I realized that since I'm going to be documenting the construction of my railroad here, I should probably also have a post about the railroad as well.

The design I've settled on is this:

15759

The design is an 8x12' 'L'-shape, with a single-track loop around the outside, with reversing sections in both directions. There is a yard in the front, an engine facility on the right, a town in the middle, a logging company up on the hill in the back (yeah, there's a hill in the back), and a small port on the left. I haven't exactly figured out what I'm going to do with the space where the legend is on the map right now. Maybe my Lego Star Destroyer can sit there. It would only be moderately out of place. (see update below)

The layout will be built on two 4'x8' tables, on top of which will be eight 2'x4' custom modules. The modules, rather than being built with homasote, will be built using standard hard foam insulation panels. The benefit of this design is that the layout ends up being significantly lighter, and therefore requires a significantly simpler table design. This light design, modular design will allow me to easily (relative term) move the layout when Sarah and I decide that it's time for a new home.

The time period of the layout is going to be turn-of-the-(last)-century northern United States, probably in winter time. I won't be modeling any real place, nor will I be modeling any one real railroad, though I probably won't make a fake railroad name, either. My locomotives and rolling stock will all be from real roads, but won't all be from the same one. Obviously, as dictated by the time period, all of the engines will be relatively primitive steam engines ("modern", superheated steam engines weren't invented by that time), and the railroad will lack other modern rail technologies, like electronic signaling systems. This will pose somewhat of a challenge, as engines and rolling stock of that vintage are somewhat difficult to come by, but I like that era, so that's what I'm doing.

While the topside of the layout will be relatively old, the underside will be anything but. I will be using only the latest in model railroading technology to power and control my layout. The core of my electrical system will be a North Coast Engineering Power Cab. The Power Cab is an all-in-one "starter" DCC system which has nearly all of the state-of-the-art and top-of-the-line features of NCE's larger DCC systems, but at a much lower cost.

Beyond having DCC for controlling the locomotives, however, I plan to fully integrate all of my layout control systems into DCC, which is not a very common thing to do, and something that I have never personally see. Every one of my switch machines and my turntable will be fully controlled via DCC. My "control panel" will simply be the RJ11 jacks for plugging in the cabs.

I am also considering adding a fully automated, motorized semaphore signaling system. I'm not quite sure about that, though. If I ever do it, it won't be until very late in the construction. Regardless, something like that will likely be very expensive to implement.

So, that's the plan for now. I'll keep posting updates and whatnot as time goes by. (The plan right now is to put the legs on the table tomorrow.)

Update: Duh... I crossed out the part where I said I didn't know what I'd be doing with the front section of the loop. I'm building a winter scene in North America. I obviously need there to be a frozen lake with kids playing hockey!