Another Look at East Angus Paper Mill

The more I design layouts, the more I find out they are just like movies. Their length should be relevant to the story they are telling. Sometimes, we have great layout ideas but we forgot that the scope of the benchwork should be sized according to the real point of interest. What’s the deal with filling an entire room if the neat scene only requires half of it? Why dilute the narrative by fear of lacking interest? I feel it is often there that we end up outreaching ourselves and burdening our soul with the daunting task of filling up the space.

Chris Mears, as always, triggered these questions during our discussion two weeks ago in Toronto. He simply asked me how I would frame a layout according to the room so the visitor, in a glimpse, would understand the essence of the entire project. I promised I would give some thought about it and here we are. The case of East Angus – the small paper mill layout idea – comes to my mind as a perfect case.

Originally, it was designed as a single long shelf on a wall. In about 16 feet, you have the industrial “urban” canyon, a newsprint warehouse built on a river bank and a large bridge connecting a spur lost in the woods that connect half a mile away with the main line. As you know, I’ve revisited this idea many times, adding the interchange and spur to the recipe. Though I believe they are inherently good ideas, they are required. In fact, the only place we will spend a lot of time is at the mill, looking at the train shuffling cars and crossing the bridge dozens of time, making it a great train spotting vista. This is not very far from Mike Cougill telling us he loves to watch trains from a single trackside spot since it is closer to the real life experience.

To be honest, if one would railfan the paper mill, he would indeed place himself near the bridge. A big part of the excitement would be to wait for the incoming train to pop out of the woods and cross the steel span over St. Francis River. On the other hand, the spur linking the mainline would be hardly accessible and wouldn’t provide that much interest. Operation on the mainline would also be insignificant in terms of time spent there. Thus raising again our original question about the scope of a layout. Would it make sense to dedicate about 60%, if not more, of a layout for about 5% of operations? We will stand in front of the paper mill for about 30-45 minutes, but will barely care about the rest of the layout. Does it require the same amount of resources? Maybe… but in this case, I don’t think so because the rest of the layout isn’t compelling as much as the paper mill itself that got me to start designing.

If this connection with the mainline was part of a whole story larger than the paper mill, maybe it would make a lot of sense. But as a switching layout, this is a waste of time, resources and energy that should be spent on building the main scene. Thus, if I had to frame this layout, it would be on the longest wall of the room, with the paper mill aligned with the entrance door to clearly state the goal and purpose of this layout and showcase the best part.