Well, this is rather more nerve-wracking than I thought it would be; posting the very early sketches of a chainsaw layout I'm considering at the moment.

What you see below represents the culmination of several weeks of sketching ideas and changing many things around and I feel quite close to what I'm aiming for now. My inspiration and reasoning for this layout is as follows:

1. I am building it with the knowledge that in a year or so I'll probably completely rip this layout apart
2. Eventually, on my main layout, I will want to have a point to point day tripping steam railroad (which I may automate so I can have "continuous running" on the point to point) and this will serve as a good practice run
3. This is my first attempt at building a model railroad for many years and doing a shelf layout such as this strikes me as a good idea; simple benchwork (probably using splines) and not too deep for any scenicking

I suppose I want something that will look good, teach me many skills but won't be so difficult to complete that I'll get discouraged. I have the space to complete the entire line, though I'll be starting off with the Customer Entrance and Engine facilities as a starting module.

I'm new to this, so be nice but also please do critique and suggest changes you think sensible. I know it's VERY simple operationally however the purpose of this build is to practice building techniques and not to build a layout for operations; that will come next, in a couple of years time.

The first idea

What you see here is my first idea and largely I've retained the concept, if refined the implementation (based on reading on this blog, and in MRH). I'm now going for a shelf layout with far smaller curves and am planning to use scenic breaks to split the run up. So, for example, I'll have a small forest, a bridge over a stream, a farm and maybe something else along the "main line" (if you can call it that) between the two stations (locations 5, 6 and 7 on the diagram below).

The first chainsaw section

So, following on from lots of reading I changed my plan and decided to make it one section at a time, with some staging that I'll move along as I build. I have picked the entrance area to start with as it has some interesting building challenges like the turntable. I'm unsure at the moment about the run around and track layout; this is very much a draft. I'm trying to put this into xtrackcad but struggling a little with that.

EDIT: I got my scale wrong; that's 25cm, not 50cm Sorry

Thanks for reading/looking and, in advance, helping me with advice.