Plans afoot

Anyway, having spent a lot of the holiday weekend thinking about the concept and how to go about it. I came up with the following scheme.

I have incorporated the idea about the webcam. I don't know how practical it would be as my laptop is a MacBook Air and the screen isn't that big. You certainly couldn't get many people around it, probably not as many as could take in the actual end on view on the layout.

I have also mooted the idea that the central sorting road could be extended onto another baseboard/fiddle yard.

The "end on viewing" concept is stressed by angling the baseboard and the track backwards from the fiddle yard and blocking off up to half the layouts length with industrial buildings in front of the viewer. Thereby forcing the viewer to adopt a more end on view of the layout.

A crazy idea for the structure at the front would be to have a cut-away interior displayed. The viewer could then watch the loco and cars pass by the windows and loading dock doors. Perhaps.

Perhaps that's too crazy.

Right now it seems like a reasonable idea. This is after all, a small shunty-plank (switching layout) and devices would be needed to keep peoples interest up.

Practically speaking. Could I build two baseboards exactly the same and make them fold up with hinges as I've suggested? My carpentry inabilities are legendary.

The siding lengths are designed around my preference for the longer, more modern stock rather than the old fashioned 50 footers beloved of some layout builders who try to shrink layouts to microscopic sizes.

There's nothing wrong with the track plan. It's an Inglenook. Tried and tested proven over 50 plus years of railway modelling. It's all down to how its executed and the industries that I choose. I've got a few ideas on that front. More of them later