I have been going thru different ideas for a layout. I have the basic one i wanna do laid out in my head. Today while at work I had ideas for a completely different one pop into my head. I may be opening up a can of worms sort of speak with the idea.
It is a Pirates of the Caribbean theamed layout. I would have no idea how to even design the layout except that it would be something along a dog boned shaped layout. Any ideas, comments or suggestion. What kinds of things would you think of would fit into it.
I say go for it, and ignore the naysayers who will say it’s not “real” model railroading. While the eras don’t exactly match up - the golden age of pirates was over long before railroads became commonplace - I’m sure you could think of something.
As stated before, the high time of pirates was just a little before they built the first railroad in that region [:-^] But what the heck, at least they had (and still have) railroads on some of those islands.
What comes to my mind is a nice On30 layout, with sugar cane fields, a sugar factory, lots of feathered palm trees, a port scene with shady characters lurking around and the remnants of an old and sunk ship sticking up a little above waterline.
Since railroading was not really a feature of the pirate era in the Caribbean, you can either go totally fantasy, and do whatever you want (Acela’s pulling flatcars or gondolas with bearded pirates and smooth bore cannons past 0-4-0 Grashoppers) , or you can try for a “what if Caribbean pirate bases had lasted into the steam engine age” railroad bringing e.g. sugar cane to a harbor with sailing ships, or you can do something like a Disney amusement park ride.
Or you can do Thomas the tank engine with cars Clarabella and whatever the other one is named, postulating that the pirates have been forced out of the Caribbean and has taken over the island of Sodor instead.