Initial pictures of a newbies first ever train layout for your constructive comments. My comments are below each picture. Please be nice!!! As you can see I’m still in the tracklaying phase, but I have ideas for the scenery…
This is the area designated for the three stall roundhouse and 90 foot turntable. Not much going on here yet, but I have the areas set aside.
Just to the left of the roundhouse. You can see where my sons folded dogbone is inside the outer loop ( Dad’s track ). There will be a huge Ice House on the right side, along the outside wall. That will be the main focus point of the layout.
This is the wierd area. It’s a 90 degree corner interrupted by the sewer pipe. I enclosed the pipe so it leaves a bumpout corner for trackwork. I made the best of it.
The location of the future town. A few homes, a church, and the like. Very small and quaint.
The “end of the line”.
As you can see I have not completed the trackwork. But I have a good overall start. I have some 1" and 2" inclines. Nothing too dramatic. I plan for alot more scenery than buildings, structures, and the like. There wasn’t much around New Hampshire in 1920!
Just with a quick glimpse (I’m passing through), I’d say you are doing swimingly. [:)]
If it is something you’d like to think about, I would place the roundhouse obliguely to the central operating position, or the nearest operating position. What I mean is, my preference, for my own aesthetic sense, would be to turn it somewhat to the left so that one cannot see all the way inside. Note that this is because I didn’t finish the interior…perhaps you are going to do that and want to be able to see it?
Thanks. Coming from someone with your reputation it means alot to me. And you are correct about the roundhouse. I was planning to put it more off to the side. I was so excited about having something to take a picture of and post here, it got placed incorrectly.
Actually you will find (for the most part) a pretty encouraging bunch here, and I agree with the rest you’re doing great so far…the biggest question is are you having fun? and if the answer is yes then opinions are secondary.
Before you decide the position of the roundhouse, I would suggest planning a lead to the engine facility. Even though you may be modeling a small, NH RR, you still should have a lead for coaling (can be converor or small tipple), water (small water tower) and ash pit (just a pit with grates and side access for cleanout). With only one track into the turntable, these can be an that lead. I don’t know if you can cut in a turnout beween the start of those turns for the lead.
It looks to be coming along really nicely, and kudos to you for including your son in on the project–I love the idea of him having his own ‘dogbone’. Just curious–what’s your minimum radius? I couldn’t tell from the photos, but it looked fairly generous–a little more than 22". Keep us posted as you progress, okay? So far, it’s looking good.
The outside track has 22" radius leading into 18’s. My sons is 18" radius leading into 15’s. With that trackwork I could maximize the scenery and still run 0-6-0 switchers up thru my 2-8-0 which will be the largest loco planned.
Do you plan on tieing/ interchange both your son’s and your track? A couple of crossovers on those straight sections will give you more operation posssibilities and a whole lot more fun. If you can set the crossovers far enough apart, the other track can be used as a passing siding, even if you don’t run into the inner loop.
Of coarse using DCC would make it much easier to run, rather than setting up block control.
By interchanging w/ the inner track would allow you extend your son’s track and still keep the enginge facility/ turntable where it is. This also would allow for a small yard adjacent to the engine facility. A roundhouse/ engine facility w/o a nearby yard would only exist for appearance. What do you do with that engine once it leaves the turntable? Even a 2-3 track yard gives you a place to store or hold the rolling stock.
I was planning a couple of switches to go from track to track. Right now my sons tack is dc and mine is dcc. I cannot afford a throttle for him at the moment. Just getting his up and running is my main concern. But who knows what Santa may bring!!!
As for the yard, I guess I have not spent enough time on it, maybe my planned location is not the best. I already have, but not installed, a 2 stall locomotive maintenance building and a water tank. The 3 stall roundhouse or 90 foot turntable location is not set in stone, but I did leave that area open for them. I’ll see if I can switch the town and roundhouse areas. The town area would leave more room for a switching yard, no doubt.
I rather doubt the roundhouse will fit there because roundhouses are usually designed to have some lead tracks between the roundhouse and the turntable. It appears that you have the roundhouse butted directly up to the turntable. Check the plan for your roundhouse to see if that will work. Put the roundhouse on a large peice of paper. Mark the centers of the doorways on each stall. If the back walls are all the same length, then mark the centers of the walls. If they aren’t find the center of the center wall section and then measure that distance from the center section on the two outside wall sections.
Connect the wall center marks to the door center marks and see where they converge. That is where the center of the turntable HAS to be to make the stalls line up with the turntable.
I think you’ll be a lot better off if you can work this out as it appears you have more real estate over there.
Also, the others have already voiced most of my comments, so I won’t beat a dead horse.
I did notice that it looks like you’re kinda close in a couple of areas to the great chasm (tables edge). If you can’t move the tracks there, and you certainly don’t have to, you could put in some triangles of wood into the corners where it’s close to kind of span the corner and add some security. You could also add scenery thats well anchored, like rock outcroppings and trees, to act as a safety net incase of a derail.
Lastly, in the middle of the RR the tracks are sort of “stair-stepped”, and that can be difficult to scenic and make look good. Adding some gentle curves here and there to even one of those tracks (maybe the top track crosses the bottom one to go around an outcropping of rock or something, then later crosses back…the bottom could tunnel through the rock outcropping) would add a lot to the visuals of the layout. It would also help to avoid the tracks following the tables edge. That will make the layout look larger then it is. You see, the human eye tends to like to figure out the size of things automatically. When things are in straight lines we can quickly guage the size of something. But if we mix it up with curves, straight lines, and so on, the eye has a tougher time deciding on a size, and so the assumption is that it’s larger. Breaking up scenes visually with viewblocks (like a large rock outcropping somewhere to break areas up) will do the same thing. I don’t mean to keep hitting on the rock outcropping, but as an example, it just works. Large industrial buildings, a large c
You don’t need another DCC system for your son’s track. If you still want to run DC on the inner loop due to non decodered engines or lack of another throttle, run a dual control using a toggle to switch. Sounds like it won’t be too long before all is DCC. Some of the others here can gi
This isn’t even my layout and I’m thinking $%^%&&***#@#@@!!! sewer pipe! You did a good job of concealing it though; putting a mountain/hill there helps. Looks good thus far!
