Topic: Model Railroad Design Topic: Model Railroad Operations East rail was an ‘instant on’ layout. In the evening, after my family duties were met, I could grab an ice cold beer, hit the switch, and run. This, sub-conscious ease of use, encouraged an atmosphere where I was operating almost daily. Is your layout […]
How to Use Your Layout and Use it Often How do we ‘play’ with our layouts? It’s an important question because it ultimately determines how much we enjoy our railroad or whether we enjoy it all. Fewer people than you’d expect can answer the question accurately. The result is layouts that sit idle, never […]
A layout with only one turnout? One that offers diverse, hour long operating sessions without ‘make work’ complexity? A layout that could be built in two weekends and then morph into something that provides several years worth of craftsman projects? A gimmick? Absolutely not. It’s all a matter of selecting the right theme, understanding prototype […]
It’s pretty easy to sub-consciously buy into conventional wisdom without thinking through whether such an approach actually applies to our situation. It may or may not. The expected lifespan of a layout is one such example. For many of us, when we set out to build a layout, it’s with the thought that it will […]