Starting things off

Welcome to the PDPL Short Line... or PDPL for short.

What does PDPL stand for? Portable Diorama Photo Layout

How did I come up with that name? It really is just a acronym for a fictional railroad describing the purpose of this layout.

We currently don't live in a McMansion. We also have cats. Anyone with cats knows that they are curious and like to get involved with stuff. Things like model trains look like big mice to them and move quite nicely when whacked with a paw. Given the lack of a dedicated layout space and the fact that the cats will, at the very least, break a layout setup in a permanent fashion, a room sized or larger layout is out of the question.

So, something small, perhaps a layout that can be "put away" when I'm done with it sounds like the best choice.

I also enjoy detailing, custom painting and weathering engines and rolling stock. A layout large enough to display a few of these for some photos would be nice. Having the cars appear to be at a relavant industry helps to make the photo appear more realistic.

Finally, being able to actually run some trains on this layout... maybe in circles, maybe not. Perhaps just a switching layout. Whatever it turns out to be it should be useable.

With those goals in mind the list of other considerations is fairly long.

• What era will this layout represent?


• Is it to relect a specific railroad?


• What kind of rolling stock? Size? (short 40' or 89' or somewhere in the middle?)


• What scale? HO? N?


• Setting? Urban? Rural? Wilderness? Mixture?


• DC? DCC?


• Round and Round? Switching? Combination?


• Just how portable is portable? 4ft? 6ft? Perhaps something in multiple pieces?


• Hand laid track? Premade track?


• And many more...

I'm going to start off by researching existing track plans and seeing if anything fits. If not, perhaps elements of a number of them could be combined into a layout that does work for me.