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A Modest Model Railroad
Endymion53 writes "The TMRC at MIT may be the best known model railroad layout because of its role in the formation of hacking culture, but railroad uber-enthusiast Jack Burgess has built himself a pretty enviable layout, that does its best to capture the look and route of an old rail line that went to Yosemite National park, called the Yosemite Valley railroad. I was tempted to make some crass remarks about having too much time on one's hands, but frankly, the whole thing looks just awesome. He's been working on this thing since 1981."
A System One "hammer head" throttle for the DCC system; note that these tethered throttles have since been retro-fitted by North Coast Engineering (NCE) as radio-controlled throttles. The various buttons are labeled for control speed, direction, sound and lighting effects, etc. Programming of a locomotive can also be done "on the fly" using these throttles.
Apart from the attention to detail, the actual functionality is absolutely astounding!
Wow! That is some great detail! I think I can even see a little minature Ringo Starr as MR. Conductor standing next to Thomas the train.
Ever wonder what happens when a website gets smacked by a locomotive?
- I------------can
CHooooo Chooooo!
I-serve-I-can I-serve-I-can I--serve--I--can I---serve---I---can
I------------serve----------
CHooooo Chooooo!
Slash-a-dot-a Slash-a-dot-a Slash-a-dot-a Slash-a-dot-a Slash-a-dot-a
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
You are very quick to make fun of this gentleman, who has obviously invested quite a lot of his time into creating this railroad. I am sure he has quite a lot of fun doing this work, but aside from that it should be obvious to anyone who actually visited his site that he is a true historian. He has actually researched the original railroad and presents much of his information on-line as well as running what amounts to an operating museum.
I, for one, appreciate his work and would love to be able to visit his layout and enjoy it as I would any other historical museum.
I've seen a few layouts done that are supposed to recreate actual rail lines and I've always been puzzled by one thing. Given the geography of the room where someone sets up their layout and also the necesity of accessing the layout (if only to observe the fruits of all that hard work), I've always presumed such layouts are not attempts to faithfully duplicate the layout of the rail line but to represent the scenery through which a traveler would pass. That is, there's no attempt to duplicate or scale "Then this spur goes east for 24 miles before it turns north for three more..." just do something like "and after we pass through the pine forest here near the bedroom door, we hit the town of Pidegeonville, which I placed next to the window..."
A silly question, but wanted to make sure I understood the "ground rules" of these recreations.
Personally, I never got past an oval under the Christmas tree and trying to scare the cat, although I did work as a waiter on the Southwest Chief one summer in college. I don't think most modelmakers would care to recreate the Leavenworth prison or the vagrant we ran over near L.A. Union Station, though.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
This reminds me a lot of the beautiful Gorre & Daphetid Railroad by the late John Allen. Hands down the most amazing layout I've ever seen, there used to be a book in print called "Model Railroading with John Allen". He revolutionized the hobby because he was a professional photographer and spent incredible time on the photos he would send in to magazines etc.
It's been awhile since I was a subscriber to Model Railroader (50 bucks a year for a student is steep), but in the early nineties it seemed like the convergence of computers and model railroading was finally beginning to happen so that people who weren't in MIT and were still interested in controlling trains with computers could begin to tinker.
Course, the ultimate limitation on model railroading seems to always be space, so I'm hoping that when I have some space in the future I'll be able to get a layout going again, and even have fun working on the computer aspect.
$45 per U Colocation Special
for probably the largest digital layout in the world, check out this in Hamburg. Unfortunately it's only in German, but the pictures speak for themselves (click the logo to enter, then "Fotos" in the top menu, then any of the secondary menu items). The layout was designed fully digital from the beginning, with all accessories (cars, boars, cable cars etc.) also fully digitally controlled. These guys are true nerds that built a lot of the electronics themselves. The layout has cost over EUR4M so far.
If you find this sort of thing interesting (and their is a lot of application of computers in modern model railroading) why not join a local club. Heck, you could make the entire thing availible on a web site and allow remote control and view it over a webcam.
One such local group is the Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum which has a pretty nice layout itself.
"Jim Dias holds short of the Merced yards to allow Ray deBlieck to clear a passing track so that he can run around his caboose and turn his engine and put it away on one of the turntable leads.
All kidding aside, it's just a great setup.
I wish there were more pictures of these layouts though.
I used to be a member of a model railroad club in Holly, Michigan. It was in an old movie theater and the layout covered ALL the floorspace. There was a balcony where the movie screen used to be and that's where we controlled the engine by wireless and kept the dispatch busy by updating them with our engine locations.
It was a first-class layout there. Anybody else in Michigan ever visit the Detroit model railroad club in Holly?
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Before /. techno geeks laugh at this guy's dedication to the hobby too loudly, remember that the railroads were the work of America's original high-tech geeks. This is much more impressive than running a Trash 80.
Railroaders were the technical cutting edge of the 19th century. Financial over-investments in transportation (both canals and rail) contributed to the 1837 Panic. Gee, times have changed (heh!).
Yeah, I play Loki's RT2 Linux port. But I'm not knowledgable enough about the real thing to be a credible rail fan.
Isn't it interesting how the first response to anyone who is truly devoted to something other than getting drunk or watching Celebrity Idol Millionaire is "they must be wasting their time" or they need "a life?"
Does this not perfectly describe the difference between "producer" and "consumer?"
Would that we, as a society, could find a way to encourage people to value productive, thinking time. Such people produce literature, invention and wisdom.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Model Railroad Tour - I have had hundreds of visitors to my layout. Here is a chance to take a short virtual tour.
[Emphasis mine]
And I mean, it's *right there* when you read the page. Couldn't you at least set up a Paypal account or something so that people who visit the site can kick a pity dollar for smalltime, image-heavy, hobbyist sites like this?
Did the guy get a warning, at least? Since the site hasn't buckled, I'm assuming he's bursting his metered bandwidth as I type, and paying an awful lot for the privilege.
Slashdot should at least buy one of his books.
leem
p.s. Totally amazing dedication that this guy has put into the hobby.
"Damn, does this guy have too much time on his hands or what?"
Oh, does he? He could probably waste that time by sitting on slashdot and posting assinine comments like yours.
Call me a karma whore, but I forgot to include the Detroit Model Railroad club info.
Detroit Model Railroad Club. . . . . . . Scale: O
104 N. Saginaw
Holly, MI 48442-1405
248/634-5811
The Detroit Model Railroad Club was founded in January, 1935 as an off-shoot of The Detroit Society of Model Engineers. The Detroit Union Railroad is the basis for our freelance theme with connections with the various railroads which served the Detroit area in 1957. The narrow gage will depict eastern type narrow gage. We have 35 active members and a number of associate members. Calling the old Holly theater our home, we feel that being in an old theater creates a unique atmosphere for model railroading. Being the largest model railroad in the State of Michigan brings people in from many areas.
Meetings: Tuesday nights from 7PM to 10PM to work on the layout and have Open Houses for the public on certain weekends. We have about 40 active and 60 associate members and new members are welcome.
Here a list of model railroad clubs in Michigan.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
The work this guy has done is amazing. Even if you aren't into these types of things, you cannot help but respect the tremendous attention to detail he has put into his work. If only most commercial programmers had the work ethic of this guy imagine the stability and performance of our software and other systems.
Jack Burgess is considered to be one of the all-time greats. His layout and the quality of his modeling are as good as any found anywhere. If you are involved in the hobby in any way you have most likely heard of him. It's a multi-faceted hobby; some like the modeling, some like the history, some like 'operations' which involves a small group of operators who try to run the layout like a real railroad, and some like the electronics. You can even write your own Java apps to control the layout - http://jmri.sourceforge.net/ - some guys are doing it with Linux. For more examples of some outstanding layouts search on George Sellios or Howard Zane.
The above system in Hamburg looks like the Maerklin trains.
:)
Or as we call them in the US, "Marklin" trains
Not sure which is more technically correct - it's an "a" with an umlaut over it, which is just too hard to type on an English keyboard/OS!
They have a digital control system where by you don't have to have any blocks to control your trains. You put out full voltage onto the rails at all times and then the engines know what direction they should go and how fast to go. It is a much better system and more realistically approximates the way real trains work.
Marklin has no copyright or trademark on this. It's called Digital Command Control and it's what most model railroaders the world over use today. See here. Nearly all current model locomotives made and/or marketed in the US (and Europe and Japan, for that matter) are now DCC-ready.
btw, Marklin trains are some high-quality trains, alright (my brother deals almost exclusively with them)... but so are a lot of other makes. There's always somewhat of a debate on who makes the best equipment, but I think most model railroaders agree that it really depends these days on the specific car/locomotive being modeled - one company may make a better looking and running ICE, another may make a better looking and running SD40-2, another may make a better looking and running Hudson J2E. All of the major manufacturers in HO and N (Kato, Tomix, Walthers, Atlas, Marklin, etc.) maintain at least a basic standard of quality - they're all at least good, all the time.
Oh, and if you're wondering, metal is not better than plastic! At least not as a rule. It's nearly impossible to get the same level of precision and detail in die-cast as in plastic, and while brass is still fairly popular, it's also extremely expensive and extremely fragile (relegating brass trains mainly to display duty these days - nobody wants to derail a $5,000 train and see it go tumbling to the floor, pieces breaking off all the way down!).