The Lengthy Lineage of Little Layouts, Part 4: A '75 vintage micro in N-6.5

An N-scale, 16" x 23" layout using Z-gauge track; Railroad Modeler, Jan '75

I was pleasantly surprised to see this charming micro-layout as I began my read through the 1975 issues of Railroad Modeler. There it was, only 32 pages into January '75, looking like a lost time traveller from 2026.

The layout is a tour de force of micro-layout construction by Jim Finnell, the owner of Durango Press. 

The base was made from corrugated and artist cardboards. The track and turnouts were scratchbuilt from code 40 rail and HOn3 wood ties. 

The "transistorized" power supply and controls were built into the base, so the entire layout formed a single unit. I was pleased to see a thick-base design (which I estimate to be about 5.5") that I am partial to even though it was probably used simply to accommodate the controller housing.

The scenery was made from plaster and rubber molds, trees were scratchbuilt, and the ground cover was a combination of natural and store-bought materials.

Even the locomotive was a custom job: a very decent looking wood and card superstructure built on a Marklin Z-scale chassis.

An exceptional 2-page spanning beauty shot of the layout

Besides the model railroad, the way it was shown to readers illustrates how Railroad Modeler pushed the boundaries of layout presentation in magazines in that era. Today this sort of page design and use of colour isn't unusual, but back then is was. And with such a small layout as the subject, the team did an exceptional job of showing it off.

The staff referred to the layout in the text as a "mini-layout", but with an area of 2.6 sq. ft., it was definitely an advanced ancestor of today's micro-layouts. 

The Lengthy Lineage of Little Layouts, Part 3: Noitcart Traction, a Micro before Micros

'Track Plan' of the Noitcart Traction 'layout'

As I worked on the lunar loco I thumbed through all the pages of the April '78 issue of Model Railroader in which it appeared. Near the back I stumbled across a 2-page article called Noitcart Traction by Eric Bronsky, the legendary traction modeller. 

Noitcart Traction is closer to a typical humorous April article than Cerny & Hayden's both in style and content, even though it's about an actual 'layout' that actually runs. I draw your attention to it because one might think of it as a micro-layout before there were micro-layouts.

It's simply a long strip of O-gauge track for running Mr. Bronsky's fine-standards O-scale traction car. It's noted that the layout "...rests upon three separate planks of 1/2"-thick plywood wide enough to accommodate the single track and line poles." and "The three roadbed sections butt together like sectional track. All six line poles, the wire and all, are stuck into a block of Styrofoam for storage." 

No dimensions are given for this portable 'layout', just a drawing that says it's drawn to 1" = 1'-0", so I got out my ruler and made some measurements. What I find is that when it's assembled it's about 108-3/4" long by 3-3/4" wide. That gives an area of about 2.8 sq. ft., well within the micro-layout range.

Mr. Bronsky clarifies that the 'layout ' isn't just a test track: "What little scenery I had room for is best described as "changing roadbed", but it is sufficient to keep NT slightly above the test track category." It's true, the car runs through street track and varying natural ground cover.

A minimal traction 'layout' indeed, and a micro-layout ancestor.

The Lengthy Lineage of Little Layouts, Part 2: Source track plan for John Olson's Cielo Lumber Co. layout

Top: Model Railroader, March 1972 | Bottom: Railroad Modeler, January 1974.

Galen did some excellent detective work and told me in the comments to the first post of this series that the track plan to John Olson's Cielo Lumber Co. layout looks to be derived from a section of Robert Silas' Sagatukett River RR track plan that appeared in the March 1972 issue of Model Railroader. As you can see in the above illustration, the similarities are indeed very similar, as Yogi Berra might have said :-)

I asked Galen how he figured this out and he noted:

"It was a combination of your sketch and Olson's comments in the article that did it.  Something he said about the spacing and how "you can spend forty-five minutes to an hour on just a single problem".  Your sketch is "upside down" so to speak but it removed the structures enough that the basic track geometry was clearer.  I've tried the switching scenario mentioned in the original article and it really would take forever and a day.

I'm loathe to admit I've probably spent more time perusing the track plan collection book that the Sagatukett plan was included in than I should have, but I like studying these plans.  For some reason this one stayed with me ..."

In the June '72 issue of Model Railroader, a Mr. Alan L Bates wrote in to comment on performing switching operations in the town of Equinox, the town the source track plan services:

"It would be hard to come up with a more ideal example of how not to build a railroad, either prototype or model, than the town of Equinox on the Sagatukett River RR in your March issue."

Mr. Bates then elaborates on the time consuming complexities of performing operations on that track plan, at one point suggesting operations on said track plan would "at worst could cause mass misery among the others attending the session [JDL: the operating session] with resultant ulcers, drunkenness, and riotous behavior." Clearly this track plan needs to come with a warning label :-)

Two Feet in Colorado

In my last post I started talking about little layouts, and I said I wasn't going to talk about what's going on today in the field, but I was so charmed by the little modular dioramas in Voie Libre's 'Two Feet in Colorado' challenge I thought I should link to their video. It's auto-dubbed in English, although it's somewhat robotic. Try to overlook that and focus on the little dioramas as they're excellent.

P.S.: For the eagle-eyed I think I see an E. L. Moore designed plastic kit on one of the dioramas.

The Lengthy Lineage of Little Layouts, Part 1: Introduction

Aerial view of John Olson's HOn3 Cielo Lumber Co. | Source: Railroad Modeler, Jan '74

This essay rambles a bit, but it does eventually get to the point. If you’re ok with that, let’s get on with it.

A week or so ago I was informed of the passing of model railroading legend John Olson. I wrote a little about his work while I was deep into building the Mount Lowe layout. Although I didn’t personally know Mr. Olson, the report of his death struck a chord with me. It was the passing of a significant figure in my early model railroading education. I read a lot of old model railroading magazines and books, so I think a part of my mind unconsciously believes the modellers whose projects are showcased in those publications are still out there in their prime doing fantastic work so that sheltered part of my mind sometimes gets hit hard when faced with reality. 

Olson’s HOn3 Cielo Lumber Co. layout that was featured in the January 1974 issue of Railroad Modeler was the first layout I ever obsessed over. I thought everything about it was great: the photos, the little model buildings, the rolling stock, the scenes, and the text. I read the article many times and studied the photos obsessively. Even today I like to go back to that article now and then. I still get a hit of pleasure from it. Of course Mr. Olson went on to do bigger and better things, but the Cielo Lumber Co. has a lasting charm, and wouldn’t be out-of-place in today’s world of model railways

When events like John Olson’s passing happen it tends put other things I’m thinking about at the time in a different light. Take the Cielo Lumber Co. layout, it’s a little layout, not a micro, but little, especially for the time when a little beginner’s layout was generally considered something that filled a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood or a ping-pong table. In those days little layouts like Cielo weren’t unheard of, but weren’t where the mainstream action was. Cielo also reminds me that when I was deep into E. L. Moore research in the old magazines I’d often stumble across articles and photos of perfectly decent little layouts. 

Track plan of John Olson's Cielo Lumber Co. | Source: Railroad Modeler, Jan '74*
At first glance it looks like it has 3 wyes, but there's only 1.

E. L. Moore himself even built one - a 30 inch x 30 inch one called the Enskale Hoentee - as a project layout for Railroad Model Craftsman in 1968. In that post-WWII era many model railroaders also struggled, as many do today, with their desire to have a layout. Back then many didn’t have much room for one because they were living in apartments, small houses, or trailers, or they didn’t have the cash for a basement-filler. E. L. Moore was in that category. He lived in a small apartment and had quite a modest income. His famous Elizabeth Valley RR was only 4 ft x 6 ft. That’s still rather large by today’s standards of what a small layout often is, but it fit in his apartment and generated so much interest from readers that he had postcards printed up with the EVRR track plan on them to respond to inquires about the pike. 

But, as I mentioned, Mr. Moore wasn’t the only model railroader doing small layouts in that era. I’ve mentioned a few here, but I should write more about the others I’ve seen, and follow up on a few leads that I’ve set aside “for another time”. While it’s true that large layouts dominated, little ones had a presence, and lots of creative thought went into them. 

I sometimes encounter YouTube videos where the hosts will list not having room for a layout as one perceived reason the hobby doesn’t have much of an uptake with younger modellers. The argument seems to be implicitly based on the assumption that the large layout is the thing being desired. To me this demonstrates a lack of knowledge regarding the fantastic array of smaller model railways that are being built today, and the long history of little layouts. I’m not going to try and educate people on the state of small layouts in today’s scene. Just go to YouTube, The Micro Model Railway Dispatch, or Voie Libre, and you’ll be well on your way to educating yourself about projects in this fascinating field. 

Here, I’d rather talk about many of the older little layouts from say 1945 to around 1980 that were covered in magazines, but aren’t all that well known, or known at all. Many of those are even more viable today because we have much improved technology right across the board to implement and riff on them than they did back then. Frankly, the more ideas one is exposed to, the more depth you have to work with when designing your own layout. I’d bet AI doesn’t know about any of those classic little layouts, so it’s up to us humans to step up to the task of bringing them to light. Hopefully AI will one day incorporate that knowledge into its databases to share with others - well, I can hope :-)

Paperclip-7
Little layout thinking applied to a Scalextric 1/32 scale slot car track**
Size is approximately 200cm x 130 cm

What do I consider little? I don’t have hard and fast dimensions for you other than the layout should be considerably smaller than a standard 4’ x 8’ sheet of plywood. Micro-layouts are the smallest in the category, with the largest being around 4 sq. ft. in area. I should note I’m not talking about modular layouts, but self-contained, stand-alone little worlds. Over the years I’ve taken a stab at defining some different classes of little layouts, usually with tongue firmly in cheek, such as MCM-7 and the Anti-Layout. The only definitive thing I can say is "I know one when I see one" :-)

One other thing I like about little layouts is they open the door to pleasant activities and learning that is distinctly human and, so far, inaccessible, and maybe incomprehensible, to AI. And before we get too far into this, I’m not saying they are a gateway activity to STEM or STEAM. I don’t have something so instrumental in mind. Someone of course might attribute model railwaying as their introduction to a professional career, and that’s all well and good, but boosting career prospects is not the point I'm trying to make. It’s the idea that mind, body, and soul all come together to make these little layouts that aids being a human being. This happens with large layouts too, but the advantage of little ones is that they’re lower cost, easier to complete, and you can build several different ones to a high degree of completion in the time it would take to build a moderately detailed, moderately sized big layout. ‘Moderately sized big layout’, sheesh, there’s another thing I’m going to have to define, but for now I’ll assume you know what I mean. This all helps to speed learning so you can develop deeper, more sophisticated layouts relatively faster. And you don’t have to trash your finished layout to make way for a new one, which always seemed like a colossal waste to me. 

Ok, I've rambled long enough. It's been a long way of saying that I'm thinking about writing on little layouts I stumble across from the pre-micro-layout era, and maybe throw in some posts about things I find in Railroad Modeler too as I think it's an under appreciated magazine from the past. There're are also a few topics about the intersection of AI, model making, reading, and writing I'd like to dive into, so stay tuned, and thanks for hanging around until the end!

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Digressions

* In the article Mr. Olson states he derived the track plan from "an old issue of MR". He doesn't specify which old issue.

I thought, ok this seems like a problem in topology. Maybe if I give Gemini the track plan it can try and pattern-match its lines to other track plans it has access to. The track plan's lines may need to be stretched, strunk, or bent, but that's topology for you and that laborious work should be something AI can do far better than me.

Gemini gave very authoritative sounding replies to my question, but in the end what it told me it had made up, which I discovered after checking the sources it recommended.

It recommended an article called A Wye for Small Spaces by Linn Westcott in the Nov '57 issue, and A Wye for Small Spaces (yes, the same title as Westcott's article!) by Gordon Odegard in the Nov '64 issue. Neither issue had any articles by either of them that even came close. Gemini also said they could be found in the classic book 101 Track Plans for Model Railroads and that too proved false.

While I'll need to do some good old fashioned research to find the source, I didn't mind the wild goose chase. I found some interesting articles in both those issues I'm going to write about here. So, even though I don't care for the blatant making things up stuff that AI does, I often find in its randomness some interesting paths to follow.

**I got into model railways via slot cars. I've recounted the story many times, but I'll simply summarize it by saying: 1/32 Scalextric & Eldon slot cars -> E. L. Moore -> model railroading. 

I got to wondering if I could design a slotcar track for 1/32 scale cars and Scalextric track with a footprint no bigger than 2m x 1m, which would fit in the back of my SUV with the backseats turned down. I came close.

I used the app Railmodeller Express to design what I call the Paperclip-7 layout, named as such because it looks like a paperclip and the scenery will be reminiscent of a wild stretch of Ontario's King's Highway 7. Whether or not this layout will work is up for debate. 

If I ever build this thing, you'll be the first to know :-)