Do your trackwork right the first time and make it perfect so
everything and their mothers can run on it.
Power your frogs!
Don't spend all that time scratchbuilding structures and
creating nice scenery and then use catapult-sized ground
throws.
Did I mention have great trackwork and powered frogs?
Maybe all this layout needed to really finish it off was some seagulls
and salmon? That, and I would have had to go back and redo all the
trackwork to get it perfect (ah, the price of learning). In January I was
having lunch with layout design guru Byron Henderson at the Bay
Area LD/OPS SIG Weekend event, and, while we were discussing the
importance of “letting go,” he put it pretty succinctly: “Keep the les-
sons, lose the layout.”
Which is a pretty good lesson in itself to keep, along with all the
scratch-built structures, trees and many, many photos and videos of
the layout before it goes to its own trash can Mt. Coffin.
There’s always another layout!
For more …
For more on the Mt. Coffin & Columbia River, including lots of
construction details, see M.C. Fujiwara’s blog entries on the MRH
website:
Part 1:
Part 2:
