I am looking forward to participating on this forum and getting new ideas.
Ted, I agree with your thoughts on the two layouts,
I have seen Tony Lash's layout in person with my local round robin club. It has a lot of neat scenes that are scale and others that have a toy train look. I enjoyed it and hope he contributes to this forum. Keep in mind, the majority of the work was done around over 13 years ago. I do not know how much 3rs was in place back then, but I wonder what his layout would be like if it was built now.
I have been privileged to see Pat's several times since it was started. I think people on this forum can learn a lot from layout like Pat's. Until the reboot of this forum, anyone with swinging pilots and big couplers would be excluded.