What is a Plausible Design Element?
The Key to making your Proto-Freelanced layout real.

The Plausible Design Element, or PDE, is loosely based off of the Layout Design Element (LDE) created by Tony Koester. Since my CR Amoskeag Northern layout is Proto-Freelanced, it uses “plausible” locations instead of strict prototypical adherence to a track diagram or placement of buildings for a specific place or town.

PDE’s are geared to the Proto-Freelancer, in that they don’t create “Anywhere USA” locations on a layout, but a believable representative of the area being modeled. The PDE allows the modeler to borrow track and building placement standards from their chosen prototypes, and reflect them in their freelanced railroads. The borrowed concepts will build the plausibility that the modeled scene is real, in that visitors say “Hey that looks a lot like the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts” instead of questions as to what the town is supposed to be and where.

The Do’s of PDE’s
PDE’s are designed not to be exact…but PLAUSIBLE. Your Proto-Freelanced layout should have key signature elements that represent your railroad. Track placement, signals, structures, scenery all help to identify your railroad. Creating a plausible set of standards helps to keep it within the realm of “reality”.

Keep in mind your prototype influences, and think railroad, not model. What would be plausible for your Proto-Freelanced line? Obviously you would not design a PDE based of a New England theme, which included an orange grove, a citrus packing plant and high rocky bluffs. These elements would be definitely considered “Non New England” and thus would make the PDE stick out from the theme of the layout. Now a PDE with a single track main, following a lazy river that has a early 1900’s brick wool mill on it, with rolling mountains in the background, could easily be accepted as “New England”.

Now, that New England PDE may not scream, Warren, MA to someone viewing it, but it will cause them to think “this looks like Western, MA”. It could be called Swollen River, a town that doesn’t even exist, but still becomes plausible to the viewer that it is located in the very real Western MA.

Remember to allow the PDE's to flow together, using generic plausible scenery between them. But PDE's are already generic you say....yes, but PDE's, much like the LDE concept, are focus points of your layout. Allow everything to flow, don't make drastic changes from one location to the next!

The Don’ts of PDE’s
You do not want to copy track arrangements or towns to the T. Doing so will cause the viewer to see the layout as not realistic, because they may already have an image of that location, or building in their mind in reality. They may assume that the location can not be plausible because they know that such and such railroad runs though this location, with no intermodal trains, and this would never happen in the real world.

Remember to borrow track ideas from your prototypes. There are not too many track arrangements out there that are not used on every railroad but there are signature ones, which used in the LDE concept, scream “I REPRESENT XYZ RAILROAD!”. Placing a widely known track arrangement like Cheat Junction in WV on a Southern Pacific layout, would immediately flag the scene as not plausible because the viewer would see it as needing to be in WV Appalachians, and not in the West Coast. Instead, borrow likely track situations for your locale. If the railroads in your area uses steel through truss bridges along their lines, don’t build cut stone bridges!

As you are designing and building, remember to think “would this pass as legitimate for my locale?” It’s the thought that separates PDE from LDE. It’s your railroad in this case, make it believable!