Shortline Inspiration: Update on North Stratford

I have previously mentioned the North Stratford Railroad Corporation, and in a discussion on interchanges on RMWeb, I posted an abbreviated history plus a diagrammatic view of the station.

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Although this represents a specific location, there are general principles at play here. Although the interchange track appears to be of limited length, only coping with 6 cars, that figure refers to the unencumbered track, clear of any turnouts. In practice, the CNR can drop off more cars (empty 40′ box cars and some feed in hoppers for Agway at Coleford), pushing them down the tail end of the former MEC trackage, as long as their own power does not go off its own track. Any local traffic for the short spur near the depot needs to be switched by the NSRC.

Similarly, an arriving NSRC train can come in on the main, run round, then push its full loads onto the empties, and pull them clear of the interchange, putting them into the NSRC loop if necessary, before placing its train of full boxcars (and any empty hoppers) onto the interchange road. If necessary, it may need to use the recently acquired train to push the loads clear of the turnout for the CNR to collect, without going onto the track itself (I am sure blind eyes were turned at times!)

The NSRC ran once a week, but on two days. I know that sounds odd, but on a Tuesday, the loaded boxcars were switched away from the plant, and replaced with empties that were waiting. On Wednesday, they took the loads down to North Stratford, coming back with empties which were placed ready for the next week.

In MEC days it was simpler, as the branch train came up the CNR making use of trackage rights.

In any era, this presents interesting operating potential, and with the CNR served by storage loops and the NSRC by a couple of storage roads, it would make for an interesting oval layout in its own right, whether for the prototype roads, era and location or for anything else.

Personality

In a round-robin Email between a small group of friends (whom I like to think of as “The Unusual Suspects”) Matt LaChance, not even speaking in his mother tongue, came out with several superb insights, not least of which was this:

I’m still looking for my personal approach to this [for the] Temiscouata project even though I know deep inside all the key ingredients are there. Making a good layout right now would be easy, but making it a special layout with personality, that is something else. I have a blurry vision in my mind, I can almost feel on my neck the slightly chilly wind that sweep the St. John’s River valley, but have yet to translate it on the canvas.

Now, isn’t that a grand, poetic way to view the creation of a Model Railway?

That’s my emphasis, but what a great phrase, “a special layout with personality”.

When you think about it, isn’t that what precisely (and yet indefinably) defines a great layout?

Stop blaming others and seize the opportunity

I saw this on a forum I use:

But, as it seems I don’t build etched brass kits or even whitemetal ones some will say that I’m not a modeller

Who are these “some”? I haven’t met any of them.

Anyone who goes beyond simply opening boxes is a modeller and the idea that you have to build etched brass kits to become a modeller is nonsense.

This is akin to those who refer to, for want if a better way of putting it, “finescalers” as elitist. Well, I know some of the best modellers in the country, and not one of them is in anyway elitist. Sure, they want to make their models as accurate as possible, to the finest possible standards, etc, but not one of them has ever told me that everyone else must do the same, or that anyone who doesn’t is somehow not worth anything. And all of them, and I do mean every single one, are prepared to share their techniques with anyone who is interested. The only complaint I ever hear from them is that too many are afraid to try.

Personally, I am getting sick and tired of it. We all have limitations, be they time, money, space or skills, but we can increase and improve our skills given time a degree of time. And time can replace money, too: start with raw materials and learn their properties, and acquire the basic tools to work with them. Cutting out and embossing takes longer than buying etchings, yes, but the mistakes and hence the lessons learned are your own, and with time these mistakes are replaced with new ones, and new lessons.

The only times I see the idea that what someone is doing isn’t good enough to be “proper modelling” is from their own minds. There are no right and wrong ways to be a modeller: just putting some personal effort into making a model look more like the real thing, which is as much about careful observation of the real thing as it is about anything else. And you don’t have have to go back in time to see how dirt and weathering affect things.

No, when I see people refer to “some”, I generally incline to the view that the speaker is the “some”, and rather than admit that they feel they could do better, they project their disappointment onto a perceived elite which doesn’t exist. Feeling that you could achieve more and better is quite possibly the defining characteristic of the human condition: it drives us to self-improvement, to every model being slightly better than the previous one (in the early stages, to every model being significantly better than the previous one) until we reached a point where the law of diminishing returns starts to kick in.

From what I have observed, that doesn’t usually happen until one is well advanced into one’s dotage.

As the Bard put it,

From this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.