I would generally agree with the statement that “Model Railroading is
Fun.” After all, why would anyone voluntarily do something for over 65
years that wasn’t? However, there are times when it’s not so much fun;
for example, when you have a railroad that’s runs less ideally than it
once did because you’ve built it too big to maintain it properly due to
problems that didn’t exist when you when you first constructed it, not
mentioning any names, of course. And when you have a large space
available for your railroad, the tendency is to fill it with a large
railroad and the large amount of railroad “stuff” that goes with it
because you can, you know, like trains, track trees, buildings etc.
again, not mentioning any names. But every so often, a situation occurs
where you can’t do those things: a military or government career, for
example, where frequent moves to different duty station or locations
preclude accumulating a railroad with a large footprint, and with the
concomitant large amount of “stuff.” that goes with it. Do these people
find that their smaller railroad can be fun too?
I would venture to say that they not only can, they do, and I had the
pleasure of seeing one very recently. Actually, most of us have already
seen the pictures of it; it belongs to Dave Mitchell, and was
photographed and reviewed by Doug Kirkpatrick (“New England Railroading
in a Small Space”) in the March 2017 issue of Model Railroader
Magazine. Dave has modeled the Central Vermont, the prototype of which
is not particularly large, and tends to lend itself more realistically
to what he decided to do. It really is amazing what someone can fit
onto a four foot by eight foot plywood board: a two level operating HO
scale railroad complete with a realistic reproduction of a small
Vermont town in the middle of it, many of whose structures were built
by Dave when he was teenager from kits produced by long out of business
manufacturers.
Admittedly,
there are some limitations; you can’t run 40 car freight trains in a
space that size (although admittedly I can’t either; my sidings aren’t
long enough). But you can operate realistically typical short CV way
freights hauling many of those classic Ambroid One in 5000 car kits
built by Dave, again, when he was pursuing his military or government
career. Using a GP-7 or a steam switcher each decorated for the CV, the
both of them performed very well that day, especially the steam
locomotive which had to negotiate a 18 inch radius curve to get from
the upper level back to the lower level. A small layout in a small room
would not be practical for one of our normal tours when you think about
how many people will sometimes show up for them. But Dave has
graciously offered to have private showings by invitation, and at the
risk of overwhelming his generous hospitality, I would suggest that you
take him up on it and see for yourself that it really isn’t necessary
to fill every available square inch of space in a room for your model
railroad to be fun.
