Layout Design Process 1 Overview

In the book Creating Model Railroad Design, John Armstrong explained to readers that the early days of the model railroading hobby was focused on building models: scratch-building locomotives and railroad cars. Model railroad layout’s were rare, primarily club layouts and were primarily built to displaying those models in operation.

When manufacturing of model locomotives and rolling stock became more common (Varney, Mantua, Tyco and Athearn among the leading and best known manufacturers) the hours once devoted to model building shifted to building model railroads. Club layouts were still the norm but hobby publishers at the time - Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman - began to publish construction articles on track plans that could be built in the basement or spare bedrooms of homes.

The Train Set

For those new in the hobby, both Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman publish books of track plans - Track Planning for Sectional Track and 101 Track Pans for Model Railroads were two that I purchased years ago as a youth. Atlas Manufacturing published track plan books that highlighted their track and control products and I got several of those too.

Originally those track plans were often simple ovals where the reader could chose the track plan that interested them, modify it as desired  One designer’s layout recommendation was: 1) discard the layouts that are too big for the space you have, 2) look for a plan that have one or two main line tracks, and 3) while it should have some space for scenery the modeler can sacrifice scenery for more spurs and yards. Today those track plans are still available as are new published layout plans that are varied by both theme and operating potential.

Model Railroading

In the late 70's the focus of track planning expanded to the concept of layout design. Those books were oriented primarily toward club sized layouts, but the concepts presented were appropriate for any sized layout, most focused though on the emerging medium to large home layout.. Two that I purchased and used for guides were Creative Model Railroad Design (Armstrong) and Design Handbook of Model Railroads (Mallery).

It was during this time that John Armstrong's  'Given and Druthers' approach to layout design was popular.  'Givens' were the layout parameters that can't or won't change. 'Druthers' were the layout features that we we would like to have but are willing to negotiate. Both represented hard choices that layout designers had to make from a wide variety of possibilities. I have reproduced Armstrong's  'Given and Druthers' format here.

In the August 1986 Prototype Modeler magazine Mike Schafer identified an alterate sequence for layout design. That sequence assumed the modeler had a good idea about what he wanted to model and had the prototype information available to design it.  I have published a flow chart of that process here..

Railroad Modeling 

The increased interest of layout design by experienced model railroad enthusiasts that could not be supported by the hobby publications of the day led to the creation of the Layout Design Special Interest Group LDSIG). The LDSIG published quarterly newsletters (Layout Design News) that facilitated the exchange of information and ideas and develop improved ways hobbyists could learn the art and science of layout design. Numerous contributors debated topics of interest and between all of them they developed the idea of 1) design concept, 2) layout design and 3) track planning as the triad of creative railroad modeling. I have published a flow chart of that process here.

One additional planning tool I used during the process came from an article written by Dave Clemens in the LDN in November 1988. It was a flow chart identifying the problem solving process of defining and redefining the objective at hand, in this case moving from a broad idea to fine tuning the layout design process to those final elements that can be reasonably represented on the layout. Dave's process is visually depicted below.

The next blog will discuss the development of the WWSL's basic concept using the LDSIG layout design process.