Hello everyone. Now that I've gotten settled in, I decided against putting a shelf layout in my bedroom, it's a cool idea, but after getting the furniture in and getting myself comfortable, I think the layout would just add clutter. I managed to get permission to build the layout in the toolshed in the backyard, everything got moved out to the barn and we bought insulation and paneling for the shed. the shed is 8x12, with the paneling and insulation, I'm down to about 7 1/2' for a layout and I'm only permitting myself to make the layout 9 of 12 feet to leave room for guests and some small furniture. I'm almost to the stage of starting to build the layout itself so I decided to post a visualization of the plan that's floating around in my head. This is my representation of a Santa Fe branchline in texas, minimum radius on the main is 22" and 18 on the sidings (the only section that is 18" is on the inside of the siding, but that might change in reality to maybe 20"). Some who know me might recognize the upper portion of the layout, its taken off the small town I had on my old 4x8 layout. I have no name for the town yet. The layout technically begins on the left, where there is a switch that leads into a curve, this is the connection to the mainline Santa Fe. the track that leads back into the loop beyond that is the interchange with the UP. the trackage that leads to the bottom of the layout and dead ends serves as 2 things, staging and a power plant. this will be behind a low backdrop and since this plan is slightly out of scale, I'll have room for 3 tracks back there. One for delivering coal hoppers to the "off layout" power plant, and 2 for staging. The town in the upper part of the layout is taken from my original 4x8, with one extra siding. There is a 3 track yard to sort the trains arriving from the main. Both Santa Fe and UP will pickup cars here to deliver to the industry's they serve. The yard has a combined yard lead/team track that goes straight out past the crossover. there is a spur off this that serves an oil dealer. the spur below the yard is a small Co-op Grain elevator. Most of the layout on the right side will be scenery. The one spur on the lower part of the layout is still in planing, I may remove it from the plan to have more scenery. No idea what It will be yet. I do have an idea to add one more switch just above where the staging yard is and putting in one more staging track that's exclusive to the UP. The line in terms of operation is a point to point layout. There will only be a single operator and 2 or 3 units on the layout at a time. I currently only plan to run small 4 axle motive power. I only have an atlas GP7 as of now, But I plan to get another GP7 from either Proto or atlas to make into a passenger GP7 like the Santa Fe had. This unit will serve in both a passenger local and fright service. The local passenger train will be comprised of a single combine and on occasion a heavyweight coach. I have plans to buy a P2K UP GP9 to use for UP service. The layout will be controlled with a MRC prodigy express DCC system. Same thing I controlled my original layout with. Are there any suggestions for improvements for this layout? I think I did a fair job designing it, I tried to incorporate elements that I knew worked (the town from my old layout) with some stuff I wanted to try. thanks Geep_fan
That sounds great. My first HO layout as an adult was ~6'x10' so I think this will work out quite well for you. I modified a plan I found in one of those Kalmbach books. It was originally a plan for Class 1 modern railroading in Wyoming. I shrunk it a little to make it more of a regional feel. I will say this, with 7.5' you should be able to go wider than 22" radius. I honestly don't know all your givens and druthers for construction here besides the reuse of your old section of 4x8, but you might consider some curved turnouts which will allow you broader curves without compromising your ability to have spurs. I love the idea of being in a shed out back. That or a California Basement are probably going to be my only options when I get back to a home layout. Also, this thread maybe ought to be in the layout planning forum, but I like it here for a bit. Might get a few more eyeballs.
