Modelling Specific Locations on Layouts

[RobertInOntario]

Tomorrow I'll be operating Windermere station. Mike tells me that it is to scale (with minor improvements) and it takes up a diagonal in one basement room. The layout representing the rest of England fills the crawl space. I think that Lostock Junction is modelled functionally but probably not to scale. I think Mike's only been working on this for 35 to 40 years
I've never been able to decide on a place to model; just took plans I liked from books.

Have fun, David! I hope to see more of these layouts in the future.

I'm going to fudge a lot of details with mine -- I have to on such a small layout. For example, the Wellow station platform will be only 2/3 as long as it should be (maybe even less!) so I will have to foreshorten & crowd some detail. I'm still finding it fun locating various pics from all sorts of angles (and different time periods even) that show different types of detail.

Once I narrow down the various main sections immediately around the station, the rest of the layout will probably be fictional.

I also think that graphically and design-wise, the layout now has a central focus (the station) that draws the eye while the rest of the layout's detail settles into the background. Before I made these changes, the layout was too busy with too many small areas competing for attention. The eye didn't know where to look. This is the graphic designer part of me coming out. This is what I do for a living (a magazine designer) -- which also proves the point that while layouts may or may not be works of art, they do take on principles of design.

Rob