Yesterday I was fortunate enough to take part in an operating session on Dick Elwell's amazing Hoosac Valley RR. I met up with Scott Mason and a group of some of Dicks regular operators. I'd seen the layout over the years in magazines, and recently in Great Model Railroads, so I was familiar with certain scenes and towns. But I wasn't prepared for how vast a landscape he'd created, something you can only realize in person. Dick has a talent for creating scenes that are virtually uncompromised, uncompressed where there's nothing for nearly 15 feet except for the track winding through the landscape. His most recent work is in the photo above, a single structure, a small but very detailed, character rich depot stands alone along a stretch of track 10 feet or longer. Many of us, especially with limited space, are often tempted to fill every inch of space with track and buildings, giving up a real sense of distance. Dick is disciplined this way, letting the landscape roll as it would. One of my tasks during the session was taking a thru freight through the entire layout, from Essex to Pittsfield. By the time I was done, I'd felt I'd been to new places and towns; it was like a convinicing movie where you get so wrapped up in the characters, you think you experienced what happened on screen. Needless to say, on the long ride home all I could think about was how I could apply this to my own layout. While my layout is probably 1/12th the size of the Hoosac Valley, I think I can proceed with the idea in mind not to cram as much as possible into a scene.
After visiting with Dick, Scott took me on a small tour only Scott could give, to see one of the portals of the Hoosac Tunnel. First we endured a ride up a mountain as snow was coming down and I couldn't see much over the guardrail. When visbility did come, all it revealed was that we were hundreds of feet up. It was worth the ride however. It's a an awesome sight to see, especially when Scott fills you in on the history of it's construction, it's probably one of the greatest engineering feets given the time it was built. If you're ever in the area, take a ride up to see it.
