Historically, of course, it was what the tiddlers did best; set them to run at warp factor 7 and then stand like a member of the slip cordon waiting for an edge to stop the beasts hurtling to the floor. Slow running was non-existent, and trying to shunt with those couplers? It was like trying to tie a knot in pasta using only chopsticks. And so an oval of track was the only way to effectively play trains using the N gauge mechanisms.
However, times have changed; The best of Kato and Atlas chassis crawl at slow speeds, and the Kadee/Micro Trains couplers are brill.....So why do we still think of ovals? All the ingredients are there for a perfect shelf shunting layout in only 1/5th of the size of an oval layout.
Exhibit A: Outram.
Here was a small branch terminus just south of Dunedin (inland from Mosgiel, if you didnt know) that has everything you could ever want to model in a station....Station, Engine shed, water tanks, good shed, 3 legged crane, stockyard....and only using 4 points.
However, I wouldnt do it like that. Firstly, I'd model it full size (and really stick it in the eye of the bigger scales!)....then lose the two points to the left and replace them with a sector plate, reducing the number of points needed. Then, I'd fold the baseboard in the middle....populate it with a Wf (similar to the one the Head Druff is building) and a selection of 1950's 4 wheel wagons, and THAT would (in my opinion) make a great wee portable layout, good for a test track and learning about building and operation. And it wouldnt break the budget.
And in 3rd Planit it looks like this....
And because I cant draw, it would look significantly better than this:
So...Todays message is Free yourself from the Tyranny of the Oval, and find your inner shelf layout....
3 comments:
Check out the latest Pommy Railway Modeller (November) for the Sccotish version.
I agree on the oval syndrom, I may be realatively new to the world of Model railway and still haven't built anything yet, I didn't want an oval to be my first model i build, after joining the fraternaty of NZ120, I chose the Kinlieth branch line and to do it modular, Putaruru the Junction station which I intend to build first I'm going to build in three section, the first section I'm building is the south end of the yards which has the junction for both Rotorua and Kinlieth, In it's scaled length, 1.2 metres, pretty good to me for a true to scale, and I would only need this section to be about 300 mm maybe 350mm max.
I've never been a fan of US mainline modelling, but have often marvelled at what the Brits do with shelf & small layouts. It would be interesting to see what Ian Rice has to present at the Convention, as you would be hard pressed to find an oval on any of his superb layout designs.
The pencil drawing's pretty good - it looks exactly like a Brit layout design.
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