I found it!

I can't believe it's been nearly 4 months since I posted here. But I know why.

I've been dithering on my layout plan for even longer.

I most recently decided to get serious about a layout early last year. I was inspired in part by the Model Railroader "Beer Line" project layout. My friend Keith, who's among the area's premier modelers, encouraged me to look at that as a first real, full-fledged layout.

Trouble was, I wasn't really enthusiastic about an all-urban, all-operating layout. I think the Beer Line is a great project layout, and I love the execution of it in the magazine. But my principal goal for a layout is one with rugged, rural scenery for logging and mining operations. I'll never be John Allen, but I do want to be able to be inspired by him.

For a while, I warmed to the idea of the Beer Line track plan, but repurposed for a rural setting. On the Humboldt Yard side, it would be a small town with yard and engine servicing facilities. The other side (the one with the long, curved siding) would be a logging camp scene. Instead of a river down the middle, I'd do a center 2-sided backdrop.

I think it could be a great way to reimagine the Beer Line plan, but I just couldn't get excited about it.

I thought about the old folded dogbone design from my youth and ruminated about employing it in some variation.

But one thing had happened as a result of my Beer Line flirtation: I had become deeply intrigued by a sectional layout.

Now, the Beer Line's design is especially ingenious because it can be rearranged in a variety of configurations. My interest in sectional layouts wasn't so much for that, however. It was more basic: I hope to move someday, and if I do, I don't want to have to tear down the layout and start over. I've waited this long to finally get to building a layout; once I actually get started I don't want it to be for naught.

I also wanted a layout that while small would lend itself to reasonable expansion in the future, in that new dream home.

And the old C.B. Baird-inspired design doesn't look like it lends itself very well to sectional construction. It also felt like it would take too long to actually get going with running trains. And my attempts to doodle expansion ideas went nowhere. The whole thing just didn't quite set right with me.

So it went over the last several months, as I dithered more between the Beer Line and the Baird line. The Beer Line did strike me as having expansion potential. But try as I might, I still couldn't get excited about it.

Then in December's MR I spotted a great layout that opened up another possibility.

The full layout depicts a section of the Boston and Maine. What caught my eye, however, was the center peninsula, about a 6-by-12 segment of the layout. I don't know for sure, but it looks very much to me like that segment was the starting point for this railroad, and that the builder then built on the two extensions on either side of it.

It had the capability for a lot of scenery, including a branch up over the mainline. The layout as built used the upper level there for an urban setting; I would make that a mountain, probably with a mine up there.

I began to commit myself to this design (the center section, that is), and began working out ways in which I might sectionalize it. I mulled the possibility of a two-sided backdrop down the center.

Still, I dithered. 6 by 12 -- that was pretty big. It might squeeze down to 5 by 10, but at 4 by 8 it would certainly be cramped. My enthusiasm flagged. I went back to looking at the Beer Line track plan. Maybe, I thought, there was some weird way I could tweak that design to have the elements that appealed to me about the B&M layout.

But I just was not that into it.

Somehow, all this rumination came to a head this week.

I've been working on a magazine article for a city lifestyle magazine I write for about the model railroading hobby. I've interviewed a lot of local modelers and seen some interesting, fun and in some cases gorgeous layouts. I've met a lot of railroaders and enjoyed talking with them. And I've been feeling vexed with myself for having kept my toes out of the hobby for decades. Why, oh why, I've been asking myself, didn't I actually DO something with it way back right after college?

I pulled out my copy of 102 Realistic Track Plans and paged through it several nights running this week. I saw a number of possibilities, but nothing that quite grabbed me. What I saw was either just a little too simple, or else too complex. I couldn't get excited about any of them. I got depressed.

And then...

There was a while a few years ago when I was going to gut all of my MR magazines, cutting out the articles that interested me and filing them by topic. I didn't get very far with that before I decided it was too much work, that I liked paging through the magazine issues and seeing the stories in context. But I did save the stuff I had clipped.

And then, there it was, in the file folder for track plans.

I clearly had been intrigued by it the first time I saw it -- intrigued enough to clip it, anyway. Now, though, I saw it with new eyes. And this time, it was love at first sight.

The design is one that the builder made to fit in a very limited, small space. I don't have quite the restrictions he does, but its simplicity is highly appealing. At the same time, it's got potential for rolling scenery, even in the small area it fills. And it's got multiple points of interest. It GOES somewhere. It's got track over and under, but it doesn't look like a spaghetti bowl.

Here it is:

It allows for continuous running, a must for me. It's got lots of scenic potential. It's simple enough to start out with, but can get more complex over time. The size is perfect for my space. And it was designed as a sectional layout.

Just how enthusiastic am I about it?

For months my basement work bench has been filled with clutter, and thus completely unusable.

This morning I hopped out of bed before 6 a.m. At 8 we went out for breakfast, and I was back working by 9:30. By 1 o'clock, it was completely cleaned off, and all the clutter in the area round it sorted and stored away as well.

Now I'm ready to build the benchwork. If I don't get the lumber tomorrow, I'll be getting it by the end of next weekend.