First rough draft of my layout 6’ x 9’ layout along 2 walls of my apartment. I know the picture is kinda blurry but my scanner wasn’t cooperating with me today and was the best I could do with the camera on my phone. Its sorta a dogbone but operated like a point to point in theory you could say. the back side is behind a backdrop that is going to be partcialy removeable with a 4 track staging yard. There is a small 3 working yard with an engine service facility and RR owned frieght depot/transfer track. Has 12 industries on the layouy. most only seeing 1 to 3 cars. The two biggest is a reload faciliy for tank cars into trucks at the bottom of the horizontal part and a quarry on the left od the vertical part. bot will handle between 8 and 10 cars “daily”. There are also 2 pass stations on opposite corners that i would like to have, run an fp45 and 2 or 3 coach cars, but haven’t made my mind up. First my question is even though I think this is all possible in the space I have alloted a few extra looks and an outside opinion would be helpful before I start building anything. My second question is that after I cut up a 4x8 to make the plan I will have some extra board left (a 2x2 and a 1x2) would it be helpful to maybe extend the ends of the layout by 6 or 8 inches in width and get the track from a rough 11 inch radius to maybe 13 or 14 inch one? Or could i get a way with the 11 inch ones? the pass car (4 axel) would be the lagest on the layout second would be a 60’ centerbeam. Locomotives are 2 sw8’s a gp18 for freight.
Any Ideas or suggestion or forwarnings of failure are appreciated!
I like it. It’s very similar to a layout I built roughly 25 years ago and I enjoyed the heck out of it until I moved and had to dismantle it.
There’s a few things I’d like to bring up looking over your sketch.
The first thing I noticed is that you’re being a little optimistic about you turnouts, especially in you staging yard. The way they’re drawn, they seem to be much too short and diverge too sharply. I would recommend using at least #6 turnouts for reliable operation there, but be aware that they will stretch out quite a bit more than shown. This is not too big of a problem, however, and if you try a free version of track planning software I’m sure you’ll be able to make adjustments that will work for you.
Some of your industry spurs have the same problem, but if you were to use #4 turnouts most of what you’ve planned could be fit in. It’s up to you to decide, but you may also want to cut down on the number of industries to avoid over-crowding and to include some interesting scenes here and there.
If I understood your description correctly your shelf width is 2 feet. I would definitely consider making the end blobs wider to use at least a 13" radius curve. The layout I mentioned had 11" radius curves, and though GPs and 50’ cars ran without any problems, my passenger cars and engines looked very toy-like and didn’t operate well. Keep in mind that some day you may be tempted to run longer equipment, and the tight curves may cause you head aches. And even if you do manage to run longer cars/engines without derailments they may not look too good doing so.
I’m sure you’ll get more feedback with a variety of suggestions (which is a good thing, of course), but I personally like what you’ve come up with.
i’ve bit problems with your math. With a layout 24" wide and double track arrangements at both ends the outer radius will be about 11", while the inner one will be about 9,5. Leaving just one inch between the centerline of the outer track and the edge of your layout; quite tight. Both radii are not really appropriate for long coaches. When trying to redraw your plan with a 12,5 minimum radius and #5 turnouts I found way less length then you are suggesting on your plan. Does a curved turnout within a 11" radius really exist? Your drawing seems overly optimistic IMHO. You could use squares when making a drawing.
The industries you’ve added along your main seem to placed rather randomly. Maybe you could draw roads and rivers first, then align the industries along them. Somehow it isn’t clear if you are modeling an urban or a more rural area.
I also recommend against any thing less then 11" radius. And larger if at all possible for any track that will have cars longer then 50’, and engines that are 6 axle… If you go smaller you will find out why I say this. And as Paul stated use #6 where ever possible when the longer stuff will go over them.
The others make some really good points. I recommend you do it correct the first time. And I know personally of what I speak.[banghead] I had to redo many curves so as to have reliable operations.
