With so many folks doing new layout work - Lee is moving the yard, Ed is moving, Steve is selling the house, etc - I thought it might be nice to revive a former thread
http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php/topic,16500.0.html And let some more folks stretch the brain muscles regarding their Givens and Druthers for a layout. Thanks to Lee, we have topics:
- Prototype fidelity
Research Resources
Available Space
Specific Scenes
Specific Operations
Through Traffic and/or Interchanges
Scenery Preferences
Time Frame
So, away we go and I'll lead off with some tidbits on my Baton Rouge Southern:
Prototype fidelity - I am after a lot of prototype references to KCS, but I'll run a few ICG/IC trains for fun on the older verion of the layout. WATCO owned BRS locomotive will also make an appearance when I'm running the mid-2000's version.
Research Resources - lots of photos I've taken over the years railfanning in Baton Rouge. Anything I find I don't have I cnaa usually get on a trip home. That, and several of the on-line galleries. And the KCS Historical Society.
Available Space - I'm working around the walls in my home office - which has to share space with a small crafts table used by my daughters, and a nominally functional desk. You can see the track plan in my blog
http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/blog/kcsphil1Specific Scenes - one that I'm really hoping to get right is the now-demolished UTLX service dome that used to stand in North Baton Rouge
That Pic is from Evan MAther at Flickr, FYI. The dome was completed in 1958, and at 396 feet in diameter was one o fthe larget industril geodesic domes built by Buckminster Fuller. Union Tankcar had a servicing facility inside, complete with a turntable, paintbooths, and all sorts of goodies. My plan is to do a full scale quarter of the dome in one corner of the layout.
Specific Operations - lots of oil refinery traffic (and maybe covered hoppers for plastic pellets); allsorts of car and loco traffic for the Dome (which I imagine as having been bought by a shady Louisiana collective to do railroad repair work (and thus preserved); boxcars and reefers for Agway (which is a grocery distributor), and several varieties of hoppers (covered and uncovered) for the barge terminal.
Lots to still work out, but its a start.
