B&M Conn River.

[Ian MacMillan]

I think the mills and river should be some of  your scenic elements. That will really help set the stage for the area.

[R L Smith]

I agree with Ian. If the staging area is off of the 4x8, then you should be able to include a busy mill area on one long side and a nice river scene on the other.  If you can't expand beyond the 4x8, then a passing siding on the river-scene side would allow some "visible staging".  (I'm not sure I've followed your layout / room dimensions correctly.)

The peninsula shown here is 3.5' x 7.5'.  It's misleading because the 2nd photo shows tracks going off to the right, where on a 4x8 they would continue to the rear of the photo and connect with the river scene.  But this shows how much real estate can be developed into an industrial setting typical of your region.





The passing siding in the second photo holds  one loco + 10 cars + caboose.  It's inside a double-track mainline.

I like your time frame -- it allows a great selection of locos and paint schemes.  IIRC, the CP/B&M pool trains of the '70's and '80's mixed CP ALCo / MLW's with B&M GP's (and the occasional B unit).  This practice stopped sometime in the early 80's due to an FRA ruling that the sanders on all units had to be of the same type (electric or pneumatic?  help me here...), so after that date you no longer had CP ALCo /MLW and B&M EMD's running together in the same consist.  (But it's your layout, so remember Rule # 1!!)

Ron

[Bsklarski]

Exactly, a typical Conn River line consist between Springfield and Deerfield, sometimes to White River Junction was am RS-3 leading, a B unit and then a Gp7 or 9.

[Bsklarski]

OK guys its been 10 months since a post or an idea. Give me some motivation guys! I  am looking at a 4x8 blank sheet of foam and a a 36" x 80" door with foam!

[MichaelWinicki]

You have an updated list of likes & dislikes Brian?
-Era?
-local (including input on rural/urban)?
-Single track or double?
-What's the density of traffic?
-Yard?  And if so is it a division point or a yard that only breaks-up and creates a few of the trains that see the mainline?
-Staging?
-How many operators?
-Branchline off the main?
-You want plenty of switching or just want to see trains run?
-Passenger service?
-Big engine terminal as part of the yard or a small engine terminal as part of the yard?
-On a scale of 1-10 how important is the scenery component?
-How many villages/towns/cities do you want your model RR to touch or service?

Question– is the "door-sized" section an extension off of the 4x8?  And if so in which direction?

[davefoxx]

Brian,

Oh, boy!  The blank sheet of foam is very exciting.  I love starting from scratch where you get to start over and learn from and correct for the mistakes of the past.

Can you give us some idea of what space you have?  Are you planning an island style layout with both the 4' x 8' table and the 36" x 80 HCD?  Are you willing to cut it up to make more of a shelf layout?  You might get a longer mainline that way.  Or, are you only going to do the 4' x 8'?  One thought is that you could take a design for a HCD and expand it to the 4' x 8' size, which would allow you to fit a lot more in.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the area to be able to help you pick the location and design the plan until you're off and running.  I admit that I'm no DKS.  As others have suggested, pick some specific areas and perhaps you can design some LDEs.  Perhaps we should start with your givens and druthers, e.g., single track vs. double track, staging, yards, scenic elements, etc.  Let's get to work.

DFF

EDIT:  Whoops!  It appears that Michael beat me to it, so my post may be redundant.  But, I won't delete it, in case it helps in some small way.

[Bsklarski]

I love starting over. Hell, I just want to start lol. Ideally I would love to use the 4x8 as am island, with a short end up against the wall to save some space. I would like to make the scenery backdrop in such a way that I wont need to cover every inch of foam and have maybe 3 square feet inside the backdrop hidden and not have to worry it. I would also like to see the 36" x 80" used as half staging and half branch? I have two ideas there. Double track would be nice, but I am also leaning toward the idea of a modeled ripped up second track, row. 2 or 3 trains (freight and 1 passenger) would be fine. Some switching, with a local. Because there is nobody near me, it would be single operator. %75 urban %25 rural.

Ian knows the area and region I want to model. The Conn River line of the B&M in the Holyoke Mass area. No engine terminal in this area. There are two small branches I can model, one is a B&M (X NH) and the other PC (X NH). Scenery is about 5 or 6 rating. The yard (small) would only handle small amounts of interchange traffic and local set outs for the industries they service.

[Scottl]

Depending on the era, the power plant at Mt Tom would be a good industry, and I would protolance the rest to make the operations interesting.  There are lots of small industries and spots that could be modelled, depending on your preferences.  I never paid much attention to it when I lived there, but I think the line holds great potential.

[garethashenden]

So, this should be fun. You've got unit coal to Mt Tom, north and south freight, both East Deerfield - Springfield and White River Junction - Springfield. Then you have Amtrak. Unfortunately that only ran at night but you can change that if you want to run some early Amtrak.
As for scenery if you want to model the Mt. Tom coal plant you will need to model Mt Tom as well, at least in part. The river also needs to make an appearance, it wouldn't be the Connecticut River line without the Connecticut River. I also think you need several brick mills to set the scene. Don't forget the dinosaur footprints just north of Holyoke, they're right up against the tracks and the tracks are right up against the river.

[Bsklarski]

Wow sounds like you guys know the area well. Almost forgot about the dino prints. Yes that is the area for now I would love to model. Basically South of Northampton to Holyoke. Mt Tom power plant is in the scheme. I have been massing Conrail 100 ton coal cars    Also Conrail power.

Those who know Holyoke well would maybe see this Tomix bridge may fit the bill for that famous now gone pedestrian bridge across the main line just North of Holyoke station

[Ian MacMillan]

Brian.

I think you can do some real nice stuff here. On this layout I would do the 4x8 and then have the door as a branch line, so that the layout looks like an L. I would set the backdrop in a big "C", allowing you to have a hidden staging of about 10-12" on the back side of the 4x8. This can also reduce the look of the sharp mainline curves.

I would definitely suggest a double track mainline with a modeled removed track 2. In your era you could easily and nicely modeled the removed track 2 with ties in place, creating an interesting visual element.

I dunno if I'd really model Mt. Tom other than a through coal train. You could maybe put it on the branch door, with the track tucking behind the backdrop so as if it was off in the distance. I think that the rivers, canals and mills with their switching and awesome backdrop should be your focus here.

But then again I love mills...

[Bsklarski]

Some good ideas here. I roughed this out real fast. Not perfect and can be changed.
The thick blue line is the back drop. Staging will for the most part be hidden. I can also run the New Haven/ PC staging into the staging area easy since it will be close to there. Plenty of places for river and water, and it opens more up for buildings and canals and factories and everything else in there.

[R L Smith]

Hi Brian,

The L-shape should work well; do you have the room to put the shortest dimension against the wall and keep your staging fully accessible?

The "North is right" orientation keeps the river between the aisle and the tracks, at least until you have to bridge to the east bank at Holyoke.  Much easier to scenic!

Ron

[Guilford Guy]

If you include the PV interchange (was that old NH trackage?) you could score some street running along the canal in Holyoke. That area is littered with mill buildings, if you have a few Middlesex Mnfg kits. I love those RS3/Fb/GP7 lashups. I've only ever seen photos of them on the B&M, and would be surprised to hear of them with any regularity on other roads.

[DKS]

I realize the plant is on the wrong side of the tracks, but it's really hard to maintain the correct orientation in such a small space.