I thought it might be interesting to hear what the current size and future size of everyone's railroad is. Mine is currently a 4' by 13' modular dogbone with switching operations. I plan to eventually have it in an 8' by 14' shed, with around the room operation and a lift out bridge.
currently tearing down a 14' x 40' layout building and building a new layout in its own room 20' x 30' with a 8' x 13' staging room and bathroom attached. the Santa Fe RR from Chicago to Los Angeles ! Santa Fe All The Way !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My layout is N gauge and occupies an area that is 27ft by 11 ft. with an expansion area into a 10ft by 12ft area. Thats where I will have staging and the interface with Catt's GVR and other railroads
Currently a 10 inch by 6 foot N switching layout. Soon to start on a 11 foot six inch deep by ten foot wide N mainline layout, with a yard, wye, and two junctions... and it's all prototypical.
Well, when my basement is finally finished, the space that will be filled with my planned N scale empire is roughly 21 feet by 13 feet. BoxcabE50
My layout is limited by four walls 2´1/2 - 21´ - 18´ - 9´, but the shape is hard to describe so I add a dimension sketch of it. I have collected different sketches and merged them into one sketch. In the open area to the left I have a work bench. ----------- Helge SR&WF NARA member #5
My N scale layout is about 8 x 7 feet, three times around on various grades to get back to where you started, plus yards, industries, etc.
My layout is small. The layout must share a basement 'rec' room. </font> HO scale </font> Dogbone </font> Two reversing loops stacked at one end of the "bone". Plus, the main line is constructed for continuous loop running. 23'-6" long X 32" deep in the middle... and by 5' deep at each end of the dog bone. </font> It is a "free lance" model of the C&O Railway........ anywhere in the mountains of Virginia and eastern West Virginia </font> Time period = 1948 to 1955. (Sometimes stretched into '56 so I can "justify" some GP9's) </font> -Kitbash
My main board area is a 2ft wide L with the outsides both 8ft (6ft inside). It's in the spare room and will contain an end-to-end switching/industrial HO layout. There will also be a double track staging yard tacked on to one end to serve as 'everywhere else'.
Mine is (or soon will be) 3'x7.5' double loop with a switch yard and downtown switching area. In N scale of course. I'm modelling the ACL Tampa/Ybor operations (very loosely)
I have HO & HOn3 with emphasis placed on the HOn3 for logging and mining operations. It is in my basement and takes up 20X30 feet, shaped like a "G" at this time. I have a long way to get to the point where I would care to place a photograph or two in here .. in fact, I may not have enough time left in my life to get to that point! LOL It's my fault; I have not done much with it for over ten years. I have been having too much fun playing with the real thing at the Yreka Western.
My Nscale GVR is 10'8" x 27' 6"x 10'8' with a 10'8" x 8' 8" yard and industrial area in an ajoining room. The trackage will eventually go entirely around the basement. I have not settled on the complete trackplan as of yet therefore I do not have a plan to post.
They say size doesn't matter. My layout is an HO scale 6' 4" by 21" switching layout, based on the New Haven in the Bronx. Modeler's license: It's happening NOW! (I wish!) It's a busy city scene and quite manic if I do say so myself........... =:0 Many of the items on my layout are older than most of the folks in TrainBoard! Paul, do you remember a company called J&L Randall (England) that produced HO and OO accessories under the name MERIT and the little barrels, garbage cans, pipes, etc. came in little match box boxes? I've got tons of that stuff. I even have a complete box of garbage cans untouched! The little lids come off of them! Unfortunately I never saved any other of the dozens of boxes except for one that's empty but once held "coalmen and scales". (3 pieces)! I was surprised to see a couple of years ago, that one of my last original freight cars from my childhood, is a Varney boxcar (Wabash) minus a door and couplers. I didn't realize I was as extinct as Varney! Cheeze. Kids went from Varney to Barney!
My HO layout is a 3 level around the walls of my 22'x20' basement with a double sided 2 level penisular and 2 18' branch lines into the laundry room, never figured out the footage but does contain over 100 switches.
Wow Fred!!! That's quite alot of rail and maintenance, isn't it?? Sounds like you have lots of operation though. Johnny .. I still have my old Varney rubber band drive F7! Would you believe it still works! But you better hold on to your hat because it only has one speed ... F-A-S-T!
My layout is living proof that I only lie to myself. It's a 15X18 around the walls plus a penensula in the middle for the passenger terminal. THe reason I say it's proof is that I said I would never again build a small layout and folks, despite it's size, it's a SMALL LAYOUT!!! Ok, whats my definition of a small layout? t's one in which there isin't enough room to incorporate all 5 elements into the layout design (Mains, yards, switching, passenger ops, and staging) The current design has 4 of the 5, but after almost a year of trying I still can't figure out how to incorporate a staging yard into the design. Designing this thing has been an ongoing exercise in frustration as I try to squeeze enough operational interest in to make it worth building. I can't really claim success on that. I'm building it, but I also know that the layout is just plain not big enough to be very interesting to operate. THe size of my available space is creating so many operational constraints that I'm really not sure it's worth building in that space. I have looked at larger spaces, in fact I just got in a bid to build a 50X72 pole building for a more permanent layout and may go that route (only $46,000). THat route has it's own headaches too, because if I put that much effort into it, I want to build a more prototypical layout and trying to fit the shapes into any real space is truly the definition of frustration. One of these days I think I may create graphic files of the blueprint and the shapes of the benchwork i want and dump the whole mess on the layout design forum and see if anyone else can get any further with it.
