Saturday, November 15, 2008

Operational thoughts.

There's been a bit of discussion on the Freemo boards in the last couple of weeks about building modules with complimentary industries. While the discussion is (understandably) USA orentated, its an interesting suggestion.

For New Zealand there is the most obvious 'Anything' to a port. Meat, Coal and Containers fit into this pattern. Historically, Sheep from stockyards to freezing works was a huge thing, necessitating special trains during the season. Lime from a lime works to either other rural stations or to a cement works. the last standby is anything under a tarpaulin from one goods shed to another. Last, and currently least is passengers (I think that while previous owners have done everything in their power to get rid of livestock, there are some who just refuse to stop riding trains).

There are possibilities for this as well. You could organise with a grioup of friends to each build a particular industry and then operate as a group at a 'meet'.

Going a wee bit further, one could build several scenes of modules, and run then as a home layout. If you got bored with coal traffic, you could just swap out the coal facilities for something else. with smaller modules sizes, its would not be such a huge ask to build more modules than one required and have sets in storage. I've done similar things with wargaming scenery in the day.

1 comment:

lalover said...

Easily done in this scale I would think. You could make the building out of cardboard and have then pop up like in books, then lie flat again for transport! :-)