STOP THE PRESSES! - Some Fine tuning

I mulled over the problem of the depot as I watched the Minnesota Vikings stumble to another miserable defeat at the hands of "Da Bears". Scanning through photos of models that might work in that tiny, cramped location, I was intrigued by the Banta Modelworks Crossing shanty. Intrigued enough to mock up a model of it and try it out. A quick mock up of a small structure like this is no more than 10 minutes work. Sadly, I was disappointed with my interpretation of the view.

1. The location is so tight that the structure has to sit right up tight against the side wall of the cabinet

2. Obscuring the building with a tree helps. But why put a building there to hide it?

3. Clearances are just too tight. When the railcar runs past the depot building, it almost touches it.

Disappointed, I took the structure out and pouted as I stared at the embryonic model.
"What was I going to do?"
Then it hit me like a bolt out of the blue.

Eureka!

With no depot there, the layout becomes about the mine itself. Which, lets face it, it should be. If I'm going to the trouble of making the loading work, that should be the focus. The line breaks out of the trees into a clearing where the mine is. A grade crossing there with a road leading to the mine building makes sense too.
This could be it. I could be set to go.
I'll leave it a couple of days. Come back, and if I still like it I'll go with it.

Developing the idea

We left the last post with an arrangement that I was happy with, so the next thing I did was to do a quick sketch. 

First vision.

I was really quite taken with my first idea of a converted boxcar as a depot building since seeing an O. Winston Link photo of Creek Junction a while back when I was researching ideas for a possible Link inspired N&W micro. I'd seen a photo of the Grandt Line Silverton Ore Chute that attracted me. But that was in HO. I'm also not sure about how the scenery should develop on this little layout. To my mind chutes like that are often perched precariously on the sides of mountains and probably not a workable location for the micro.

Then a problem! I found a Weaver O scale boxcar that I could use to judge the space the depot would take up and it took up too much depth, leaving no room for a platform.

Clearance Fail!

Still, these things are sent to test us. Micro layout design is not the easiest thing. We're trying to distill the essence of a railroad scene in a ridiculously small area. I was also having a change of thought about the Ore chute because I discovered the Banta Modelworks Little Creek Mine model.
There was only one thing for it.

Full size mock up.

I guesstimated the size of the Mine area using the website photos and my Bachmann gondolas. The head frame might be a little tall to fit in the cabinet. Otherwise it fits in there well. I could use a pile of pit props and other mining detritus to hide the line exit to the storage sidings on the left hand side.
The right hand side is still a mystery though. At the moment I have the rearmost line appearing from behind a fence. In my mind that's a bit of a cop out. I need a narrow structure or a narrow one that gets wider. Not unlike the "Smallest shoe shop in England" in Woodhall Spa. Dear readers please feel free to suggest a structure if you know of one.

The smallest shoe shop in England. No more than 4' deep at its narrowest

Trees. Trees too are a bit of a cop out in my mind. But it kinda works. their height can play off agains the height of the mine head frame.  Perhaps a different sort of tree rather than my ubiquitous silver birches.

I'll leave the mock up for a few days and think about it.

As a whole, I'm really happy with the way the model feels. It just needs a little fine tuning on the right hand side. I'll go and think about it.

Layout ideas

I find when working within the confines of the APA box (27" x 14" approx.), that conventional track planning goes out the window and I can actually work full size. I might find a picture in a book that inspires me to recreate it in model form. Or I'll see a product photo and imagine building a scene around it. I'll be placing track and scenic components on the board, moving them around until I come up with an arrangement that pleases me and is operable as a layout.
My micro layouts have to have a working feature. Many years of exhibiting micro layouts have taught me that a working feature is essential, When guests at an exhibition see something other than trains moving they stop and watch and take in some of the other details. Youngsters love to see other things happening. Working cranes and ore/coal loaders are very popular on my layouts. Ore/coal loaders are slightly problematic in that the material being loaded bounces out of the cars and onto the track leading to derailments. Because I have some gondola cars, it's very likely that I'll have an ore loading scene on this model.

In this sequence of photos you can see how I'm working moving track around, messing with the bulk of structures and other things.

1. First steps in track planning. Boxes represent buildings. Loader at the back, Depot at the front.

2. Putting pointwork in different spots. Imagining how thing will operate

3. A less successful plan in my mind. The rear track is disconnected from the front

4. I'm feeling like this has a lot of promise. The depot might turn out to be a grounded boxcar. I have since tried  a standard gauge boxcar in this space and it doesn't give me clearance for a platform. 

By picture 4 I'm feeling good about things. There will be hidden storage sidings either side of the model. Probably individual plug-in train cassettes.

I'm a little disappointed that a boxcar won't fit in the space between the tracks to use as a depot at the moment. I used a Weaver kit in that space. Clearances were very tight. It was a more modern boxcar though, perhaps something older might fit better. We'll see. Still a little juggling to do with the spaces.

What's going on?

Some of you will be wondering. "Why another blog?" A fair question, after all I do have a popular Facebook page, The Model Railways of Ian Holmes that has almost 150 followers, I could detail the project there.

The truth is I like blogs, always have. I have an inordinately large amount of blogs out there. Every time I started a project I started a blog. Even if the project lost momentum and died. Like the Lincolnshire and Continental Railroad for example. I've moved house since that blog started, so that blog is pretty well dead. Others like the Potato Farm Railway layout merely slumber.

Not everyone will be wondering what the project will be, because you'll have followed the link from the Facebook page and have an idea what's going on. For others following from other links here you go.

It will be a Micro layout built in an APA Box. Micro Layouts being layouts under 4 square feet, as popularised by the late Carl Arendt, and the APA box being a flatpack toy storage box, (now discontinued), from IKEA, that I discovered back in 2012 or so, and developed its use as a model railway layout cabinet, (with of course, a blog ). The use of the APA as a model railway base took over the world and very likely lead to the manufacture of laser cut baseboard kits from people like Tim Horn. 

For many years I've had a fascination with the Bachmann On30 range and once in a while I find myself buying loco's and stock. Just because I might build a layout one day. I have a small and varied range of stock, but enough to run a small layout. 

Another item I've bought on and off over the years is the magazine Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette. The weird and wonderful equipment on logging lines fascinated me. Railroad names like White Pass and Yukon, and Durango and Silverton conjured up Wild West images in my mind during my teenage years. 

So really, right now, this project is a coming together of so many things in the model railroad world that I have been involved with, or fascinated with. It seems quite a natural thing to work on. 

Next, we might just talk about the actual layout!

Starting out again

Remember those good old days, far off now, when I built the seven day model railroad? Quite the popular model it was too. Quite the successful blog as well. Well, I’m having another go at building a layout to a time frame. Not in seven days though.
The Granite City Train show is seven weeks away, so this time I’ll build a layout in 7 weeks. Doesn’t sound so impressive compared to 7 days, but don’t forget that for the original 7 day challenge I was on vacation from work so I could devote all day, every day to it. Not so this time, for I’ll be holding down my job as well. The project should still be a challenge though. The momentum on the original project just steamrollered as I could work on it all day, every day.
Keeping momentum going on this longer drawn out project will be a challenge, as I've experienced before. So I’ve decided to work in a different scale to give me the challenge of discovery as well. The layout will be built in On30 using the Bachmann stock that I have accumulated over the years, thinking that one day I’ll build a layout. It looks like that day is here now.
I’ll write more about the project in greater detail later on, but for now sign up for blog updates and wait and see what happens.
Enjoy the ride!