In the 70's I recall reading an article in a model railway magazine about
what was thought to be the largest model railway in the US/world.
I think it was HO scale, American outline of course, and featured huge
rugged mountains and canyons and loads of sweeping curves, viaducts, tunnels
etc. Lengthy train consists were the norm.
At that time it was the largest model railroad ever, built by a very keen
modeller in his house or very large garage.
I cannot remember the name, but it was a funny double-barrelled name
something like "Old Grumpy & Eerie".
I'd love to re-read about this layout, google is not much help when one
doesn't know the name it went by. Likewise searching for "largest model
railway" doesn't really help. I don't have access to archive railway model
magazines so cannot browse them for pointers either.
Does this ring a bell with anyone?
I also vaguely recall that the owner was moving house and so the layout was
going to be torn down. I wonder if it survived in the end.
Regards
GOG
Gorre and Daphetid?
The owner, John Armstrong, dug out a basement under his house in
Monterey, California. The floors above were no longer supported
properly so visitors had to be told where they could and couldn't
walk.
He never used the central heating, and only turned the hot water on
for a short while because the boiler was behind a papier mache
mountain.
After he died, some visitors turned it on and forgot to turn it off,
and the house complete with layout burned down.
I went to London once and went down some steeps just outside the Station.
Dont know whose basement it was but he had the biggest train set I have ever
seen
You're thinking of John Allen.
John Armstrong was a layout designer who pioneered pretty well
everything we take for granted in good layout design these days. He
especially promoted the notion that one should design a layout for
protoypical operation, and advocated the then new for N. America concept
of staging tracks (fiddle yards). His skill in hiding closely spaced
mainlines from each other was amazing -- his trackplans looked like
spaghetti bowls ate first glance, but close study showed that one would
rarely if ever see more than one mainline at a time.
Allen's Gorre & Daphetid (pron. "gory and defeated") was designed for
just such operation. Allen was willing to just run trains around for the
enjoyment of non-railroady visitors, but when he operated with his
regular crew, he was reportedly a tough boss.
Allen was also a professional photographer, and demonstrated new
concepts and standards for model railroad photography. He was a bit of a
joker, too, and liked to build "tea kettles", some of which vaguely
recalled Emmett's wonderful inventions.
I'm increasingly convinced that Switzerland isn't really a country, but
just a giant layout designed by Faller, Pola et al. It's a bit
unrealistic though, as there isn't much weathering, the landscape can be
a bit cliched, and the track plans aren't very realistic - too many
"rabbit warren" lines cramming too much detail in.
John Allen's Gorre and Daphetid was a big railroad for an individual, but
I don't think it was ever the largest (indoor!) model railroad in the USA
or World. For a number of decades, there was a very large O scale layout
in the Chicago Museum of Sciency and Industry, and I am fairly certain
that several Gorre and Daphetids could have fit inside its area. I think
the Chicago layout was built in the 1950s, making it a contemporary of the
Gorre and Daphetid.
If you include such operations as the 1/12 scale live steam outdoor
railroads, the Gorre and Daphetid was easily eclipsed by quite a number of
contemporary outdoor layouts, and today such operations as the Train
Mountain near Chiloquin, Oregon make it look smaller than the period at
the end of this sentence. It's 13 miles of 7.5 inch gauge track make it
longer than several standard gauge railroad companies operating in the
state.
In message ,
" snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com" writes
If you are going to compare railways on the basis of size, shouldn't you
multiply the length of the track by the scale, to get a uniform measure
that can be compared?
So, for instance, my garden railway in American or Australian mode is
bigger than when it's in British mode.
Arr, but the 'track miles' stay the same, just because you run a
narrow gauge version of your British models.... :~)
A more serious point is, when does railway modelling become model
engineering, I would argue that anything over Gauge 1 is model
engineering - the rational being that above that gauge and scale
passenger hauling is possible, even if it is in some cases only driver
and light weight passenger, whilst (most) models can't be boxed up and
carried under ones arm.
Actually, many people in the US nowadays have indoor layouts larger than
Allen's.
Must be a fulltime occupation just to maintain the track. Just like a
real railroad. :-)
Would the RH&D qualify as a model railway, then?
The Chicago layout (which in fact was originally built to "Q" scale/gauge
- 1:48 with track at the correct gauge - and later the layout was
converted to standard O scale) measured 50 feet by 60 feet. Allen's
layout, as magnificent as it was, occupied maybe about half of that, with
some considerable space consumed by aisles.
And, as it turns out, the layout was completed in 1941, so that John
Allen's big railroad came after it.
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When a friend of mine uses his G scale equipment to assist in small
excavation work in his garden (moving earth from point of digging to point
of disposal), does it cease to become a model railroad and in fact become
a mine tramway, because it is suddenly being used to accomplish useful
work?
Such operations as the RH&D and a few others that I know of blur the line
between model railroad and real railroad.
It might do in the US but in the UK the RH&D Rly has always been a
*narrow gauge* railway, it's not a miniature railways and certainly
not a model railway!
As a kid I rode on what is now the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway (who
also operate the North Bay Railway in Scarborough). They had battery-
powered diesel outline locos, but they have gone back to live steam.
I was under the impression that the equipment on the RH&D was built as
scale miniatures of standard gauge equipment. If that is the case, then
at least one aspect of the line (equipment modeled after a full size
prototype) is something I would consider to be part of being a model
railroad.
Actual narrow gauge equipment, particularly for such a small gauge as 15
inches, tends to have oversize cabs and overly tall passenger cars for the
rail width. This is because the equipment was designed to be operated on
such a small guage from the start, rather than being a scale model of
something already operating on standard gauge.
Therefore, I would consider such narrow gauge operations as the Volk's
Electric Railway a narrow gauge railway because it doens't operate scale
model versions of standard gauge equipment, but was designed from the
start to be exactly what it is. Several USA operations on 15 inch gauge
that are scale miniatures of standard gauge equipment and provide no
useful transportation besides riding around a park or zoo are in many ways
large scale model railroads.
The RH&D blurs the lines between the two, in my opinion, because of the
"scale" nature of the equipment (and please correct me if I am wrong)
which makes it a model railroad, but provides useful transportation and
has incorporated itself as a common carrier company.
I consider the zoo railroad in my own city in the same category. It
operates on 30 inch gauge track, but some of the equipment are scale
models of full size trains. The fact that people can still comfortably
fit inside an approximately half-size replica of standard gauge equipment
is a happy by-product: it is still a scale model of standard gauge. The
fact that some conventional narrow gauge mining equipment is also in use
and the fact that the line operates a special "railway post office" (the
last surviving example of that in the USA) and that one can ride between
two destinations and therefore have useful transportation provided help
blur the line between "scale model" and "real railroad".
But, since there isn't a very good definition of just what exactly the
difference is between a model railroad, miniature railroad and narrow
gauge is, it is of course all a matter of opinion.
Well taking that rational it would mean that a 4mm scale model could
be described as a real railway....
No, it's actually a matter of fact and regulation, at least here in
the UK.
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