My first model railroad was the Nova Scotia Eastern Railway. It was a two-level around-the-walls layout built in an 8′ x 12′ room. The NSER was a fictional shortline that took over CN’s Dartmouth Subdivision in Nova Scotia, and interchanged with CN and the Windsor & Hantsport Railway at Windsor Junction. The Junction itself was a centerpiece of the railway.
The station at Windsor Junction
The NSER was never completed (are any model railroads actually finished?). In the end I had completed the lower level with track and scenery, and had track up to the upper level and had begun the Dartmouth yard. I had begun operating on the upper level to some extent but there was no scenery there.
Modelers may be familiar with John Armstrong’s “Givens and Druthers”. The “givens” are what you cannot change and the “druthers” are the key features of your layout you want. For this layout…
GIVENS
Room size – 12 feet by 8 feet with a door in one corner and a window on one wall
No room for expansion into other rooms
Cannot make permanent changes to the room (i.e. no holes in walls, no additional walls)
DRUTHERS
H.O. scale
Semi-accurate depiction of the modern Dartmouth Subdivision
Designed for operations
Longest main line runs possible
6-8 car trains
Adequate staging
In my next post I’ll talk about how I designed the railway to achieve my “druthers”.
