Barney Secord flies the Grand Valley...

[doctorwayne]

man,i knew that barney was always a little nuts,but man was he flyin low! .great pics wayne,but how did you figure out your entire layouts setup just by wingin it!?!? i can barely build a layout with one! --josh

Thanks, Josh. You may have missed this shot of Barney, which I posted some time ago:
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He's flown both over and under the Maitland River bridge, but is still upset that the wingspan of his plane is too great to allow him to fly through the length of it.

As for planning the layout, I started with a sketch of the room (before a 200 sq. ft. chunk was lost to "family considerations"). My rough sketch of the layout had staging situated where GERN is now, with the tracks continuing, straight, well beyond GERN (where the doorway to the layout is now), then curving right and crossing a multi-span (about 10' long) bridge over the Grand River. After another right curve, a much larger version of Dunnville would have been about 20' long, ending roughly where Mercury Mills is now. The peninsula that now has the grade to the second level would have started in South Cayuga, and extended parallel to Dunnville. This would have allowed it to be much longer, considerably reducing the grade and allowing much wider curves. The tunnel to Elfrida would not have been required, although Port Maitland (and GERN) would have been condensed into the area where Lowbanks is now.
With the walls for the "lost" space in place, it was obvious that the bridge over the Grand would have to go, so I moved staging to one of the new walls, and Dunnville to the other. This left no room for the peninsula as planned, so I turned it 90 degrees, and accepted that I'd have to "tunnel" to Elfrida. The rest was pretty much "connect the dots". I knew that I wanted to run fairly short trains, which was a good thing, given the resultant grades, and that I'd usually be operating solo. I figured that passing sidings would allow me to run a number of trains "sequentially", so each town is equipped with one - the shortest one determined the length of the rest. Industrial sidings, stations, etc. were crammed in where they looked acceptable, and over-all, I'm pleased with the outcome.
While the switchbacks are inconvenient, they make for lots of operation, as most trains have to "work" each town along their route. The line also seems pretty good for "railfanning" - I've deliberately placed trees, poles, and structures to obscure the views somewhat, so there's lots of "stuff" framing most shots. All considered, I think that this version is probably better than what was originally planned, although it could certainly be improved with wider curves and less severe grades. Given more room, I'd also space the towns farther apart.
If you go to the link at the end of the pictures, on the diagram of the current layout room, the "lost" room is located to the left of GERN and staging (where the door is) and the wall on which most of Dunnville is located would be about 18' to the left of where it is there.

Wayne