From idea to the layout
It was a fairly simple matter to identify the key elements in the
Randolph scene, and incorporate them onto the paper plan
“full-size.” You’d think I would have thought about it for a few
days, ruminating on the positives and negatives. I think my
crew is still shocked at how quickly I made the decision. I just
knew the mill scene had to go. In retrospect, it was an easy
choice to make. After years of struggling with the paper mill
and getting nowhere, this scene virtually designed itself in less
than an hour.
But there was one issue that almost killed the entire plan. The
paper mill could get away with a short runaround track, but sub-
stituting the Randolph scene meant we needed a passing siding
equivalent to those in the other towns. Unfortunately, a favorite
(and finished!) scene – the Williams Creek bridge – was in the
way of a longer passing track and several other industries.
After crawling around under the layout and studying how the
section had been built, two of my crew, Stic Harris and Tom
Potthast, felt that the Williams Creek scene could be removed
intact with little damage to the bridge, abutments, or water.
After some heroic effort, they managed to pull it off (I didn’t
have the heart to try it myself!) and Williams Creek was placed
off to the side. At the time I had no idea what I was going to do
with it. I just knew I didn’t want it to end up in the dumpster!
7. To see if the Randolph scene would fit I covered the
layout with a large piece of paper and used the under-
construction Waterbury station as a “stand-in” for the
Randolph depot (the two are very close in size). Other
structures were either sketched on the paper or vari-
ous boxes and cutouts were used. The 1x2 indicates
the main line route through town.
7
8
8. Here’s Stic Harris working on removing the foam
subroadbed from Everett. Shortly this will be down to
the bare grid benchwork and Randolph will start to
appear in its place.
Getting Real Column - 5
MRH-Dec 2014
