A Brief Intro

Like the majority of modelers, my interest started with a 4x8 foot sheet of plywood with an HO scale double loop in the garage of my parent’s house. Like many I’ve read stories from, that interest got put on hold until I finally got space of my own. Now that I’ve got the space and the time to work on it, I’m jumping back in to the hobby, this time in N scale.

After much thought and some false starts, I decided to combine two of my favorite activities into one - model railroading and board games. I’ve seen lots of stories where people build model layouts in coffee tables, and thought “why can’t I do something in a larger table?” Thus the idea was born - a gaming table layout, sized to fit the kind of board games I play (mostly the ones that take longer to setup than to actually play).

The layout is set in the Appalachians during the transition era (though I expect at some point some more modern equipment will make an appearance as well). It’ll be a modular layout sized to fit through the hallways in my house, made up of four 30x36 inch modules. It’s designed for continuous running, but also with provisions to connect to a larger around the wall layout at a later time.

The layout is anchored by a large yard (currently Mountain View Yard, though city names are still subject to change). There’s connections on layout for a logging camp, a mountain resort, and a construction site, plus the town of Clearwater with it’s associated industries. The entire layout is just big enough to offer some interesting operations possibilities (especially for a single operator), while still being small enough to move around my layout room/rec room.

The next post will probably catch up on benchwork construction (spoiler - thanks Model Railroad Benchwork for saving me the struggle of building my own) and talk through plans and control schemes.