Planning is good as it saves on materials but every now and then its a good idea to check against what you are doing (if only to get a different feel for it). That’s what this picture is all about.
The string mock up shows the raft above the Eastern end of the station. The main string that crosses the baseboard is the edge of the shopping centre roof while the one that heads towards the bottom right corner shows the station approach. (the clutter on the track is the result of a few tweaks to the platform edges for clearance purposes.
The above drawing shows the shopping centre from the Western end with a class 47 for scale. You can see that I plan for the shopping centre to over hang the front of the layout a bit (which will be on the right).
This is the plan of the roof – I have decided to change the angle of the right hand end to fit with the layout of the station undereith better. To give a sense of scale between this and the real location the building in the upper left corner and marked in red is shown below.
I believe that it is the back of the Burlington Hotel. The footbridge shown in the foreground was added in the early 1990’s so it’s too new for the layout.
Hi Jim
The big modern building in the photo is Ladywood House on Stephenson St. It was built on the site of the old Queens Hotel. The roof of the Burlington (formerly Midland) Hotel is just visible behind the left hand turret of the footbridge
Eric
Thank you Eric
I know exactly where you’re coming from with that concept. It’s clear that a good number of layouts aren’t planned with that sort of thought/planning/reality check process, and it easy to spot them once you’ve spent time doing just this sort of exercise.
Paul Lunn uses cereal box card to make life size mock ups which work really well as they give you the physical volume/shape and views that you will see with your project, often early enough to see potential problems witht he design. Even allowing for your ‘copying’ of what’s there in real life with BNS its likely to be an interesting view seeing the mass of structures that will occupy the layout. Its certainly worked for me with Albion Yard and other layouts I’m involved with.
Makes sense, I’m going to need a really big cereal box though.