I don't like hanging around so over Christmas plans were made:

Scale: n-gauge

Era: 1950s-1960s

Setting: Dockside

Control: DCC for trains via all in one controller

Scenic: tracks laid in concrete/setts with some open ballasted track

Pointwork: "electro-mechanical" A hybrid of manual switches on a 12V DC bus powering point motors, switching electrofrog from DCC track bus

Track: Peco code 55, DIY track laying

Baseboard: Fixed in shed

I had the starting of an n gauge layout when I was a kid and so had some affection for the scale and combined with the space available, 1.7m by 0.5m ish meant it was about the only scale I would have considered really.  I like moving trains through trackwork and a variety of scene elements and I don't think OO would have given me the overall scene I wanted to model.  Setting the model in the 1950/1960s appeals because I wanted a grubby rundown theme, and the choice of steam or diesel, or both! allows for a variety of traction.  It is "before my time" though, I wasn't born for at least a decade after this era so it did mean research would be necessary to accurately represent the features of the time.   Choosing a dockside and industrial setting helped back up the gritty feeling, with industrial decline well on the way, the shift to road freight and the movement into the "modern age".  A dockside offers a variety of traffic with passengers being dropped off at a cross channel ferry terminal, still somewhat in business before international air flights took away that too.

DCC control seemed the only reasonable way to go in 2024, though the variety of implementations is bewildering, sure DCC concepts will show you how to wire up a full fat many decoder system, but that system will cost a lot and has the potential to remove the fun from your trainset.  Obviously this is a personal choice over how much direct control you want but the chance to run many locos simultaneously meant DCC was the only choice.  I'll post separately about making sense of the DCC control systems but that is a vast concept to pick up for an outsider with many overlapping layers of control.  I've made a rod for my own back by choosing a "manual" control for the point work, the amount of wiring this will mean is starting to dawn on me, I was warned.

Somehow code 55 was the first track option I had looked at, but there again is a set of choices to be made over 80/55 or kato or others...  Code 55 was one of the first choices I had made and luckily it tied in with several later choices...