Byron's first custom layout design and operations consulting was a design for the 1950s-era Santa Maria Valley Ry. for a modeling friend in 1995. An updated version of that design has been published in the 2004 issue of Model Railroad Planning. From 1996 until 2001 he was editor of the Layout Design News and Layout Design Journal publications of the Layout Design Special Interest Group (SIG).

In 1997 he moved to the San Jose, CA area and had the good fortune to meet Rick Fortin and become part of the crew on his fabulous ATSF Fourth District layout. Byron graciously offered to develop an operations plan for the layout. Sessions have grown over the years and now include dozens of trains, 18 to 20 operators, and over 5 hours of activity.

In the last few years he has been doing Layout Designs and Operations Plans for a number of friends, writing articles, and preparing and presenting clinics at conventions and meetings. In 2004 he became a Marketing Consultant in his "day job" and now has the schedule flexibility to offer design and ops consulting services to model railroaders as Model Rail Services. He is also available for editing and authoring for publishers, SIGs and Historical Societies, etc.

Byron's modeling interests are focused on the Bay Area railroads, including the Southern Pacific, Western Pacific, and Santa Fe. He is currently building an N scale layout to share the garage with a family car. The first tiny test section of this layout is described in the Layout Design SIG's Layout Design Journal #29 and here. Byron is also a member of the NMRA, Layout Design SIG, Operations SIG, and the Santa Fe Railway Modeling and Historical Society, the Southern Pacific Historical and Technical Society, and the Western Pacific Historical Society.

Articles authored by Byron include:

  • Flexible Temporary Staging on the SW&SF
    Layout Design Journal/News, January 1998, page 17
  • Domino Designs Sampler
    Layout Design Journal/News, Fall 1998, page 28
  • Bill Fleisher's Duck-under Handrails
    Layout Design Journal/News, January 1998, page 44
  • N scale VCY shares a garage: lessons from a look back
    Layout Design Journal/News, March 2001, page 20
  • Prototype track/industry maps as a design resource
    Layout Design Journal/News, March 2001, page 30
  • Design principles for layouts in garages
    Layout Design Journal/News, September 2002, page 8
  • Houston's Port Terminal Railroad in N scale
    Model Railroad Planning, 2002, page 24
  • Linking unconnected decks with operations and staging
    Layout Design Journal/News, Spring 2003, Page 8
  • Flying the Skylobe
    Layout Design Journal/News, Spring 2003, page 13
  • Another angle on an urban switching layout
    Layout Design Journal/News, January 2004, page 14
  • X-factor Staging: Adding flexibility to stub-ended staging
    Layout Design Journal/News, January 2004, page 72
  • On the streets of San Francisco with the Ocean Shore RR
    Layout Design Journal/News, April 2005, page 11
  • Folding belt line on a shelf
    Model Railroad Planning, 2005, page 54