So having solicited some opinions a little while ago (thanks to everyone who responded!) I seem to be about to ignore them... Unfortuntely, while I've been doing a little plastic-kit-making for Tanis (Do335A Pfeil) I'm still drawn to the Höllentalbahn. It seems like something to do that I could get to a good state for Railex at the start of October. I'd only want to model a bit of it as a tail-chaser, and the bit that appeals most is Hirschsprung and associated tunnels.

[image by Joachim Haller via Wikipedia, reproduced under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license.]

The motivation for this goes back to being a really big fan of Jacq Damen en co's Steilstrecke/Dreimuhletalbahn (some pics on a forum here). I've thought for a while it would make a good Z project, and I like the idea of being a bit more "prototype modeller" about it. I've laid some track out on the table to have a think about this already, and given that Micky removed our dubious wardrobe doors recently I now have four hollow-core doors which are about the right size. They're really too heavy to be good baseboards, but they're great for visualising the space:

I have to say that Märklin Z is a great executive toy. It really does seem to fulfil the commercial goals they had for it originally: In the advertising, serious-looking chaps would see the trains as status purchases, be pleased that they were proper scale models, and occasionally get them out for a play on their frighteningly-clean designer furniture. Of all the scales I'm interested in this is the one where I'm happiest just to run things around, although I lack both designer furniture and the regulation beard. Oh well.

The layout idea would be to do 1800x450mm or thereabouts representing the area around the Hirschsprung tunnels, with a plate girder bridge from slightly further west moved into scene. This is just a single line of scenic track, so I don't have to ballast any Z turnouts, and needs to rise between 20 and 40mm left to right along the front.

At the back there are two fiddle yards, the left one at datum level, the right one set further to the front of the layout, also level but raised to whatever the height difference ends up being. An inclined link would complete the loop allowing for continuous running.

Other options would be to have level track (which seems to be missing the point slightly) and a conventional double-ended fiddle yard, but that doesn't allow for very long trains - the staggered fiddle yards can have slightly longer roads.

The front edge of the layout would be the stream and B31 road, with a little bit of foreground terrain in places. I'd like to capture the joggle between the cliffs, visible in the image above, at the right corner of the layout. I'm assuming that the visible track will bow in in a sinuous fashion to make space for the valley, and I'm a little concerned about available depth. Squeezing the fiddle yard to two roads in each direction would resolve this at the expense of some train variety. Maybe cassettes would be a good idea?

Having added this nasty bit of Photoshoppery, I wonder if the features on the right hand end shouldn't move further to the right, so that part of the return curve would be visible. It would give a nice view through the gap, but would make it difficult to extend the layout in that direction in the future. (And that is the logical direction to extend, since Hirschsprung station is just to the east.)

I can't see any really good reasons not to go ahead and build this - it lets me try some dramatic scenery, lets my Z gauge come out of the drawer a bit more often, and it uses almost exclusively things that I already have. Assuming I can resist (I can't) collecting more prototypical train formations for the various periods the line could be operated. Current thoughts are Epoch III (1950s DB), Epoch V (turn of the century DBAG) and maybe a bit of Epoch IV as well if my dad'll lend m