GETTING REAL: Flipping the Piers Adventures in Prototype Modeling
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M 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.
aybe I should title this “flip-flopping the piers.” I started building my HO scale Southern New England Railway with little more than a rough benchwork outline and the idea that the mainline should start at Tidewater and proceed inland through typical New England scenery and small towns before ending at a mediumsized mill town. I figured why waste time drawing a detailed track plan when there’s a railroad to build. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a plan – I’ve just never actually drawn it out. But I’ve built enough railroads over the years than I rely on the vision in my head and a sense of what will fit and result in an appealing scene. While such a shoot-from-the-hip approach can be great fun and makes me feel like a real maverick, at times it’s also caused me to go back and re-do a few things once I actually see them in three dimensions. Maybe I’m not as good as I think? Nah, that can’t
Page 137 • Issue 10 • Nov/Dec 2010 • Getting Real column, page 1
FIGURE 1: During test operating sessions (see Sea Trials for the SNE in the May/Jun 2010 MRH) the Thames Street pier area protruded into the aisle and proved a bottleneck for operators entering the layout area. So Marty decided to rework the pier area – again. be it! Would I change my approach? No way!. If I’d done the “design everything up front” approach I’d still be looking for prototype track maps, or drawing the hundredth plus version of the track plan with the idea of seeing
if I could squeeze just a little more mainline into the space. Instead, I have completed the mainline and most trackwork on a (mostly) doubledeck 18 x 48 foot layout in a little less than two years of spare time. Of
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