Rebirth!

<Written May 2012>

The building you see above is the Chrysler World Headquarters building in Auburn Hills, Michigan.  This building is a small part of the larger structure, the Chrysler Tech Center, or CTC.  It houses about 12,000 employees, mostly engineers and engineering support staff. 

“What on earth does this have to do with 1-scale trains?” you ask…  

Well, as fortune may have it, in the Spring of 2012 I started a position in the marketing department at Chrysler.  This was to signal the beginning of the rebirth of my dream of building a 1-scale indoor layout.  You see, Chrysler headquarters is quite far from my home, but happens to be very close to the home of my parents.  It made sense that I would stay with them during the week, going home on weekends and holidays.  What my parents have in their home which I don’t is a large empty basement, one begging for a 1-scale train layout.  My father, who is also enthusiastic about model trains, had no reservations about my taking over the basement, and my mother encouraged me as well.

The picture above shows the space available to me.  For reference, the tables propped against the wall in the back are three feet wide and six feet long.  The space happens to coincide with the track plan I designed nearly ten years ago quite closely.  The exception is the door you see on the wall to the left.  This door goes to a storage room, and needs to be accessible for moving larger boxes and other items.  Also, you can see the post just to the right of it, plus two others in the center of the basement, which I also needed to consider.  No matter how I try, I can not come up with a way to use the original track plan in the available space.  Redesign time.  <Sigh>