Its been a busy couple months and I haven't had a lot of hobby time.  Because I fly a lot, I bought several books, as I've mentioned in other threads, to read and try to learn more about operations and design.  Things are less cloudy, but I still don't feel confident in designing something that will be operationally pleasing.  I think researching a specific area and the operations that go on there would help, though, but I'm not sure where to start in that.  Google searches provide general information, but nothing in depth to provide much for industries and the like and where things go.  If someone can point me in the right direction for doing research, that would be much appreciated.

Anyway, reading these books and reading the articles in MRH last month, plus the advice and discussion here has pushed me in a different direction than I was headed a couple months ago.  I think I've mentioned I'm impatient, and that is not a good quality to have in a hobby like this (or anything, really), so I took a step back and realized that my next major layout should be the best it can be and will take 5-10 years to get to a pseudo-completion stage.  With that in mind, why would I not try to plan it out as best I can in the beginning so after 5 years I'm not ripping the thing apart because it just isn't doing what I had hoped it would.  I need to learn more, research more and have some fun with it.

But I can't just read and read for the next 6 months to a year.  My kids want to run trains, I want to run trains, and I/we need to learn the skills so that the "big" one is much better and fewer redos.  The MRH "Chainsaw" railroad article was a pretty good splash of cold water in the face.  So, I resurrected a track plan for a 3x9 layout that I planned to build at my last house when space was very limited.  It is an expansion of the Scenic and Relaxed layout in Nine N Scale Layouts by John Armstrong and Thaddeus Stepak.  I still need to find purpose in the industries so that there is some operational value, but I should get that from the reading I'm doing, then learn what I screwed up and what I did well (if anything). 

I still have the table and have put it back together and layed down the mainline on top of the foam to see how it fits.  I need some more track (and many switches) to get the final version down, but the mainline with two passing sidings will allow two operators (me and my son or daughter or the two of them) to run around, stop in the siding and wait for the other before proceeding.  This would be a start for them, then they could switch the industries and go from there.  Once we've got track down, we can do some scenery work and figure that all out.  Finally, when we finalize the "big" plan, I thought we'd donate it to the annual school fundraising auction to make room and hopefully get someone else hooked on model railroading.  Because of this, I'm tempted to buy a Bachmann DCC system to experiment with DCC and get the Zephyr when we go to the main layout.  We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, I'll build up rolling stock and buildings and do some weathering.  That will also keep me busy and keep learning about techniques and what works and doesn't work.  Should be good fun.

So that's where I'm at.  I'll add some pictures in a couple weeks when we've got some track down and show off my first attempts at weathering in a long time.  Thanks for reading.