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Getting Real Column - 6
First, I didn’t care for the looks of the double deck layout, so
any redesign would likely remove the upper deck portion of
the layout. Other issues were defined as the curve radius, the
“people" traffic flow, perhaps best described as the layout
“footprint;” the helix, and the layout height.
It was obvious shifting focus to the CV’s northern division was
going to strain on the existing layout’s infrastructure to the
breaking point. In order to fit a turnback curve at the end of
a peninsula into the space and retain a decent aisle width the
curve radius ended up at 28”. That was fine for the Bachmann
plastic 2-8-0s that made up the core of the SNE fleet, but my
brass CV Consols had some issues with that curve. And the
bigger steamers were no match for it at all. While passenger
equipment could negotiate those curves, it looked awful doing
it, especially when viewed from outside the curve. I considered
widening the lobe end of the peninsula to increase the main-
line radius but found the room stood firmly in the way.
In addition to the curve radius issues, the people space in the
layout was simply not working. Somehow, I’d ended with a
railroad that would require 8-10 operators to crew correctly .
. . but the space was so limited for them to move around that
I doubt any more than six people would fit in the space – and
that would hardly be “comfortable” for any of them.
At the heart of the problem was a combination of long narrow
aisles that dead ended by the north end staging yard.
Look at the diagram of the “before” layout and you can see
every operator – no matter if they were running a north or
south bound train, had to transit the entire “stub ended” nar-
row (32”) aisle. In the meantime, crews working towns in that
aisle would be relatively stationary. And the peninsula and
the post created a narrow pinch spot and operators would pin
crews into the dead end aisle like a cork in a bottle (3).
One solution that presented itself early on was simply limit-
ing the number of operators during a session. This would, of
course, ease crowding but does nothing to solve the issues
with the deck heights or other ergonomic concerns.
An even bigger issue was the helix. Although multi-deck layouts
are never pretty to look at, for a number of reasons I’d ended
up with the ugliest and most model railroad element – a helix –
smack dab in the entry to the layout area.
The helix had the same minimum 28” radius curve, but since
a curved track on a constant grade creates a lot more fric-
tion than the equivalent grade on straight track, those steam
engines that could handle the curve were limited to 8-12 cars.
Again, not a really big issue for the freelanced SNE, but such
short trains hardly befitted the northern division.
The final nail in the coffin?
While all this thinking was going on in the back of my mind I
tried, and failed, to fix some of these problems without tear-
ing the layout completely down. The problem, to use a military
analogy, was simple – I was trying to fix a strategic problem –
the way the layout fit the space – with tactical solutions (3).
I started by leaving the larger locomotives – which I really liked
– in the display case. I also determined to limit the number of
“One solution that presented itself early on
was simply limiting the number of operators
during a session.”
MRH-Mar 2013
