I recently ran by the idea of a railroad past my folks and to my surprise, they did not veto the idea of getting rid of an ancient sofa in the corner of our lower living room. If done, this would liberate an L-space along two walls approximately 230 cm on one side and 350 cm on the other. (7’ 6" and 11’ 4", respectively)
I got to thinking. What sort of layouts would you do with that kind of dimensions? continuous running is a must, but mind you, my prototype would be European, so it doesn’t need to fit US mainline traffic. Both the ends of the L would be accessible from two sides, so a dogbone with large-radius ends would be one possibility.
Loco-wise, I want to be able to run European diesels and steamers from 1930s to 1980s (NEM eras II to IV), wheel orders up to approx. 4-8-2 and C-C (most of them about a foot long, max). I wouldn’t mind running the occasional American diesel, probably nothing much bigger than a GP38. I do own a DD40X, but don’t expect to ever have either the broad curves for it, or an appropriate string of freight.
Prototype-wise, I’ve half a mind to forego historical accuracy altogether, running whatever locos from whatever eras I like, mostly because being a stickler for detail does nothing to enhance my enjoyment for running trains. Besides, I could still “realistically” run freights to industries just the same, it’d just mean that occasionally a TGV would have to wait until the BR52 clears the platform.
So, how would you fill the available space? I’m fairly stumped because programs like XTrkCAD tend to have really horrible user-interfaces and as such, are exremely hard to use.
Actually, XtraCAD is the easiest of the bunch. Did you run the tutorial? It walks you step-by-step through the program.
You have a good start on your layout, just knowing what you want to run. What are your givens and druthers? Givens are the things you can’t change. Druthers are the things you’d like to have. The two druthers that should be next on your list are scenery and industries.
Do you prefer switching, yard work, operations, railfanning? The more you know about what you want, the easier the design will be. If you have not done so take 5 minutes and read the Beginner’s Guide to Layout Design in my signature below.
A couple variations of your folded dog-bone would be a point to point with hidden track loop for continuous running. This could be a staging yard as well. Trains could come from each direction to be switched in front. The front 70 cm or so could be your visible layout with 40-50 cm behind your backdrop for staging. You would access the staging from the corner, the ends, and from underneath.
A variation of the above without the staging is a figure 8 where trains go into tunnels and come out at the other town. In both scenarios, there is only one track through a scene.
I did try the tutorial but it only went so far, the underlying UI is still clumsy. I also tried DRail, I’m not sure about how well that one works, and whether or not it’s worth the 39€.
I’m kind of drawn towards the ubiquitous (at least in Germany) “small town somewhere in central Europe”, so freight would be boxcars or containers, depending on the era, with maybe a some kind of local industry (like a brewery, paper mill, nuclear plant, some manufacturer of various metal or plastic goods).
If I keep passenger traffic to a minimum, I can get away with tighter curves (most freight cars don’t come anywhere near the length of proper passenger cars). I could also run “Railfan Express”, with some two-axle passenger cars from the 20s-40s pulled by a museum steamer.
So, for the givens, one larger station with an engine depot. For the druthers, another smaller station I could run point-to-point from, perhaps a branch line up the mountains to a village (with some picturesque industry, such as a brewery)? The station could be linked to a double-track mainline, with a return loop on one end, maybe.
Either the figure 8 with two hidden sections (illusion of time between cities and no tail in one town engine in the other) or the hidden staging idea will work with the point to point concept.
With the staging it would be:
Rest of the world West(staging)–Town A–Town B-- Rest of the world East (staging)
I’d give XtraCAD another shot. OF the bunch I’ve seen it is by far the most intuitive. It’s a matter of getting used to the system. Believe me, 3rd Planit is just as alien and the IU is anything but intuitive. The alternative is paper and pencil with a template and changes are much more difficult. Better to bite the bullet now and learn it.
Aye, I might as well. Heck, I’ve mastered GIMP and configured iptables, how bad can it be?
I’ll consider the point to point, though I am concerned I won’t be able to get enough run length for it. The amount of space I have doesn’t seem large enough.
A disappointing possibility I am considering is making a proper station in one end and using the rest for reverse loops and staging. It’d fit and I could get a nice amount of structures and sidings, but operating it would be tediousness itself, with a very real sense of not going anywhere (just shunting stuff to and fro, prepping “trains to nowhere”)
It’s just a matter of getting used to the logic. Once you do, you’ll be amazed at what it can do. Build a yard in 20 seconds. Run parallel tracks through curves with one click, etc.
No one ever has enough space. The way I see it you have enough space for 3 scenes. A town/industrial area on each end and scenery between to divide them. If you go with staging in back idea and 22 in radius turns, then the two feet on each end will be used for the loops. The staging does not play a part in the visible layout. Your space is very similar to mine–two “towns” and scenery.
If this is unacceptable, then you must look for other possibilites. This would be a nice size in N scale.
Aye, it would be nice in N. It’d be bloody awesome in Z.
I think I’ll go with your idea of two towns linked together and a hidden staging behind them completing the oval. It’d provide a nice bit of continuous running. I do wonder, though, that if I hide all the staging tracks, managing them blind is going to be a fun excercise.
“Uhm, I think #5 is free…” CRASH “Oops, sorry, I meant to say #4.”
I wonder if I could use the inside of the loop for stuff? Reach could be a problem, but me and Dad figure we’ll build this thing at table-height so it can be viewed from a chair (it’d be a “conversation piece”). That way, if I need more reach, all I’d have to do is get my butt off the stool.
Hm, I’ll have to try my hand at drawing some stuff over the weekend. Some more of my givens will come to play during that process, such as using my existing set of Fleischmann switches (they’re brass #4s, but have point motors attached and I just got a button panel for them too). And no, I don’t need anyone to tell me how bad an idea using brass is. I’ll use them and that’s that.
It’s about time someone else got in the conversation.
I am familiar with the Marklin/Trix systems, as you can see in the signature. If you really want to venture into N scale with european trains, you’re pretty much left with companies like Minitrix and Roco. While these aren’t that bad, their lines are puny compared to others. Also, Kato has some TGV trains, but considering you’re not French, I have a small doubt in my mind that this isn’t what you want.
So the point I’m trying to get to is that you should try Z scale. Marklin has an entire line of Z scale stuff, and many scenery companies in Europe such as Vollmer offer a wide variety of buildings. Of course, this comes at a cost. However, 7 feet by 11 feet (I think it was) would create one of the largest model railroads ever created in Z scale. Taking into consideration that Marklin’s wide radii is just over 7 inches, you could be the next Franklin and South Manchester or Allegheny Valley in the model railroading world. Also, Era III has a very wide line of locomotives and rolling stock. You’ll barely find anything in Era II or Era IV. Era III features anything you want to model, steam, diesel, or electric, passenger or freight.
Take a try at Z scale. However, there are also a few cons with Z scale. You’ve got to make sure that every nook and cranny is clean all of the time, or your United States $500 train will come to a halt, and not work again. You can’t really go above a 2% grade.
Taking into consideration that you’re looking into a dogbone, there can be multiple spurs and sidings to create a busy cities (or here, two cities), or they can be ghost towns with populations of less than 100, and there are wide, open spaces. Do you want to model near the sea, or the Alps? You’ve got the time period, now you need the where, and the road names. DB or AG are very common in Germany, but I’m not quite sure for Finland. You’ve got a lot of work on your hands. Good luck!
I wasn’t entirely serious when I brought up the Z, but you’ve given me a lot to think about.
Aside from the fact that I own a bunch of HO stuff, what interests me in that scale is the ease of building, the sheer volume of stuff out there, and the fact that you can do things like install your own DCC decoders without a magnifying glass.
As for the roadnames, I have no interest in doing anything domestic. Modelling Finnish prototype requires scratch-building nearly everything from buildings to rolling stock to locomotives. Plus, I travel to school every day on a train, there’s nothing interesting about running something that ordinary.
I think I need to at least do a Z-scale sketch just to see what I could fit into the space.
Another idea I had was that I could do a helix. Have two stations at the short ends of the L, one above the other, and I’d get quite a nice length of mainline, and almost double the surface area. Of course, the benchwork would be more demanding, plus the special considerations for the helix itself (though I think I can get one of those ready-made at Ebay Germany).
The architecture of the room would leave the helix rather visible though (good for fixing derailments, not so good for the visuals) and I’d need to go up quite a bit. Still, another good idea worth bringing aboard.
EDIT: Okay, apparently Noch in Germany makes ready-made helixes, but their prices are kind of high, and according to my calculations, I’d need a 4.5 turn helix of a radius of 20 inches or so, which would set me back a whopping 90 + 3*72 = 306 €. No small potatoes.
I crunched the numbers a second time, coming up with wildly different results (I was suspicious because the plan appeared to work). Needless to say, a helix is right out, for operational, financial and logistical reasons.
Okay, I give up. There just isn’t enough space for anything with continuous running and satisfactory operating characteristics. I’ve done the numbers, sketched the trackwork and everything’s against it. Maybe I’ll be able to wrangle another few square meters in a few years.
Well, I tell a lie. I could do it, and it’d even run, but at the cost of having 15 and 18 inch mainline curves. That’s nothing to a properly designed 4-axle eurodiesel.
I’ll see if I can get a clear picture of the room.
The empty space in the top right corner currently holds an ancient sofa which would be evicted from the track’s way. Among the givens for the layout is that the room must retain some “entertaining” function, since the fireplace is there, so an armchair or two would be expected to be placed therein if the sofa is removed.
The TV table could theoretically be removed as well, since nobody watches TV in the room to begin with, but thanks to the window’s being there, any space gained would be fairly minimal.
