How I designed my layout

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I originally thought I would write about the way I designed my layout directly here in this forum but I soon discovered that I had a lot more to write about than expected. Accordingly, I have been writing up my experiences in my blog. I finally finished the last part on the layout design process:

http://coralfringe.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-i-designed-my-layout-overview.html

I should note that its been nearly two years since I did this design work and the layout has actually progressed very nicely. Unfortunately, work pressures prevented me from writing about this sooner. I did keep a diary when I was designing the layout so I was able to reconstruct my thought process. Please let me know if there are any aspects of this that I can clarify.

My “givens and druthers” are a little different from most modelers but I hope this account will help any fence sitters who are still dithering [:)]

Anand

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Thanks!

I am in the design process…and will be for a while I think. I am trying to fit two line main into a folded dog bone (sort of) but having trouble. You site has inspired me to re-think the around the room, with a bridge idea.

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Indeed, the folded dog bone seems very attractive but as you (and I found out), its hard to get it to work well in a restricted space. The main lesson that I learned from the design process was that simpler is better. I have come to prefer “honest” layouts (mainly relevant to continuous run layouts) in which the main line passes through a scene only once. Anand