Over the last few days as I began dismantling one side of the layout (the un-ballasted side), this give me the opportunity to move the other side about 70cms away from the wall. I always wanted to view the layout from both a concave and convex perspective and at one point or another I had attempted to do this but then pushed the layout back to the wall as it was too difficult a task.
I then moved the other side away from the wall and now both sides of the layout are closer together joined by a nice radius curve with the viewing area in the middle retained. I think the best thing I have done is move the layout away from the walls! The different angles and view-points are extremely pleasing. Not only has this given me these additional viewpoints, it has also allowed me access to the side-door, and both windows. Having all three open and the shed is cooler than the garden!
As I was doing this, Darren came over last weekend to talk about lining the shed. We also talked about what I was doing. He made some very valuable remarks, such as the wasted space near the station area, and about how the shed is mainly used for playing trains with the workbench activities a secondary activity. This actually confirmed that having the layout run round the walls was actually wasting more space than having it in the centre of the room! Another idea Darren threw my way was to have the curve continue on until it meets up with the other (ballasted) benchwork doing away with the centre viewing, however I enjoy seeing the layout from this area so did not implement this, but this did however spark the idea on having a gently S curve which again moves be further away from the rigid and too symmetric track layout I have had and been frustrated with.
Here is a rough diagram of how I set up the bench work - you can see I put them closer together away from the walls:
Now the challenge is to create a track plan which has the following:
1. Continuous run,
2 The option of shunting which usually entails a town of some sort
3. Sticking to a VR track schematic
4. Country scenery somewhere on the layout
5. Staging
6. Industries
7. Loco tracks?
- all in 6 x 4.7m! Is it possible?
