GETTING REAL: How to Eat an Elephant Adventures in Prototype Modeling
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Marty McGuirk is an avid Central Vermont fan, modeling the “Southern New England” – an HO scale proto-freelanced railroad set in the 1950s and based in part on the real Central Vermont Ry. Click here to learn more about Marty. Photos and illustrations by the author unless otherwise credited.
hen model railroading steps beyond building a few models on the workbench, or building a beginner’s oval layout, to building a “large” or “lifetime” layout, then having a sense of the amount of work, time, and effort in front of you to get from “here ” to “there” (wherever “there” is) can be a big help. I’m reluctant to preach work-type stuff like goals, objectives, action plans, and milestones, but without a certain sense of scope, you risk never really accomplishing the goal of a “finished,” or at least, operable, model railroad.
FIGURE 1: This issue, we’ll look at how successful layout builders tackle the somewhat overwhelming task of planning and building a large model railroad. Although the long weekend work sessions are great, the warm weather makes it harder to dedicate a long sunny Saturday to the layout. Another approach is spending a few minutes every day doing something, no matter how small. I tried this approach for a week to see if I made any progress. On this night I programmed a few decoders and even read portions of the EasyDCC manual!
The other side of the coin is looking at a beautiful, almost complete model railroad (or one that at least looks complete) and say to yourself, “That’s great, but I’ll never have the time to build something like that . . .”
Staring at your empty basement with some wood stacked in the corner is a thrill for any model railroader. It’s also a little overwhelming if you spend too much time thinking about the amount of time, effort, and resources you
Page 143 • Issue 8 • Jul/Aug 2010 • Getting Real column, page 1
need to convert that open space into a scenicked, operating model railroad. Before embarking on construction of my HO scale Southern New England Railway, I seriously considered
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