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 A good morning to all of you!Well, for TBDanny it is time to have a dinner and most of you folks over the Big Pond are heading for a good [zzz] already, if I get my timezones correctly.Zoe, I´ll have coffee in my LKAB mug and a toasted bagel, filled with strawberry jam, please. I´ll be in the corner booth to watch that switcher outside - no, it´s not the time for a move yet.Another day at the GULAG - how to spend 8 hours doing nothing? What a waste of precious time!I have decided to have a break from my layout planning exercise. The more I think about it, the more I get confused. The plan I have is far from being "perfect" for me, although I quite like it. There is a fairly detailed picture of how it shall look in my head, but there are some operations issues I have not yet solved. Here are the facts:It will have to be a switching layout in HO scale, max. 2 feet wide and 15 feet long. The theme is going to be ARR in the 1970´s , just to stay within my motto "Arctic Railroading". I have moved the  place from Seward to Whittier, as there had been a car float facility. The space I have does not allow to model a prototypic track plan, but that´s not a problem for me - modeler´s licence. From Whittier, I can run trains to Seward and Anchorage, allowing for a 2 train operation and local switching. I maybe able to add a cassette staging on the left side of the layout, to simulate Seward, but I do have a problem to find a solution for Anchorage. Just leaving a train on the main is not the way I want it, as I´d like to have incoming and outgoing trains, enabling me to have two people to operate this layout. The only way I see is to have a sharp turn to the right and add a fiddle yard, but this would result in an L-shaped layout, which I will have a hard time to get approval for from SWMBO. Also, the curve would be a sharp one, not more than 18" , making it difficult to run cars longer than 50´ and 6-axle Diesels. I also need to store an outgoing train, but this could be done by leaving it on the main to Seward, i.e. the left hand cassette staging lead. I might even be able to add a switch and a second track there.One other problem is my very limited budget, putting a limit to the number of switches I can buy. An Atlas code 83 switch is about $ 20, that´s what I can spend in a month.[%-)][%-)][%-)]Sam - thanks for offering me help in my planning - maybe you can use the above as my givens and druthers to come up with THAT idea, which I just don´t have at the moment. Petra will be happy to reimburse you with a load of homemade apple strudel!Tom - a dry "Stollen" is really awkward to eat - whoever made it probably wanted to have a low calory, low cholesterol version of it, which you just can´t have. The main ingredient of it is butter, lots of it, to give it the right taste and texture. If you economize on that - just forget the "Stollen".  Petra and I should really move to the US or Canada and open up a German bakery - "Petra´s Pastry Parlor" - how´s that? I guess, it would be a gold mine!So Miami´s official language is now Spanish? I thought, that it would be German now, with all those elderly German tourists spending the winter months now in Florida. With the cheap flights available now, literally thousands of retired Germans go there to hibernate.  Would not be my choice, I just like mountains, bears, and the seasons.Rob - my [angel] for a  speedy recovery of the missus!  Ray - ditto for your BIL!We should better leave the Chapel car attached to the diner!John - internal flash evaporation?  Now that´s a very good description for having a big sip of Calvados. Strong stuff, but good! Have a safe day!
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