... (some of the vids where the guy is on 3-4th track plan and the bench is TOAST with divots and bumps!)
I have a friend like this still in Mobile, Al. For every one layout I would have, he would go through 4-5 different plans with the prerequisite of an almost complete teardown each time. I never saw any scenery on any of his either.
Things like this is why I firmly believe in taking your time when developing a track plan. I believe that the layout should be well designed, as stated in the "history" I have my clients write up. When you have a concrete goal in mine for the layout it does make the process easier, but not necessarily shorter.
For my own layout, I spent 15yrs planning what I am calling my last layout. I'm not recommending that someone spend that much time on planning, but I knew it would be about that long before I could start on one. This did give me a chance to make sure that everything I wanted on the layout was there, and that those scenes were needed and perfect for the locations I put them in. During that time, not only did I do numerous handdrawn plans, but when I was able to get much more room for a plan, I learned to use a CDP, (Computer Design Program) which is much more accurate than something handdrawn. I also had no problem cherry picking different areas off of other plans that I liked the switching setup shown and placed it into the plan. Some I removed later to make the plan simpler in that area. Every layout I've ever had, except my very first one, had a copy of John Allen's "Timesaver". This one will not, at least not now, as I haven't found "The Place" for it. Learning the CDP also allowed me to "speed" up the process of designing layouts for others.
On my preceding layouts, the shortest lasted 1 year, with the longest life on the last one prior to this one was 12 years. That one was also the only pure "commercial" plan, that came from a magazine. It was called the
"Tupper Lake & Faust Junction". I believe that it came from the Sept 1972 MR, if anyone would like to see it. I did make changes to it, ones that I felt made it better, for me at least. I increased the nominal radius from 22" to 30". I even had 2 scratchbuilt double slip switches in the main yard throat. I had added bigger, and more "switching" areas to improve the operations on it. I had even gotten to the scenery stage on it, and it was looking really good, only to have to come down due to our move from Mobile, Al to Birmingham, Al.
So I'll MAKE one on my layout, got enough room to simulate a D-Town to Chi-Town kinda feel with a branch to the Porcupine Mountains in the U.P....the possibilities abound.
