In the same way that the PNLTC pioneered the
methodology for building a plywood section, we like to think of ourselves as the
pioneers of modular Lego sections.
The original layouts were built as one piece. Nice idea but hard to grow and
transport. It was at this time we decided to make the layout modular. This had
the added benefit of letting us display a layout before we had finished building the
complete vision.
When you build a modular section, one tends to get carried away with the sheer
size of the model. In our eariler modules you can see us fall into this trap. In
reality, no one is that impressed with size. After all, anyone can make a pile of
bricks. What is impressive is the detail that you work into the model.
We have found through our shows, that the most popular sections are the ones with
the most activity and details. In our last layout, people were generally not interested
at all in the train yard. There was no depth to the module and it was generally lined
with extra rolling stock. We have decided that there is a definite reason why most
layouts have their yards to the interior and not displayed. They are boring to 9 out of 10
people coming to see your layout. It's wonderful to show off all of your rolling stock,
but this can also be accomplished by rotating your trains.
What we've learned building these modules, is that to build to 20 bricks
high without any interest in the 20 bricks is a waste of the bricks. In the past we had
mostly used the base height to allow us to build in mechanisms for devices that ran above
street level.
In the second layout, we had a valley section that cut away most of the 30 brick height
on the layout and replaced it with a short line and village scene. We had people scaling
the mountain, etc. This seemed to be a good idea.
The third layout we added interest where we might not have in the
past. Inside of the 20 brick height to get to grade, we added a small subway scene and
a shipwreck scene. We fashioned one mountain to look like the head of a dragon, and placed
an alien skeleton dig on the other. Success. Our new philosophy is to have a scene in
the bricks that build to grade in every section. You should see how much bigger the
subway is now.
We did three things to help kids want to get involved. (1) We let kids request different
rolling stock. (2) We let kids run any rolling stock or locomotives that they brought, or
failing that, we would run one of thier mini figures as the engineer on a locomotive., (3)
we would occasionally let a small child inside to run the short line.
We discovered that Thomas the train was a HUGE hit. Kids would sit in the ore pit for
hours to watch Thomas run on the short line. Tunnels too were a big hit. The short line
in the ore pit ran low and into the mountain. Kids would peer into the tunnel waiting for
it to come out. The drawbridges were a wonderful draw as well. Kids walking past never
expected the bastille bridge to start to lift, and if you worked with someone on the
controls for the main line, you could hear them exclaim in excitement as they thought
the passenger line might run into the open bridge.
That has led us to decide to use some controls on the outside of the layout this time.
We want to create small animations that the kids will be able to control via the buttons
placed on the otherside of the layout. Obviously there can be some issues there, and I
think that we'll need to create some switches on the inside to cut off the control.
