Model Railroad Planning 2001

     Model Railroad Planning 2001. MRR Annual. This year, Koester has chosen articles with two main themes: changing modelling goals, and smaller layouts. There are still a couple of large layouts featured, and the overall modelling philosophy is still prototype-based, but strict prototype modelling has lost its premier place. In fact, the end-piece describes Jeff Wilson’s tearing down his strictly prototype layout and replacing it with a "prototype themes" freelance plan. Iain Rice designs a couple of granger-style roads (10'x15', HO & N), Robert Nicholson designs a "based-on" fictitious Georgian branchline (15'x22, S or On2.5), and Eric Hausmann designs a 12'x12' plan based on West Virginia’s glass industry. All three use prototypes for inspiration and guidance, but each adapts and modifies the prototype to suit his space and tastes. Most importantly, each thinks in terms of the space available, and the total impression possible within that space.
     The April MRR happens to include a very small layout - 8'x8'. So perhaps the prototype fanatics are losing their predominance in the hobby. Good thing, too. A letter in MRRP 2001 laments the split in model railroading in the UK - on the one side the strictly prototype nutters, who can’t even agree on standards among themselves; and on the other the ordinary modellers, who are faced with a horrible mix of largely incompatible proprietary standards, and insufficient help from the "true" modellers. (However, Hornby and Bachmann seem to be moving towards track/wheel dimensions compatible with NEM and NMRA - about time.,)
     An intriguing engineering concept, a track elevator, extends the design possibilities. The author has built two, and his experience validates the concept. It’s billed as the helix killer - but IMO the helix is an under-valued and under-utilised scenic element, and I intend to sketch an LDA that lets the helix come into its own. *** (2001)
     Update 2013: MRP 2013 includes an example of one turn of a helix "brought forward" into the open. The builder says that now operators know where their train is, and also (bonus) it adds both a scenic element and another operating point (passing siding with team track).
     Update 2020: Even a multi-level helix can feature scenic element. The trick is to bring one or more of the levels out of the stack into the open. There, they can feature a cliff-side bench, or a curved trestle over a steep transverse gorge, or a remote and lonely station, prehaps with a water tank.

250 posts!

The review of John Armstrong's Classic Layout Designs is the 250th post. If you wish to use that a an excuse to celebrate, please do so. There are precious few reason to celebrate, so every excuse counts.

Classic Layout Designs (John Armstrong)

     John Armstrong Classic Layout Designs (2000) 15 articles reprinted from Model Railroader, all with beautifully reproduced new prototype photos. The drawings were also brought to a common standard, but the computer operator had some problems: elevation marks are inconsistent. As with most perfect-bound books, the gutters are too narrow, and bleeding pictures to the inside causes an irritating loss of graphic information.
     Armstrong has added brief comments on his articles, which are entertaining to read. He notes that "layover tracks" are now called staging. He emphasises that layouts should be designed to be built in stages. But he’s too modest to draw attention to his four primary contributions to layout design: a) scene-by-scene plans based on prototypes (the "layout design element" or LDE of the layout design SIG); b) fitting main lines into a space subdivided into squares based on minimum radius; c) staging; d) use of backdrops (even double-sided) and hidden trackage to limit the visible layout to one scene at a time. All these are aspects of total layout design, an approach that his disciple Iain Rice has also mastered. About the only difference between Armstrong and modern designers is aisle-width: 30" or more is now considered minimal.
     Reading Armstrong’s plans can be difficult, as he was a master of squeezing every last inch of track into the space available, a skill no doubt developed because he designed for real people living in real houses. This creates a deceptively spaghetti-bowl look. Careful study reveals that very rarely can one see more than one scene at a time, however, and then usually only by elevating oneself to helicopter level. Printing the scenic suggestions in darker ink could have mitigated the problem.
     Only the wretched physical design of the book prevents four stars. *** (2001)

Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine July/August 1997

      Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, July/August 1997. Borrowed from WCESS. Demonstrates that the short story is the mystery genre’s best format: just long enough to create barely believable characters and a plausible plot, but compressed enough for an easily visible shape of the story. Most of the stories are sentimental, a few have the Hitchcockian twist of the crook inadvertently double-crossing himself (or herself) through excessive ingenuity, and a couple work on every level.
     Memories (Wanda Jones) plays a nice variation on Southern Gothic: a plain girl’s nasty older brother gets his just deserts in a psychologically satisfying way. Stop, Thief! (Dan Sontup) works the double-cross motif expertly: honest citizen wants to use petty crook in an insurance scam and set him up as the fall guy, but makes the common error of thinking crooks are dumber than honest citizens. Streetwise (J. A Paul) believably mixes a smart kid, school bullies, an observant cop, and a martial arts coach into a well-paced yarn. Most of the stories are competently written (or edited). A few are a bit precious in style or concept, but I guess the magazine has to cater to a wide range of tastes. ** to *** (2001)

Murder on Location (Howard Engel)

     Howard Engel Murder on Location (1982) One of the Benny Cooperman series, which had a moderate success some years ago. (There’s a new one out, so I guess he’s still popular). Soft-boiled PI, gris rather than noir in mood. Plot somewhat convoluted, and Engel is not as adept at planting clues and red herrings as other writers: the reader (me) gets confused. Perhaps more recent stories are better constructed. The characters are attractive and real enough to engage interest, the style is competent, the atmosphere realistic in the mannered style of such confections. Two people are murdered; the roots of the crime are deep in the past. Cooperman is a shadowy figure, however, despite the first-person narrative. The book will do as an airplane read. ** (2001)
     Upfate 2013: I read all the Cooperman stories eventually. Most of them are better than this one.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Helen Fielding)

     Helen Fielding Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Picador, 1999) Kathryn gave me this book after failing to finish it. After failing to finish it myself, I understand her reasons: Fielding is a one-trick dog. The first Bridget Jones book had the advantage of freshness, and Bridget did display some change and development. This Bridget is trapped in her angst and neurosis. The closest she comes to change is to remind herself of what she believes she has become, a resourceful, responsible woman of substance. The constant repetition gets tiresome – plot consists of more than happenings. Also, the book has a lot of the feel of The Diary of a Nobody about it, we are supposed to feel superior to poor Bridget and laugh at her inability to get out of her emotional tarpits. Leaves a bad taste. Didn’t finish. *

Present tense (John Moss)

      John Moss Present Tense (NC Press, 1985). A collection of essays on authors such as Timothy Findley who achieved prominence from the 1960s onward. Also included: Jack Hodgins, Mavis Gallant, Michael Ondaatje, Norman Levine, Carol Shields, David Helwig, Hugh Hood, Matt Cohen, Marian Engel, Audrey Thomas, George Bowering, and Robert Kroetsch. The list illustrates how the reputation of the moment does not predict the future. Hodgins, Helwig and Kroetsch are now of merely academic interest (ie, only academics read them, not necessarily seriously), while Ondaatje achieved pop star status with The English Patient. This book is part IV of a series, and authors you might expect to be treated here appeared in earlier books. The essays themselves are on the whole not well written. Many read as if written for an undergraduate course; perhaps that is their provenance, since most of the writers discussed were at the time too new to have established an oeuvre. The photographs of the authors show them in their 30s, very young-seeming in light of their later work.
      I did not read all the essays in this book. I found the common "reader’s response" point of view tedious – a critical work should attempt to describe the objective aspects of a book, not merely the reader’s feelings. Also, several writers used the past tense to summarise a book’s story, a modern habit I find very irritating. There was also a general sense of limited experience and knowledge, hard to pin-point, and perhaps more an effect of the style and of omissions than of explicit errors. What the essayists lacked most, however, was delight in their subject. A good critic conveys not only that his subject matters enough to write about, but also that the book was a pleasure to read. That particular "reader’s response" appeared only in George Woodcock’s essay on Findley, and almost made me want to attempt again to read that tedious trickster. * (2001)