Hi Willis!
You're right, the system is not gauge exclusive. It is also adaptable to more sophisticated scenery techniques, something we will be exploring as the hirail area of the layout expands.
When designing the system, it was my hope to eliminate some of the steps needed for assembly. For several years, I observed modular groups like the Tinplate Trackers and others setting up, tearing down, packing, unpacking, etc. There's a lot of work to do in limited time, and I knew if Di and I were going to have a layout of any size that we could wrangle on our own (should the need arise), the procedure would need to be much more streamlined than what any existing modular system required.
After much thought, not to mention prayer and fasting (I'm half kidding, eating continued), it became obvious that by discarding certain assumptions, giving up certain unneeded aspects of versatility, and eliminating certain redundancies, I could think farther "outside the box" when devising our own standards.
Some of the time and space consuming things eliminated were:
Bridge track sections.
C clamps.
Redundant legs at each joint.
Adjustable feet.
The need to manually align each section to its mate.
The need for complex construction techniques (assumed to be necessary for self-aligning modules).
Currently, the legs screw into metal mounting plates under each section. That will remain so for the six corner sections, but I intend to refit the straight sections with folding legs. That will further reduce set-up time, and reduce the number of loose pieces. There are only eight straight sections so far, so the time saved with folding legs will become more of a factor as the system grows.
So far, it's worked very well. Other than folding legs, no significant changes have been needed. All that remains to be designed are racks to make the system easier to transport. That's something I hope to do this Summer.
After that, all we need is a place to set up, and a truck!
