Lance

Lance is Lance. He has some great ideas but his blog even illustrates that he is not infallible. The idea of building a huge slic of a city, he says, was beyond what he wanted to spend time doing. In the end his layout designs look a lot like other designs. The one industry switching layout is too much for me. I like a train to start and end somewhere - not imagine that it does or did. Clearly not everyone has room for this. When too many track crowd the scene and overwhelm the reason to be, then I wonder if cutting back is appropriate.

The one thing he does that cannot be denied is to model what you see. I cannot see what my prototypes did in 1900 so spend a lot of time researching their history. Of course that can be a hobby in itself and lead to never getting started. So get started and begin. Learn and adapt. Change it if things seem overly complicate and crowded.  Nothing is set in stone and trying to plan a layout to death is certainly no way to let it live. 

None of the best ways to avoid the common pitfalls is to post your ideas here and be open to criticism. Start simple.

"How or when have you

   The best way I've found is to look for photos of a prototype location similar to what I'm trying to build. Some areas are busy and some not so location matters when it comes to layout track and scenery density....DaveB 

I try to find as much photos

I try to find as much photos of prototypes in books and also layouts based on prototypes like Trevor's Port Rowan S scale layout, which it the layout that inspired my track plan for Stonehammer Branch line terminus.

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/28481?page=37

Middle ground? Plausibility.

In one extreme you have 100% reality as seen in pictures / historic aerials / track plans. In the other extreme you have "super-dense" model RR situations where one tries to cram everything in a scene / layout.

It is the same situation when trying to build a static diorama (aviation, armor etc...lets say an aircraft at the corner of an airfield getting serviced). In reality object placement and distances are so big, that when trying to put them in a diorama base, either the base would end up being huge, or the scene would contain very few elements. If one keeps a rational base size and includes all elements, then it would look too crammed.

For me, based on good advice and my preferences, i try to use selective deletion and selective compression sticking to prototype maps/charts/pictures as much as possible. So i have to bite the bullet and realize that i cannot include everything i like in a layout. I also have to realize that i cannot maintain full-on prototypical distances.

Where does this gets me,to something that has as many elements of the prototype scene/ area, with a few cuts and resizing in areas dealing with secondary visual elements. Where to focus, how to compress it is up to the builder to decide.

How much is too much? I guess it depends with what you compare, if you ask me, i would put "plausibility" as an answer here. In other words, i ask the questions: "would X and Y and Z make sense together?" "in how many examples, i have seen a similar situation?", "Does it look right to me, using mockups?"

At the end of the day, it is what makes you happy.

I think he's mostly right

Modelers tend to jam track everywhere: got a corner as your main is curving away, stick in a junk yard. Another curve away from a corner, another coal dealer. Track curving around a peninsula? Stick an autorack unloader in center forgetting you have no room for parking or even cars to turn around. 

"got a corner as your main is

often results in a curved timber trestle or a turntable and round house. It's like they design these layout by looking at decades of previous layouts instead of the real railroads they might be modeling? .......DaveB 

Crammed

" I still remember the

   Yeah, another "classic" is the wedding cake tier of multiple curved tracks. I've never seen them but there must be lots of those locations on real railroads somewhere as there are so many layouts incorporating it :> ) ........DaveB

Is a railroad model a piece of art?

(Parenthetical note: The Durango and Silverton has a loop around the roundhouse in Durango. They use a little diesel to turn trains between tours.)

Remember that 99% of any prototype is a single track through countryside. That's real, but not very interesting. I look at layouts as pieces of art, not documentation. There are certainly paintings that are too busy for my taste, but I don't care for the starkness of the recent era either. I find inspiration in " The Garden of earthly Delights". which is definitely on the busy side. (Trigger warning: our grandparents found this work to be somewhat lewd.) But what you see depends on how close you are. From a distance, there is only an oddly balanced form with colors that draw the eye to the center foreground, where interesting things seem to be happening. As you get closer, it breaks into nine distinct pictures, each well formed in the classical sense. Get closer yet, and you find an astonishing amount of detail with tiny portraits from beautiful to grotesque.

Never mind the content, I like the way that painting works, and I think the same effect is right for layouts. Whatever your field of vision, you should see a balance of shapes and colors, with elements that draw the eye toward the trains, and reveal interesting little stories along the way. I can't put a number on the appropriate density for a layout (items per square foot?), but I really like them rich.

pqe

Copper mine

The Bingham Canyon copper mine roads near Salt Lake City were inverted wedding cakes, spiraling down into the copper mine.

Another loop

There is a loop around the Engine House (and parking lot) in Antonito, CO, on the Cumbres and Toltec narrow gage for turning trains.