Layout #2

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Here is my second layout, the first meet an untimely demise when my son decided to tear the track and roadbed off the becnchwork and use it to supplement his vast Thomas Trackmaster empire. Can’t be mad at him, it’s autism, he just doesn’t see the world like the rest of us. Only thing I lost was roadbed and my flextrack it is true that caulk makes an easy to remove layout. Although it has been quite a setback in time and money, I think his actions have led to a better plan.

I have a small office in the basement that has been collecting junk. It is now the train room. While not the large area I had hoped for with the den in the basement it can be locked securely to assure access only under supervision. I have 8’7" x 11’10" to work with. Here is what I have so far.

The track leaving at the top connects us to the world. My older boy who has been helping wanted lots of swithching and a turntable. I’ve tried to incorporate it while keeping my reaches down to 30" or less. I’m 6’2" so I can stretch a little farther as needed. The door in the bottom corner will be rehung to open into the hall thenn I will have a liftout or hinge section on the parrallel tracks that are in the existing doorway to allow access.

I did have to go with some 18" curves on this to make everyything fit, I took our locos on a test run through 18" curves and #4 turnouts before setting on this and they will work. They don’t look perfectly prototypical but this is about fun for the three of us. Basically a twice around with lots of swithching potential. Gonna be run with DCC eventually. Main flaw to mee is I cannot easily change dirction of train on mainline. Might have to live with that.

Gonna model trasition era MoPac

2

Only problem I see there is that if you don’t extend the yard onto the liftout, you have tracks that will hold only 2 cars max. Your two parallel tracks on the liftout can’t be on the same level, or the grade needed in the lower left will be far too steep, unless you are planning that as an at-grade crossing.

–Randy

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Sorry abourt your Autistic son, mine just went into a home a couple years ago at 23. Don’t foget a good lock when you rehang that door and use one that has a key as kids like my son can pick the number ones (once picked a parental code lock and then locked me out). As to your layout. Most of my layout is 18" radius (bigger if space allows) and that is fine for a lot of engines. Even though my layout is 15x30 I went with that because all my engines are small and most of my rolling stock is 40’. If you use an 18" radius on the duck under you could extend that yard.

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thanks guys, I’m going to try and flip my yard and engine service to take advantage of the left side more. Lots of time tomorrow with snow coming in tonight[:)]