Hi Jason
Yes, clean slate and a decent area in which to work, with large workshop alongside. I might have to get a life-size cardboard cut-out photo of me to prop up at the dinner table, because it will be very tempting to spend all my time there.
You are not far off the mark with your vision of my layout; loco facility at the foot of a grade so there's locos being changed or added for the ascent, running light coming back down, and just a handful of industries served by spurs. Staging will be a must, because I am treating this layout like a theater stage, with trains as the actors, waiting in the wings to play their part. I have been gifted a MONSTER traversing table, 2400x600 with flash linear bearings and a ball-screw threaded rod to move it....magnificent piece of engineering, abandoned by a 7mm scale modeler's family after he passed away and they had to remove his possessions from the house he was renting. I don't need to wonder why they left it behind; I estimate that it weighed 90-100kg in its original form, thanks to its frame made from heavy-wall 75x50mm rectangular hollow section steel! I've ditched the outer frame and kept only the table with its bearings, to be fitted to a wooden frame on wheels or possibly winched up to the ceiling - when I have enough rolling stock to require staging. Not only was it ridiculously heavy but the ball screw was fitted slightly out of parallel with the two guide rails so it bound up as the table approached one side....very hard to shift the mounting holes over just a couple of mm, much easier to build a new outer frame. Regards, Paul.
