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.
