N scale NEC

[motofavorite]

Many years ago I lived and worked within a mile of the Northeast Corridor (the "NEC").   On warm nights with raised windows I could hear Amtrak slipping past. Around that time Atlas introduced its HO scale AEM-7 and I started doodling an HO layout. I only had to walk down the street to find the prototype and many evenings my car joined a small parade of Norfolk Southern "Triple Crown" RoadRailers for a few blocks on my drive home. That layout never made it off of the paper I drew it on, but its kernel survived.

The seeds for the N scale layout drawn below took root last year. Railroad Model Craftsman published two articles last summer inspired by the NEC. Both were room sized layouts and one was in N scale, built on a hollow core door. Hiroe's NEC modules were also inspiring. So I reached for my pencil and started again. The layout is roughly triangular and has no backdrop. I hope that the triangular arrangement allows each scene to borrow from the other two.

The red rectangles are 3'x4' modules. Each side of the triangle hosts a large scenic element - a marshy estuary with lift bridges, a chemical plant, and a city station - united by the elevated tracks of the NEC. There is also a ground level freight line inspired by the PRR Shellpot branch that bypasses Wilmington and crosses the Christina River.

I am trying to leave room for shelf-style staging yard connections, maybe disguised by a flyover junction. I also saw some clever staging loops used by FreeMoNebraska and the Bridgeport & New London.  I don't think I need to worry about that detail right now.

[wm3798]

This will be fun to watch, both for the unusual geometry, but also the subject matter.
Do you plan to be era neutral so you can run Gs as well as the more modern stuff from time to time?
Lee

[dem34]

This will be fun to watch, both for the unusual geometry, but also the subject matter.
Do you plan to be era neutral so you can run Gs as well as the more modern stuff from time to time?
Lee

With magnets anything is possible.

[motofavorite]

This will be fun to watch, both for the unusual geometry, but also the subject matter.
Do you plan to be era neutral so you can run Gs as well as the more modern stuff from time to time?
Lee

That's likely. I love my G's and I've long sought a natural habitat for them. And the Amtrak-era permits shorter trains and modern commuter trains that use the nifty Alstom Multilevel cars. If Atlas would shrink their AEM-7s to N scale I might actually foam at the mouth. So everything is going to flex in time.

Likewise the scenes I'm devising are meant to be generic. The station is an amalgam of stations in Metz (head house and tower) and Tours (trainshed). I hope that rendering it in brick with a brick viaduct will help it look familiar without being specific to any particular place. CMR's version of Baltimore Penn Station is gorgeous but without the B&P Tunnel and the Howard Street bridge I would start to see only deficiencies. I hope that my models are ordinary enough and spread apart enough to keep my eyes on the train. 

[motofavorite]

With magnets anything is possible.

No argument with that.

[motofavorite]

I found these photographs online years ago. So long ago that I don't remember anything about them. I believe the models are N scale.

Google Lens failed to turn up any information about them. Can anyone identify the work? Are there other pictures of the same model?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I want to say those might've been a Lance Mindheim ShelfLayouts.com project, but I could easily be wrong.

But whatever they are, they're ******** awesome looking.

[motofavorite]

But whatever they are, they're ******** awesome looking.

Totally!