After many years of wanting to build a model railway I have no jumped in and bought the Hornby DCC starter pack and built my first table.
After much research and deciding what I want from my railway I came up with a single loop and a few sidings to switch trains, pick up freight and also a siding at the top of the layout where a train can wait for another train to pass.
i love the North American railways so I’ll loosely base it off that.
The double engine house will go to the far right double siding, with a concrete plant in the middle long siding. The siding that comes off the middle one on the middle of the layout will have a passenger station / goods yard connected to it.
The siding on the right is unfinished but I’m thinking about a coal mine that connects to the mountain I want to build.
im planing to build a road that comes from the bottom left and connects up to the possible coal mine and concrete plant.
its fairly basic, but for me creating the scenery will be best part!!
i looked at doing a double loop, but with only a 4x8 space is tight.
What do people think? Any ideas are most welcome
it will be a slow build as it’s quite costly here in Australia. The starter set was $350 and the cost of rolling stock is quite expensive unfortunately.
Uh, nope. You can’t use HTML in a Forum post. Please view the thread “How to post a photo to the Forums” at the top of the MR General Discussion Forum before trying again.
The link pretty much has to end in a picture extension, not an html address. I see you plan on using photobucket. There is an extensive thread on Photobucket here as they have upped their charges for subscribers to post links to another website. If you are not happy paying for that go to Imgur.com
Welcome to the forum, we look forward to seeing your plans. The first 10 posts are moderated to make sure you aren’t selling us Russian brides.
I took the liberty of inserting the picture from your link by copying it and pasting it into the boy that opens when you click on the icon depicting a mountain and a sun.
Your layout is a typical beginner´s design on a 4 by 8 table. While certainly not a bad start, the design has a few issues, like the passing siding being a bit short any a rather “square” appearance from lining up the track with the benchwork sides.
If you just want to play with trains and make a first venture into learning the skills necessary to build a layout, I´d say go for it! If you want more out of building your layout, I´d suggest to get some typical intro literature, like they are available from our host Kalmbach.
Trying to get the picture up has been a pain to say the least.
Yes the passing siding is a bit short. It probably needs to be extended around the corner.
I had planned to make a more complex layout, but I’m not overly skilled and decided to settle on something a little easier. Unfortunately I’ve ended up with the dreaded race track oval but hopefully with a mountain and scenery it can blend the track a bit more.
Well there you have it. Some advice I can agree with. Pictures of Ulrich’s modeling looks like real life photographs from Switzerland railroad workers.
I would have to back him up. Do a little more research before you dive in. You will thank yourself.
OK, well, I go for what you have. View blocks can make this look bigger. Just look at some MR’s project layouts and what they have done. This will help with making things seem “bigger”, and your track following the edge of the table syndrome that some don’t like.
Ulrich did this on his small but fantastic layout!
It also gives you a chance to learn scenery techniques, changing the landscape on each side of the view block/deviders.
This looks somewhat like my 4’x8’, in 1968.
Don’t think of your siding as a passing siding, but a place a swicher can work, and be off the main. You could make it longer with curved turnouts.
Since Mike mentioned my little layout, here are a few shots to give you an idea of it.
The layout is nothing but a tail-chaser with a dead-end siding on a 3 by 5ft. “table”
… and here is a more recent picture of it, about halfway through the construction.
From an opersations point of view, the layout is a complete bore, but it was never intended to be more than a sort of stage for my trains, albeit one that looks as realistic as I am able to create with my limited skills and dexterity.
Thanks for the kudos, but there is nothing really special about this layout - no scratchbuilt structure, no hand-made trees, everything either built from kits or bought ready made. No special materials involved - all things sourced from DIY stores or hobby shops. Trees are of the inexpensive “bottle-brush” kind, slightly improved by clipping them to shape, coloring them and sprinkling fine WS Turf over them.
The only really difficult part was painting and weathering the bridge and the chapel.
What really makes the difference is the coherent look of the entire setting, which came from planning the scenery first before fitting the track plan into it.
This was the plan:
To the OP - maybe this is a message for you - develop a vision for the setting of your layout first, than prepare the trrack plan!
For a simple track plan, like this one, using a CAD program to desin the layout may appear as the absolute overkill, but I am a visual guy who needs to see instead of just imagining it.
I would consider putting the siding on one of the end curves. That way it can be used as a runaround track for the industrial spurs on either side of the layout. As it is, you can only switch the spurs on the lower end while traveling in a clockwise direction unless you want to go all away around to the other side to do the runaround move. It looks like your end curves are 22" radius so you could either use 18" radius sectional track or flex track to put a siding inside on of those end curves. That later would be my choice to create a 20" radius siding. You could put the turnouts into the siding on the straight sections if you don’t want to go with a curved turnout.
If I were to build a 4x8, I would consider putting a two sided backdrop down the middle length wise to create the illusion the railroad runs between two destinations rather than just going around in a circle. Each side of the view block could represent a different town.
that is amazing and something that I’m aiming to achieve long term. The idea of the tunnel and hiding the track to give the illusion of depth I something I’d like to achieve.
I’m still trying to figure out how to post pictures on the forum but once I do I can post up the track plan.
Its basically a two loop oval with two sidings. One on each side of the inner loops. Nothing exciting but room for Walthers Sugar Rifining kit on the left, Walthers Railway Express Agency building to the right and a two loco engine shed on a far right siding with room for a water and coal tower.
Basically I could not justify paying nearly $75AU for the fill version of any rail so I did it over two files.
I made the inner loop come in a bit to break up the race tack look, but also to allow the tunnel to be extended on the outer loop and plant trees between the two lines - if that makes sense!
I’ve watched a tonne of videos and still want to base it loosely of the Norfolk Western / Nickleplate lines.
Eventually I’d love the Bachmann Berkshire loco and I really like the GE ac6000 locos - even though they ate from 2 completely different time periods!
