2nd attempt at a track plan

[RhB_HJ]

Jeff it's a layout based on British outlines.

Read a bit of that and ..... you'll get the drift regarding the 2-10-0.

On the other .... I am a less is more guy. 

[RhB_HJ]

If one leaves the foot print dimensions at what they actually are and adds a few of the tiniest British outline N-scale structures (1:148!) one quickly gets an appreciation just how little room there is.
Finding dimensions for Brit N-scale structures is a job and a half. (not very user friendly).

[RhB_HJ]

Found a few more; complete with dimensions.   

[Mike from CT]

If one leaves the foot print dimensions at what they actually are and adds a few of the tiniest British outline N-scale structures (1:148!) one quickly gets an appreciation just how little room there is.
Finding dimensions for Brit N-scale structures is a job and a half. (not very user friendly).

Look at the bright side.... The way English currency is falling, one would expect the buuildings to get smaller if they're going to keep the same ratio, pound for £.... 

[Jeff]

I was referring, of course, to the British Railways 9F class 'Evening Star' 2-10-0. I saw quite a few of them and stood within touching distance any number of times. I took a couple dozen photos, though I never got the chance to digitize them. It certainly appeared big enough to give small turntables a run for their money . I saw about 30 of that class when I lived in England. Given the actual size of that turntable's bridge, 5.94" or just shy of 80 feet, overwhelming it wouldn't be too hard. Heaven forbid it ever came up against an American articulated Mallet engine.

[RhB_HJ]

Yes Jeff,

So was I, too. Along with the WD Austerity

United Kingdom

Locomotives with ten driving wheels were rare in British railway history. The first 2-10-0 was built during the Second World War, as a variant of the "Austerity" 2-8-0 for lightly built railways.[9] The only other 2-10-0 type was the 251 strong Class 9F introduced by British Railways in 1954.[10] The class included 92220 Evening Star, the last steam locomotive built for British Railways, in 1960[11]; and 92203 (named Black Prince when preserved), which in 1983 set a record for the heaviest steam locomotive-hauled train in Britain when it started a 2,162-ton train at Foster Yeoman quarry in Somerset.

And I had a look where the remnants of the British 2-10-0 breed went, too. Very interesting.

Oh, the other thing apart from being a "less is more" guy, I also believe in modeling the typical, rather than the exotic "but it could have been" stuff.  In this case if the engine doesn't fit on the merry go round, why bother?

[boatcaptain]

HJ

In England we have a very large selection of ready built, card and downloadable stuctures for N Gauge.  Just try searching on the net UK sites.

Joe

[RhB_HJ]

Hi Joe,

Thanks!
I found quite a few, but many if not most of them don't list the dimensions. Typical instance is Hornby; they list the dimensions for the OO Skaledale buildings but not for the Lyddle End structures.
I started an AR file with plan view buildings in OO scale, I would do one for Brit N-scale, too, but so far I stumbled on the lacking dimensions.

OTOH I'm also holding off on some of the structures and accessories projects waiting for AR ver5 when we supposedly can add those to be directly selectable from the menu, instead of looking through "User submitted....." files. We shall see how well that will work.

[Jeff]

"In this case if the engine doesn't fit on the merry go round, why bother?"

Hmm. First, because this is a museum. No attempt is made to justify the purchase in terms of future freight revenue. Second, perhaps the management of the museum fancies it

[RhB_HJ]

As much as they are fanciers of many things and eccentrics in many cases, the Brits have a lot of common sense when it comes down to having to put up with maintaining and working on stuff that doesn't fit; in the "very nice offer indeed, but thank you, no thank you" manner. At least the Brits that I know.
Unlike a lot of "Yanks" I know for whom bigger is always better, no matter how ridiculous it appears and impractical it is. As two now retired American purveyors of MRR equipment put it: "It's all about the WOW factor".

One of my Brit buddies observed in 1970 while studying the menu card at a NA restaurant. "Look at that Jumbo Shrimp on the menu! Is that the new elephant/shrimp hybrid?"  
To which I deadpanned "Wait until you see the size of the peas."

[Jeff]

Well, HJ, from the very beginning we Americans have had to deal with a country of extremes. That goes from extreme weather to dealing with a country that was many times the size of the entire British Isles (or Switzerland, for that matter...). We came here partly for the room to stretch out and grow. So, of course we found plenty of such room. It applies to railroads, too. Small British engines wouldn't do much good, with their small stature, on a 1500 mile run from Chicago to LA. As a result, engines were made as big as possible to handle heavy trains over mountains and across the desert of the Southwest. I imagine that Russia would have done the same, if Communism hadn't killed off innovation. Even Switzerland responded the same way by running bigger engines (like the Krokodil) over the Alps. So please don't take that holier-than-thou bit and try to run with it

[RhB_HJ]

Jeff,   

You make me laugh!  Somehow you forget that I've lived in Canada for the past 43 years. A country even larger and with more space to stretch and grow, not to mention the climatic extremes. And yet, and yet .....

BTW how much do you know about Soviet or Russian railways?  A bit of reading about their steam power is a very interesting pastime interlude.

Starting with the unusual...

[Jeff]

Yeah, I've read and seen quite a bit about the Russian railways. They will always be the home, I fear, of the just plain strange and always unique .

43 years, eh? As with most Americans, I tend to forget those 'small parts' of Canada that are just plain uninhabitable (by anyone except Inuit and animals). And yet the Canadian railroads never seemed to produce any exceptional engines (by our standards). And is the weather extreme or is it just extremely lacking in warmth?

[RhB_HJ]

@ Joe

Ahhhhhhhhhh, I believe I finally grasped the clever way the Brit mfgs handle that accessories and buildings business. Produce it under a separate name.

They also go to so some length to secure the images, but never fear ....

[Jeff]

Yep, you've solved The Mystery of the Disappearing Buildings