After a fifteen year hiatus, my childrens love for all things on rails has brought me back to the hobby... I've got a nice 10.5'x15' room in my basement, and have allocated 10.5'x12' for a new layout. Unfortunately, when I sit down with pen and paper, or a layout design program, I don't really get anywhere, so I figured I'd come to the experts for help... Some design guidelines...most of them from the wife 1. HO scale ... she doesn't like N, and thinks the kids will enjoy the larger scale more. 2. All Steam ... 1900-1920ish era 3. Would like to have at least two mainlines in a continuous loop to entertain the kids 4. Would like to have a turntable and roundhouse ... the kids are fascinated by the one at the Colorado Railroad Museum. 5. For my purposes, I'd like to have a corner be a mountain with logging and/or mining. Anyone have any ideas or advice?
Welcome to trainboard Jeremy, you;ve come to the right place. 1) No problem, so long as you can use the whole room. Is it to be right around the walls, use a duckunder (not recommended)? What are the dimensions, x being across, y being up n down? What restrictions do you have in that space (pipes, windows, doors)? 2) Lovely 3) Do you mean a double mainline, or a twice around (single track, 2 loops that cross over) 4) easy enough, depending upon the restrictions of the room 5) again, easy enough. For ideas, goto www.railimages.com. There are a couple of hundred different people using that to show pics of their layouts, including layout plans in most of them. MY room, for example, is 12 x 16, but I'm only using 10x16 on 3 walls. You can find my plan at http://www.railimages.com/gallery/rogerbruce Obviously, the newer the picture, the newer the plan, with the last one being the final.
Welcome aboard! One piece of advice. Don't rush. Take your time. Read books and magazines. Sketch, ask questions. Time spent now is well invested. If your basement floor is concrete, one favorite trick of mine, is to chalk benchwork outlines on the floor. This is an easy way to make certain what will fit where. Boxcab E50
hmm...neat idea Boxcab..... Also, if your gonna build on doors, just lay em in the room and chalk stuff on em using the 'pencil and string' method for curves
I've definitely got the whole room to play with ... walls on the N,W,E sides, open end on the S side of the room, as my office is in the next room over, so there's a bit of a hallway there. There aren't really any features in the room I have to build around, thankfully. And yes, I do mean double main
ok, so your room is 15' up n down, but your only using 12' of it, and 10'6" across? The entire bottom end is open. Can you run a peninsula across all or part of that section? Where would you like the opening to be for access if you have a peninsula there (could have peninsula's / turnarounds each side for a center entry, but that isnt so efficient)?? What I'm getting at here is, you need to ascertain the most effective use of the room before you (or anyone here) can even start to consider tracks. Once the benchwork is sorted, the track can follow. What you want, and what we think may be possible may be worlds apart without knowing the restrictions of the area. ie, if we put a peninsula with an openeing to the east side, that may be impossible due to restrictions we dont know about Sorry if I seem to be hounding you
Jeremy, I just noticed you live in Denver. Have you been to Caboose Hobbies yet? Its the first step into a very big train addiction. If you are going to do steam, I think your wife is correct in stating that HO is the best scale to do it in. There is some beautiful steam you can buy right off the shelf in HO. Look at Bachmanns 4-6-0's along with their three truck shay. Life Like made some really nice switchers too. And of course Broadway Limited Imports, aka BLI, makes the cadillac of ready to run HO steam. IMHO Go to Caboose hobbies and have them let you test drive a bunch of steam engines. Just hang out and run everything in the case if you feel like it. I do it all the time just so I can be familiar with everything. Although 10.5 x 12 would be an awesome N scale layout. In HO scale those dimensions are considered to be a small layout. Although, in my mind, smaller layouts tend to be better detailed layouts. Denver Public Library has alot of how to books on model trains. They also have model railroader magazine in their periodicals section. Read alot of stuff about this hobby, then read some more. No matter what you do, do not make the beginner mistake of using sharp curves. In HO scale all the beginner books have plans for 18" radius curves. With a room your size, you should go as wide as you can.
Lets see if I fully understand, you have an area 12' X 10'6" that has to remain "open" on one of the 12' sides, right? My thoughts.... You don't have enough room to put a peninsula in the middle of the layout. You'll need about 4' for the turnouround / loop at each end, which will take up 8', and you will need at least 4' for the "bulb" at the end of the peninsula in the middle. True, you can scrunch the curves down, but I wouldn't recommend it. That leaves you with a U-shaped layout with "bulbs" at the ends of the "U" for the turnarounds. I'd keep the benchwork no more than 30" deep along most all of the layout. You may have longer arms, but the kids don't. I'd try to keep the tracks that need the most hands-on work close to the front. I'd seriously consider putting a staging yard along the 12' wall section. It's a nice long section and it's great to have trains already made up that you can pull out of the yard. You can also do some switching when operations becomes more desireable, but younger kids just want to hit the gas and go. I'd put the turntable and engine yard facilities inside one of the turnaround "bulbs". It's a fairly empty space just the right shape for a turntable and locomotive storage yard, and it'll be at the end of the layout where you can have decent access and visibility. This would put the yard shifted towards that end of the long wall where the turntable is located. You can also build various service facilities along that same section, such as coal loaders, water towers, etc. Kids like hills, they like to see the trains climb. I'd consider making a modest hill up and down along the back wall of the long wall for one of the tracks to climb up and down. Nothing to wild, just a change of scenery and variation to break up the running. Just climbing up 2" and staying there along part of the trip will break things up. You could also build a "mountain" in the other "bulb" and have the trains run around the mountain while at different elevations. You could even have one track cross over the other to increase the overall main-line continuous running length (twice around before returning to the beginning). I'd think about putting in a spot for a passenger station. There's something about lighted passenger cars and having a plce specfically for them to go to that's appealing to the younger set. Make sure the station is located on a siding so the train can park there while another train passes by. Some design parameters I'd strongly suggest: 1. 22" minimum radius curves unless in a switching yard, where you could drop down to 18". Even larger radius curves such as 28" would be better. 2. Keep the hills down below 3% grades. That's 3" of climbing in 100" of track. You'd need at least 130" of track to climb high enough to cross another track. Steamers are notorious for not liking hills. Diesels do a lot better as a whole. 3. Build the benchwork "too strong", so in case junior has to climb up on the layout to retrieve his favorite locomotive that derailed when you're not looking he can do it without falling through. It'll also allow you to lean on the layout while laying track or working on a turnout. 1/2" or 3/4" plywood is reasonable. Overlaying it with 1/2" or 1" insulating blue or pink foam will quiet the layout down and give you flexibility for construction. 4. Light all of the buildings. It looks cool. 5. Use flex track instead of snap track. It'll give you more flexibility in layout design, is cheaper, and looks better. 6. Ease the corners. It's easier on the trains, is easy to do, and looks more realistic. Hope this helps! Mark in Utah
Ok, great advice so far folks, thanks Here's a quick diagram I whipped up of the physical room itself. The door on the left heads out to the rest of the basement while the door on the bottom goes into my office space. The pathway is critical, but as far as how to get into the layout area itself, I'm relatively undecided. I don't think I want to have any duckunders or anything like that though. I'd definitely like to stick to 22-24" mainline curves, with 18" in the yards ... maybe smaller curves for the logging/mining stuff. I'm want to have some operations potential for myself, but Mark's spot on that they kids just like to see em run. They'll probably not be running anything unattended by myself or my wife. I'm not sure how to best utilize the space I've got, but it seems like the next step is to play around with benchwork designs and see how to maximize the space usage, or am I wrong?
I think you are smart by deciding to design a foot print and then designing a layout to go in that foot print. you can also do a little of both layout design and benchwork design. It usualy does end up to be sort of a tug of war. If you can do it, you should consider fixing up the room with insulation and dry wall and carpet and lighting before you start the layout. I have heard so many people bemoan the fact that they did not prep their layout room before starting out. It is still possible to build a layout that leaves the center of the room relatively free for a couch and TV or game console. The trend these days is to put layouts fairly high up, but we haven't heard how old your kids are. If they are still fairly young, that will dictate how high up the layout is. [ June 03, 2005, 04:55 PM: Message edited by: traingeekboy ]
The kids are 5 and 2 ... Hence the need for parental supervision at all times I was planning on going with a bench height of between 40 and 50" which should be comfortable for me to work on (and get underneath!) while being low enough for the kids to enjoy with a stool. I'm planning on building a three or four foot long movable step-stool type thing for them to stand on, maybe more than one depending on the benchwork and aisle configuration.
Hmmm... just thinking here... Maybe you should consider something more childproof like Lionel O gauge or Bachmann G Gauge. Lego trains are another option. Or atleast a padlock for the layout room. It will be hard to keep them off the trains. Although for the record. I destroyed my first HO train set at the age of two, so maybe now is the perfect time for HO scale. As adults we have different expectations of what toy trains are for. Half the fun of playing with trains is setting up the track and learning what you can do that way. Maybe a flat low table painted green and lots of sectional track for them to re-arrange as they please. I know you said you wanted HO scale, but you may want to consider N scale unitrack for the kids. With younger kids you have to start them with cheaper trains due to the wear and tear factor. You probably won't want them to play with a BLI steamer. I'm thinking go to the super market and get them a basic toy train set cheap and let them destroy it by playing with it. Ok i'm just tossing out ideas here. What about two layouts? One for the kids and one for dad. As they get older you phase out the kids layout and they get to join dad on his layout. In the meantime they get to play on dads layout only when dad is around.
A step ahead of you The room in question has a nice deadbolt on it because I used to house computer equipment in there for my business. Said equipment has vacated the premises, so the space is available. It's all locked up if I'm not in the room. They have their own oval track set (HO, el-cheapo equipment) in addition to the obligatory Thomas trainboard layout. The 'Mom and Dad' layout will be a fun occasional thing for them (mostly the five year old, as he's old enough to handle the DCC remote and knows how to use it) and mostly for Dad to play and Mom to decorate
Sounds like you're all set then. You're layout room looks good too. Boy if only you would see the N scale light you could run some serious trains in that room. 60 car trains with multi unit power lashups... So what roadname are you planning on using? If you go to the HO forum and search it by the word Help you'll probably find gold as far as train knowledge is concerned. I was hoping to sneak out of work early and go to caboose hobbies, but I rode my bike and I'm waiting out this dang storm that's passing through down town.
Jeremy, what I was thinking was to run a peninsula across the 'south' section from the left (west?) wall so you effectively have 3.75 'sides' with, say, a 3' opening towards the right hand end. Since you would have access to both sides of that peninsula, you could actually make it a bit wider than the 30" that Mark suggested...maybe even 48".... So, 30" up the right wall with probably a 36" 'bulb' for a turnaround at the bottom of it, 30" wide across the top wall, 30" wide down the left wall, then a 48" wide peninsula coming across......hmm, doing math...just under 5'. Not much of a peninsula, is it...more like a 20 inch 'blob' at the bottom of the left hand wall... Still, a 45" x 60" section could give you lots of scenery potential (make that the mountain perhaps?).
Having run with a number of different bench designs, this one seems the most promising: Square size is 12", and the dark areas are bench, the light is open/aisle. Walkway is off limits. (editing this part in I'm thinking of having a fiddle yard of some sort along the right hand side, with town + industrial on the left hand peninsula. Top Right will probably be a mountain, since the corner will be hard to reach. Small town at the foot of the mountain, giving passenger ops between towns. Various industrial/mining/logging in between, with a longer 'mountain' along the left wall, with a larger one at the top left perhaps as well. I was considering some sort of water/river type thing in the little 3x2 section at the top middle, so I can have trestle(s) or something there. My wife loves those Comments, thoughts, criticisms? [ June 06, 2005, 06:41 PM: Message edited by: Jeremy Noetzelman ]
OK.... How about a double or tripple around on the large section at the bottom left, then a double loop out to the top right corner (tunnel and bridge for low and high lines), and a big fiddle yard, as you suggest, on the bottom right? I'll draw something up in xtrkcad just get you thinking.... trackwork only though, no scenery at all.
OK, this is just a 'for example'...only took me 15 minutes in Xtrkcad, and I made it up as I went along... Not too bad, actually. Bear in mind, however, that the turn radii on at least one of the curves on this track is UNDER 18"...in fact, its under 15"...... So its not highly recommended. With another 15 minutes work I;m sure the curve could be sorted. Elevations may also cause you grief though. HO needs an awful long time to change elevations, so I doubt significantly if you have any chance of making the bridge I show here work in reality. Shift to N scale and this is a great layout though I avoided the corners as much as possible, because they are gonna be a b____ to reach. ooooooops... I didnt notice your top section was only 2' wide.. I made it 3'. Oh well.... at least it gives you some idea on how much you can do. Thats actually a twice around over the entire layout. If you want I can do one thats a bit more realistic, but that will take a little longer.
Get hold of a book called 101 track plans.. theres 101 plans to sus out/hack/butcher and swear at... Welcome to the board..
