Re: S Scale switching layout plan
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I've long been fascinated by John Armstorng's Pratt Street Manfacturers' Railway, attached. ?Designed to fit 22-1/2" x 12' in O scale. Also check out Rob Chant's track planning blog: Charles Weston San Antonio
On Friday, March 7, 2025, 08:06:49 AM CST, JGG KahnSr via groups.io <jacekahn@...> wrote:
Perhaps the ultimate choice for me (if I ever get that far) is included in Arendt's book; having long owned a hard copy of it, I just picked up the CD for it at the local train show a week or two ago.
I have liked the idea since I first saw in the RMC issue back in the 1970's.
I believe the original Gumstump and Snowshoe was the late Chuck Yungkurth's rethinking of his friend Bill Livingstone's around the room single track point-to-point (whose name escapes me just now) which had appeared in MRR earlier.? Both are free-lanced from
the same geographic area as my fictional Ceres and Canisteo¡ªsouthwestern New York State and northwestern Pennsylvania, a short line also supported by lumbering traffic.
Jace Kahn
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Jim & Cheryl Martin <themartins@...>
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2025 2:37 PM To: S-Scale Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [S-Scale] S Scale switching layout plan ?
Hi Tom
If you are looking for a small switching layout plan there are hundreds if not thousands to choose from. You didn't say how large a space you want to fill.
The easiest way to go is to find a prototype track drawing at a small location and simply copy it. That's what Tony Koester calls a Layout Design Element. In my case, the small end-of-branch at Port Dover,
Ontario appealed to me. See below. It ended at the Lake Erie shoreline and had only six turnouts. For space considerations, I combined the fish plant and coal dealer spurs into one. What you see below was removable from my layout and travelled thousands of
miles to dozens of train shows.? For all of it's simplicity, switching a train could take a half hour or more. Especially if done at prototypical speeds and using prototypical practices.?
Two good websites to check out are those of Lance Mindheim () and Carl Arendt (). Lance has written numerous articles about prototypically operating deceptively simple track layouts based on actual locations. His modelling and photography are superb.
I'm a big fan of tiny layouts and the late Carl Arendt built a massive website for micro and mini layouts. Even if you are not pressed for room, the problem-solving ideas in these clever plans are transferable
to larger spaces.
Cheers
Jim Martin.?
p.s. I too always had a hankering to build the Gumstump and Snowshoe.
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Charles Weston