What a difference a map makes

It's been a while coming, but I now have a printed map to experiment with. I had spent quite some time playing with different sizes and alignments of hex grids, and more time yet learning how to use new drawing software. That work wasn't wasted but it's a qualitative difference having a physical map that I can put tiles on and see how the game might work (or not!) in practice.

My first thought on assembling the map was to wonder whether I should excise East Anglia and possible the westernmost row of hexes in Wales and South-west England. This was nothing to do with routes and railways, but simply a response to the physical shape of the map on the table. I'll think about this - I may add some game tracks to fill up the gaps instead.

A first attempt at tile laying went OK. I have some new tiles for OO and OOO cities, which need tweaking, but so far I'm happy with the basic ideas. Ditto with much of the basic map layout. I now need to think laterally - what track could players lay instead of the historical routes, does this make geographical sense and are there any lays that are obviously unbalanced?

One point I hadn't noticed was that the GWR/LSWR might run out of places to lay track. The current map has relatively few cities in Southern England (though potentially plenty of towns). So once the obvious long routes are laid they are left with little space to develop. It might be worth reinstating the South-west peninsula (which is currently represented by a red off-board connection at Exeter). The track laying beyond Exeter is fairly uninteresting but it would give these companies somewhere else to expand. (Alternatively I could maybe make more use of the smaller towns).

I foresee plenty of work trying the different options.