period of time on a small layout unless this features spotting locations which require all sorts of types of rolling stock (which doesn't sound very realistic at first sight). |
| Specified car switch list (Card and Waybill System) |
| The
specified car switch list generates instructions for
freight cars on a layout, taking into account their type
and potential delivery locations. The basic concept of
most car card systems goes back to a system developed by
Doug Smith and described in the December 1961 issue of Model
Railroader. The most popular specified car switch list system is the Card and Waybill system as improved upon by Don McFall. It works on the following basic principles:
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Step 1 The waybill is slipped into the transparent pocket of the card, the boxcar in question is switched to the Consolidated Tooling Company for unloading Step 2 Step 3 |
| Scenario lists |
| Whereas the card and waybill system centers on identifying individual freight stock and linking these with destination orders, the Scenario List System focusses on customers, i.e. locations and industries, where freight may be picked up and/or delivered. A good description of the working principles may be found in the November 1992 issue of Model Railroader. |
| Each industry on a layout is analysed in
terms of possible scenarios. For example, one customer on
an American prototype layout, the "Consolidated
Tooling Co.", may mainly receive and ship products
in boxcars, but occasionally also receives goods
transported on a flat car. The possible scenarios here
are: Customer receives 0-2 boxcars, ships 0-2 boxcars,
receives 0-1 flat car. From the total of possible
combinations, a selection is made to produce the
scenarios given as example on the right. For every operating session, one of these scenarios is selected for the "Consolidated Tooling Co". In order to acknowledge that according to the traffic flow concept worked out for this customer some of these scenarios are supposed to be more frequent than others, the scenario list is broken down to scenario cards (one card giving one scenario) in varying numbers. As a result, scenarios 2 and 3 would appear on 5 scenario cards each, whereas all scenarios involving the delivery of a flat car would only have one. Shuffling these cards, the chances of having a flat car delivered would thus be smaller. Once the "move" is made, the card goes to the back of the deck of scenario cards, making sure that flat cars won't appear too frequently at the "Consolidated Tooling Co." This system works well for small layouts and is very realistic in its approach: rail customers usually don't care at all whether the boxcar used to ship their goods is brown, green, yellow or pink as long as they turn up on time and in sufficient numbers. |
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Due to its flexibility regarding choice of rolling stock to be used, this system may not produce challenges in the sense of asking you, by chance, to switch the most awkwardly placed boxcar to the tightest spot on the layout - but there's always the possibility of creating additional rules if things seem to get too easy. |
| From a shunting layout to a shunting puzzle |
| All of
the systems of operating a shunting layout discussed
above have one purpose: to generate traffic flow.
Although they may come up with some awkward shunting
moves, they are not designed to introduce such
complications deliberately. Most of the time, things will
flow easily. A shunting puzzle, however, is a shunting layout which deliberately introduces complications which need to be solved in order to get the shunting done. Usually, these complications are generated by a set of restrictions or rules. For example, sidings can be short and thus require the operator to think ahead of his moves unless he wants everything clogged up, or rules may require a certain specific order into which freight stock must be shunted. |
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Text, photos and illustrations not labelled otherwise are © Adrian Wymann
Page created: 26/JAN/2001
Last revised: 06/DEC/2006
