The joy of agile

With the design set in wood, I can now start build a new layout.

I start with a recap of the last article, just enough high-level

• Size

• Scale

• 2-rail or 3-rail system

• Analog or digital train control

• Time period and country/region

• Prioritization, trains and/or landscape

• Budget and/or time

Size is 240x120 cm due to limitations of space, and standard size for birch plywood board.

Scale is H0 due to everything i have, e.g. technical debt.

3-rail system with Märklin C-track as this is what I have and makes track layout simpler. Also technical debt.

Digital train control as I have many trains to run the same time.

Timeperiod is era IIIb in Western Germany (FRD), e.g. 1960-1967. A time period with stream, diesel and electric locomotives. My father lived in Germany partly during that time, so there is a personal connection as well. Even more technical debt.

Priority is running trains, with some landscape, even if landscapes was more important during my childhood. May change over time.

Budget is less of constraint compared to time.

The baseboard

The baseboard is the platform for your model railroad, and were everything start. The physical dimensions set the limits of how much you can expand your layout in space.

This means that within those ramifications we can be agile.

Hold your horses

I didn’t say it's easy to build a complex layout, even if we have a couple of design guidelines.

Remember the layout on the kitchen table?

We could run two short trains, with a third locomotive at the shuttle yard.

The goal here is to have ten trains with more than fifty cars, plus shunting locomotives, running at the same time on the layout. Both longer passenger trains and freight trains. Not forget a bit of a landscape.

How do you solve this problem?

More tracks is the obvious answer, but we still have the limited size. There is only one answer to this problem, and it is building in layers above each other, where some tracks are hidden and some are visible.

You may ask, is it doable?

To quote Pippi Longstocking, “How should I know, when I've never tried?”

Step by step

First of all, I got a track planning book and I begun to build some of the layouts there to get a feeling for the craft and run trains to learn how manage digital control.

Then it was time to create something new, my own layout. Not starting from scratch, I took inspiration from two different layouts and merged them together.

As I didn't have all the tracks for such large large layout, I used a CAD program to design the track plan, so I had a shopping list.

The first version of the layout had two layers and I built out a temporary model with more plywood.

Why?

This is a proof of concept where I could test the traffic on each of the two layers, before building any permanent. I also bought parts for digital control of the trains, as the ambition is to have several trains running autonomous.

The last hurdle in the design is the third layer, a shadow station. Something I never done before. The purpose with this is to have a parking lot for trains waiting to run on the visible parts of the layout.

Here the benefit of CAD software was really high, as we model in 3D and the physical layout is complex with grades, tunnels and lots of tracks. Not forgetting all sensors for digital control.

Next step is a final test of the tricky part of the lowest layer, the helix to the visible layer. You see it in the lower right corner of the 3D model.

Afters this is time to build the permanent layers and lay all tracks. Then the shaping of the landscape with all buildings can begin.

The caveat was that I had to redo the baseboard to be slightly larger 244 x 122 cm, and creating four sections for easier transport instead of one large piece.

So far, this is the only big design mistakes I did. But because I did the model in an agile step by step approach, with tests part by part, not the full layout, the consequence were not so huge. A few hours of extra work and some extra wood.

So far, budget overrun, but more model railroad and rolling stock faster than I anticipated.

Final thoughts

When you need to do some planing and high-level design, to do something simple as a model railroad, albeit a complex one with some limitations.

Do you really think that you can do a large transformation program without some high-level planning, design and guidelines?

Without experience of doing this before?

Just enough city planning

The hard question is what's just enough, "lagom" in Swedish.

The answer is 42

Why a model railway?

I want something different to my work. I want to create something physical with my hands, mostly during winter time. Summer is garden time. No pressure of being ready in time, or taking care of everyday chores.

Back to planning

I learned the hard way that space, time and cost are limitations you need to take care of, even in the city planning of a fictional town.

The most critical factor is space, as the maximum size I can accommodate is of the size of a plywood board, 240 x 120 cm or 4 by 8 feet.

Remember technical debt?

I don't want to pay much for new stuff, or scrap what I already have bought. Worst case scenario, there is a huge second-hand market were I can sell without to much loss.

In hindsight, I should probably gone for a smaller scale, but this is something very hard to change halfway though a layout. The same issue with choice of two-rail and three-rail system. Once selected, difficult to do anything about.

If you begin with Märklin H0, you are stuck with the german brand. With 2-rail systems, not so much.

Measure twice, cut once

Time is limited, so I need to avoid to build too much that needs to rebuild later. Re-build also add cost.

Digital chores

An additional complexity is digitalization of the model railroad. You have many options to chose from, and they impact your layout and cost. Is it also dependent on your choice of brand. Not easy to understand how it works in practice for me, even if I have a background with PLC and SCADA-systems.

Is this enough?

Often no.

You should decide what era, timeframe you want your layout to have. Railroads have been around for 200 years and trains and track layout have changed during this time. To understand this, we need to step back and think about the purpose with railroads. E.g. transport of goods and passengers between different locations, often with stations and yards.

If you prioritize landscape before running trains like Dawn with her Ladykillers layout this is even more important, as both landscape and rolling stock differs between countries. Your layout can also be smaller compared to if you prioritize running trains that often need more space. The difference choices we do impact the other decisions.

We also need to assure that what we want on the model railroad exists in the scale we choose, where H0 have most options and smaller scale less. Otherwise, we must create our own bespoke models.

Just enough high-level

At an early stage, before buying anything expensive, you need to take descions about:

• Size

• Scale

• 2-rail or 3-rail system

• Analog or digital train control

• Timeperiod, e.g. era.

• Prio of building landscape or running trains, or both.

• Budget, or more time.

To take these descisions, you need a lot of knowledge about the subjects of railways and model railroading. Perhaps you need to try different things, buy used stuff or borrow from friends.

The positive thing with these seven design decisions is that you can go very agile after answering them. Schrittwise or step by step as I will discuss later.

You can use the same approach for your large program. You need several of high-level decisions for your design, then you can be more agile.

We architect often talk about city plans, but we seldom give examples. I’m trying to explain the architecture view in another perspective with this serie of articles.

Enjoy.

Quick and dirty city planning

I had a classic Märklin railway when I grow up in the early seventies. Computers was not a thing back then, but the model railroad taught me how to connect wires and control several locomotives with physical switches. At university, I took this to the next level and learned to program PLCs used for automation in industries.

In a way, playing with Märklin and Meccano in my youth was the foundation for my professional career.

Re-discovering model railroads

Fast forward to modern times when digitalization have entered the game. In late 2013, I bought a Märklin starter set and added a locomotive and some extra wagons.

Quick and dirty, without vision and any real plans of what to do. At least I constructed a proper baseboard for the layout, based on previous experience from childhood.

Where to begin?

Why a Märklin digital starter set in H0?

It was easy, and similar to what I had before is the simple answer. Not knowing that technical debt is very much a thing in model railroading.

When you have a hobby, you prioritize what you want instead of what you need. I got a nice price on some long passengers coaches and a diesel locomotive, prototypic for 60's in West Germany. Adding them to they layout, the lack of planning begun to show.

The physical world is very physical, and size matters. One wagon is 24 cm long and I got twelve of them. Long trains are fun, but the more wagons you have, the more locomotives and space you need.

The first layout didn't accommodate all trains, and more tracks were needed. But adding more tracks on a fixed area is not always possible, thus you need to find another solution.

First re-design

If you add one more layer of tracks above the first level, then you can add more traffic. But then you have another challenge with inclines. With long trains, they can't be to steep, and the solution is longer baseboards.

Lesson learned, the hard way, scalability is very important, especially when working with physical architecture, as cost to change get expensive very fast.

Another issue was that I didn’t think though which time period to build for. I mixed steam locomotives from 50’s with modern diesels. It’s a hobby, so you can do whatever you want, but it itches.

The focus was on the railroad and running trains, not the landscape and the story for the buildings and their surroundings. However, I still had the buildings from my childhood packed in some cardboard boxes and they could be reused for the new layout.

Changes in life

We moved to another house in Skåne, without a basement and no place for a large layout. E.g. change of business environment and the model railroad ended up in the attic for better times.

Lack of vision, not thinking of non-functional requirements such as how to scale, flexibility and not anticipate total cost.

Not so different compared how organizations buy IT-systems without thinking why and what happens with those projects. Ending up on a shelf.

I found out the hard way that city planning for a model railroad needs at least some planning. Otherwise, it’s takes more time to redo everything and gets more expensive.

One more time

A year ago, after much more research, I found out a path to manage the classical limitations of model railroading of space, cost and time.

Enter the world of Schrittweise where I combine Enterprise Architecture thinking with an agile mindset. Upfront design and planning where it's needed, but not more.

The next article will be about what was enough planning, and probably not to much.

When your business model gets irrelevant

A year ago, I wrote about business strategy and Generative AI, and with AI agents, there is another twist to this topic.

Instead of thinking of how you can improve your business model, you should also have a look at the value proposition and customer segments you loose when your customers start using generative AI.

This is something that today is a reality in the film industry and related areas.

Agile city planning in small scale

We all been using the analogy of city planning when explaining enterprise architecture. What would happen if you instead did city planning without planning, just running agile?

Welcome to the world of model railroading.

This tabletop layout was built on the kitchen table ten years ago, but didn't survive the internal politics. If you build a layout you need to align with all the stakeholders in the family, and even if the table sounded like a good idea in the first place, it was not.

How did this cityplanning start then? Very agile, and the next articles in this series will describe the mindset behind Schrittweise, e.g. step by step.

If you think this is only toys for children, then try to do 100% autonomous operations of several trains and cars on your physical model railroad layout, without accidents.