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I should probably add that the room is above the garage, and part of the walls also comprise the ceiling due to the roof (aka, the walls are vertical for about 4 feet, then angle inward up toward the ceiling). The angled walls are on the 20.5' sides, and the door is dead center of one of the 15' walls, and the other 15' wall has a window dead center that I'd like to keep accessible (not going to cover it over). If I were to do an E with the back bone of the E being on the long side, I'd be hunched over anytime I moved between the peninsula and legs. And since the doorway into the room is dead center of one of the 15 foot walls, I'd have to chop one of the legs anyway just to get into the room. I'm thinking the only real way to do the benchwork is a dogbone around the walls (5x4 table on either side of the door, 3 feet wide down each wall (to compensate for the angled walls) wide corners, and at least 3 foot wide in front of the window. I want to keep as much operation as possible, without overdoing it. I've already reduced the yard in Lithonia down to only 3 tracks (from 7) not including the passing siding, kept the three industries there (only one actual 'online' industry, the other two I can model from a distance and hide most of the actual buildings offscene, I'm thinking about doing a hidden loop in the first corner (hide with trees) and then have the track crossover itself (which will limit trainlength, something I just considered), and then have it pop back out in Covington, that way the train is 'hidden' between Lithonia and Covington, instead of the front of the train pulling 'into' Covington while the tail is just leaving Lithonia (the two towns are about 15-20 miles apart). Covington is gonna be difficult because all the industries are spaced out, but I've already reduced them down from 7 online industries, to 4 with one offsite industry. Unfortunately, Covington would be on the 15' window side, so I don't have a ton of linear space to do the storage/interchange track AND all the industries, without pushing around along the 20.5' wall. That then limits the amount of space for the small Social Circle yard, (2 tracks, mainline and passing siding), and rules out the long plate girder bridge at Alcovy Trestle road. That is one thing I DEFINITELY want to keep, but it's going to take up at least 3.5 linear feet to do it justice. I'm kind of thinking out loud, sorry for the long post, but I think if I follow some of the suggestions and just keep 'hacking away' at the size of things, I can probably fit things a little better. Instead of a 6 car siding in Covington, like I have planned (which is down from the 30 car siding that's there on the prototype), I might be able to reduce it to 4, and cut a few inches off each industry's tracks to reduce the number of cars on each track, and thus the amount of space required. Thanks for the suggestions, and keep 'em coming, I had a dream last night of just switching to N scale to give me more room to work, but I think I'd be much happier with myself if I just stick with HO in the long run. We close on the house next week, and I want to get started right away, so back to the drawing board! Jeremy
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