Over the Thanksgiving break I had the opportunity to visit Al Churella's wonderful On2 Sandy River and Rangely Lakes RR. Al was a wonderful host, allowing us to stop by during the holiday. His layout is a fantastic representation of the prototype. I had the opportunity to run a train over the layout, which ran very well. The experience also allowed me to cover the entire layout, and to get a feel of what operations would be like. Definitely a narrow gauge layout designed for some fun operations. I would love to get down someday to get a chance to participate in an operations session.
While working on the Albion module I have grown to like to the idea of focusing on a specific prototype. It allows you to really focus on the subject matter and to remove some distraction that freelancing allows (oh, I could add that, and that, and that). Al's layout helps reinforce how fun and challenging focusing on the prototype can be. Enjoy the photo's below!
I agree that doing a prototype keeps you focused, however there are the frustrations of knowing a feature of a prototype but there is no information on it and you have to make your best guess. The frustrating part is not the guessing, its finding out later that you guessed wrong and now you know it, if you ever find out. I guess when it comes to narrow gauge modeling there will always be some freelancing to fill in the blanks, maybe not on a Maine 2 footer but for sure on the lesser documented stuff, not sure if that is good or bad, I guess bad if you want to be 100% accurate, good if you want to do want is easier / faster.
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