Modern Modeling Anthology

What started as a normal model railroading adventure in 1890s On30 ended with a revolutionary three clinics detailing a new way in which model railroading could be conducted.

These three clinics, the Modern Modeling Anthology, highlight heretofore unnoticed aspects of the modern railroadscape and how they comport with traditional modeling subjects. Part 1 introduces the concept of modern transit – Light Rail, Streetcars, and DMUs – and shows how they frequently run immediately adjacent to freight railroads. Part 2 highlights how DMUs are optimal modeling subjects for small shelf switching layouts. Finally, more stand-up comedy routine than how-to clinic, Part 3 details the long slippery-slope of cognitive decline to show how using the near future as a prototype is now a viable modeling subject.

Strap in for three hours of hard truths, novel ideas, and massively plagiarized photographs.

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Part 1: Modeling Modern Transit

This presentation is not just for people who like trolleys! Modern transit systems – Light Rail, Streetcars, and Diesel Multiple Units – are a pervasive aspect of the modern cityscape which can be easily integrated into normally freight-centric layouts. However, despite 60 systems having been built in North America in the past 40 years, many immediately adjacent to freight railroads, they are rarely modeled.

This clinic provides an overview of modern transit: how modern transit evolved from historic streetcars and interurbans, what makes them different from their predecessors, the infrastructural and operational characteristics of each mode, and, most importantly, how modern transit systems relate to and can be modeled alongside regular mainline or shortline freight railroads.

 Part 2: Passenger Service is Prototypical on Small Switching layouts

Small, freight-oriented switching layouts are an extremely popular modeling subject. But few are aware of a dozen fully-prototypical examples of freight switching lines hosting frequent passenger service. Further still, recent DCC-Sound product offerings now make it possible to realistically model these prototypes.

This clinic describes Diesel Multiple Unit transit systems, alternatively called Hybrid Light Rail, an infrastructure-light mode of frequent passenger service that shares the same rails as freight trains. It analyzes all existing examples of DMUs and demonstrates their general characteristics, station design, and operating patterns with two prototypical track plans for a 12’x13’ spare room. Much like their real-world counterparts, model DMUs can be added to existing layouts of any size with minimal modifications, and, whereas passenger trains throw a wrench into the plans of dispatchers, the high frequency of DMUs lobs toolboxes.

Part 3: Proto-Freelancing in the Wrong Direction, My Accidental Quest to Model the Near Future

This clinic is exactly what it sounds like: a recounting of the slippery slope of small, seemingly logical decisions which marooned me on the wrong end of the calendar. A peculiar combination of vociferous Amtrak tripping, university club involvement, and political activism slowly percolated a discovery in the field of microferroequinology, and, like any good scientist, I must share my findings far and wide.

Less a how-to clinic and more a stand-up comedy routine, this presentation covers the aesthetic appeal of well-branded married trainsets, the growth of high-frequency short-haul passenger corridors, and how the tumultuous history of state-supported Amtrak routes allows for ample proto-freelancing opportunities. Strap in for the tale of a long, slow cognitive decline to the revelation that it is now possible to prototypically model the future.