2006-04 Figures and Dispatching From Donboy I have been thinking about my operating plans and have a few things resolved.  One thing that is not resolved is dispatching.  I would like to make the movement of trains so simple I would not need a dispatcher (I expect real railroads feel the same way) but like the real railroads I think I will end up with some form of dispatching.  When I looked at what it would take to go without dispatching I found that it would take a lot of extra track to make sure areas of the layout would not get grid locked from time to time. I have resolved the following: I can operate without scale time (fast clock) I can use simple signals with green for go and red for stop I will have no need to use complicated rules (union or operating) I will use a computer tally of “money” to keep score Operation of my layout will be a game (think railroad board game) I will be able to operate my railroad by myself at any time in “game” mode I have been spending a lot of time thinking about what I should do for figures.  With a fantasy layout I have many choices if I include all the war game figures that could be used.  The most common “O” scale figures from the model train world are often 1/43 scale and not the 1/48 scale of my trains. 40mm war game figures are 1/48 scale but are often in action poses.  28mm war game figures normally have 1/48 scale heads and hands so they make good dwarfs in 1/48 scale.  For some reason I have always seen the dwarfs as the engineers of middle earth so it seems natural that dwarfs would design and build the railroad system and of course that means I will need some dwarf figures. I still plan to use HO scale and perhaps some 1/72 (25mm) figures in the background.  I might be over estimating my ability to paint figures but I would like to get unpainted figures save some money and try to paint them so they look better.  When you see photographs of models that contain commercially painted figures most of them just do not look right to me.  I think that a limited number of figures that looked good would be better then a large number of pink blob headed people detracting from the other models. With my frugal nature I am bothered by the fact some of the better figures that are painted well and in scale are six to ten dollars each.  Of course I have to decide where to draw the line with fantasy.  What about trolls, dragons, giant eagles and ents should I include them?  In any case I am still having fun with the fantasy concept.