I’ve been thinking about starting some kind of layout for over ten years. I never got started because I know I tend to bite off more than I can chew. So, all my early plans tended to be too grandiose and, thus, too intimidating. Finally, after reading Iain Rice’s “Small, Smart & Practical Track Plans” I decided I could start small. I wanted to do an urban setting after looking at John Pryke’s Union Freight section of his layout in MR2000. Next I came across an article on the “Timesaver Track Plan” in Model Railroad Planning 2003. That looked interesting so I started messing with a track plan.
Iain Rice mentions thinking about a small layout as a stage with the trains as the actors. I decided to build a small, 6 feet by 2 feet, urban layout on which I could do a little switching. Since this will be my first effort at a layout, I set some goals for myself that would allow me to move to building something bigger in the future.
The goals are:
Learn a model railroad cad program to design the track plan and surrounding buildings.
Make it small enough and simple enough that I can “finish” something without taking years of work. If I’m happy with it I can start on something bigger.
Thus, I wanted the track plan to possibly fit into a larger track plan later. And, I wanted the option of “off stage” staging.
I wanted the layout itself to be a self contained “stage” with backdrops on the ends and back and lighting from directly above.
I want experience building bench work, laying flex track and wiring for DCC (although the layout is so small I know I don’t need it, but want to learn it.)
I want to learn to build urban scenery-buildings, streets, sidewalks, street scenes etc.
I’ve been thinking about starting some kind of layout for over ten years. I never got started because I know I tend to bite off more than I can chew. So, all my early plans tended to be too grandiose and, thus, too intimidating. Finally, after reading Iain Rice’s “Small, Smart & Practical Track Plans” I decided I could start small. I wanted to do an urban setting after looking at John Pryke’s Union Freight section of his layout in MR2000. Next I came across an article on the “Timesaver Track Plan” in Model Railroad Planning 2003. That looked interesting so I started messing with a track plan.
Iain Rice mentions thinking about a small layout as a stage with the trains as the actors. I decided to build a small, 6 feet by 2 feet, urban layout on which I could do a little switching. Since this will be my first effort at a layout, I set some goals for myself that would allow me to move to building something bigger in the future.
The goals are:
Learn a model railroad cad program to design the track plan and surrounding buildings.
Make it small enough and simple enough that I can “finish” something without taking years of work. If I’m happy with it I can start on something bigger.
Thus, I wanted the track plan to possibly fit into a larger track plan later. And, I wanted the option of “off stage” staging.
I wanted the layout itself to be a self contained “stage” with backdrops on the ends and back and lighting from directly above.
I want experience building bench work, laying flex track and wiring for DCC (although the layout is so small I know I don’t need it, but want to learn it.)
I want to learn to build urban scenery-buildings, streets, sidewalks, street scenes etc.
[#welcome] Welcome to the Forums. Glad to have you.
It seems that you’ve already met the key prerequisites of planning a layout, and your plan looks like a good start. You could complete it as a shadow box, have already provided for access to ‘the rest of the world’ and have a good idea of what you want the end result to look like.
I would strongly recommend looking up a “Spacemouse” post and checking the links at the bottom. Chip is building a somewhat more elaborate layout based on the same ideas, so following his posts will answer a lot of questions - including some you haven’t thought about yet.
The idea of the layout as a stage goes back over half a century, and it’s a valid one. Maybe Bill Gates could buy a 747 hangar and model a full-scale short line in its entirety - the rest of us have to settle for what fits in rather smaller spaces. And even Mr. Microsoft couldn’t model a Class I railroad without considerable compression. My own prototype was a national monopoly, but, with a two-car garage to work in, I’ve had to settle for just two stations on a busy secondary route of that system. The rest of my track (well over half the total) is dedicated to the ‘wings’ and ‘dressing rooms’ for the ‘actors’ (trains) awaiting their cues to take the stage and perform.
You seem to have a good start. Have fun on the journey into, “The World’s Greatest Hobby.”
Sounds like you could have written my list of requirements too - I am at pretty much exactly the same place as you are - first small shelf layout (7 feet x 20 inches instead of 6 feet by 2 feet, but pretty similar), urban feel, wanted to learn CAD sw, DCC, urban modelling.
Your plan looks good to me. Next is bench work, right ?
Many ways of doing this, more or less elaborate, but for a layout that later can be repositioned as part of a bigger layout, consider building it in such a way that the base of the layout is a self contained lightweight hollow open bottom “box” (module), where wiring can be connected to the next module (or to power supply/ command station) using jacks.
Do you want to throw turnouts by hand, electrically or mechanically ?
Edit on Oct 30th: Btw - this is what my layout plan for a similar size layout looks like:
Even though I hate to admit it, your design looks like it would be better at giving the viewer the urban canyon feel. Plus it uses fewer turnouts - 6 straight turnouts and a crossing, vs my 6 straight turnouts, 2 double slips, one three way and a crossing.
Wow, that is almost exactly like one of my early switching puzzle layouts. I used to take it to the Mall train shows for people to play with. I think it still might be sitting out in the garage somewhere.
I have one nit to pick. Typically, mainlines do not take diverging routes through turnouts. There are exceptions like junctions, etc. but I’d change the leftmost switch (in black) to a righthand turnout instead.
However it’s your layout, so whatever you’re happy with is good…
I have one other nit also. In real life a railroad would do everything possible to avoid a crossing for the two sidings. Very expensive and high maintenance. It could also be a more difficult wiring job if you go with some choices out there. So, it would be more prototypical and easier to eliminate it and have the turnouts branch so they don’t have the crossing. That being said it does offer some scenic interest.
I have to partially disagree there. I say the prototype would always choose a crossing over an industrial switchback. This is because a switchback costs people time on every use. Then there is the potential of having one industry blocked because another has a car spotted on the switchback. Also a diamond in an industrial area is not nearly as maintenance intensive as one on a mainline. I know of a place in Omaha (14th & Jones) where they used 4 crossovers (one of them through a curved turnout) inside of 2 blocks. This was because getting the tracks to the industries where they needed to go without blocking loading areas was far more important than track costs.
Where is Brakie when you want him. He always encourages people to change plans and include the crossovers because that is often how the prototype did it.
I wouldn’t be too concerned about what is prototypical. There is a prototype somewhere for pretty much anything. The layout that markalan has posted looks like it would be fairly easy to build, and it works - hence it looks like a good first urban switching layout.
If he wants, he can swap that leftmost turnout on the mainline from being a left turnout to being a right turnout, to avoid having the main go through the diverging path through the turnout.
(edit for clarity) But that comes at the (slight) cost of having a little less space for a building between the bottom of the drawing and the mainline to the left of the leftmost turnout in the mainline. (end edit)
I’ve been thinking about starting some kind of layout for over ten years. I never got started because I know I tend to bite off more than I can chew. So, all my early plans tended to be too grandiose and, thus, too intimidating. Finally, after reading Iain Rice’s “Small, Smart & Practical Track Plans” I decided I could start small. I wanted to do an urban setting after looking at John Pryke’s Union Freight section of his layout in MR2000. Next I came across an article on the “Timesaver Track Plan” in Model Railroad Planning 2003. That looked interesting so I started messing with a track plan.
Iain Rice mentions thinking about a small layout as a stage with the trains as the actors. I decided to build a small, 6 feet by 2 feet, urban layout on which I could do a little switching. Since this will be my first effort at a layout, I set some goals for myself that would allow me to move to building something bigger in the future.
The goals are:
Learn a model railroad cad program to design the track plan and surrounding buildings.
Make it small enough and simple enough that I can “finish” something without taking years of work. If I’m happy with it I can start on something bigger.
Thus, I wanted the track plan to possibly fit into a larger track plan later. And, I wanted the option of “off stage” staging.
I wanted the layout itself to be a self contained “stage” with backdrops on the ends and back and lighting from directly above.
I want experience building bench work, laying flex track and wiring for DCC (although the layout is so small I know I don’t need it, but want to learn it.)
I want to learn to build urban scenery-buildings, streets, sidewalks, street scenes etc.
