Drawing inspiration from other scales...

Good luck with that Dave.  I'll be following your progress.  I need a little inspiration to start some scratch kit. So, post your progress as you go. 

Thanks,

My inspiration was, is John Allan's HO layout. It's why I love mountain railroading and why many of my Cascade Mountains go all the way to the floor. Don

John Allen has cast a long shadow, because he was a fine modeler and a great photographer.

The different scales all have interest in their own ways. I've modeled mainly in HO for close to 50 years, with a temporary diversion into N scale. I got into O gauge just by chance acquisitions and it has been my favorite diversion for about the last 4 years. And for diversion and variety I like to build small layouts in different scales. I'm still active in HO, N, HOn30 and O, although the N scale has been on the back burner.

I look at H.O. layout and modeling designs all the time. The only thing I have to do to use them for my sordid purposes is increase the dimensions accordingly -- double the bench work/track sizes and 1.8125 times "actual" sizes of items for buildings, etc. Modernly, more articles give dimensions in scale feet and scaling factors for full-sized plans.

Cool, you go Dave! Now, how are you planning on doing all the visible structual lumber- actual wood or stryene? Wood lends a nice grain, but it's not everyones favorite medium. Styrene is easily glued together but lacks grain- sand paper can fix that along with staining and washes to give a wood look.

A small can or plastic jug can be the inner basis for that water tower, with a surround of whatever medium you'd like...I'll be watching this one!

My biggest influence from the scale modeling area of model railroading is operations.  Despite the third rail and often disproportionate dimensions, I still want to run them in a manner that reflects how real trains run/ran, albeit on a much more simplified scale. The track plan doesn't have to be complex, either, and I even wouldn't mind if it was a temporary, postwar-style floor layout.  The point is that I am too familiar with operations to be content with simply running trains on independent loops. The option of display running is a good one to have, but I want to show people how a model railroad can essentially be turned into a giant board game when you introduce things like car cards and waybills, train orders, etc.

Aaron

The free DVDs that Model Railroader sends out have a lot of cross-scale ideas.  Just got one yesterday - "Modeler's Showcase" 13 chapters of neat modeling tips and ideas.