Hi I have just bought a house and i have a garage that is about 22' x 10' for a layout If i can i might build a bigger train room in a few years time But that might not even Happen. Meanwhile the garage will have to do. The layout will be N-Scale and Modular. My Main question is.. How important is this buisness of having 3' asile widths. Bearing in mind that I am a very thin person and will be operating on my own most of the time if not all of the time. and will only seldomly have someone else in the room with me. Is it worth sacrificing Real-estate and mainline Run etc for the sake of an operating session once every year or two (Or maybe Never at All). and the odd visitor once in a while Being 48 Years old my trouser size has been a size 3 (which is 30cm or 76cm waist) since I was 16 years old, So i dont think that I will get any wider soon. So a 2.5' or even less asile witdth will work for me As for the Trackplan I dont know what to do. But i will come up with somthing. There will be More Questions as i progress Regards Juan
Yes and no. Life has a way of "happening" People come into our lives in ways we never expected. I live alone and do not have _any_ children. My family and my few select friends do not care about the trains. Ooooh, wait, then this woman comes into my life. She has two teen sons and an 11yo daughter. They love the trains. Hmmmm. I'd suggest sketching a few possible floor plans with table areas and then cutting out a couple of pieces of cardboard to represent yourself and others. See how it works for you.
On the 3' question- It is really twofold- Do you NEED 3' if you are skinny? No. BUT, what are you going to do with the saved space? If you are going to add it to the depth of your layout from the walls out- you may be putting the areas closest to the wall out of reach ofr track laying, soldering, scenery building and finishing the scenes. I learned that lesson real well and my expansion is going a lot slower for that very reason. I have 36" depth around the room and had to cut each section in half, crawl under and in to be able to do all of the above to completion and then go on to the next section. It ain't fun.
Sometimes I want to sit, so I use a few bar stools. They're in the aisle, too. Therefore I prefer wider aisles. Wolfgang
