An Opening ...

So, where did all this begin? Well, after many years of "gunna-do's" and "one-day-I-will's", I finally have:

• the time,
• the space, and (most importantly)
• the money

to build a layout. I'd already invested in a copy of AnyRail and has spent some time researching HO layouts but I'd struggled to settle on a theme. My brother was already modelling Australian Railways (mainly Standard Gauge lines in NSW and VIC) but I saw limited inspiration there and was never a big fan of the "barely a station" and miles and miles of nothing track - I see enough of that every day to be particularly inspired by it (as it would seem are most Australian governments).

I'd long had an interest in UK and European railways after spending two years living in London but it was after a recent trip to Europe in 2012, which included an amazing stay in Lauterbrunnen in Switzerland, that I finally settled on a European theme. Then, knowing I'd always be faced with limited space - but wanting to model an interesting and complex operation, a commitment to model in N-Scale soon followed. But where?

I started searching for N-Scale layouts online and soon turned to the AnyRail example layouts and found this series - seemingly based on Baden Baden Bahnhof in Germany. The layouts seemed to meet my brief:

• Compact
• Complex
• N-Scale

and it was close enough to Switzerland to be "geographically" correct - but it was the last layout in his series that really inspired:

Of course, not knowing the area very well (okay, so we drove into and back out of Baden Baden in 2012 because we couldn't find a carpark big enough or close enough for a campervan) so I simply started searching Google Images for "baden baden bahnhof" and amound the rare images of Baden Baden, I was increasing seeing images like these:

which had a striking resemblance in both:

• layout (of the main station) and
• name (who was to know Baden AG Bahnhof is actually in Switzerland?)

However, after some quick detective work (I found Baden Baden Bahnhof in Google Maps), I quickly realised we were talking two different places ... and yet, I found myself quickly attracted to Baden in Switzerland - so that's where we stayed.