Decision making?

[Future]

How did everyone decide what they wanted to build their layouts after? Did you have one in specific you liked seeing or did you just make your own up?

Lately I've been thinking of trying to recreate something similar to the area I grew up in. A small town in New Jersey called Kearny. On the street we lived on there was this old silo leading to a bridge the was out of commission. Meaning it stayed in the upright position and was no longer used. (Except by movie producers for the movie "Annie")

Now I can pretty much remember the area with the silo's, but when you decide upon a layout, how do you figure out the rest of the diorama for the layout?

 

[riverotter1948]

If somebody will post the link to "Givens & Druthers", that might help you; or you could search this forum for references to it.

 

[Future]

What is Givens & Druthers? Dumb question being I'll search it, but is that the rail name? I left Jersey at 13y.o. so I'm going mainly by memory here.

 

[Hathaway Browne]

I'm a newbie too, but I believe "Givens & Druthers" is model railroad parlance for "pros and cons" or rather "what you want, what you can have and what you can't".

 

[sparkyftw]

Givens are what you are given, what you have, that don't change and you really don't have much say in.

Druthers is what you want. What era, industries, stuff like that.

 

[UP2CSX]

Take a look at this thread: http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8840&highlight=givens. It will give you some ideas about the givens (what you can't change) and the druthers (what you can cahnge and what you really want on your layout). It's iportant to think about both since the constraints of the givens will have a big effect on your druthers.

 

[Rico]

"Druther" means "I'd rather", more or less.
"I'd ruther be a hammer than a nail" as Simon & Garfunkel crooned.
"Givens" more or less is what you've got.
"My girlfeind won't be given' me more room for the layout" as I sometimes lament.
The guys summed it up pretty well.

 

[riverotter]

Take a look at this site's page for more details about Givens & Druthers:

http://www.raildreams.com/questionnaire.html