November, 2008

Rambling concepts

01 November, 2008

The one thing I notice is just how much out of practice I am with this. I suppose it's the different things happening, so I'm sort of keeping this to weekends at the moment (with the odd evening here and there).

I do try to get on with the micro idea, but find it extremely limiting - but then so is the available space. When I had the On30 Hook River, back in the late 1980's, I ran it as a switching layout with full size locomotives and rolling stock. The advent of the micro has brought to the fore a more industrial type form of model railroading. This involves very small locomotives, tight curves, sharp switches and the use of items not normally found in railroading. For instance the traversing table. Oh, there may have been a few, but they were not common. The same goes for a track layout known as an Inglenook.

Putting all that aside and looking at stuff from a more prototypical idea, then stuff begins to make sense. I could have a basic section with full size 0n3 or 0n30, then maybe a couple of small industries coming off that using the micro concept. One idea is a simple runaround track with a spur and something.

The something is then served by a small railroad maybe 20 or 24 inch guage. 18 inch is a bit tight, but feasible and a number of mines had that gauge. Maybe I need to find a specific industry to tack on to and see what can be done.