Visit to Jacko's

Last weekend we had the opportunity to catch up with Greg out at Rathdowney.  It was good to see his layout again and to get together with the other chaps.  I took some video of the event which can be found here:

The Plan to end all Plans?

Well well well, what do you know.  I actually think I have developed and layed out the plan I was searching for all this time.  The plan consists of passing through the main scene and station area once only, then running laps for the purpose of enjoying the rail fanning experience and then exiting to staging.  I really wanted the main-line running laps concept as I really enjoy seeing trains actually putting on some mileage.  Previous plans I had had continuous runs, however trains would pass the same main town scene twice.   This just didn't fit well with me after a while.

Now, I have it such that the loop of track where continuous run happens is basically country so I don't really care if the trains pass the scene more than once here as out in the sticks everything looks the same after a while - have you ever gone on a long road trip - or even a long train ride out to the sticks?

I even solved the issue of where to put a turntable!  Boy am I pleased with what I have now.  No steep gradients, and no reverse loops!  I am really pleased.