In The Beginning Was The Plan

Just Kidding. I don't have a plan at all, and never have. What I have would more properly be called a "hope," or even a "wish." I've never been good at drawing up track plans. When I see the plans other people have drawn for their pikes, I weep for want of ever conjuring up anything nearly that imaginative and detailed.

That's my track plan, such as it is, in the foreground. It's a sketch drawn mostly freehand on a crude grid, and it's about as detailed as the crude sketch drawn with a pen on the foam board laid out across the bench work.

I've read all the John Armstrong articles in every issue of Model Railroader from 1950 to 1969. Fascinating stuff. And I can easily see how important a well-thought-out plan is to the success of an operating layout.

I learned to plan a layout by piecing together six-inch lengths of Lionel 3-rail track, though, and I don't seem to be able to get any more sophisticated than that, unless I'm allowed to count using flex-track and a soldering iron.

So this is how it starts: A crude sketch, first on paper, then on foam. Eventually I start playing with the track to see if I can match it up to the sketch. We'll see.