I am thinking way back when I had my first layout, a 5 X 9 flat table. If I wanted to change the theme a bit, I would just put in different buildings on a street or siding and change out locos and rolling stock accordingly. I could go from the 1800's to the 1950's without much trouble. I could go from a modern city to rural town. You get the idea. In my case I would have only had to change out 3 or 4 buildings and go from a steamer to a diesel switcher. But then I thought about going further into scenic elements and big changes in terrain elevation while keeping the track plan the same. My idea would be to have a fairly simple track plan like an exaggerated weaving figure 8 and a siding. The roadbed base, about 6 inches wide, would be installed on 2 or 3 foot risers on the base bench work for the plywood, homasote, cork, and track, to allow for relatively flat terrain or dramatic changes in scenic elevations. The empty space between the roadbed would be filled in with modular foam chunks of terrain elevations of choice for the theme desired. In particular, I envision going from a narrow gauge mountain them to a small city scape. I don't know if this has been done in just this way, but perhaps on modular club layouts it has to some extent. If so, I would like to see photos. Just a possibility I have been pondering for a while.
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