My Favorite Things
1 SEPTEMBER 2013
They're all gone, now. The last "favorite thing" on the layout has disappeared. First it was the coal trestle. Then the rolling lift bridge. Now the old stone factory building. One by one they were eliminated from the plan.
Well, then, so what's left? Hopefully, a better layout.
The coal trestle and lift bridge went away because I could not find examples of them in my layout setting of Jersey City. The old stone factory building was the last of my pet features to bite the dust. But in this case, the reason wasn't due to the lack of a real-life counterpart; instead, it was owing to a desire to make the factory more true-to-life.
The catalyst was a series of photos sent to me by a friend who was traveling through upstate New York some months back. He knew I loved old abandoned factories (actually, we both do) and sent me shots of one he'd found while passing through an old industrial town. The images spoke to me on several levels; I loved the many facets of the structure—the nooks and crannies, the modifications, add-ons and build-outs made over the years.
Copyright © 2012 Peter Mahler
In particular, however, the most informative feature was its layout. The main building was wrapped around the boiler house, which made it seem as though it was tucked into a courtyard. So? That it was unremarkable is exactly the point: it's a very common arrangement. The boiler house is a small separate building for safety, with the elements of the main building arranged around it for economy.
This configuration hung in the back of my mind until now. As I went about finalizing the placement of the various buildings on the layout, I stared at the old stone building for a long while, and eventually came to realize it was preventing me from achieving a superior, more realistic arrangement. I spent the better part of an evening trying to find a way to preserve the stone building, attempting to relocate it almost anywhere it might fit, and in my failure to do so I realized what I needed to do: get real(istic).
By eliminating it, I went from something that made my inner child smile to something that made my inner adult go, "Ahhh. Much better." Almost the moment I slapped together a little boiler house from leftovers and dropped it in place next to a taped-together stand-in for another wing, I saw a marked improvement. Curiously, I wasn't even aware of the fact that my makeshift boiler house was architecturally very similar to the one in my friend's picture—all the more reason, I concluded, that I was on the right track. Incidentally, the little stone building won't be trashed; I'll save it for a "someday project" such as a diorama or perhaps another layout (wouldn't that be nice).
The take-home lesson is this: never be afraid to give up your favorite things, for the consequence may be an improvement, and the promise of greater rewards.