A great deal of my own On30 layout was my own work but no, I didn't do it alone:
I was able to run op sessions on a few local layouts and do an annual layout tour of layouts in the area before I really understood that I didn't want a loop at all. I'd read about operations, but only doing them on some neat layouts showed me how much you can do with even a small layout. Had it not been for all those people, my layout wouldn't be what it is today in regards for operations. To me, that was a big thing as I could have wound up with a layout that you couldn't get much out of in an op session to keep crews (usually two people, due to the small size of the layout) interested.
- My friend Robert came up with a track plan after a discussion we had while waiting for trains to photo one afternoon, in the snow. He was thinking HO and not taking the bigger sizes of structures and clearances for sidings, so the finished version departed quite a bit from his original plan (mostly the center section). Still, he made more progress in 2 hours than I had in 2 years of thinking and going over other track plans. It was his idea to go into the middle of the room, something I had never thought of before. He also helped me lug the modular sections into the room once they were ready to install, get them into place, and got me started on how to lay track using a soldering iron (something I never did before) as well as putting feeder wires into place. He insisted on putting wires to every single section of track. I'm very thankful for that. It took about a week to put all the track into place and get it wired, from a few times for him coming by.
- Steve (who ironically saw his first "Trains" magazine cover for the first time after being surprised with the news, while standing in my layout room while doing the work), who works over at the massive layout at the WA state museum in Tacoma, loves wiring. So, he not only came over one day to do all the DCC wiring, he bought all the stuff needed to do so and all I had to do was pay him for the materials when he arrived.
When I had my first op session ever, I invited Robert and Steve, giving them first crack. Robert couldn't make it, but Steve did. The other guy who showed for that first op session ever (as a Plywood Central) was the owner of one of the other layouts I've run op sessions on.
- My lovely wife Jennette surprised me one day, when I came home I suddenly had curtains underneath! She'd made them and hung them under the bench work, better than I could have. I'm hopeless with a needle and thread. She also helped me hold lumber in place during the table top and leg construction. She also helped me paint the legs, one time early on a Sunday morning. I'm sure she's done lots of other things, but I just can't think of them at the moment. But most of all, she allowed me to move some large items out of that room. The room was my one demand for the house, that I have a room of my own, a 'man cave' if you will. She didn't have to allow that at all and could have said all my stuff had to stay there. The layout would have been a tiny little switching 'L' shape at best without her allowing that.
The rest, for the most part, was done by me, for the bench work. All the scenery was done by me, that I can recall. For sure all the rolling stock was modified, decalled, painted and weathered by me, long before the layout existed.
