I was just in the train room measuring heights John C proposed on his latest plan, which lined up pretty well with my daughter's shelves left on the pink wall. I also was comparing my reach, and I agree 50" at Thomas/Davis works pretty well for me without having to stand on anything. I got looking at the lower town of Hendricks at 33". It isn't too low for me for wiring, because I will be using the cookie cutter method of building my roadbed, and have successfully run my wiring standing and reaching into the layout on past layouts. My thoughts went to getting into the access area on the lower end of the layout. This concerns me some. No, if I build it well, I won't need to access much, but there will always be the occasion where there is a derailment in a tunnel or something that needs attention.
Then I had an idea. No, not a new idea. I actually used this idea on the 2-module layout I built that we moved from Virginia to West Virginia in 1993. I built a hill on the workbench which had a farm and some woods that covered a double track turn-back loop. I then placed the farm scene over the framing, and the tracks were covered. Some bushes hid the joints neatly. I think the portals were attached to the main layout. Anyway, why not do something like this again? Yes, I could use the access, but in the future if I wasn't able to get in there, the foam liftoff scenery may be handy. Just thinking.
I also thought of moving the tracks at Davis out near the edge of the layout, and putting some building/station flats in behind. Maybe even the engine house would fit. I did no measurements yet. I just made a quick sketch on the last plan John C sent. I attached a .pdf of that. Once again, just some thoughts to throw out there.
Thank you for following along!!
