I was sitting in the living room with a book and a beer this evening, and I realized that two years ago, I started construction of Bydemill – my 7mm interpretation of a Great Western Railway branch line terminal in the Edwardian era.
Glass in hand, I headed to the layout room and ran the next train on the schedule – the midday goods working. As always, the layout ran well and the goods train was engaging – but as it’s the anniversary I reflected on how I got here, and what the layout means to me.
Two years ago, the space that Bydemill now occupies was home to a US-outline, Proto:48 switching layout based on a freelanced Southern Pacific industrial track serving packing sheds and support industries in southern California. I am glad I embarked on that project, because I’d been thinking about it for many years and it wasn’t until I started trying to make it a reality that I realized it was the wrong subject for me.
I have struggled to maintain my enthusiasm for many layouts – including the project that’s closest to my heart, the Niagara St. Catharines & Toronto Railway. (The NS&T not going to suffer the SP’s fate – and in fact I worked on it earlier today. But I’m frequently vexed by the task of recreating a prototype that I know so well, with all the compromises one must make. And I worry that what I’m attempting is too much layout for my needs and circumstances. But I digress: Let’s back up and start again…)
I have struggled to maintain my enthusiasm for many layouts – but this has never been a problem with Bydemill. If anything, it’s the trustworthy, reliable offspring of my imagination – and therefore tends to get neglected because, well, it doesn’t demand anything of me. It works when I power it up… it’s challenging yet enjoyable… and maintenance is minimal. That makes it pretty perfect – but also a layout that sometimes fades into the background as I focus on solving a problem on one of my other undertakings.
Bydemill is also largely complete. I have a few projects in the queue for it – some more wagons and brake vans to build, some lighting effects to add, and some locomotive decoders to upgrade. But those are enhancements, not essentials.
I wish all of my layouts were this undemanding, this reliable, and this much fun.
While I do run Bydemill frequently, it’s not frequently enough. I need to address that because every time I run it, I feel good about the hobby: And isn’t that what it’s all about?
Happy birthday, Bydemill! Best wishes for another great year.
The Model Railway Show 