Prototype or Freelance?

Prototype or freelance? I struggled with that very question for over 15 years!

I've always liked the idea of "modeling" a prototype as that is what "modeling" is (to me): copying something that exists (usually in a different scale). Also following the prototype is generally easier as most of the work has been done, you just have to pick the pieces that you want and copy them.

The problem was always that compromise referred to as "selective compression". It seemed that every time one invoked compression, something was lost, and it was never really possible to model the prototype as (usually) one never had the space. This led to other problems as to how to model the sources for all the traffic that we want our trains to haul -- where did it come from? Where was it going? Without these places being modeled i.e., "hidden" the model seemed inadequate.

Freelancing had the tremendous advantage of allowing one to model whatever one felt like, even pieces of different prototypes if desired. One could pick and locate the industries to fit the space; a huge benefit from a modeling point of view. If prototypical practices were followed a very "believable" model railroad would result. The problems with these is that they required a lot of work up front to ensure that the pike would operate like a real railroad and, (perhaps more importantly) they weren't immediately familiar to others; unlike a prototype where the mere mention of the name (SF, D&RGW, SP, etc.) creates a mental image of what is being modeled to most other model railroaders.

My dilemma was solved by:

1) A track plan submitted by Enzo on the Layout Design SIG Group, which included a Harbor with car transfer operations (thus eliminating the tracks to hidden staging -- the car floats take car of that); and

2) An article in MRP 2002 describing a yard that could be modeled in N scale in 32 sq. ft. with very little compression.

That’s the path that I'm on and I am excited about developing this concept into a physical reality.

Dave O.