The importance of marrying space to prototype...

When I began planning the Halifax and South Western layout scheme last year I started from prototype without a home nailed down, or if I’m honest even identified...

The reawakening of my Canadian modelling, probably as a result of too much time on my hands during lock down last spring, has been one of those defining moments of the year and one I feel gifted to have experienced, with masses of new research materials, prototypes to explore and most importantly friends and acquaintances to make... however, as planning developed through research and evolved through shared conversation the idea of repurposing some of my home workshop seemed to offer a short to medium term home.

The idea of modelling the Lakeside Industrial Park was an early one, but the more I discovered the more it felt like a great project with lots of possibilities... however I believe now that perhaps the energy that was generated by the freshness of the project, and the scheme not having a home, led me a long way down that prototypical path to the point I was developing schemes that would fit the space yes, but not reflect the prototype, although I perhaps was unwilling to accept this myself, I felt an unease with the project, and so it stalled, and Kinross took over, Claremont and Concord distracted and several other ideas and rabbit holes have been explored in the meantime...

(A history of the earlier development is in these posts 1 2 3 4 5)

So where did this leave me? It felt like after lots of recent conversation with one of my new Canadian friends, Chris, that the HSWR project needed revisiting, perhaps with Chris providing a sounding board to test my assumptions and give some creative reflection and guidance. I began by sketching out the intended Lakeside scheme afresh, and considering some of the ideas around operation and presentation we had discussed... I removed the fiddle stick staging across the window as with recent reflection on my own approach and motivation to modelling, I just knew this would hamper the layout being used, but despite my best efforts the uneasy feeling remained and none of these jumped off the page. I was happy with the original scheme with the plan adjusted for the removal of the fiddleyard, but it just didn’t feel right, and no matter how I looked at re-phrasing it, it was still not right.

I decided to more accurately map this out, in Railmodeller, thinking about car lengths and operation...

...and still, despite being a workable plan, of a real place it just didn’t sing... it didn’t feel exciting.

What to do?

Chris wrote:

Funny to read your comment over if the H&SW project is prototypical enough. In my own industrial NCB schemes that’s been the stumbling block. I feel like I can identify what I find attractive but I worry about the choreography.

Some preliminary thoughts or questions:

 - Must it be H&SW or is that a flexible commodity?

 - If not the current location can the location move? Two places that immediately spring to mind from the region are to consider Moncton (New Brunswick) and their amazing array of industrial spurs such as the Franklin Spur or Truro and its industrial park; here in Dartmouth's Burnside Park might be worth exploring too.

 - I'm always contemplating a "what if" based on an operation that takes over the PEI railway after 1989 and it might be fun to plot a similar story for the H&SW.

I resisted...

I felt that if I moved away from the Halifax location it wouldn’t be my project anymore... I’d invested a lot in the prototype and research and consideration of a ‘what if’ shortline terminal operator... in short I’d become blinkered by my own work.

I slept on it and reflected...

In the meantime Chris sent me this (as well as a Truro sketch)...

Sketch: Chris Mears, note his freelance use of Chester and Mollington, linking to my childhood, emotional connections...

...a link on Google Maps, some atmospheric photographs...

Photo: Chris Mears, looking up Beaverbrook from end of spur, Co-op spur to right, Moncton NB.

Photo: Chris Mears, Co-op feed mill, Beaverbrook, Moncton NB.

...and an inspiring and exciting YouTube video...

...and something clicked. We spoke on the phone about it and things began to feel more comfortable with starting afresh, less like I was abandoning my dream and more how it might evolve... afterwards I reflected how I’d designed the prototype alone with no consideration of the space available... 

Determine the space you have, and marry that to a prototype.

It needs to inspire and evoke an emotional response, yet work in that physical constraint. The prototype might be as loose as a railroad and location, or it might be as specific as a certain customer spur, but it’s the marriage of these two that is important. You can’t work on a scheme without a prototype, and you can’t work on a prototype without a space constraint, or location for the layout.

This is a real lightbulb, yet feels so fundamental... 

It is one I feel I don’t get from the fantastic books and writing of either Lance Mindheim or the wonderful Iain Rice. Combine this fundamental, with their thoughts, teachings along with some of the design ideas I’ve developed mixed with those of Chris and there is soooo much more to say on this subject... but anyway, back to my own scheme...

This is Moncton, Beaverbrook, the Franklin spur... its arrow straight with such texture in the buildings and structures, track right up against the road, it feels intimate, run down yet operational, still serving the customers it always has... it’s the combination of scale, size and structures that appeal and led me on...

The best thing about this scheme is that it fits... it’s the marriage of the space with the prototype and it just works... I mocked it up on the floor and got a feel for it, pondering ideas on how to organise and stage it...

Sketch showing the layout from end to end.

Further down the layout, the box cars are on the front of the layout.

I shared this with Chris and the conversation continued, adding further depth and a wealth of shared experience to the process...

My plan with Chris’s annotation...

Yellow: you mentioned cassettes which would have been my thought too but then I wondered if just building the train right on the layout would be just as easy since that road crossing at Blue could act as a rerailer to make it easy to quickly add stock. 

Green is neat because it can either be the warehouses that are, in real life, across Beaverbrook or the Green track could just as easily represent Holcim’s longer spur. It’s some interesting flexibility. 

You could have a set of two dimensional warehouse silhouettes that clip onto the fascia for between operating sessions that could serve both as obstructions to have to look around but also help define the alleyway that Beaverbrook is.

This feels good, this feels right...

Working on the scheme with Chris the pieces began to fall easily into place, what made Pont-y-dulais a success? I have suggested before this was its accessibility and that is certainly a massive factor, but why is still relevant, despite being so simple? It is because, for me, it offers a blank canvas to play with my industrial OO gauge models. As this plan developed it felt the same, like the view would be identifiable as Moncton, but also anywhere.... I could substitute CN power for my Guilford GP40, it could even masquerade as PEI, Charlottetown’s dockside industrial area with the 70t and shorter older cars... or even be another town on my ‘what if’ shortline, the HSWR... and other ideas, what if Terra Transport also took on the non profit making lines in Nova Scotia as well as Newfoundland... then sold off... hence a day dream of a U18B painted green... and on and on...

So here it is, the story so far, the rich tapestry of layout design, the realisation that constraints need to be matched to prototype, and the wonderful journey this process takes you on. I am beginning to form some views that I think would warrant more on this process, perhaps a book, certainly more blog posts. For now though, I hope you’ve enjoyed the read, the journey, and if you’ve a layout design that just isn’t working and you think I might be able to help, I offer this same careful consideration and approach, working with you, the customer, as a commission service. Get in touch... in the meantime, more soon...