09-05-2009, 06:57 AM
With plenty of room you don't have to resort to theatrical trickery to make the layout appear larger than it is. I guess the bottom line with fiddle yards and multi-level layouts where helixes go down to hidden yards is that one just has to imagine the train traveling through the vast expanses of wilderness they can't model. My layout has a small fiddle yard (or something), but the idea isn't to physically lift and change trains there. Apparently some UK modelers do exactly that, but IMHO that seems to defeat the purpose of having any electrics or automation on a layout - one could then just as well push the trains onto the layout and through the station, maybe even make choo-choo sounds in the process. Multiple levels seems to be a way to make more efficient use of the room available. Some build their layout inside furniture so the room can be used for other purposes when the trains aren't running.
-norm