Greetings from the Rabbidgerbal,
I’m new to the “club” (so to speak) and am currently in the mist of working up an inglenook style switcher on a 1’ x 3’ layout in HO. I’m really trying to pu***he limits of the space while remaining in HO standard scale.
THE SCENE: FIrstly I’m pushing the scene in having a main line that branches up into a mine and down into a tiny dockside rail seaport. Plans for a tiny beach, a moonshine still area near the mine a couple of tiny houses and a train station…phew the space might call for some creative kitbashing in the end perhaps even more as the room allows… I got my eye on a nice bi-plane to sit on the beach.
THE CARS: people don’t seem to be talking much about their rolling stock. I think this is the key to my tiny layout. Thus far I scored a bobber caboose that’s just over 25’ in scale, a 22’ ore car, and a 34’ passenger car… with a 30’ gondola car, 30’ blacksmith car and 30’ sleeper car just ordered. moreover my tiny 0-4-0 switcher measures in at a mighty 4.5 inches. The reason I say this all is key is in trying to maintain the inglenook game with nearly the same amount of cars as a much larger set up.
THE LAYOUT: I’m currently leaning toward the main line cutting the board in half with a branch going off toward the top and one to the bottom slightly beyond that.
MOREOVER ABOUT CARS: also the design may be used on a table or perhaps plug into a larger set up for a staging yard. the key here is in the “BIG” event of a mainline train coming through. Having these tiny cars will make the event of seeing something like the Howarts special rolling through with it’s normal larger passenger cars as a serious event.
THOUGHTS OF FICTION OF THE THREE INDUSTRIES: Well firstly you have a mainline going through, perhaps it was then that a survayer found a bit of stone that indicated a vein of gold or what have you… (Unobtainium?) that spawned the small mine, then that quickly