Hello, I have been reading Model Railroader for the past year and half, have several planning books, etc, viewed tons of pics of other’s layouts, but have not built a working railroad of my own yet. I have accumulated a fairly good used collection of track, buildings, scenery materials, stock, a few engines, good controller and a dedicated room in my house. I just can’t decide where to start.
My room will not fit a 4’x8’, so many starter layouts will not work for me. I have built a shelf system around the room with about 16" of shelf room, but that is all I’ve done. The room is about 9’x9’.
So how do I build a first track plan from scratch without any experiences to know what I like and do not like? Questions that keep popping in my head are:
Theme, do I pick a railroad to model or try to create an imaginary town with an industry and neigbouring towns?
Should I include a yard, lots of switches, bridges or just keep it super simple? Is the fun in building or operating?
I’m afraid of building the whole thing and finding it to be a boring layout then wanting to start all over… or maybe this is normal.
Once built, how does one learn about proper operation especially in an imaginary town?
I would assume many of these questions seem fairly juvenile, but I have no previous experience with model railroading and would appreciate any advise based on previous experiences to send me in a good general direction so I can actually get building. Inevitably as I do hundreds more questions will arise.
A couple of thoughts to get started, and others will chip in with ideas…
[1] Choose a timeframe to model: For Example – If you like Conrail – The 1980s timeframe then comes to mind. Now you can research engines and rolling stock.
[2] Freelancing provides a location: It is much easier to “catch the flavor” of the geography than to exactly duplicate a prototype. Model a neighborhood area in a town that connects to another town’s neighborhood. Backdrops and building-flats can convey a larger perspective to your neighborhood scene.
[3] Choose the Scale: N Scale is more forgiving in a 9’x9’ layout room with 45% more space for operations than HO Scale. But, do model HO Scale if that is more important – You just will not have as much operations in that 9’x9’ space.
[4] Pick a handful of industries: This can help you decide where tracks and sidings need to go to. This also give a purpose to a railroad.
[5] You are doing (3) things right: (a) Taking your time to plan ahead; (b) Reading to dream a vision for your pike, and; (c) You have a positive attitude that goes a long way. This all saves money in the long-term. When it feels right – You will know, and; then you will discover something else that just feels right, etc.
Well here is my advice, although I’m sure you will get lots more here:
I tried copying a real place and it does not work well - it can be frustrating. That said - if you have a time and place you like - model it - just don’t worry about trying to make it just like the real place. You will have to select a few things of interest. If a real main street has say 20 businesses - you might have 4 or 5 at the most.
Ha - the fun can be in either or both! It depends what you like. I like both. A yard is nice if you like playing with freight and switching etc. It’s not necessary. Bridges add flavor - I like them. You don’t need lots though - 3 or four is fine. Honestly for me it’s more fun to build. Try to plan for future - ie: you could put a switch or two in, knowing you might run a line from it to a future place that you leave some space for. For now - it could just be a siding. Start simple, but plan for more. If you don’t plan - you will rip stuff up later - which is its own version of fun.
Very normal. That’s why people DO start over. Try to make it with enough variety to be interesting and don’t be in a rush to finish every detail. Most modelers NEVER really finish. Yes - get the track in place and trains running and then leave some rural land or space for future use if you can. And - hey - real towns knock down buildings and build stuff - so why can’t we?
What I do for layout design (have done so far) is define my area and benchwork first. Next I decide on a theme. (Mainline running, with a branch line(?) or other special interests.) Then I put in a mainline. I am fond of twice around the room types divided by scenery and grades.
Since I have gotten into operations, I also have a staging area of some sort, whether it is a lay-over for entire trains, or a yard that simulates an interchange yard. One track in staging is a through track for continuous running. If I put cars on it, the layout becomes point to point for operations.
Next I try and determine how many small towns I can have, and possibility one city with a yard and loco facilities, without them crowding one another. Usually small yards and facilities unless I have the room for larger ones. I will try to fit in a way-side industry or two just for variation as long as it won’t crowd things.
Then I go looking at plans for modular railroads. I look for ones that would make good towns or cities because their track plans are usually fairly compact, and most of the way they will be switched is already determined with a good track plan themselves.
Because I freelance, I don’t worry about town and city names etc., but if you want to model a specific prototype, you can name the towns as the railroad you are modeling would, and build or plan you scenery to suite the area you want to model. Also, some of the industries that may be recognizable in a town you choose to name from a real one may have to be built or otherwise implied to achieve the “feeling” of the real town.
When building starts, I try and get all of the benchwork built first. Then plan where the towns will go and install the mainline to get some trains running. Then I work on one of the yards so I can store stuff when not running. Then I plug along on the other track work and scenery design and continue from there.
You should get out and operate on some local layouts. Nothing in your profile about where you live, but I’ll bet there are layouts close by with owners that would love to have you visit or operate. After you’ve done it, you can pick and choose what appeals to you and build your layout that way. And there should be plenty of local help in building the layout if you want it.
As stated above, you are going about this the right way, asking questions. Now let’s see if I can offer a little advice to the ones you have asked.
As for era, what do you like, steam, diesel, modern? You do not have to choose an era. You can run whatever you want, pull double stacks with steam or whatever, but most people do. Transition era allows running both steam and early diesel, which makes it popular.
Theme, If you have a favorite road, you will want to do things it did, but you don’t have to duplicate, just do similar things, pick up coal, grain or other products. Do you want to run and watch, or do switching and other operations? Based on that you then want to choose whether to have a city yard with switching of train in/train out operations and some local switching or a small town or two to switch and country running in between, possibly with a few scattered industries along the way to switch.
Since your room has pretty much dictated a shelf layout, have you read the MR book on shelf layouts? You can vary the witdth of the shelves giving you the opportunity to have different types of scenes. Thus if you want a large city yard, the shelf in that area could be as wide as you can reach, with other shelves narrower for the long haul from here to there.
Wow, the response and suggestions has been great, I really appreciate it. Just to clarify some things. I live in London, Ontario Canada so I’m interested in railroading in Southern Ontario, but not limited to. I was born in 1975 so I think I can relate more to modern era railroading, but again not limited to. The collection of materials I have are all HO, so I would stay with that scale. I inventoried all my cars and buildings that I bought throughout the summer (second hand) and noticed I have a lot of cars of particular industries. That matched with some of the buildings I already have will help me decide on some starting scenes. I do have some of the books mentioned in the responses, but admittedly have not fully read them yet, so I should do some more homework first. As well I should seek out some local layouts, I know of one or two clubs in the area.
Again thanks for the feedback, many of the suggestions have helped me focus my thoughts and given me some direction. As I said before many questions are likely to come as I get started.
If you have cars that do not match industries on your layout, remember that you can pick up a car or cut of cars at interchange with rr A and take them to the interchange with rr B, through traffic.
I don’t know if it is normal but I actually recommend it. Getting all stressed out over “doing it right” the first time is robbing ones self of the Model Railroading childhood. I was reading model railroader and how to books for five years before I attempted my own permanent layout design. Even then it was a disaster. So was the second. It was seven years after that on my 3rd that I finally started bringing the elements of what I really wanted together. Don’t get me wrong. There were many temporary try outs in there, where I tried out different track arrangements. I’ve been surprised at some of the more simple ones that really worked well. Even today I keep a box of snap track handy to try out different things on a blank board. I also studied all the track plans and ran imaginary trains on them in my head.
My point is try something you think you will like. Determine what is good and bad about it try again.
In many ways it is actually easier to pick a real railroad. That way all one has to do is research. When one tries to go imaginary (we call Freelance) one has to put a great deal of effort into inventing believeable things.
No one, is qualified to answer that question, because it is different for everyone. You won’t know what will be fun for you until you try various things. If building a layout one way isn’t fun perhaps building it with d