New layout ideas...suggestions?

I just might have to pick up that MR, but it's hard to find in any grocery store here in Columbus, so I'll have to go to the bookstore. I've been busy lately so I haven't gotten to go to the store for track, more roadbed ad ballast so I won't be progressing much. I've decided my layout will be a little prototypical and freelanced. It will have a three track mainline like by my house, and I'm going to have some buisnesses based on the ones by my house, and local landmark names, etc. But I'm thinking Clintonville Southern/Northern or Clintonville Industrial Railroad serving the buisnesses and having the Conrail engines on the mainline and the CIRR taking it from there to the buisnesses haha. Something like that.

There is a group called "PROTOFREELANCE" meaning just that, prototype-freelanced. This gives you liberty in deciding what you want to do, but allowing the connection to the real world so to speak.
Go to my site (below) and click on the links, its listed on the links page.

Sounds like you have a good basic name for your road. I would offer this: Since it is going to be a switching layout, the terminal name works best, industrial, depending on what you like.

Yes, I agree, pick up the latest issue of MR. I might also add that it might be worth looking in the local bookstor for books by Ian Rice (I believe that is his name). He has designed many small layouts and switching layouts.

Finally, try looking at terraserver.microsoft.com (google search terraserver) you can view arial images and topo maps of areas, and you can get fine enough detail to see the tracks and layout.

Thanks, i'll have to sign up for that. Nice layout btw, and I'm thinking of buying one, two locomotives to paint for the CIRR, a GP and an SW. Painting will be the hardest part for me but then, lettering.

If your going to try and paint your own engines, there are a few ways you can do this.

My suggestion would be (if you haven't used an airbrush or don't have one) then use testor spray paints. Every hobbyshop carries full line testor, and there are enough colors to choose from. Even though you don't get the top quality, it will let you learn the basics in painting locomotives.
Although I say this, there are propel air brushes now, that are cheap, I believe Testor makes one, if you want to go that route.
If you do have an airbrush, then I suggest using the PollyScale paints, just for the ease of use.

Before you paint, check this site out.
http://paintshop.railfan.net/
You can find just about any locomotive on this site. Copy the image by right click and save, then open it in MS Paint if you don't have other image editors. You can paint, adjust and so on, to see what your paint scheme will look like.

Depending on the line, shortlines usually either have exotic paint jobs or plain jane and some just paint out the old name and apply new initials.

Don't rush on the paint scheme, give it a little thought and let it reflect your railroad's personality.

For example, my railroad has had three "phases" during its 28 years of operation.

Phase I (1976 - 1984): The railroad started operations in June of 1976 as the "Minnesota and Southeastern" on a small branchline of the Milwaukee Road's Iowa and Southern Minnesota division. Equipment at first was a group of Milwaukee Road EMD SW-1 switchers (only units that could operate over the line due to weight restrictions on the bridges) and later grew to some Chicago & Northwestern GP-9s and the two Soo Line RS-27 "dolly sisters" when the road aquired the Green Bay and Western shops in Winona, MN and trackage rights over the Milwaukee Road to operate from Reno, MN to Winona. At this time the paint for the locomotives was whatever they wore when they came onto the property with patches painted over them (as Throttle_JCKY mentioned above).

Phase II (1984 - 1995): With the aquisition of Burlington Northern's (ex Spokane, Portland and Seatle) ALCo. C-636 units and a couple F units, the road's first "official" paint scheme copied the BN's Cascade Green paint scheme. (It was at this time the road branched north to the Twin Cities through trackage agreements with the Milwaukee Road (later Soo Line and Canadian Pacific) and east to LaCrosse via the Winona bridge over the Burlington Northern and also began converting to a mostly ALCo. fleet as well.)

Phase III (1995 - present): Reflecting on the new name of the "Gopher State Railroad," the decision was made that the second paint scheme for the railroad should mimic that of the MN State Highway Patrol vehicles and thus the current Maroon and Gold scheme was adopted.


Now, you don't have to get as involved in the "history" of your railroad as I did (I plan on periodically staging "historic" photos of my railroad throughout the various eras), but it is something to consider when you go to make your paint scheme for your railroad. A recent startup may have more important things to spend money on instead of a flashy paint scheme whereas a more established railroad may be able to put a little "flash" on their units.

Did your road aquire power from PC (or its founding roads)? Maybe you could get some Pennsylvania or New York Central units, black out the road names and logos and put your own road's initials on them. Do you plan on future equipment owned by your road to have a bright color? Then maybe you can get a Penn Central unit or two and "patch" the PC black with your road's red, blue, yellow, etc. for a little contrast.

Just something you may want to consider.

Just wanted to put the PFMSIG link directly onto the forum here as I am a member of this group, and I can attest its a real cool bunch of people, with all kinds of different ideas on PFM-ing...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pfmsig/

I encourage anyone who freelances in any extant to join, as I feel you'll truely like the company of the folks from the list.

Agreed with JDFX. The PFSIG is a great group. I must also add, its an active group too! So there is plenty of idea exchange. No matter your age, join up.

Here is the link to the website.
http://trains.rockycrater.org/pfmsig/

Join the yahoo group, I am sure there are plenty others on the list to help ya.

I've been a pretty active member of the Yahoo group PFMSIG over the years, but haven't participated in that one or many other discussion groups very much lately. I can also attest it's a great group with many people willing to share ideas and help you work through any problems you run into.

A few months ago I created a composite system map of the members of the Yahoo group who offered their maps for me to include. I received a number of additional maps after putting forth the first effort, but due to time constraints (all my computing time at home is spent on 3D animations lately) I haven't updated the maps. Here's the site if you're interested in seeing the maps:

http://www.geocities.com/pfmsigmaps/master.html

It's a huge map, so dial-up may be slow loading it. Clicking on any of the individual tiles will open the detailed map for that area. I still need to add the roadnames to each color coded line, but in general, gray colors are for the prototype roads where a PFM road has trackage rights.

Naturally, I have my own PFM line, the Pine Valley, and the website for it is located here:

http://www.geocities.com/norfolksouther ... /pvrr.html

I've also written a piece on developing my railroad's paint scheme for Hub Hobby Shop's website located here:

http://www.hubhobbyshop.com/empire5.htm

For topographic maps, terraserver is good, but I like topozone.com even better http://www.topozone.com/viewmaps.asp. I've used that site to create a full "strip topo" of my railroad's route from Gallup, NM to Vallecito, CO which was used to position the alignment of the railroad with a ruling 2% grade. It doesn't hurt that I work in the civil engineering industry, so I have access to all kinds of good software to do this! You might also want to check out the government website for the municipality you're interested in modeling. Tax maps can be a great source of information for locating existing railroads and in some cases, you'll find aerial photos and other mapping for your area. In my area, the best resource for this kind of mapping is http://www.dfwmaps.com/, so if you can find a similar site for the area you're modeling, you'll have plenty of information at your disposal.

It looks like you'll have answers to any questions you have without even having to leave this site, and that's a credit to the efforts of Otto et al in establishing and maintaining this site over the years. You're hard pressed to find a better group of folks than the ones here.