Since I am in the middle of drawing my layout and haven't settled on one idea, I thought I'd sound a couple of idea's off this board. My first idea was basically a large figure 8 with a yard on one side and an industrial area in the center of one loop and an inter-change on the opposite side of the figure 8. With the thought of a duck under for the cross over part of the figure 8 that plan pretty much too the bottom rung of the ladder. What I am playing with now is a folded dog bone in the shape of a Z. The idea of these layouts is mainly for my boys to be able to run their trains and railfan the trains. I will have some industry for keeping my interest up in the layout. What I'm looking for is the maximum length of mainline without the spaghetti bowl look. Also this will be an O gauge layout with 40" radius curves. The area I have to work with is 19' by 16'. I also plan a view block to run down the center of the layout, this should simulate a single line railroad. Could I do better than this? Greg Elems
Hi Greg - welcome to the Layout Design Discussion! I am very jealous of all that space To help me get an idea of how that works I'm thinking in terms of HO so about 8x9.5 feet an 20" radius. How old are your kids? If they are young you will want to build it low so they can see, which means the duck under will be hard on you. - thus you may want to look at a C shape rather than Z or 8. If they are older the duck under will still be easy for them (flexibility is wasted on youth) but they can see higher so you can build it higher so less worries about having to duck under. I am assuming you are planning on building around the walls. If not, let us know how much space you have around the 16x19 feet - you may want to use it in the form of an E or G. The more I think about the Z shape the more I like it. Each side of the view block (on the / part of the Z I presume) could be two very different scenes giving a really good sense of going someplace. You could probably even fit in a staging track or two. I know that the 8 foot side in HO with 20" radius will fit a turn back curve and top bit of a Z - it will be tight however. Do you have a sketch you could scan and post? rsn48 is really good at fitting maximum mainline length in minimum space - any thoughts Rick?
I'll have to play on paper with this one to get a feel for it. The more you can tell me about your room, the easier it is for me. For example, where the door is and which way it swings, not only into the room, but which way, affects the plan. If an around the room is suggested, do you have a window that might be a problem - all windows are problems, but some more than others. But to review about curves in O guage. Broad curves are usually around 58 inches so it can handle full lenght passenger trains and long freight cars. Just for interest, a Broad curve in N is 17 inches, HO is 30 inches, S is 41 inches and O is 58; so you can see O is the most demanding of the scales for territory. Convential curves run around 46 inches and can take longer engines and cars, if the curves are provided with easements. Sharp Curves are around 35 inches and can handle car lenghts up to about 60 ft. So with sharp curves only, you are looking at a switching, or industrial, or logging rail road. So you first concern may be to bump up your curves unless you are happy with a switching or industrial layout. You don't "have" to increase the radius, but be aware you have made a compromise that will affect the size of equipment you will be running. But, if you are open to it, I have another suggestion which will involve your kids - two suggestions actually. If you go to a professional railroad layout designer, one of the first things he will do is give you a paper with two long lists going down the page. The first one is "givens." This is what "must" be on your layout, or what "musts" are in your design concerning construction. So examples of "givens" are: 1. You are old and arthritic so no duck unders. 2. at least one tunnel 3. the size of the "minimum" and "maximum" radius... etc. Then on the next list, your druthers. These are "would like to have" but can live without if for some reason or other - given design and size constraints - you might not be able to use. For example, for me, a round house would be a druther, but for others, it is a given. When you do this exercise, for the time being, don't worry about space and budget; pretend you have infinite space and an infinte budget (sigh...wish that it were so). Also, and I highly highly recommend this, do it with your kids, get some chips and pop and sit down at the kitchen table and draw up a list - you'll get lots of enthusiam. Using this method, you go into your layout design through the front door, rather than starting with what will fit where - which is going in the back door. What you are after is a feel for your layout and then the design follows. So if your given is 40 inch curves, but you want to run contemporary engines like SD90's then something has to give, as SD90's wouldn't run very well on 40 inch curves. Then post your givens and druthers and we will play with it here. Secondly, to give your kids a feel for rail roading, take them railfanning - something you might already be doing. If you don't know good locations, ask at your local model railroad store, or ask for suggestions here in another forum. My son and I used to go out countless times to watch the VIA leave on Friday evenings at 5:30, then Amtrack at 6:00. After they left, we would hit Mc Donalds. Then over time, we started going to more areas. The bonding that will happen is phenomenal, the cost is very minimal and these will be the times your kids remember you best after you and I go to the big caboose in the sky...lol. If you do this a lot, you will find your kids probably want a contemporary layout - this may or may not happen. These railfanning moments will also shape what you want on your layout, even if you aren't into contemporary rail roading. It will give you a feel for "operating" your layout; trains having "meets", and yard operation, and way freight, etc. So draw up a givens and druthers.... and post or describe your room, and anything in the room that will affect the layout, eg. the water tank etc. One thing you will start to hear if you haven't already is: "Dad, when will the layout be ready?" Another version of the "are we there yet" scenario. By including them in everything, they realize a couple of things, 1) the layout is going to be slower going up than they thought 2) part of the fun is planning the layout 3) another part of the fun is bringing the plan into fruition.
Rick, You make some excellent points. Let me answer a few questions. First, this is to be a shortline or branch line of a class one western road. I have three era's that will work on the 40" radius curves. The steam will be a 2-8-0, the first generation will be an RS-3 and the current era will be a GP38-2. I plan on it being mostly a lumber type railroad, like the Sierra railroad. I will be using 50' flat cars and boxcars. For a change in traffic I will have a cement plant and use the PS2 short covered hoppers. My longest cars will be my grain cars. As to my boys, they are well versed in railfanning and running trains. I find they my get more out of switching than I had originally thought. They are 10 and 13 have some of their own equipment. While their trains are 3 rail, they do prefer the scale sized cars and locomotives. Of course the fact I'm an engineer for UP helps them like trains. They both have run layouts and they don't run the trains like slot cars. I will scan an early layout plan that isn't refined with sidings or yard yet but it will give you an idea of where I'm currently at in planning. The area for the layout is two bays of a three car garage. It will be finished with a drop ceiling and insulated garage doors. Since the garage faces northeast, it doesn't get quite as warm in the afternoons. Greg
I figure that changing the 14' to 16' will open up the isle ways. Also the wife has said it will not be next to a wall, island type it is. I think an industrial area inside the loops will be fairly easy to add. A long and narrow yard will need to be added somewhere. Greg [ 13 June 2001: Message edited by: Greg Elems ] Edit - fixed link - Rob [ 13 June 2001: Message edited by: yankinoz ]
Greg - that's about what I envisioned from your description. In order to see the picture, you have to be a member of the hirail egroup at yahoo. Is there somehere else on the net you can put the image file?
Rob, I thought that was too easy. I will get it posted to another web page. Sorry,you should be able to see it now. Greg [ 13 June 2001: Message edited by: Greg Elems ]
I was sitting down with paper and pencil in hand ready to play when I realized that I still don't know where the doors are in your room. Visually your plan has much appeal to me. I am a sucker for curves....lol. But I am not sure how you would access some of the area you would be building. Access would definitely be a problem. About the around the wall thing. I am not sure why the Chairwoman of the Board of Directors elected to not have an around the wall type layout, but if it is because of damage to the walls, there is a solution. I would suggest that you use a modular approach, so that the legs hold up the layout, and it is not attached to the walls, thus no damage. I knew I had seen an O layout that I liked, but it took some time for me to find it. If you have access to Great Model Railroads 1995, on page 74, there is a plan I think you could modify to your space. If you can't get ahold of a copy, I will fax it to you, although I don't know how well it will fax. The title of the article is The Friendly Southern Pacific by Charles Morrill. It looks operationally interesting and could be well done visually. This layout runs 30 inches on the curves (mainline) and 24 on the branchline. Although it is in a larger area, I think it could be easily modified for your area. Cheers,
The only thing I've come up with is either a squished figure 8 in the same configuration as above with the 'double track' sort of stacked with one scene on top and the lower could fit a staging track or two. Other idea is a C shape with the two "blobs" - 8 feet wide across the 19' side. If you can visualise this - you would enter (I guess from the other car space in the garage) inbetween the two turnback curves. If there is room around the other three sides you could fit a three or four track staging yard on the back side (behind backdrop) or if you introduce grades it could go under the 'front' scene. Can you picture this? I think the grades might end up too steep however.
Well, as to doors, it is in our garage. In relation to the drawing, the door to the house is in the upper left. It will be about 15' away since it is the third bay to the garage. The big double garage door will open on the side where I have the 19' measurement. I could have that side of the layout almost up against the door for more room on the opposite side. Also, I plan on expanding on the isle ways on the inside of the Z by making it 16' instead of 14'. That should stretch it out enough to make it easy to get into the inside area of the loop. I do like the idea of staging tracks underneath some where. As an aside, I will be putting a similar layout of S scale roughly 18" above the O scale. I also have drawn a C shaped layout that fits in the same area. I will scan it and post it. Greg
If you are going to double deck with an S scale layout on top you might want to keep it as simple as possible to make construction less complicated. I lean toward the C configuration. The staging area could go on the long side right up against the door as you can open the door for access. Alternativly if you put the two penisula's facing the big door and open it up for natural light photos.
I did some research on layouts that might stimulate your creative juices... then promptly lost the paper I had it written on....lol. I have now found the paper and will list suggested layouts to look at in your local store. Don't buy the book(s) unless there is one you actually intend to build and you want a good reference. 1. Classic Layout Designs, John Armstrong, p.7 Harper's Ferry Vignette. 2. also from above: The mighty Bantom p.17 3. Lynn Westcotts 101 Track Plans For Model Railroads 23 printing, p. 22 and following. Try some of these layouts on for size and see if you can come up with something, of course, don't take them at face value, look and see if they can be modified into something useable for you.
