Rethinking The 'Big' Layout

I say big, but at 22"x35" (A shade under 2x3ft) this still probably still classes as small to most!

The layout itself is built on half of a pasting table. With one of the 'tops' replaced with 5.5mm plywood sheet and using one set of redundant legs as bracing, it's surprisingly sturdy. It also has the added bonus that a Gaugemaster 'M1' cased controller fits snugly inside between the halves, and the pre-fitted pasting table handle allows for easy one man transportation if the chance for exhibiting occurs.

I'd been a bit disheartened with the above layout for a while now. Partly because I seemed to have misjudged where dead sections were/weren't needed, but there was also just something I couldn't put my finger on. Having based it loosely on the design of the Rev. Awdry's MK1 Ffarquhar layout, I think I probably retained a bit too much of the standard gauge flavour about it. 

So I took the plunge, de-soldered the wiring (Surprisingly easier than expected) and took the track up. A quick sanding to the remove the worst of some of the paint job applied to the rails and on the backscenes, I was back at a (almost) blank baseboard:

From there it was a relaxed afternoon throwing ideas around with a few items of rolling stock and some place holder buildings, eventually arriving at this design:

The general idea is still the same, with the line highlighted by the blue tracksetta running between a Maurice Deane style two part backscene, making the loop less obvious. The station layout certain looks more narrow gauge here, and moving one of the sidings has also given a bay platform line. Perfect for a railcar or push/pull service. There is a slight downside in that an N gauge Setrack curved point would be needed for the station/branch divide, but with some careful ballasting and modification of the sleepers it hopefully shouldn't stand out too much...

If I'm feeling really brave I could always have a go at building one, but I think that might be a jump too far for me at the moment.

Whilst I would be happy to jump right in and relay the track to the above design I'm letting it sit for a while. Mainly so I can come back to it to make sure it's exactly what I want, but also to give me time to work out a rough electrical diagram just to make sure I know where the dead sections are needed this time!