Vince Valley - Applying Lessons Learned From the Circle

The originating  story of this post goes back as far as last October when I was exploring weathering techniques on old plastic kits, many of them Revell. Exploring the American Southwest sure was an excellent way to be immersed into an ubiquitous presence that have always been there in this hobby.

And let's be bold. If I wasn't modelling Canadian National and its adjacent themes, I would either model 1870s 4-4-0 trains or simply the king of model railroading: ATSF. If you have grown up looking at box art like me for hours as a kid, you have been saturated with Santa Fe locomotives and cars. Geeps in dark blue and yellow, F-units in Warbonnet and classic big steamers like the 4-8-4 and the 2-10-4. I blame Bachmann for that, but Life-Like and Model Power didn't help. It's iconic, it's in your face, it's powerful, it's glamourous, it encapsulate everything about cool model railroading.

Classic ATSF steam at Raton Pass in 1954 (credit: Ed Olsen)

The idea of modelling the Southwest grew on me when I was thinking of transforming the Monk returning loop as an American themed shelf layout. Imagine, the main layout is CN and the hidden staging in the other room is Colorado or New Mexico. The idea didn't go far, but then, I explored it again as a lightweight shelf layout in my office room. Would be cool, but cumbersome. Then Merkiomen made me superdetail cheap kits using SP and UP... and ATSF, colors and details. Later, Merkiomen died and it resurrected from its ashes as my childhood friend Vince's long gone old layout. It had been built by is late uncle and decorated with sand to replicate the Southwest with a classic dry riverbed with a low trestle and the ubiquitous Arlee Station.

My friend's original layout track plan

Having collected by accident a few Union Pacific locomotives that were supposed to be kitbashed as CN locomotives, I had a head start... but then, I started to collect a few BLI ATSF steamers. Second hand for some, but also looking at refurbished one. Having seen pictures of the ATSF Fast Mail Express, I had some ideas in my mind. I waited for almost a year until I found the exact BLI Blue Goose (1950s appearance) to recreate that iconic train. I was settled.

Playing with elements to get the feeling right

As I said, I had that idea to recreate my friend's layout because I kind of liked the pragmatic yet versatile track plan. A station on a side with two sidings and a long passing track, and a classification yard on the other side, both separated by a scenic divider that was nothing more than a low kraft paper hill.

We derived countless hours of operation out of that simplistic layout, but let's accept the fact it was quite straightforward and made with brass snapswitches in a classic sectional track approach. Forget about easement, smooth transitions in the yard, superelevation or anything else related to quality track. It was an issue back then, it's even worse now that my standards have been significantly raised in 30 years.

I had to make that layout more jazzy, more curvy, more natural... more grounded in reality. Since ATSF was in my mind, I quickly thought about Raton Pass on the New Mexico border. Far less impressive for railfans than Tehachapi Pass, but quite inspiring for people interested in subtler scenery possibilities.

At Raton Pass, the line follow the river (credit: Eugene Diller)

At that time, a few months ago, I was using extensively AI and Copilot to flesh out the concept, including town names, operating schemes, train consists and even scenery. It was new, flashy, exciting and... full of blatant errors. I had to quickly acknowledge I was fed garbage 50% of the time. Some ideas were cool, but nothing to write to your mother. The sycophant aspect of AI was showing off and at the end of the time, it was just saying what I wanted to hear. A pure definition of an echo chamber... so AI got the boot and the project stalled for a little bit.

Switchlist lore generated by Copilot

That said, some work happened on the layout, including making foam splines and exploring a few ideas. What really changed my approach was that I came by to my Gosford railway explorations which used the same footprint and mainline shape.

A twisty previous version of Q&G

A particular picture of Lake St. Joseph station struck my imagination. I put it in a double S-curve and it worked magic. That's an old trick, but I recall seeing it on a beautifully designed small Japanese HO layout and felt it was worth trying again.

Lake St. Joseph on QLStJ Railway (credit: BAnQ)

Tracks follow valleys (credit: BAnQ)

I added these curves to the Vince Valley, my project file name for the layout, and it started to bring life to what was just a typical 4' x 8'. I had a hard time figuring out what to do with the riverbed and it was left as just a small ponctual feature in a corner.

Building something from scratch

I recall Copilot provided names such as Toluca station and Haskell yard for the main feature. I my mind, it was to be a helper district with an engine house and some sort of facilities to replicate mountain railroading. The creek and pass got named Ringtail as a nod to Raton Pass, though it never congealed perfectly into the concept.

The revised concept was still quite crude

Fast forward to last week and it was time to revive the Vince Valley concept. Once again, I started to play with the Gosford. Archives pictures shows that line followed closely rivers and valleys, curving here and there to conform to the topography. It opened perspectives but closed others. That was clearly resonating with Chris' ideas on the circular JNR layout concept. I thought it would be worth it to use the river not as a scenic feature, but as the backbone of the layout.

Revised Quebec & Gosford with the river on a paper towel

The track would follow the river as long as it could to explain with the railway was so curvy and twisted. Hills would frame that river to make it geologically plausible and realistic. I really liked how the JNR design closed the ends of the layout with higher ground instead of treating it as opening space. It was now two large scenes, back to back, that curved on each side in a realistic fashion. The scenes were neither approached in a frontal way, but rather diagonally. In Toluca, it was all about standing by the river and looking upstream. You could see the train emerge from the treacherous valley/pass, curve around the meander, stop at the station and continue its route. It also helped to frame the area in from of the station. With the long river crossing the entire scene, it made it cohesive and the "distant" hills really started to make sense. Small rural stations located at a river crossing are one of the classic thing in railroading. It emphasizes the depot as a nodal point point around which everything radiate. No need to model the village, we know it isn't far away...

Revised ATSF Vince Valley design without the bulges

At Haskell, the yard was no longer a contrived set of parallel track, but something flowing into the topography. There was a small natural plateau where the railway built the yard and it made sense.

How scenic bulges are framed (credit: Chris Mears)

All these interesting features would also be accompanied by a free form fascia that follows the scenes and expands where needed rather than framing the 4' x 8'. It's all about breaking that sheet of plywood and it's linear nature. Where the eyes and camera requires a larger foreground, it does expand. The perimeted created alcoves and bulges that are naturally responding to the layout with the goal, at the end of the day, of fooling us believing these is more than meet the eyes.

As for conclusion, the last lesson learned was to use watercolors (highly diluted acrylic paint on my desk!) to shape layout designs. It's incredible how the fuzziness of a brush is much better at grasping scenic ideas than anything else and in just a few strokes.

Going Around In Circles - A Japanese Layout

Over the last few months, I finally gave up and acquired a few 1:80 Japanese trains. Most of them of the late 1960s-early 1970s when steam was in its twilight. I could resist these fantastic videos showing double and triple steam headers pulling boxcars and cement cars during the construction boom. Kato has recently released a newly tooling D51 (their largest Mikado ever built domestically) and I was able to find an excellent deal for a pair from a shop in Kobe.

A D51 mikado visiting the QSSR

As expected, a recent discussion with Chris Mears pushed us to explore what could be a railfanning layout based around that material. Something that is made to gaze from a given perspective and immerse you into a surrounding experience. The idea sprouted from observations made about Japanese railways which typically follow deep valleys, crossing several bridges and tunnels to find their ways. In these valleys, your line of sight is generally obstructed and you stand in what could be best described as an alcove. Truly, you are a spectator and following the train along would be, in most cases, very difficult. In some ways, this way to appreciate a layout is much closer to how Japanese modellers experiment it. Lack of space for intricate permanent layouts and their focus on passenger trains make their approach quite different from how Westerners and North American in particular, enjoy their trains.

Rural lines in Japan are often both dramatic and small scope

Such an observation lend itself to a few interesting conclusions. The layout offers glimpses to capture and you are surrounded. These two facts make size almost irrelevant as long as your trains can use a comfortable minimum radius to not look silly. Hence our decision to explore the possibility to develop a scenic layout that would be nothing more than a circle! Yes, the little train circling around the Christmas tree.

Original idea about a scenic loop with a foldable side

A recent video only posted by Rob Waller of the Bron Hebog layout kind of cemented our idea of a layout built only for the express purpose of railfanning and sure, the pencils started to draw designs around it! We originally started the process by exploring a foldable oval with a visible and scenic part. Not uninteresting but not that efficient at the end of the day.

A second iteration

A second iteration was to make it a compact circle and implement a curved staging that could provide some variety while running the trains. Not a bad idea, but once again, the effective surface of scenicked layout was rather limited. It was a classic scene between two tunnels and maybe a curved bridge.

The classic 1970s Life-Like foam runaround layout

Then it dawn on us how close this design was to the classic Life-Like foam layout baseboards of the 1970s. I use to have a similar custom built layout and I recall that from a railfanning perspective, it had some fascinating potential, albeit generally not exploited correctly! What could be done from such a shape? We at least had the grade to replicate the steamers fighting the grade to pull their heavy load over the mountains. That was an excellent start!

Chris' final concept

That's where the magic of Chris Mears struck with this lovely circular layout implementing two scenes. One outside the loop that provides a mainline run along a river valley and an immersive inner loop where you can look at trains fighting the grade. Both scenes are seen from a different perspective, offering both the outside and inside the curve perspective. In such a design, you never really can see where the train originates and goes. Not that it is concealed, but rather that it simply fades away out of your field of vision. It's all about perception. Note that the descending grade is on the outside radius, providing a gentler slope and limiting the runaway effect. Also, it is where the radius is the largest, which is aesthetically more pleasing when looking at cars from the outside. Inside the loop, the grade and radius are tighter where we want to see a real struggle from the train. The tighter radius is mitigated by the fact model trains look better when seen from inside the curve. All in all, this is a very pleasing concept.

As you can see, Chris also modulated the foreground scenes according to the point of view. Where viewblocks or deep perspectives are warranted, the layout expand organically to achieve the desired experience. You will see more of that on other designs to be published in the following days.

Built using Kato R=22.5" and R=28,75" track

The beauty of all of it is the layout could be folded in two sections to save space. Also, it can be built using exclusively Kato Unitrack components, ensuring the circle is geometrically perfect. To be noted, often with small layout, the transition between small radius curves and straight lines are visually jarring. It never works and looks toyish. By removing completely the straight parts, we get a consistent look with no weird motions that break the illusion. All in all, I really love that design and thanks for Chris granting me the autorization to publish his wonderful drawings!

More to come about the ATSF and Quebec & Gosford layout ideas evolved from the lesson learned from that JNR experiment!