Well, today was a pretty good day at the Syracuse train show, but something rather unexpected followed me home:

An On30 2-6-0 and a tank car.  I plopped them down a piece of flex and said "man, thats neat"-guess I have yet more planning to do...

This one is  based on the plan in MRH q3 by Byron Henderson.  I modified it to fit onto a cut 4x8 sheet, which I have available.  I plan on using this as a start to a larger layout, just planning for such a large space(at least for me) was getting overwhelming.  Here is the plan:

1    Main

2    Yard lead and station

3   Interchange

4   Industry of some kind-still undecided

After thinking I setteled on the Lowville and beaver river, I have been doing some thinking(always a dangerous thing).  Now not only am I not sure of the prototype I am going to model, but also have been struggling with scale (n, ho, or on30), era (I have thought about 1850s through modern and all points in between), location, and prototype or freelance or a mixture of both.  At the present time I am leaning toward a modern layout with freelanced with some local landmarks thrown in for good measure.  Meanwhile, my wife is saying she can't wait to get start on scenicing(her fa

Like I said previously, I have alot more space now than I ever had.  The shape possiblities for the benchwork are just a tad overwhelming, so I decided to give a couple a try in xtrackcad so I can press on.  I am just using shapes and town names right now and not wasting time with trying to arrange track yet.

Here are my goals:

Prototypical operation with the option to go round and round(at my wife's request)

We like to take our layouts to trainshows, so it must be able to move

Staging

It has been a busy summer.  We got are basement cemented, then my wife told me I can have it for trains, so the previous layout (see first blog) was taken down, and a new one will be going up.  This year I have approximately 18x12' to build my layout, then next year I will be able to add 5' on to make it 18x17.  I am very excited, and haven't even been able to figure out where to begin as far as planning goes.  Prior to this, the largest layout I have had was 3x5', so this is a pretty big task.

Here is the track plan for a micro layout I am planning on building.  The shelf is already in place and the sector plate is already attached.  I plan for it to be set in the early 1900s.  The sector plate will be hidden by an industry and either a foot bridge or a traction bridge.  Right now I am leaning toward the tracktion bridge, but I am just not sure yet.