09-09-2009, 02:02 PM
MountainMan Wrote:The prevailing trend is to layouts along the walls of rooms, which seems limiting and appears wasteful of space. Does anyone have any experience with the opposite type, free-standing multi-form layouts that avoid the walls? I m not referring to the classic 4 x 8 beginner's layout, nor am I referring to the very sophisticated "mushroom" layouts.
In my case, I'm trying to use a room with way too many openings in walls to make an along-the-wall traditional layout easy.
A free standing layout is obviously a good idea if you have a lot of openings in the walls, openings that need to stay accessible.
But I don't get where you make the leap from that to the claim that shelf or mushroom layouts in general are more limiting and more "wasteful of space" ? I would say that the opposite would be the case - that long narrow scenes where you are not looking at the whole layout at the same time helps enhance the railroad look and feel. After all - railroad rights of ways tend to be hundreds or thousands of miles long and a few hundred (or less) feet wide.
Smile,
Stein