Simplification and Post DCC?

The need to simplify is a strong trend in the hobby noted by David Barrow, Lance Mindheim, Mike Cougill and Trevor Marshall among others.  They speak along this line for size of layout and simplifying the complexity of the physical layout while increasing the purity of the operation.  They are looking for better couplers, better rules, better paperwork and operations to improving fun and faithfulness to the prototype.  What areas are left to apply this perspective?

What they have not seen and we have not seen is a simplification to the operations control system.  DCC is a 20+ year old standard that came into being before Windows 95.  When you see this from a perspective of the computer industry it is apparent that while the decoders are significantly better and more full featured the backbone of the systems is still ancient technology.  The wireless system used by these systems and the control interfaces are still from a generation ago.  There are exceptions.

Lenz does allow you to use a single box to interface with a wireless router and use of small devices like an iPhone.  There are a number of wireless vendors who are making units usually for use with a battery powered system.  NCE recently released its own plug in receiver for use with those wireless vendors.  The question is whether any of these represent the next generation of control systems.

Bachmann has announced what an alternative path of using bluetooth to control the locomotive and this will be coming to their HO locomotives in 2015.  This may represent a new approach to the whole question depending on how well implemented is the system design.  The system is not Bachmann's design but they deserve credit having the vision for trying a new path.  The standard, software and equipment is made by a company named BlueRail.  The links to the announcements and websites are as follows:

Bachmann

BlueRail

Take a look at the video on the BlueRail site and see the possibility.

It's TIme

The analysis paralysis which has griped my railroading of the last few years has convinced me that it is time to move on and end this blog.  I will be deleting this blog after Sept 30 and hope that someone else will find the name useful.

Change can be good to re-invigorate the hobby.  I will be going forward to a project that was on the back burner for a while and which always has had strong pull for me and I knew that I would build eventually.  The next project will be the Ma & Pa in the 1920s with a focus on the first half of the decade.  I have a new blog for this project maandrr.blogspot.com  Please note the double a with 'and' being spelled out.

Thanks for all those who have followed my ramblings and particularly Bernie, Al and Thom.

Forward Ho!

Simplicity and Layout Planning

One of the emerging themes in the model railroad world is the call to simplicity.  A recent blog post by Lance Mindheim on September 17, 2012 on the one switch layout.  The pressure to build the empire is hard to resist.  When you read the magazines there is a natural reaction among many that 'I can do that!!' or 'I can do that better'.  While the reaction is natural the tendency to overlook the costs of those empires and the delayed fun is big.  What is the cost of a large layout.  A double deck layout replicating the operations of a division of a railroad in a 1000 plus square foot basement would require tremendous resources.  You may think that I overstate the issue, but a typical mid size division could easily require 30 locos minimum to run just 3 through passenger and 3 through freights each way not including switchers, local passenger trains and way freight trains.  If you are running in the steam era then you may need to triple that number to allow for changing the engine upon the trains arrival and departure from each end of the layout. 

Over the last twenty years I have never finished anything but modules.  Usually my layouts consist of modules set up to either run in circles or back and forth.  In O Scale I have seen set up track temporarily with a switch or two and a lead.  Running an Atlas O Scale 0-6-0 USRA switcher and switching cars is fun even with a short track for O Scale and a few cars.  The very full bass sound adds a dimension not available in smaller scales due to speaker size.  

Perhaps my constant yearning and hoarding of materials and items for a large layout is just wrong headed thinking when I have had in front of me an answer all the time.  A smaller layout with less maintenance and easy expansion would give satisfaction now and in the future. Build it using LED (Layout Element Dominoes) which I will go into in a future post will allow things to keep moving.

Time to go play

Discussions with Retired Railroaders

Retired Railroaders are  one of the best resources to understand any line and how it operated.  There are several retired Southern men in the local area.  They share their knowledge willingly and worked on the B line during their careers. They maintain that in their time there was plenty of traffic on the line. This encompassed periodic times from 60's to the early 21st Century.  Traffic in the modern time ended short of Harrisonburg with interchange.  Prior to the merger there was interchange with the C&W, N&W, B&O and the Southern (Manassas).  To include these locations except Manassas as stub end tracks would generate traffic in modern times while they become freight points in earlier times.  The various grain storage customers and co-ops generated much of the modern traffic as they would have in an earlier era.

More to come.

Choices of Towns Part 1

Model Railroads are always about choices.  Selective compression is not a question of if but of how much and where we compress.  The first choice in compression is what to include and what to leave out.  The list should include 5 towns.  The first 3 are the easy ones for me.

Manassas
Strasburg
Harrisonburg

The next two are going to be more complicated.

Prototype Choices and Balance

The reality check that comes with layout planning is sometimes hard food to digest especially when you have a wide area of interest and dreams of empire.  Shoehorning O Scale into a 20 by 20 area is difficult at best and almost impossible at worst.  Previous posts were focused on City Point as a prototype but this proved to have issues due to the limited time frame and the lack of sidings for switching.  Numerous operating sessions have convinced me that it is a combination of running and switching will hold the interest.  In previous posts and on other forums the B-Line of the Southern or the Manassas Gap RR keeps coming up as one of my circles of interest. 

The strength of the B Line is that is its minimal changes from the 1850s to the 1990s.  My space will allow 4 to 5 switching points or towns with connecting track.  Interchange tracks allow movement of cars on and off the line.  In earlier periods when the connecting lines of the N&W, B&O and C&W were not there then the interchange tracks will become team tracks.  Buildings will be built on foam core bases and made removable to change eras.  The only real issue will be the track work.  More modern track work uses points and this may be a compromise I will just have to accept.  The other item that will probably be an anomaly for the ACW era is the connection to Harrisonburg.   This will allow the layout to function in full form through any era.

Next Post will deal with the towns or switching points that I want to focus upon.  If you have any suggestions please let me know.  

Rethinking Scales?

The last 2 years have seen a growth in my interest in operating as the driving force of my next layout.  Most of my regular operating has come from Keith Stillman's Easton & Potomac.  This layout packs an incredible amount operation in a tight space. The layout is freelance 1925 with mostly 2-8-0 and 4-6-0 locomotives and 36 ft freight cars.  The cars look good on his 24" radius.  It keeps a crew of 8 busy and the lunch beforehand is always delicious.

Several attempts to draw up a suitable track plan for a Civil War era layout have ended in doubts about the viability of the project.  The original goal was a City Point layout for the USMRR.  Bernie's original chapter in his Mid-Size layout book raised interest of this line as a 'doable' prototype.  The real challenge is that the trains are run as an out and back with no real spotting of cars on sidings.  All the switching is done in the City Point yard area.  I plan to give another attempt to come up with a plan and visualize the operations flow.  A more generic discussion of scale doubts follows

The doubts right now are the combination of two factors.

The first is the compressing of O scale in my space that gives enough operation to keep 2 to 4 operators busy.  My original view was that early O scale would afford more moderate 30 to36 inches in radius. My recent thinking is that this needs to be 40 to 45 inch radius  This changes the dynamic of the layout to a loop in my modest 13 by 20 space with another wall of 16 feet in length.  The challenge here is fitting in mainline operations.  Really I am down to a switching operation.  The question here is that enough operation.


The second item is the issue of motive power availability in O Scale.  There are few choices in this niche hobby.  The next loco in 2012 is the Yonah.   SMR makes a great product and I wish that I had bought several of them earlier.  My only one is a 3 rail Texas that is undergoing conversion to 2 rail.  The trouble is that any layout will require 8 to 10 locomotives to have a full roster.  The time and cost is gives one pause, but more so the availability of the locomotives.  Am I willing to switch to HO and use Bachmann 4-4-0.  Reliability of so small of a loco is one that makes me wonder. 


Enough musing for now