I have a large barn (two stories).  I am re-entering the hobby after 30+ years.  I have always wanted to have a grand layout, now I have the space.  There are many ideas bouncing around, mostly inspired by the amazing layouts I see here and on TMTV.  I have 30 acres of timber on this farm I recently purchased ranging from pines, cedars and spruce to black walnut, maple & oak.  Material is not really an issue either.  So when you find yourself in possession of most everything you need to make your big layout a reality, how do actually plan this out?

I really like the timber and mining layouts I have seen.  The small industries all along a rural layout are great too.  The town/city scape layouts with both passenger and trolley service are also a lot of fun to watch and the potential for detail structures and daily life of the folks is always delightful to see in the photos.

Since I live in the Appalachian region of the South, there are many aspects of everything mentioned above to model.  The Southern line from VA through to New Orleans is so far the #1 region for me.  There were numerous short lines and service railroads (term?) in the areas of mining, timber, mills, etc as well as trolley services in the larger towns that this seems to be great area to model.

I am a steam loco fan so time periods from the 20's/30's would seem to be best for me.

I thought of first breaking everything into modules to build them one at a time, then thought about a big main-line and branching out from there to build the smaller but more interesting little mountain industries.

Well I'm in quick sand again.  It is difficult and exciting to even articulate my conundrums when asking for advice.

Please pardon the ramblings.  If anyone has made sense of this, I would appreciate a compass heading.