Sweet! I’m psyched too. I don’t hear anybody objecting to MILS either. I would think it would be at least worth trying out to see how we like it. We can always modify it and create our own additional standards down the road if we want.
Agreed. We can always develop our own “Steel City Standard” later.
Here’s a couple things that come to mind right now:
1) Track – Is there a definite decision on track here? 9V or RC? Also, what color? I’m pretty sure RC track only comes in dk blay, but I know 9V track comes in both gray and blay. I am not a big fan of mixing them if it can be avoided. I have both kinds of trains so I could contribute something there (none of them are put together so I would have to build something).
All I have is 9V (track and motors) so all of my stuff will be 9V. I have no opposition with using RC track but my trains will not be able to run on it. As far as color, since this is winter, I was planning on covering most of my track with white plates/tiles, leaving only the rails exposed. Similar to my KidsFest layout where I embedded the track in the street.
3) Baseplates – I was gonna ask if anybody’s done the math but then I just went and got out a ruler and did it myself (you’re welcome). A 32-stud plate is almost exactly 10 inches (very convenient considering they don’t care about non-metric stuff over there) but it’s actually slightly over, so three plates deep on a 30″ table would hang over by about 1.5 studs, which probably isn’t a good idea. I’m guessing that at least on the first time around here, Evan’s problem is going to be not enough material to work with, rather than too much. But I thought it was worth putting the info out there, so nobody comes up with big plans and then discovers they don’t fit on the table. Also, if you’re working in a stretch of table where it’s 30″ deep, there’s easily room to do two 32×32 plates and then add a 32×16 plate, which are plentiful and can easily be incorporated into the MILS format. More complicated, but doable if resources require it (although it may be a headache and Evan may end up wanting to murder me for bringing it up) is that 32×32 plates match up with 48×48 plates on a ratio of 3:2, the latter could easily be MILSed to match up. I only mention it because I have way more 48×48 plates than 32×32, and some of you may be in a similar situation.
For 30″ tables, you generally want to only go two baseplates deep. That leaves room in the front and back of the plates for track (unless the track in built into the baseplates). When you have 60″ to work with (two tables together), five baseplates deep would be best. I feel that it is always good to leave a little room at the front and the back of the table.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes. I could be wrong, but I am sort of getting the sense that people are waiting to see Evan’s layout proposal before deciding how much they can contribute, and Evan is waiting to see what he has to work with before deciding on a layout, so I’m not sure how that’s going to get resolved.
I think I can contribute a substantial amount to both a Town section and a North Pole/Winter Village section. I already have several large downtown buildings as well as all of the houses from KidsFest (and can build a few more) as well as some modular buildings (anyone else have the Grand Emporium? – we could put a few together for a tall department store). I have brick build roads (in black) that we can use for the downtown section.
Finally, I’m good with doing a two table deep layout.