Hello railheads, I am building a 6x8 railroad and need some ideas on track plans. I’ve looked over most of the layout plan books available and some that are out of print. Just can’t pick one that gets my steam up. Railroad is transition era, with the Great Northern logo so the terrain will be forest, farms,mining. Locos no bigger than a Mikado, kept rolling stock down to forty footers, like to have a main line with some switching involved to keep my dcc system and I busy, some different elevations, and gotta have a mountain (sure like those tunnels) Benchwork is almost finished, eight 2x3 grids that will be on top of a sturdy bench which will be around 44" high, all is bolted or screwed together so moving will be possible or eventually be added onto. Plywood will be attached to the grids with at least 3" of foam glued to that. Cutting out sections or cookie cutting is’nt a problem to get different elevations. Hope I’ve covered everything you might need to know if you can help me out with a plan or two. Wheeeo! Jerry [:p]
[#welcome] horailfan.
From your “handle” I’ll assume HO scale. From your post you’ve done some homework in identifying your wants. You even have the space planned and benchwork going. That’s good [^].
Now, what to put in that space?
One: Google on “model rr layout plans”. If that doesn’t yield fruit, then you are probably going to need to design your own.
If you are going to design your own, then here are some suggestions to get started.
First:
http://www.nmra.org/. Half way down the page is a link to starting a layout and what all should be considered. This will help answer a lot of the basic questions. The NMRA web site has a lot of good information.
Second:
http://ldsig.org/. This is the Layout Design Special interest group. Look at the primer link on the left of that page. Again, a lot of good information on the design part.
Third:
Get some layout planning design books. Some that come to mind are:
Track Planning for Realistic Operations by John Armstrong and
Realistic Model Railroad Operation by Tony Koester
Fourth:
Once you have an idea, track planning s/w will help you. There are a few for free such as Atlas RTS (Right Track Software) @ http://www.atlasrr.com/ and XtrkCad @ http://www.sillub.com/ (be sure to read about the free registration part)
Last:
Once you have a design in mind, post it here on the forum and the members will help you fine tune it and/or answer specific questions.
Others will join in here as there are many sources of existing layout designs.
Regards,
Tom hit the nail on the head. I’d just add one more web site to run your eyes over. It is;
The main thing to get from the above is that canned plans rarely fire people’s rockets. To have a railroad that does what you want to, you pretty much have to do your homeowk and come-up with a plan that meets your needs. If you are going to spend between 50-100 sq ft and 50 hrs per square foot. You want to get your plan as close as possible to what you want before you start. IT will pay off big time if you do you spend your time wisely planning now, instead of putting money into something you out-grow before you get very far in it.
Track Planning for Realistic Operations is a good place to start. Come up with a list of givens and druthers.
You’d be surprized at how many people do not plan well and spend a lot of time and money only to be disapointed in what they end up with.
Think " N Scale"
6x8 is still a small layout for H.O. especially since you want farms , forest , tunnels and mining.
Craig
The above suggestions are excellent. An alternative approach would be to lay plywood over the top and just start laying track on it. Move it around, hook up the power and run a train. Rearrange the track, run a train again. Do some switching. Place some buildings on the layout. But don’t make anything permanent. The idea is to do your planning with the actual pieces until you get something you like, then make it permanent.
Good luck
Paul
Try drawing out to scale some track plans. When I built my first 4X8 Years ago I made several drafts. I would NOT LAY TRACK that would waste track espeically if you use flex track. Draw it out on paper first, paper is cheap. Your other choice is to get one of those track planner programs. They will solve some problems to.
For GN take a look at the GN pert that runs thru WA state. Its got all the things you’d like. Try using google earth to follow the line across the state. I agree with craigII about N scale if you want to include all that stuff. In the 50s freight was grain going west an cattle going east. Mining was north and south to Great Falls and Anaconda and Butte. Not so Much GN I think. I was raised in Northrn MT about 30 miles from the GN main.