Ok, so you think, I want to build a railway, but what era, region, scale to name just three. Then, do I want to just run trains around a circuit or do I want to replicate prototypical operations e.g. end to end. What scale, well that really depends on the space you have available and the thickness of your wallet. A book I found to be a goldmine of information when starting out was "The Model Railway Design Manual" by C.J.Freezer, published 1996. I don't believe it is still available new but is available as old stock or used from specialist used book stores online. Much of it is as applicable now as it was back 1996 and earlier. It has significant statements, the first is "It's your railway" which is often referred to as Rule 1. Basically it is designed, developed and run as you, and only you want it, be it a rivet counters paradise or pure fantasy so it cannot be wrong. Another important issue addressed early on is the three factors which need consideration, time, space and cost. Not sure now whether it was in this book or not, but is what I consider to be quite true that if you can satisfy 2 out of 3 of the requirements, time available, space available and money available the remaining one can be compensated for. So I wanted BR steam/green diesel era, plenty of goods wagons, a mix of operational and train watching, and the ability to run mainline trains of length equal to 6 coaches. OO gauge was just feasible. Having just taken voluntary redundancy I at least had plenty of time, a modest amount of space and money so I could actually start building my first ever layout. But now I needed a plan. C.J.Freezer's book includes 125 track plans, varied and well thought out, but I still couldn't find the right direction, so many choices, pages and pages of doodles came and went. Then one day on holiday when the weather wasn't so good I browsed YouTube and found this video :- Doug Wilson's "North East model railway - Marshalling Yard Part1" That settled it, a marshalling yard, the only problem is that these were often hump yards which are very difficult to create and operate in OO, too much friction and insufficient inertia for wagons to roll any distance. But even so Doug's flat marshaling yard and it's operational aspects had me hooked. To be continued, Jim. Index of Articles with Links
