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Quite a philosophical discussion on a hot day! I think there is a point to the issue. Our layouts get more and more sophisticated in the aim of attaining more and more realism in our little model world. It is not only related to the electric and electronics part of our layouts, it´s in the intricate yet frail detail of our locos and rolling stock and our scenery, accessories, structures, figures. What we may end up with are beautiful, realistic looking layouts, but with very little "play" value - not only for our children or grandchildren, but for us. I am in "this business" for 53 years now and I have built quite a number of layouts, each one meaning another step forward in realism. But in all those years, I have never again found that thrill that I had when playing with my first layout, which was a rather crude affair, Marklin HO scale tin plate track on a table, with scenery painted on, much like the layout shown in the picture below: <img src="http://i682.photobucket.com/albums/vv185/SirMadig/M1.jpg" alt=" " /> This is what your average home layout looked like in the 1950´s and 1960´s and, boy, had we fun with them! I am not saying we should go back to our roots, but we should not forget that building a layout is not a race nor a contest and that we should draw a line where the fun ends and hassle and toil begins. A friend of mine has just built a layout, which is so intriguing in its simpicity, yet effective in its atmosphere. It´s a little 2 by 3 layout built to run is OO9 scale narrow gauge live steam (!) loco. <iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/D-eR_SumPIU" width="425" height="350"></iframe> The layout incorporates nearly all the ingredients for a model railroader´s nightmare - flat MDF benchwork, grass mat scenery, bottle brush trees, no ballast, sharp curves, bulky manual turnout controls, but it shows how little can be so much! More pictures of this charming, simple layout are available here: <a href="http://ngrm-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/13398-a-simple-009-live-steam-micro-layout/page-5#entry388383" target="_blank">OO9 Live Steam Layout</a> Just scroll down a bit for the latest pictures.
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