My thanks to Brakie and all the replys. Wow! a lot of memories returning after reading this thread. It is too bad that model railroad forums were not available to me at the time I started building. I imagine we all dream of the big one, the dream layout. As I recall my start, or return to the hobby on retirement, I moved walls and doors in the basement to accomidate the railroad that had formulated in my mind. The formulation was from the publication in RMC of Eric Brooman's Utah Belt and a short article in a 70's MR mag " Why not model a junction", a small interchange in the corner of a room. I liked the idea of interchanging with a mainline. The idea of a loop to loop mainline came from the Utah Belt. Of course I had no measurements, no idea of how much space this would take, so with visions broad sweeping curves I set out to do the impossible. Needless to say I had to settle for less in the space I had alloted. I must confess when I started I had very little knowledge of trains or modeling them. Molded on details were perfect and to deface a store purchased train unit would be unbelievable . I learned much from others, and today I can tell a six axel from a four axel loco. (truely, my lack of RR knowledge was almost that bad).
I add this tale of woe here to enforce what Brakie has posted that planning is almost manditory unless you wish to tackle the difficultys I had. If I had it to do over I would have spent much more time planning with pencil and paper, and more serious thought.
Joe I read your post with great interest. The Engineer, Railfan, type tags have me wondering what combination tag I would assign to myself. I designed the layout so as to sit at the center (by a Small Yard) and operate the mainline & Junction interchange from there, like a dispacher (or lazy) I guess. Yet for the branch lines I will be following the train to it's destination with a walk around throttle. I was always a sort of odd ball, but now you have me wondering why I did it that way. There doesn't seem to be any great interest in model rail in my local area so I doubt there will be few visitors to my layout. One thing that was planned, being a little older there was to be no duck unders, entrance to the aisles, is through a gate, the idea is not mine but I did put a lot of work of my own design into it.
Have to go make lunch now, I'll check in again later
Willis
I add this tale of woe here to enforce what Brakie has posted that planning is almost manditory unless you wish to tackle the difficultys I had. If I had it to do over I would have spent much more time planning with pencil and paper, and more serious thought.
Joe I read your post with great interest. The Engineer, Railfan, type tags have me wondering what combination tag I would assign to myself. I designed the layout so as to sit at the center (by a Small Yard) and operate the mainline & Junction interchange from there, like a dispacher (or lazy) I guess. Yet for the branch lines I will be following the train to it's destination with a walk around throttle. I was always a sort of odd ball, but now you have me wondering why I did it that way. There doesn't seem to be any great interest in model rail in my local area so I doubt there will be few visitors to my layout. One thing that was planned, being a little older there was to be no duck unders, entrance to the aisles, is through a gate, the idea is not mine but I did put a lot of work of my own design into it.
Have to go make lunch now, I'll check in again later