I would like to include continous double-track in planning an HO layout that has available area parameters of 15’ x 16’.
I am aware of John Armstrong’s ‘Maine & Vermont’ continuous D-T, but that needs 13’ x 19’.
Can anyone point me to any continuous double-track layouts that would fit in 15’ x 16’??
Thanks
Tanked
Maybe the Wildcat Central? It’s pretty basic and I think smaller than your area, but it could be easily modified.
The Wildcat Central from 2000 ro 2001 is a good place to start. You also might want to check out MR’s N scale BN project layout from the early 1990s. Take a look at my layout…
The entire layout occupies an area of 10x17, however the main line section is 10x12.
Nick
Of all the layouts ( at least ten) that I have built over the last 60 year or so the most successful were the last three that were a so called “dog bone” type.
A dog bone is and oval that is squished down in the middle resuling in a double track railroad with return loops at both ends. It is basically a continuous track. The benefit is that you can put staging sidings in each of the end loops and hold trains there and release them whenever the timetable calls for their entry on the “center stage”.
Trains that depart to east, return from the east as in real life. I disdain any layout, which is most of the ones in books, whereby the trains that leave to the east return from the west. Does this make sense to you.
My method of designing a dogbone is to draw two parallel lines across the page with a balloon at either end. Then I sketch in the sidings, stations, yards and whatever else I want in a logical arrangement. At this point you have determined all of the salient points needed to arrange that railroad on the available space. Now you should mentally operate trains on this imaginary raiload. The time to debug it is now, before you do anthing else.
Now you are ready to design your layout, which you are confident is what you want to accomplish.
Put one of the balloons in a corner where there is space for it. You can stretch the distance between sidings, add passenger tracks at stations, and then wrap the track around the existing space until you come to the ballon at the other end. I usually put the staging in the end loops under the upper level so trains are arriving out of a hypothetical location. In the case of the layout I am now planning, one end represents New York, and the other Boston, with the New Haven Union Station in the center. From New York to New Haven I will be adding two more tracks to represent the four track mainline that is in place there.
I did a dog bone for the same reasons only mine is bent in the shape of a U. One end is a coastal terminus and the other is a prairie setting. Lots of switching at each end and you can just let them run if you want. The tracks between the two ends are anywhere from 2’ to 3" apart in the middle with a 6’ x 18’ bench at one end and a12’ x 5 1/2’ bench at the other. The skinny part in the middle (the bent part of the U) is a 29’ run.
Like BIGRUSTY says when a train leaves a west coast port it comes back from the east. Not from across the Pacific. So thus the bone.
Brent
A bent and twsited dogbone is a fine configuration for a layout, especially (IMHO) when one can stack the end loops. But that simulates a double track main line. In actual schematic, it’s an oval.
The orginal poster may want a double track oval to keep two trains in continuous motion, in which case the typical dogbone may not be as useful.
In any case, it’s usually better if one’s configuration and track plan can follow decisions about concept and purpose for a layout (instead of coming first). “Just any trackplan” that fits your space may not fit your interests in the long term.
Byron
I thought I remembered a donut plan in MR or one of there special mags that was a UP double track that fit in a room. I will see if I can find it but maybe someone else knows what I am talking about.
~Chris
Mine is an 11’x12’ version of what you are looking for. It could easily be modified to fit a larger space.
Jeff that is a nice track plan. Appealed to me instantly. I’ll look at the pics when I have time.
Brent
A valid point - I realize I didn’t provide enough basic information so here are some additional parameters -
I run DC and prefer to ‘Spectate’ as JA would put it.
Which means I wish to build a layout that lets me hands off simultaneously run say up to 2 consists on 1 continuous main line going East & a couple of consists headed West on the other main line.(or both mainlines running same direction if that is my whim at that point in time).
I would probably be using Bitswitch Block Control to keep the ‘same direction’ consists apart.
I envisage also having a section of layout with logging/coal operations, down to 18" radius for the Heisler’s etc & there could be some track stacking.
Thus I could tinker away in there whilst the other consists chug around the mainlines to their hearts content.
Thanks for all suggestions to date.
Tanked