Been bouncing around the web just looking at railroad stuff and found a couple of neat sites. First is http://www.lancemindheim.com, Lance Mindheim's site. Lance also has business building shelf layouts and helping with layout design as a consultant. He had a shelf layout for modern switching in Model Railroader's "More Layout in Less Space" special edition. It was a CSX switching operation in Miami. I like that layout 'cuse its modern and it's street running and industrial switching.
It did give me pause thought. This layout, especially just the smaller part of it that was featured in the MR special edition is very sparse, to say the least. The author of the article, Mr. Mindheim himself, suggests that it can still be a satisfying experience with only 4 turnouts and several lengths of track. The idea is by modeling prototype operations even a sparse layout can provide very satisfying operations. And I can see how this would be true.
So here's my dilemma. I've whittled down what I started out with by quite a bit. it was pretty huge and probably beyond my reach. It's still pretty complex. Lots of turn outs and some pretty complicated track work. I still wonder if I'm going to fall into the not uncommon trap of over reaching, getting frustrated, and giving up. Somethings I am doing to help me get through is having all my track on one level, no elevation changes at all. and I'm using the design software so I know pretty much what is going to be needed. I've also made the plan less complicated than it was. Not to say that it isn't complicated, just less so. There's a lot of track work to be done, and I'm hoping that I don't get frustrated working on it before I have an operational section. Once I get operating, the work will start to pay off.
But it's also going to be a learning experience. Though I have knowledge of most of the skills involved, I haven't put it into practice. The O Scale club I belonged to hand laid their track (which sucked btw, and I will never do. I looked great when it was finished but it was just too much darn work). So this will be my first time using flex track for a real layout. And doing all the other track work and stuff as well, turn outs and so on. I have a good idea of how I'll translate my computer track plan to reality, but I can also see it turning into a bit of a frustration as things (inevitably) don't work.
It's also all going to be new for me from literally the ground up. Bench work. road bed all that stuff. the one thing I'm not worried about is wiring. I have an idea of how I'm going to mount my track and what sub surface I'm going to use, but it will all be trial and error (educated trial and error, but trial and error none the less). Failure is an important less, as Mr. Mindheim points out in his blog. But it can lead to frustration, and that's not at all something I deal with well.
So... should I take on a smaller project first? something that I can get up and running relatively quickly and play with? Maybe I should, but I'm really of two minds about it. I linked to a short blurb about Vince Lee's Erie 28th St. Terminal (it's in the summer featured content, probably will fall off eventually). It is a terminal layout built on two hollow core doors measuring 13' 4" by 2' 6". The funny thing is it's almost everything I like in a railroad. Carfloat, tight industrial switching, and it's an early 1900's NYC terminal railroad which I've already mentioned is really neat to me.
A couple things working against it are the era, I'm not really interested in that time period as much, and so any rolling stock and power I buy for it wouldn't move over to newer layouts I might or might not build in time. But I suppose I could fudge... freelance at 1960's style operation on the same layout.
On the other hand (again) I'm not sure I'd be satisfied with that set up for all that long. And that's the one thing that keeps bringing me back to my original project. I've spent a lot of time looking at that layout and I think the operation is complex enough to hold my interest once it's running. I'm not so sure a small layout like the above would. Part of my thing is that I'm in it primarily for the operations. Modeling and good scene (while interesting to me) is of much less importance. So a small layout, with a little operations, but lots of modeling potential is less interesting to me than a small layout crammed with track for switching.
Don't get me wrong I do want to do buildings and design some diorama style scenes on the layout, but operation for me is first and foremost. I may end up screwing myself not leaving enough space for buildings, but that's a mistake I'll take in stride. I am trying to plan around structures, but we'll see how successful I am.
This is what keeps bringing me back to my current design. It's long enough that I can get some real running in and do some switching. But I'm hoping it's easy enough as to not overly frustrate me, or to take a long time to get built. And there's also the issue of money. The track alone for my planned layout is going to be quite a bit, just 'cuse of the number of turnouts. I'm hoping I don't stymie myself by going beyond my budget before I even get started.
So anyway that's my dilemma, and something I'm sure I'll be worrying about for a while. Probably right up until, and even after I start of the bench work for my long shelf layout. Maybe I should cut my teeth on something smaller, or maybe I should just jump right in with what I've got. Decisions decisions.
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