Also, a little thought about wiring is a good thing too.

Firstly, wire - in the overall scheme of things - is cheap. Normally for the price of a locomotive, you can purchase enough wire to cable the whole layout, even if you only use basic colour coding - say a maximum of six colours.

Secondly, nobody, and least of all me, likes getting under layouts to wire. It is not my definition of fun. Then again, maybe if you have masochistic tendencies ... But I have become a staunch adherent of Front Wiring - where all the cab and power busses,  along woth power for the switch machines, runs behind a removeable fascia at the front of the layout. All trackfeeds, switch machine leads etc etc have long enough leads to reach into the fascia, and plenty of terminal blocks are installed therein where necessary. All connections are made by the layout owner (or worker) standing up, at the front of the layout. Plenty of light, plenty of room, and no hot solder dropping onto your skin while hanging upside down ... Thoroughly recommended.

Steve

1. Fairly simple logging line, point to  point with switchback to the upper deck. !920's - 30's with a Davenport time traveller and its engineer, Dr Who. 

2, Whatever works - plastic, craftsman, etc

3. Around the walls, 14' x 24'

Some pics of the layout are in my photo folder on the On30 conspiracy Yahoo group.

Yes, solder - just remember to solder the rails when they are straight, then curve them to suit. Leave rails on straights unsoldered to allow the fishplates to take care of expansion if you like, but solder feeders from the track bus to each of these rails.

Depending on your environment, you may find humidity variations in the underlying benchwork to be more of a problem, esp so if your train room is air conditioned and you start out with lumber that has not been kiln dried or seasoned.

Steve
Newcastle NSW Aust

Groooan - you just had to use that dreadful pun, didn't you. 

Seriously though it sounds an interesting thing to see - pit my upcoming trip is limited to Northern Europe and the UK, there is so much (train stuff) to see down south, as you say, maybe next time.

Steve
Newcastle NSW Aust

Just need a form of pulse controller for changing speed and a table tennis bat for changing direction

http://www.flixxy.com/magnetic-levitation-model-train.htm

When will Bachmann be offering this option?

Steve
Newcastle NSW Aust

The announcement is here, and it is On30 (and On3):

http://www.railcar.com.au/mountain%20model%20imports.htm

Steve

Short note to gwfan - the stuff I use is joint expansion foam, not exclusion strip. It is designed to be inserted between concrete slab pours to handle any movement between the slabs.

Steve

There are alternatives to Homasote and all its water absorption problems, with many other benefits as well. I have been using a concrete joint expansion foam, locally sold as Abelflex but check with your local Home Depot for the US equivalent. It is black in colour, about 10 mm thick, sold in 20 metre rolls and in varying widths from 50 mm to 200 mm. I can curve the 50 mm and 75 mm widths down to 450 mm radius with no surface distortion.

I secure the foam to the sub roadbed (local particle board, or ply) with a white glue called Bondcrete, used in concrete repair - and yes it stays flexible. Just glue it down and align it, it stays in place but you can throw a weight of some sort on it if you are concerned. The track - Peco in my case - is glued to it with the same glue, and temp pinned through pre-drilled holes until the glue is dried (normally about 20 minutes). The pins are "on the draw" and easily pulled.

Some caveats - not suitable for handlaid track, and ideally prewire your track before gluing it in place, and keep your soldering iron away from it - ask me how I know - but these are far outweighed by the benefits - magnificent noise supression and it compensates for shrinkage in benchwork caused by air conditioning or just the fact that timber dries out in time. Even ballasted, the track is still flexible. And it's already at a good height for ballast profile - leastwise it is in On30 ...

Its worth a try.

Steve
Newcastle NSW Aust

Bob - not sure with other systems, but you can diefinitely program both short and long addresses on the main with the NCE PowerPro system.

Regards

Steve