Things for the future.

With Murray River Bridge structurally accomplished, I have more scenery work to do, including the wharf area, and lots of Southline rolling stock to weather.  This should keep me busy for the next little while, including working on:

1.       Even spread of lighting on the layout, there are still some dark spots.

2.       Small CCTV cameras hanging of the back drop so controls can be placed in the front of the layout.

3.       Remote point control for the fiddle yard, I have had problems in the past with operators unable to decipher a panel or macros, so the jury is still out with this, we shall see.

4.       Maybe even a roster of the trains, which comes up electronically on an Ipad so that the public knows what’s next.

However there are some things in the pipeline that I have been thinking about.

1.        A portable layout that can be transported by aircraft, IE would be considered excess luggage.  I am not talking about a layout in a suit case, or one of those freak show gimmicks, more that someone would be surprised that it was transported as luggage.  The layout would have to be light but also strong enough to handle bag chuckers.  I have a location in mind, but would still require lots of research to get it right.

2.       Alice Springs rebuild, I know this sounds crazy but, the current version of Alice Springs is a compromise in a lot of ways to get the yard to fit within a 2ft 6inch width.  That was a mistake on my behalf, this is related to me wanting to fit more in the space and limiting the yard.  Lance Mindheim has been thinking the same with his East Rail layout and its not crazy to start again on something you are really passionate about.  Putting pen to paper, I can replicate almost exactly the yard arrangement of Alice Springs, additionally a more accurate version of Alice Springs could be added to the future home layout so that its walk in, it would make the operation sooooo much easier including the transportation.

3.        Another display only layout, I must admit, I really enjoyed building Murray River Bridge (I could have picked an easier location), and there are lots of iconic AN locations that are screaming out to be modelled.  Iconic locations can be instantly recognizable by the exhibition public (you would think wouldn’t you??), and as long as they are not too complicated, they should be relatively easy to construct.  Believe it or Murray River Bridge is a layout I proposed back in 2001, finally got around to building it in 3 months this year.  Thus I am going back through the layouts I proposed when I was a young tacker, seeing if I can actually build them.  Those that have read the blog through the years will know what they are (smiling politely).  Two concepts have come to the fore, one of which Dave and Roger are itching for, a BCR layout…(me and my big mouth!)

The new train room, I have come to the conclusion that I am in a very lucky position to have a fair amount of space, so it would be silly of me to fill it with layout, without planning for additional work.  As such I have designated space that can be used as a work area, for building layouts such as Murray River Bridge, and the mood strikes and still maintain a working layout while building.  The work area will have all areas accessible  to walk around the layout in construction.  Working from only one side is a pain in the butt.  Thus I should be able to construct any future layouts with ease, and maintaining an operational layout at the same time.