Welcome to this experiment of mine! I wanted to take a stab at documenting the construction of my Gateway Western layout.
After many hours of planning and a lot of input from friend Joe Atkinson, I have come up with a solid roadmap for the project. With my 10 x 15 x 26 foot space, the around the walls layout will feature the Gateway’s Roodhouse, IL yard along with a combined Murrayville/Prouty, IL, and the Curran, IL Consolidated Grain & Barge elevator.
Much like many of my friends and compatriot’s layouts, the layout will have a heavy focus on prototypical operation. I look forward to using this blog to illustrate the interesting operation of what on the surface often appears as boring, run of the mill branch line.
Hopefully y’all will enjoy – feel to ask questions on anything.
Gateway Western 
Great to see you starting this Matt! I’m really looking forward to following your progress.
Looking forward to seeing the progress on this project. Would love to see a track plan as well.