Thanks for sharing Joe! I'm way too young for steam and F-units - my dad worked yard in Topeka and Lawrence when I was a kid - first loco he drove was a F7. He came on board in '71. I mostly saw him drive GPs in Topeka and Lawrence. He hated the CF7s - hot boxes. Air conditioning never worked - if they had it. He switched to pool work in the second half of his career - running Argentine to Wellington, and later Oklahoma City. His favorites were the GE built 9s. Grandpa worked Argentine - FTs, F7s, GP9s. I don't know if he ever ran steam - he got his start following the war. I spent a lot of time as a kid in the depots at Topeka and Lawrence.
I will 100% share - I'll start my own thread on it when I get started. Plan would be to start slow. I tackled way too much when I tried to start my O empire 4 years or so ago - life got in the way - https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/.../first-layout?page=1 - but I know a lot now that I didn't know then about construction techniques. This time everything will be built modularly, one unit at a time. I want to be able to tear it down and set it back up. I'll use a blend of 2x4 and 1 x4 structure over the 1x4 and 1x2 L-Girder structure I used before. I've learned a ton of scenic techniques watching Norm Charbonneau develop his most recent layout - and I plan to adopt some of the approach employed on Gary Schrader's O-Scale 2-Rail layout - particularly the high Scenery to railroad ratios. I'm not a big fan of huge railyards - but lots of scenery and movement. Lawrence will be interesting because of the congested yard along the Kaw - Bowersock Mill, Lawrence Paper, Power and Light, Lawrence Elevator, etc were all sandwiched in a narrow area along the Kaw.
