Page 260 - 38. MRH13-04-Apr2013

Reverse Running commentary
In his now fa-
mous book
published in the
1970s, The Mythi-
cal Man Month,
Fred Brooks (who
worked for IBM)
talks about project
concepts appropri-
ate to the then-new
computer software development industry.
One of those concepts - plan to throw the first one away - also ap-
plies quite well to model railroad layout building.
The idea is that you learn so much on the first project that you re-
ally should throw it out and start over, using the second attempt
as the keeper. We covered this "expect the first one to be throw-
away" in MRH issue 1's now classic Reverse Running column,
"Chainsaw Layouts".
With a chainsaw layout you go in knowing full well the layout
you're building is not a keeper – it's a training ground that you
don’t let yourself get attached to.
While the chainsaw layout concept is a good one, there’s value in
taking it a step further: consider deliberately incorporating reuse
into your construction techniques. Some parts of a layout take
more time and money, so why not build reuse into the picture
Reverse Running: Stepping outside the box with a contrary view
by Joe Fugate
Planning to destroy your layout
index contents
MRH-Apr 2013