White Walls, Green Trim

Airbrushed Delta Ceramcoat Acrylics, thinned with windshield wiper fluid.

White and Forest Green

Here's a tip; paint in the garage in the morning when it's cool, then let it dry and cure throughout the day when it's pushing 100 out there.  I started painting the corner trim and rafter tails, but decided to brush paint those.  The castings were primed with rattle can gray primer whereas the wood was not.

Layout Alternative

When did a model railroad become a train layout?  I'm no model railroad historian, but I bet there was a time before we called it a "layout".  I've seen it described as a "pike" and this term seems even more dated, as if I should be wearing an engineer's hat with my shirt and tie and smoking a pipe as I run the trains while my family gazes on adoringly.  If I told a non-model-railroader I'm building a train layout in my garage, would they know what that meant?  Would they wonder if I were planning to set it up for a while then take it down, like a train around the Christmas tree? 

As someone who has worked in a field with specialized language, I also recognize that some words don't mean much to the average person.  If you go to a traditional church on Sunday you probably enter the narthex before going into the sanctuary for worship and perhaps afterwards spend time in the fellowship hall.  However, you didn't go to church, you went to a campus.  The church is the body of people, not the building they meet in, but how many folks know this distinction?  The narthex is the foyer or lobby or entryway and the sanctuary is the auditorium.  The fellowship hall is a different auditorium, but sometimes resembles a gymnasium or large meeting hall.  Some churches work hard to eliminate "churchy" language and label their spaces accordingly.  Others stick with traditional names and expect newcomers to learn them.

Dictionary.com offers TEN variant definitions of the word "layout" and NONE of them reference model railroading.  Not that this is inaccurate for our use, as most of the definitions refer to the arrangement of elements in a space whether on an advertisement or in a room.  I don't think "layout" presents the same difficulty in understanding, but I wonder if there are better words that describe what we're building and perhaps even what we're doing.  Language is important and if we model railroaders want to share our hobby with a non-modeling public in a straight-forward way perhaps some more useful language is in order.  Even within our ranks it might be helpful. 

Miriam Webster does include a reference to model trains in their definition of layout, but there's an issue with that one.  "Something that is laid out".  Sounds like something that is set up only to be taken down later.  When we build our model railroad do we do so in a temporary manner?  Very few times have I seen articles about model train setups that are meant to be run then put away by taking the thing apart and putting it back in a box.  And, I'd bet we wouldn't call those things "layouts", but train sets or something similar.

So what is the alternative?  What about simply calling it a model railroad?  If we are scaling down reality or some version of it, and running scaled-down electric trains through that setting, then we are modeling a railroad and railroading in miniature.  In light of my previous post on a track plan, I'm going to make a conscious effort to change my language from now on.  I'm not building a train layout in my garage.  I'm building a model railroad.

Garage Railroad Plan

I've always looked at those 4x8 project railroads in the model train magazines with an eye for what could be.  Sometimes there is great potential, sometimes they just don't work that well.  Granted, there has been much ink spilled over how to create a better plan using the same space required for a 4x8 (much greater than 4x8, considering aisles and access to three sides) so I won't go into that here.  But I will posit a contrary view for the utility of such plans as they are - a rectangle in the middle of a room.  When you have a room in which you can't use the walls, one of these space-hogging 4x's may be just the answer.

I have space in our house for a nice railroad on a shelf, but barring some sections that must be put up to run and taken down when done, that doesn't make for easy loop running.  Sometimes (quite often) I like to just sit back and watch a train roll.  In order to do that I need to build something larger, and the only space for that is our garage.  Bob Smaus once wrote an article in Model Railroader about the hazards of building in the garage, and I recommend it if you can find it.  Summer heat, winter cold, dust, spiders (black widows, and not the Southern Pacific RR kind!) and clutter all make for a challenging environment in which to build a model railroad.

However, I have decided I'm up for the challenge.  I recently set up a test loop of EZ track in the garage, ostensibly for testing the 2-6-0.  This is actually our Christmas loop but only when there's a tree in the middle.  I've been having so much fun running trains on that loop - despite the rough conditions in the garage - that I decided I could be very happy with a layout out there.

After much cogitation (the details of which I will spare you), I returned to a simple plan.  Behold the HO scale Morgan Valley RR, first featured in the January 1989 issue of Model Railroader in an article by Rick Henderson (click for larger, or right click and open in a new tab):

This plan has always stuck with me, dating back to the first days of my subscription to Model Railroader.  However, I've learned much since then about railroad operations, model and prototype, and right away I knew I'd need to modify this plan.  I started by removing the short switchback siding and a few others.

I added a parallel siding to an existing one, and shifted a few tracks to align on 90 degree lines.  This was because I was already envisioning a grid of streets.

The dark gray are major roads while the lighter gray are secondary alleys and parking areas.  I believe this should be a consideration in the earliest stages of a plan, as this is often how city planners would view development.  People inhabit cities, and need a way to get around.  On so many model railroads, particularly smaller ones like this, roads seem to be an afterthought and consequently the scene lacks believability.  Roads lead to structures, or in the case of the driveways, connect structures to streets.

Here the olive drab colored shapes represent industries or railroad structures, the blue colored blocks represent city buildings and the dusty rose colored shapes are residential homes.  Trees and water features have been added and some track features labeled.   It is my intention that the streets and buildings will provide a strong grid-like structural element.  The tracks interact with this structure as if, in some cases, they were put in place after the grid was laid down, and in others in concert with it or before it.  The tracks follow a small creek in one corner and pass through a low cut in another, next to the orange grove; otherwise the topography is essentially flat.

While I will discuss operating this layout in another post, suffice it to say for now that the railroad can handle both freight and passenger trains as it stands.  With a connection to staging (most likely a train-length turntable) as a fiddle yard, the variety of equipment increases.  For now it can be built using track I already own, and using many key structures which I already own.  One final note - the 'Motorcycle Cop' is a nod to a scene from an extinct Epcot Center attraction, the World of Motion.  Find a good video of this ride on YouTube and see if you can spot the cop behind the billboard.