Inspiring Layouts - Vol. I

The formatting of this blog still leaves a bit to be desired and my links don't seem to want to save. I hope to have the kinks ironed out soon.

In the meantime I wanted to start a little series about inspiring N-Scale modelling I have found on the web while browsing around. In each installment I will present a layout or module that I find to be particularly well done: convincingly realistic in terms of both landscaping and the rail operations presented, as well as reflecting an above average attention to detail.

The first one (or two, actually) I want to draw your attention to are the layouts by Gabriel H. His main layout is entitled "Rheine Nord" and is a room-filling depiction of Rheine in the 70's and has been featured in a number of publications. I don't want to post pictures here directly without permission, but you can find one gallery with layout plan here at 1zu160.net and another set of posts with lots of pictures over at mobablog.info.

The town of Rheine in North-Rhine Westphalia sits along two important main lines (from the Netherlands east towards Hannover and from nothern Germany south towards Cologne) and was a significant freight hub. Most interestingly for railfans and rail modellers, that area was one of the last to be electrified and thus Rheine remained one of the last bastions of steam traction in West Germany through the mid 1970's. Gabriel's layout captures this transition era perfectly with one of the two main lines having just been electrified but plenty of classic steamers living out their last days.

The layout uses code 50 flex track and long turnouts that really are essential to achieving such realistic trackage. The buildings contain a fair number of commercial kits, but also a lot of kitbashes with a handful of scratchbuilts as well. Indeed the kitbashing is so masterful that you can often hardly recognize the donor kit. E.g. you would never guess that the post office to the right of the station is composed of elements from Faller's "Bonn" station. Most locos are superdetailed with brake hoses, UIC couplers and the like and have been weathered realistically and not too excessively.

This layout to me is a perfect example of capturing the spirit of both a specific era and a specific place. Not only are the train compositions as perfectly prototypical as can be done in N scale, but the architecture and the landscaping are unmistakably those of northwestern Germany, close to the Dutch border. This is hard or impossible to achieve taking commercial kits right out of the box. Moreover, with respect to the landscaping, Gabriel tackled the considerable challenge of hiding the "ends" of the main line where it descends into the underground very effectively with overpasses and mirrors and the like, despite modeling a region with a nearly flat landscape.

A layout like Rheine Nord requires a lot of space, which I won't have. For that reason, I find Gabriel's second more compact layout (300 x 80cm), Basel-Ost (pictures at the same two links above), even more interesting. I am fascinated by terminus stations. The additional shunting and manoeuvering necessitated by a terminus as opposed to a through-station, presents a wonderful opportunity for much more interesting train operations on a model layout, regardless of whether you are modeling an earlier era when locomotives would have to be changed, or if you're modeling the present era with bi-directional and push-pull trains. Unfortunately, most terminus stations are in large cities and an even borderline realistic representation even in N scale would require prohibitive amounts of space.

Gabriel has very effectively overcome this challenge by merely suggesting the entrance to a terminus at the right end of the layout. This focuses the viewer's gaze on the intake area in front of the station, where most of the action happens anyway. The name "Basel-Ost", while without real prototype, suggests a secondary eastern terminus, perhaps a ways outside the city center proper, thus not requiring such grand scale or very large urban buildings in the immediate vicinity. The choice of location - Basel in the Alpine foothills - offers both the opportunity to make trains disappear in tunnels thanks to the hilly topography, as well as giving an excuse for varied SBB and DB train compositions with Basel being on the Swiss-German border. There is even space for a little tram line.