What makes a good layout description?

At the recent ProRail event, I chatted with several experienced model railroad layout operators, and this subject came up: what makes a good layout description? (Meaning, of course, a description of one you haven’t been to before; or in the other direction, what you should try to describe for first-time visitors to your layout.) For some background comments on ProRail, see this post: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/04/prorail-2024.html .

We all agreed that the quality and helpfulness of layout descriptions vary widely. Sometimes you are overwhelmed with details of what is on the layout, or are given multiple pages of information about how operations work on that layout. Often it’s difficult to sort through all the detail when you’ve never seen the layout.

Sometimes you receive something like this: “I won’t describe the layout itself, because it was well covered in Great Model Railroads in 2004.” Not too many of us keep publications that far back; and even if we do, we may be reading the layout description on the airplane while traveling to the operating weekend where we will operate on that layout. Needless to say, the reference to GMR is not helpful in that situation.

Now I’m not criticizing anyone whose layout has been in GMR or any other publication; in fact, mentioning that kind of coverage demonstrates that the layout is at least visually quite good. So by all means, such a reference ought to be in a layout description, but not as a substitute for actually describing the layout. 

Photographs can be helpful, though rarely a major part of the layout descriptions one receives. In particular, a panoramic photo of a layout may show a great deal of what the layout is like, though such views aren’t commonly seen. Below is a fine example, the late Jack Parker’s Northern Pacific layout, published as a double-page spread in GMR for 1995.

Even photos of individual scenes on a layout may make you think, “Wow, I’d love to operate there.” By and large, photos of that type are as uncommon as panoramas. To illustrate, I’ll show a photo I took at John Breau’s outstanding layout in Kansas City, showing the local freight I operated, having just completed switching in the town of Dutton, Montana.

A much more familiar example is the superb Tehachapi layout of the La Mesa Club in San Diego. This scene at Caliente captures much of the appeal (and size) of this layout.

Some of this problem is that the magazines we all read are very focused on visual quality, especially close-ups of detailed scenes. It isn’t easy to portray operational qualities in a magazine, and often an article doesn’t even try. That’s why a number of excellently-operating layouts would never be shown in a magazine. But beyond photos, what else conveys the information you want?

We soon agreed, in our conversation, that the basics for a visiting operator include era modeled, prototype railroad if any, and location in the world (if you model Santa Fe, is it in Chicago? Topeka? Raton Pass? San Bernardino? those would be quite different layouts). Of course, scale makes a difference, and so does operating scheme (CTC? Timetable and Train Order? Track Warrants? just run and have fun?) and, to some extent, DCC system (Digi-trax, NCE, Easy DCC, etc.).

How about track plans? Some of us really liked to study a track plan in advance, others felt that a schematic of the track plan was in some ways better, because it shows you how the layout will work. That isn’t always obvious in a track plan. It can also be informative to mention what the layout emphasizes: small farm communities on a branch line, high-speed mainline passenger trains, large classification yards, dense urban switching, and so on.

Layout size matters too. A frequent way of conveying that is to state the square footage of the layout. That of course does convey size, but shape is important too. Is it long and narrow? square? L-shaped? or something else? Knowing shape and dimensions (which a track plan would include), and an operating schematic, does give you a pretty good idea of what the physical layout is like.

Most of us felt that descriptions of the operating scheme can be fairly brief for an experienced visitor. Pages and pages of procedures and copies of multiple forms that are used aren’t essential. I have occasionally gone back after a session on a layout which provided all that paperwork in advance, and found I could understand it far better in retrospect than beforehand.

A couple of people mentioned a common problem, one I’ve been guilty of myself, providing a layout description that is the layout owner’s idea of what the layout is, rather than trying to see it from the perspective of a first-time visitor, and what might be helpful to explain (and what you needn’t explain because it’s fairly obvious). I try to avoid this problem, but probably haven’t quite succeeded.

I have, in a way, written two layout descriptions. One is a description of layout history and background, for visitors at, for example, open houses. A version of it is available on Google Drive (you can find the text at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YUu3bOCnFQgch43CKynJHVgYOLckQZ4H/view?usp=sharing ). I can see some minor modifications that should be made.

My other layout description is really an introduction to how the layout is operated, not a guide for a visitor, and is distributed before operating sessions. Here’s a link to the current version, also on Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pz7aKNNZatON-DP22fU42uV0HGXjllSa/view?usp=sharing . How did I do?

Tony Thompson