T going forward??? After the Layout...

Flush with the experience at the show last week, I have been thinking about T going forward. I am pleased with what I have done, and want to finish the existing layout - but would I want to do something more in T?

I am very fond of a few T layouts I have seen, including Tgauge.com's first layout, seen here.

And then there is Sarum Bridge, seen here.

And Orboost, seen here.

And most recently, The Firth of Forth, seen here.

But what holds me up in thinking about doing something like these in T? Well, there are a couple of things. First, it is the performance of the mechanisms. I am quite excited at how much better the second generation mechanisms perform relative to the first generation. But, even so, operating below 40mph is dicey. But, could a 3rd generation mechanism do better? Well, some people are trying.

Notably, this video is fairly old, and the current mechanisms, while aided by better PWM controllers, aren't at this level yet. But, I will admit to looking at designing my own mechanism, fresh off my 3D printing successes.

Coupling is another issue - but here again, innovation is at work.

And if you can couple - you can shunt (or switch).

Not perfect, but becoming more and more feasible. And even better, today this new item appeared on Tgauge.com. (Link) Here is a video of the system in action.

And another, on the same track. 

Even folks in Z and N are going to love these little gems. And of course, some people have figured out turnouts.

These are the commercially available units, and people have also succeeded with handlaid turnouts.

Or, people have modified the commercial turnouts.

So, with these ideas in mind, I started thinking about what I might do. While I could go mad, and try to work on US T Gauge - there was something nice about the British T Gauge, and more and more of that seems to be coming onto the market. So, there are two British Exhibition layouts that have caught my attention, both in N.

Loch Oran is 4'x12' in N, or would be about 16" x 48" in T, except that I would almost certainly build it larger, just for sanity and for performance. The other is shown here.

Fantastic models. And of course, I have been partial to the Ribblehead viaduct, which I have seen done in N scale and I also found a 4mm scale version.

Or, of course, I could look at a Glenfinnan Viaduct Model...that I have not seen.

And of course, there is also the idea of maybe doing something in another scale for which little has been done in Britain, but which may be much more operation ready, what about British Z? Particularly with the new Atlas Turnouts coming out...Hmmm. Oh well, just a bit of day dreaming.