Koester Rule: There are several: Part One

 In a recent blog I mentioned the Sperandeo rule, and in past blogs I’ve mentioned the Koester rule. I’m going to take time to elaborate. The Koester Rule*, as it’s known on the Atlantic Inland is that if you have one of one thing, five of them is better. Tony was referring to scenic features, I think. It came to the fore in a discussion about Fuel Wholesalers. Several years ago most layouts had no fuel dealers represented. Then Walther’s and Grandt Line offered kits of fuel wholesalers (I got both) and Viola! (Pronounced VIE-O-La**) every layout had a fuel wholesaler. 

Tony weighed in on this almost at the same time and pointed out that every small town needed a fuel dealer, and that if one such industry was good three were better. This statement struck a cord with me and I adopted it with near religious fanaticism . On my layout I almost always had more than one of everything. Yards, I had three. Engine service, I had two complete facilities. Freight houses, one huge one, and several small ones, and on and on. 

For stand alone industries, they were always equipped with multiples of every type of traffic generator. Right off the bat, scrap metal. I had several fabricating industries that produced some steel scrap. Each of these industries had a siding or spot where a 40’ gondola would be spotted for scrap loading. At the end of a session the scrap gondolas in transit numbered five or more. 

At stock pens each facility had a spur for loading and unloading livestock, but also included spurs for bedding deliveries, feed, and a manure gon. Again at the end of a session three or four gondolas loaded with manure were in transit.

My layout was supposed to represent a coal hauling bridge route, so there were eleven (11) different coal loading points on the layout, but nearly every one of these tipples had a team track too. 11 coal mines, and 11 team tracks.

I never had just ONE of anything because in life there never is just one of anything. In the era I modeled, while many of these things were obscure, they abounded. 

Tony Koester was a cheerleader for the obscure, those things that railroads did multiple times each day.

So the Koester rule, on the Atlantic Inland, was born. If one of anything is good, FIVE is better***.

On a separate yet related topic there’s a Koester Rule of scenery, “All puff ball trees should be dark green”, or “most structures should be painted white”, or “all rivers are muddy”…

It goes on and on…




*Pronounced CUSTER

**“Viola!”-This stems from the Three Stooges, I think, and my friend, and boss, Jim Oliveri. Commonly expressed as “Voila’!” (used to call attention, to express satisfaction or approval, or to suggest an appearance as if by magic.) we would amongst ourselves say “Viola”. 

This went on for some time, until I used the expression during a production meeting on one of the TV shows we were working on. A stop during the meeting for me to give a history of the Stooges pronunciation of the term, and soon I had executive producers, directors, department heads, and stars crying out “Viola!”. It was god awful…

*** There is a similar rule in the studio business. “If one guy can get a task done fast, ten guys can get it done REALLY fast”, which leads me to this following corollary, in which the Studios FIRMLY believe, if one woman can have a baby in nine months, nine women can do it in one. Want proof? Just look at “Water World”. Voila!

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