I’ve been reading the forum some time now while I’ve been planning my HO layout. I built a 4x8 layout 20 yrs ago for my boys from an Atlas design. This time around I wanted to create a freelance layout but I’m not very good artistically or with CAD programs. I know I want a double main run around with some elevation for a tunnel and then I’m planning on 3 industries (electric generating plant, dairy creamery, and an animal feed producer. I’m also hoping to add a river and an Amtrak station in as well. I’ve built my benchwork in the basement with limited space available (L-shaped 11’ by 12’ with the ends at just over 4’ to accommodate at least 24" radius curves). I’ve tried a couple of the track design programs but CAD type stuff is not my bag. Below is a link to my first attempt with Anyrail and I was hoping some of you design gurus could take a look and maybe advise me if I’m going in the right direction. I’m going to want some crossovers in the mains and the yard is going to be larger than what I have done so far. Anyone want to take a crack at improving this design and showing me where to best place the industries and spurs? Know it’s asking a lot but I’ve been playing with this for weeks and just getting frustrated with not having a good idea on how to lay it out.
Welcome aboard. Is that proposed layout to run against the walls? There is some serious reach issues as the plan is now w/o having access to the sides. If the 3 walls are available to use, can you allow the layout to run down that rt side wall? If so, you can stagger the return loop ends for isle width and this wouls allow you to narrow the remaining potions of the layout for better reach.
Many other will undoubtable weigh in and a good disscussion can be had once all your “givens” are known.
The benchwork is on casters and can be moved whenever needed. My basement space is limited so I need the layout against the walls when not being used and can be pulled out for working and operation. Everything is braced and bolted so moving around shouldn’t be a problem.
You mentioned that you wanted elevations. Is that planned as a crossing or overpass in the center?
The plan I am working on now is in a slightly smaller parimeter area, will be a shelf, but having trouble getting enough length for reasonable grade for overpass.
If you’ve been lurking you have probably seen all the good advice I have been given here on my layout during the past week. Glad to see that you are giving the computer program a shot. I don’t know Anyrail but imagine that it should have similar features to the XTrackCad program that I am using. Even though I know Acad quite well it still took a few weeks for me to figure everything out in the rail program, so suggest you keep on playing and it should get easier after a while.
In many ways we are in a similar position- I built a 4x8 many years ago too, and this time working with a bigger area with the goal of improved reliability and operations.
One comment- you are showing a loop with a crossover. I have an elevated loop bridge crossover in my design that looks very similar. Building grades takes a lot of space and in order to keep it at a reasonable 2% around the loop I had to make the radius of the circle 30" (60" diameter). So if you are thinking of an elevated crossing you will need to open it up a good bit and work around the corner to get more length. The program should be able to help you accomplish this, and also keep your curves at a reasonable radius, etc.
I’ll leave the rest of the design comments to the experts here. Good luck!
I took a look at your plan and I think that I have a general idea of what you want. Since you will be running full length cars and modern locomotives, you will need 22" radius curves as a minimum, but you should be able to use #4 Atlas turnouts. 4 foot wide benchwork would be too tight for double track curves with 22" inner radius (22" + 2" track spacing * 2 = 48"). Adding another 4 inches or so to the inside of the L would help. I see what you want with the up-and-over, but splitting the double main line like that will cause problems in operating sessions as engineers try to keep up with their trains. you might want to consider just adding a large hill for your tunnel, or at least double-tracking the overpass.
Your layout will need staging, but because of its small size, I would recommend having the staging at a lower level if the grades will fit. I’d recommend making the layout into a walk-around design with a center backdrop and having the whole thing be at least 5’ across. You then would roll it out when you are ready to run trains and then roll it back after you’ve finished (remember to lock the casters after you finish moving it - “earthquakes” can be a real hazard to model trains!) Because of your limited space, I’m thinking of a twice-around plan with the yard along the 12’ side. The train length will probably be about 5-6 feet, but I’l see how long I can make it. Linear staging underneath with a return loop at the end will probably work best.
I use CADrail to draw my plans, and I can have a preliminary plan ready for feedback in a day or two. If you check out the photos I’ve uploaded, you’ll find an S gauge track plan that I designed for another community member.
Maybe someone else will have the exact figures, but IIRC it takes 101" to make a 2% grade for a cross over.On my cross over I dropped the bottom track 2% and raised the top track 2% to keep the transition as short as possible. I didn’t see this brought up in the previous posts.
First piece of advice : Never build the benchwork before you design the track plan.
You benchwork is over 5 ft deep. You will never be able to reach the back 1/3 of the layout to switch cars, uncouple cars, rerail cars, etc. You can roll it out into the room to do track work and scenery but the whole back of the layout is inaccessible when the layout is against the wall. The max depth needs to be about 3 ft.
Here is my son Andy’s layout, its about 19x9 against the wall. This is the short leg that has a couple industries.
I’ve been playing with the track arrangement a bit and the double track main is messing with the yard. Is the double track absolutely neccessary? I’ll play with the yard location and see if I can’t get some more room, but so far I have only been able to get 3 double-ended tracks with a total capacity of 14 40’ freight cars.
I have a couple of thoughts to add here. First of all, welcome! Secondly, Anyrail is a great design tool, but full-fledged CAD it is not. It will never produce 3D drawings, nor will it allow you to operate virtual trains (unless you also have Trainplayer and its add-on track laying package). Never the less, I think it’s the right tool for you. Personally, it’s my software of choice, too. Finally, layot design for others is very hard to do, because of different preferences and tastes. Personally, while I enjoy operations, I find that they can get too fiddly, and I always want the option to just crank up the throttle a few notches and watch , my train go. So for you, can you give us some context to work in? How important are operations vs running? What area of the country /world? What era? Or don’t you care? Why those industries? Are you open to others, especially idustry pairs that would lend themselves to realistic shipments between them (my quasi-freelanced road features a logging camp / sawmill / furniture factory combination)? Really, you’re not asking a lot so much as opening the door for a lot of questions. Most of us enjoy the design proxess and are glad to help, so long as we don’t have to do it in a vacuum.
Looking at your track plan sketch, it appears that your end loops are actually in the neighborhood of 5 feet at one end, and 4-1/2 feet at the other. So you should be able to do a little better than 22 and 24 inch radius curves. Note that if the outer curve is 24 inch, the inner curve must be less than 22 inch to allow proper spacing between the two tracks.
Someone mentioned that you would be running full length cars and modern locomotives. I didn’t see where you mentioned that. But if that is really the case, then your mentioned curve radii will probably cause you some problems with reliable running. This is because there will be a lot of end overhang, plus you may have to do a lot of mechanical modification to the equipment to get it to run on those radii. And in my opinion #4 turnouts are too sharp for modern equipment.
You also didn’t show any way to get from the outer loop to the inner. With the inner loop doing that up and over you will create a reverse loop somewhere when you do connect the loops. This is not an issue so long as you take that into consideration when you do your track gapping and wiring
I was thinking of elevations but I may forgo that if it is too complicated given the amount of space I have available. I was thinking for the crossover only as a means to fill in the center but I may just go with two main lines with branches off to the center for my industries. Still lots to think about and absorbing comments of others on the forum.
I took a look at you American flyer layout and like the yard and roundhouse feature. I think that would fit into my space along with the double main. I did extend the ends of the L to allow for larger radii curve. I like the double mainline in order to run two trains in opposite directions. I just think it looks cool. Everything else is still up in the air. Although I would like elevation I think that for a newbie like me, it would be easy and less complicated to do without. Still open to all suggestions. I have a son who is an engineering student and I’m hoping he can teach me how to use one of the track software packages. He knows CAD and hopefully he can teach the old man something. Looking forward to see your plan.
I’m hoping my son, the engineering student, can give me some help with the CAD type software. I like the idea of a double main in order to have two trains running along in opposite directions. I picked those particular industries because that is what we have up here in Northern VT. All are within 30 miles from where I live and are serviced by either the CN railway or New England Central. Still a lot of planning to do but I appreciate everyone’s opinions and suggestions.
I’m modeling modern day rail but would like to someday add an Amtrak to the layout because I’ve working onboard the train back in the days when it ran from Montreal to where I work in St. Albans, VT. I figured I could run in on the mainline only with a siding off the main for the station which up here is just one small building where the ticket agent was stationed. I do plan to have crossovers from between the mainlines, I just ran out of free track to lay with the demo version of Anyrail. Most of my freight with be smaller box cars and hoppers and flatbeds. Some day when I have the space, I would like to expand somewhere to get in a steam loco but not for a long time. Got to get this one up and running first.
I would advise against a roundhouse as they take up a supprising ammount of space when you also consider the turntable, coal dock, sand tower and house, water tower(s), and other engine servicing necessities. If you are running Amtrak, then I assume that you are moddeling the modern era and a roundhouse would not be apropriate for your diesels (I know there are still existing and used roundhouses, but these are exceptions, not the rule.)
The layout I designed has a yard, double track main line, 3 stations, a power plant complex, a creamery, a feed mill, a coal mine, and a small creek. There are implications of a large river along the edges of the layout, but the entire river is not modeled.
The mainline run is in the neighborhood of 170 feet with 2% grades. The staging yard can hold 6 trains of lengths ranging from 6 to 9 feet. The track climbs up 7.5" in the visable portions, and drops another 4" in staging to clear the tracks above. There are two towns entirely on the layout, and implications of a large town by the yard. The layout is set up for continuous running, and the track loops back at the uppermost town, so that the entire layout is pretty much a folded dogbone with the “neck” of the dogbone being the double track main ine.
There are 4 loacations where trains can cross from one track to the other. The layout is designed for realistic scenery and has a backdrop down the middle to make is seem larger. It is set up as a walkaround design, and vertical separation prevents the trains from passing through a scene more than once. Realistic operations are possible on this design.
A roundhouse could be jammed in where the yard lead currently is, but the facilities would need to be compressed to fit.
Wow, that is some layout. Don’t know if I’m up to something as elaborate but I like a lot of your ideas. The staging would definitely have to be a later project. Lots to contemplate. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into that plan.
No problem, I like designing layouts, and making a custom design is a fun challenge.
If you build the plan, the staging would have to go in first, otherwise you would never be able to lay the track with only 4-5 inches of clearance above. Also, there might be a slight issue with tools or cut pieces of rail punching holes in the finished scenery above.
The design I came up with wouldn’t be particually difficult or expensive to build. It would just take a lot of cookie-cutter benchwork. Even the most complex plan can be built if you take your time and think it through. The hills on the layout could fit Vermont relatively well. It’s been a while since I was to Vermont, but as I recall, a few conifer tree tips sticking through puffball trees would work well. You would need a rock wall behind the yard to prevent an unreallistically steep hill. Some hills and retaining walls would prevent that area from looking like a wedding cake, and there’s enough room between the upper track and the backdrop to make some low-profile hills.
I’m glad I was able to help.
For anyone reading this tread, here’s the track plan I came up with:
