Wondering if anyone knows where I might be able to find some N Scale switching layout plans? I'm interested in wanting to get something built. Returned the HCD I bought yesterday, because it wouldn't fit, or work downstairs! Don't really have much room for a layout! Which bugs me somewhat, since I want to run, but can't because I have no place to set something up. Anyway...Track plan help appreciated. Thanks.
How much room do we have to work with? Mike's Track plans is great for inspiration, but I find people respond much better and enjoy much better results when they take one of those or any published plan and custom tailor it to your own needs.
I saved a bunch of plans I'd found over time.. but I'll get in trouble if I post it here.. I'll PM you.
N scale switching layout plans There are several switching layouts in my Layout Design Gallery A number are N scale, but some of the HO layouts would be easily rescaled, as well. More details here: San Jose Switching Layout Highly compressed representation of the real-life Alameda Belt Line: ABL Shelf Switching Layout T-Trak modules suggesting a real brewery and support yard in So Cal. Read more at: T-Trak Doesn't have to be modular, obviously. Good luck! Byron
It's not my design, but here's one of my favorite switching plans I've come across on-line: http://www.frankenmodell.de/floridaindustrie.html (I think) it was designed by Alexander Lösch based on a Lance Mindheim design (the site is in German). Good luck on your search, Cody
There are some small layouts in here: http://www.ntrak.org/Track_Plan_Set.htm The main Ntrak how-to book also has a few. And then there's the classic: http://www.wymann.info/ShuntingPuzzles/Timesaver/timesaver-trackplan.html
This is an HO design that's 10 feet long but easily adaptable to N-scale and will only be a bit over 5 feet long: http://www.shenware.com/layouts/tenderfoot.html It has a lot of nice operational potential.
My favorite and similar to the one I built as a teen in my 8x8 bedroom: I added the "main line" on the outside. And a variation :
Guess the original poster in this thread never replied to the question about how much space he has available, but for whatever it is worth - here is an 8 x 1 foot N scale switching plan heavily inspired by Jonathan Jones "Mid-Western And Atlantic" from the May 2001 Model Railroader Magazine: What we have here is an urban industrial district with it's own little support yard that supports 3 on-line customers plus a few off-line customers (served by the transload track in the lower right hand corner). The yard is serviced by a switch crew from the city terminal railroad (which is jointly owned by the class 1's that serve the city). The yard also servers as an interchange point between the terminal line and a shortline serving an industrial park on the outskirts of the city. yard space for a maximum of 15 cars, plus room for 4-5 cars on the interchange track at the bottom. A total of 12 industry spots divided among four industry locations (3 cars spots for the elevator - room for five cars there, so three cars can be moved from loaded to empty, 5 car spots for Industry A, 2 car spots for Industry B and 2 car spots on the transload (team) track. Central runaround is long enough to run around a cut of 8 or 9 cars. operating session will consists e.g. of the following moves: It is morning. The yard is pretty empty - no more than 4-5 cars there, tops. A transfer run of 7-8 cars arrives from the class 1 on on the upper (westbound) main (we postulate that the class 1 has a yard somewhere off to the east - ie right). The class 1 engine cuts off, moves over to the eastbound (lower) main using the crossover and departs eastbound for it's yard again (ie - it drives behind industry B and stops at the end of the track there, not to be seen again for quite a while). Local switcher crew comes out from the switcher pocket in the yard. Moves up using the eastbound main, and crosses over to the westbound main, to the right of the cars dropped off by the transfer run. Grabs the first four cars and pulls eastwards before backing them into the yard, then goes back and grabs the rest of the cars and backs those also into the yard. Next switcher starts pulling outbound cars from industries. One interesting touch here is to say e.g. that it takes 2 days to empty a car at e.g. industry B, and that one new car loaded car will be arriving every day. Spotting instructions for industry B says that the full car should always be spotted at the innermost car spot on the track. So a typical spotting sequence for industry B would be: Pull empty car and half empty car from industry B Spot full car at industry B, with half empty car on "top" of it (ie closer to switch) Take empty car back to yard. And do similar things for the other industries - you could e.g. say that for the elevator, it takes 30 fast minutes to unload a grain hopper, it unloads six grain cars every sessios, and every day you start with three inbound loaded grain hoppers left in the yard by the afternoon shift yesterday, and three new inbound cars coming with the transfer run from the class 1. So every 30 game minutes you pop over to the elevator and pull the string of 3 car forward one car. When all three cars that started spotted at the elevator has been unloaded, you pull the three empty hoppers, and leave them temporarily on the westbound main, west (left) of the crossover, while you grab three inbound loaded grain cars from the yard and spot them at the elevator. And so the cycle continues. The transload track (team track) has room for two cars. Here you can spot pretty much anything - including boxcars, flatcars, tank cars, hoppers - it is easy to imagine that a truck will arrive at the concrete apron next to the track and unload the car in some way - using a crane, fork lift, vacum hose attachment or some such thing - allows you to make quite a few different trucks and sets of unloading equipment. It is also possible to use the transload track to spot more boxcars for Industry B - the Industry could be unloading cars on spur 1 (closest to the industry) first, and then go through the boxcars on spur 1 to reach boxcars on spur 2 (just putting a small iron "bridge plate" between the doors of the boxcars. Also creates interesting spottin - since it means that totally full cars should be left on outermost track, partly empty cars should be respotted to track closest to building. Quite a bit of opertunity to create some interesting switching even with a fairly small switching layout, and lots of opertunity to do some interesting detailing of things like overpasses, tracks, cars, large industrial buildings (with all the cool vents and pipes and whatever on the roof). Here is another plan - it is 2 x 8 feet in H0 scale, so it could be done in about 15" x 5 feet in N scale: Smile, Stein
I clearly stated that I returned an HCD because it would NOT fit, or work downstairs. Had hoped it would, as it looked like it would, until I actually got it home. Because of limited spaced, I really do NOT have the room for a layout, unless I set up temporary on carpet. Plans shown are interesting though. Provides some ideas, IF I ever get minimal layout space.
Mmm - had to google for HCD. Had never heard that abbreviation before - but it seems from the hits I get on trainboard.com that it is a local lingo for "Hollow Core Door". From what I read in that HCD Layout Society forum, it seems like one such standard sized door is 36 x 80" - ie three feet deep and 6 2/3rds feet long. But the information that a 36x80 inch plate "would not fit" doesn't really tell me how your room is laid out, and how much room (if any) you *do* have available. A clearly labelled drawing would be nice. Could you e.g. find room for a an 8 foot foot long and one foot deep layout if it ran along two walls and wrapped around a corner? Byron Henderson has a nice little H0 scale switching layout that is 2 feet deep, in an L shape along two walls - 7 feet from corner to end along one wall, five feet from corner to end along another wall: http://www.layoutvision.com/gallery/id36.html In N scale, that would be about 15" deep, 4 feet out from the corner long along one wall, 3 feet out from the corner along the adjoining wall. But to make some hopefully sensible suggestions, I actually do need to know how much space you do have and how it is configured. Plus, of course, what kind of switching layout you are looking for - era, location, theme and type track plan - do you e.g. need a continuous run (or you won't bother to build a layout at all) ? Smile, Stein
Since you're limited on space, my suggestion is to figure out your area (maybe the size of an NTRAK module?) and take one of the excellent suggestions from here and make it your own. The new suggestion I have is take something like one of the switching layouts and cut it into two sections. This solves your space problem and you could get it out and join the sections up and do some switching. When you're done, store the modules untill next time. Also, you should see if you've got a local club with a permanant layout setup so you can go once a month and get your "I need to run trains fix". You could also start weathering cars and locos and building structures. There are several aspects to the hobby besides running trains that you can work on untill you get some more space. Good luck.
Does anyone know what layout design this was based on? Is it in any of Lance's books? I'm itching to buy either the book on how to design a small layout or the one with just sample designs...but not wanting to plop $40 for both at once. Any help would be great Edit: Google Translate FTW!!! About the only thing that made sense in the translation was "Pike City Belt Line." Apparently it was in MR in Sept. 1998. Found it in the MR trackplan database. If anyone has that issue laying around and doesn't mind scanning in whatever article went along with it, that would be awesome...please PM me
hi, the German plan , from Franken models, can be found in 102 Realistic Track Plans page 38: The Pike City Belt Line (first published in MR sept 1998). Not that long ago, SteinJr, designed a slightly different version. A great design. Both books by Lance Mindheim, are imho pretty expensive, but have very valuable content. For the prize of two cars you'll get some great design lessons. Paul
Mmm - Pike City Belt Line - might be a track plan I was discussing with a poster named Jason over on the trains.com layouts forum a while back? Found it using the forum search function over there - back in August 2009. Link to thread: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/158148/1744625.aspx I suspect that what Paul described as a great design was the original design, not my lightly modified variant. Smile, Stein
