Barchester

A 00 Gauge Model Railway

Prototype Or Freelance?

There are several things to consider here, such as whether you are going to model a freelance situation or a prototypical one. If prototypical which company and in what era, the steam age, modern times or the meeting point of the two? What kind of running do you want to do when the rails are down, continuous, there and back or a mix of the two?  The kind of running you decide on will be the lynch pin of the whole model because your basic track design will have to reflect this choice.

You may say that you don't want to be bothered with any of this, you just want to see some trains running. A quick answer would be, don't we all. However that's not very helpful, so I would only say that in my experience of other modellers, who have said the same thing,  they have quickly changed their minds as their model began to take shape and they could see the possibilities. Their ever growing skills are then being applied to a model that means something, that has a purpose.

A decision taken now, on the choices shown below, could well save you a lot of money on kit that is inappropriate but in the long run would make no difference if by some chance you stayed with just wanting to see your trains go round and round.


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Prototype Or Freelance?

Is a love of the real thing the driving force behind your desire to build a model railway? If so then you will probably be choosing to model a particular prototype.
Unless your choice is the modern era, where you can go and look with your own eyes, take photographs, sketches and measurements, then there will be a fair amount of research in front of you to find out how things really were, and how different to your memories.
Why would I want to research anything you may ask? Well, if you are presenting your model as the XYZ branch of the GWR in between the years 1945 and 1960 then it is only right that you should make some effort to see that it is as accurate as your chosen scale, skill and space allow. A am not saying that your layout should be a photographic image of the chosen time and place but it should at least have the correct rolling stock on it's rails, and the correct signals. Find photographs of the station buildings and reproduce them the best you can. Make sure that any road vehicles are of the appropriate type for that period. There are many things to look for and implement into your model and they will all add to your pleasure and satisfaction as each one is made to the best of your ability.

If, however, you are like me and prototype railways aren't your primary interest then consider going down the freelance road. The demands and skill requirements on the freelance modeller are just as great as those who desire to reproduce a prototype. You can model something that might have been, on the GWR for example, a line that feeds an imaginary town from somewhere in the west country because of the demands of a local industry that you have invented. Maybe a dockland scene with grimy buildings and overhead cranes everywhere, retaining walls covered with years of soot and dirt. The list of scenes that can make good models is almost endless.
Or, you could go the whole freelance hog and just build a good looking model with the things that you like on it, and with all different kinds and eras of engines and rolling stock. The choice is yours and always remember we are doing this for pleasure, our pleasure. So, wherever your final choice leads you, make sure you enjoy the experience.


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Continuous Run Or A There And Back?

There are really three choices here, continuous run, there-and-back, or a combination of the two. I feel quite certain that to the non railway modeller the continuous run layout is the only and obvious choice. This is what you see in the major toy stores or at Christmas and on the big manufacturers packing materials and for obvious reasons, after all this is a train, and it needs to be seen to be doing what it is that trains do and nothing is easier to arrange than a train going round in a circle pulling a couple of coaches or a mixed bag of wagons.

A continuous run on a model railway does exactly the same thing but with much greater complexity. The continuous run only happens as and when the operator chooses. The big difference, in the vast majority of cases, is that this is not usually obvious to the onlooker, unless the operator wants it to be. On the model railway the continuous run comes in many guises but in my view it has one serious drawback and that is the amount of room that is needed to accommodate it. In spite of my above remarks I have seen some very nice layouts in narrow gauge where lack of room to swing big curves has had no detrimental effect on the models appearance. Indeed, with very careful planning and attention to detail I have seen this lack of space turned into a virtue.

Our second choice, and my personal favourite, is the there-and-back system. The train starts at point A, travels to point B, is turned by one method or another and then returns to point A. This type of layout can be used in the smallest of spaces and when combined, as is usually the case, with a fiddle yard, or even two fiddle yards, then the operational possibilities are almost limitless and can follow very closely prototypical practice. This is not to say that a continuous run layout can't follow prototype operation, of course it can, as can be seen in some very fine models on the internet and the model press.

Thirdly we have a combination of these two systems. Here we have the best of all worlds it would appear but once more we have a large space requirement for the continuous run.


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