Burnout is inevitable in any creative endeavor, so taking time away from it is a way to gain fresh perspective and recharge. For most of the past year that is what I did. During that time I weighed a number of options, including tearing out and starting over with a different concept, even selling off all my trains and getting out of the hobby altogether.
What caused such a deep contempt for my layout as built and the hobby in general? The answer is nuanced, and this entry may do the issue some justice. Despite all claims to the contrary, which easily fall apart upon real scrutiny, model railroading is a community hobby. Sure, one must please oneself first and always, but a model railroad also has an external audience. If you are focused on operations, you want to attract good operators and have them enjoy it enough to want to come back. If you are a good modeler, you want to attract other modelers to appreciate your work and offer ideas on how to improve it. If you have children or grandchildren, you want to impress them. Point made.
When I set out to build a layout, I wanted to model my favorite aspect of railroading: passenger, mail and express operations. The focal point of a serious passenger operation is the depot. For me, passenger, mail and express provide not only the most colorful aesthetic for modeling, but they are a part of railroad history no longer seen today.
Side Note: As a modeler, the first question anyone asks me when seeing my scale models is "that's so cool. Have you ever thought about doing a miniature of your own house?" Hell No, NO, NO and again NO!! What's the point of modeling what you see everyday? Modeling, as a creative endeavor seeks to capture the extraordinary - the past, a fantasy world. Especially after 2 years of COVID, the last thing I want is another reminder of the space I occupy every day!
Passenger Operations Are Fun
The one thing that talked me off the ledge of destroying my layout is my first love of passenger trains and their operations as a link to a long-gone part of American culture. A chance viewing of a video of St. Louis Union Station in the 1960s rekindled my love of passenger operations for the sheer variety it offered and the fact that it disappeared from the American landscape over 50 years ago. What I love is the colorful variety of equipment, the glamour and the grit, along with the complex choreography required in its diverse operation. It was that colorful variety - the mix of streamlined dome cars with modernized and colorful heavyweight cars all providing a travel experience for its riders, all part of the city (namely in the depot).
So, my layout was reborn as the passenger operation it was always meant to be, but this time I added variety of trains and roads to give it the diversity that excited me so much. In addition to the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and ATSF equipment that I have, I got the idea of running my depot as an interchange among many railroads. Ogden is one example, but Portland, Oregon provided the latest inspiration. Here the UP and SP interchanged with Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Spokane, Portland & Seattle (SP&S). Having been a fan of Milwaukee Road, and really starting to love the Hiawatha scheme of maroon and orange, this road also seems to be a good player to bring to the game. The color and variety that added to my operation was just the excitement I wanted, and I've thrown myself into it creating operating scenarios and filling the roster with new equipment. Setting the main place in the Pacific Northwest, a place I've always admired for its dramatic landscape and atmospheric climate also materialized a modeling aesthetic - a look and feel - I have wanted to try for over 45 years.
BOOM - everything I ever wanted in a layout I now can have and enjoy modeling: a rainbow of passenger trains, all grounded in real prototype railroads in a beautiful place and time.
Passenger operation is entirely different from the freight operations I see on nearly every layout in Utah at least. And here, most ironically, is where my distaste for the hobby was rooted. I was being told my nearly everyone who visited my layout that "nobody cares about passenger trains," "passenger trains are lame and boring,' 'your layout sucks - just a passenger roundy-round," "passenger trains are not real operations," "nobody will want to operate on your layout because operators won't find passenger trains interesting." Yes, these are all comments I hear when either showing my layout or discussing it to many of the locals.
No wonder I got discouraged.
New Friends, New Passion
Through the community of operators here I got to know many people who are both good operators and modelers. After talking to them and inviting them over to operate recently, I got a different appraisal of the layout. During my first formal operating session with a crew from this group, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive - they loved it. Their comments were that this was the most fun they had operating in a long time, that passenger operation is so different from the typical freight operation that you have to think differently and learn fast. That's the fun.
Suddenly, the 'advice' I was getting was not about how wrong my layout and approach are but how unique and exciting it is. One modeler said "don't change it, just model it, and that will shut up all the critics." Contrary to what I had been told for many years, operators are interested in passenger operations. The one concern raised by an experienced modeler was "I love passenger operations, but it is a space hog." Absolutely correct in his assessment, one has to get smart and make hard choices in taking on passenger operations. Now, having made the choice to focus on depot operations in the heart of the city and not the mainline, my layout appears to have become a sort of template for how to make passenger operations work and be fun in a smaller space.
Another experienced modeler said "this layout is so simple - a point to point with passenger depots being the focal point. It has just enough mainline to connect the two hubs, doesn't need any more than that, which are busy depot and surrounding urban freight switching operations. Operators will love the simplicity of this intuitive operation." The depot is obviously a stub operation with a balloon track (fairly common in urban depots) for departing trains to the two mainlines (Southern Pacific, Union Pacific and ATSF/Western Pacific to the lower level staging area and joint Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Spokane Portland & Seattle, and Milwaukee via trackage rights to stub staging on the main level).
Suddenly, everything that critics disparaged about the layout became its strengths to modelers and operators interested in passenger operation. All doubts now gone, I now am focused on modeling the depot. It's now fun again. It's a strange kind of vindication when a friend said "I told you so" - that I was right all along in my concept and approach but I let the wrong voices in to raise doubts about what my vision for the layout.
The lesson here is listen to what you want to do and ignore those who only want you to fail and do things their way. One critic even offered to help tear it down but is nowhere to be found when the hard work of creating is to be done. The best advice is about the 'how' to do it, not about what I should do. Have you had people should all over you?
Progress Report on the Layout: Depot Comes Together
Having a couple of operating sessions under my belt, incorporating good suggestions on making it work better, and testing prototype train scenarios, all trackwork is complete. Now I am starting to model its facilities. Here is how the depot is taking shape:
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| Depot looking north from Tower with addition of 2 mail tracks (far left), crossover switch to gain access to the Commissary track and enable GN, NP, SP&S, Milwaukee trains get back to their mainline to points north. |
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View of the northern half of the Depot with addition of switch to new Commissary track along the back wall. Express track added to the right with express house in the distance. The center track is occupied by mail and express setouts, awaiting pickup from trains passing through the depot during the next operating session. |
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| Adding two stubbed mail loading tracks, as was common at major urban depots. |
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| Addition of 'Power Tracks' for holding and servicing passenger locomotives while their trains are being worked by depot crews. The control tower is placed per prototype at throat tracks. New crossover and mail track leads are visible at right. Eventually, the tower will be replaced by a taller, more appropriate interlocking tower. |
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Railway Express Agency (REA) depot modeled and placed in its final location. Beyond is the fleet maintenance facility for keeping the terminal's large fleet of delivery vehicles in top running order. This transload depot is modeled after REA's new keypoint terminal concept, where main stations became shipping hubs, replacing smaller depot stops with truck service. Though commonly used in the 1960s, REA experimented with these keypoint depot concepts in the late 50s. This is one of the prototypes, freelanced as it would have looked in 1955-56. |
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Close-up of the REA transload terminal, serving primarily refrigerated and merchandise service in peak seasons. Note the abundance of crates suggesting a very busy day for shippers. Trucks are yet to be placed, and groundcover still needs modeling. |
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| View of the freight house, under construction, with fully-occupied tracks and express house beyond. Along the back wall is where the Commissary complex is planned. |
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Welcome the new kids in town: Northern Pacific heavyweight RPO in the road's 1946-introduced 'pine tree scheme' awaits its next assignment on the new mail-loading track. In my depot, NP interchanges with SP to points south, as it did in Portland, and on my layout with a freelanced Inside Gateway train jointly operated by Great Northern, Western Pacific and ATSF. |
More updates to follow as the depot and layout enter the modeling phase. There are so many facets of passenger operation to be explored: Express terminal and its modeling, Commissary operation and facilities, post office, and finally the depot as architectural triumph - the temple of transportation.
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