I have been without a train layout for several months now and am having trouble putting everything together. I can’t seem to see the big picture. These pictures are of the room and some ideas I have put together to try and determine what type of plan would best fit the area. (Sorry about the plan, I am not much of an artist) I have most of the tables completed and am trying to decide if I want to use a foam overlay or stick with plywood. My givens are:1-A 11’ x 11’ layout room. I have build tables going around the room and will have either a duck under or a lift out. It could also support a peninsula coming off of one side of the room.2-Limited knowledge of around the wall layouts. My previous layouts have mostly been 4’x8’ or 5’ x 9’.3-Large Steam EnginesMy Druthers Are:1-Double main lines or twice around. I like to watch the trains run sometimes.2-Coal Mine.3-Power plant.4-Yard.5-Staging.6-Town of Thurmond includes engine service, coaling tower & city.7-Saw mill and logging camp.
This is just my opinion, and I won’t tell you that I am a seasoned layout designer/builder…but I get the impression from your drawing that you would benefit mightily by drawing your proposed versions much more closely to scale and to the NMRA standards for separations and angles of diversion at turnouts of various kinds. For example, have you figured out what turnout type/number you would find most practicable for the engines and rolling stock you contemplate using?
Would you be prepared to pause and spend about 10 hours learning XTrkCad, a free software available from Source Forge? Once you became familiar with that programme, the layout designing world is your oyster.
Your basic depiction above seems okay at first non-critical glance, probably a good use of the room, but I see some very tight inner curves, some impossibly tight for steamers of any size. Some of your track centres are not good uses of space because they look to be about 4-6". Those centres may be due to the angles of diversion you seem to want to depict.
Thanks for the response. The drawing is just some ideas I have been kicking around. I was hoping to get some ideas from all the great minds out there to see if I was trying to cram to much stuff in such a small room.
I am currently looking at a couple cad programs to use once I get some ideas in place. I spent some time playing with XTrkcad and as I remember it was pretty complex program. I must admit that I gave up well below the 10 hour time frame you mentioned. The review in MR’s November issue listed some good ideas of what to look for in a program.
I will be using the Code-100 Atlas track from my previous layout. The switches on the main line will be all #6’s. I just purchased a few #6 & #8 curved switches that I also plan to use. I will be using #4 in the yard if I can find a place for it on the layout…
Before you spend any more time messing with CAD programs, try AnyRail. It is a free download and has almost no learning curve, just click and drag. You can plug in the size of your benchwork and then just lay track on it. The free version limits the totals of track you can use but for $50 you can buy the complete version. Well worth it compared to the cost of your time learning and using xtracad and others. Just my opinion, hope it helps in your future design.
Anyrail is what I used for the layout. As you can see by the drawing I exceeded my 50 piece limit thus the poor finishing detail. Some things I don’t like about it are the limited amount of terrain & scenery detail it has to offer. Like MR said in their article it takes 11 clicks to draw a rectangle.I have downloaded the demo of Sandia Software and may try it before I decide what to buy.
N or HO? One moment I am convinced it’s HO, I see another detail and I am thinking N again.
I can’t believe you have built the tables allready. Looking at you plan your entrance is only 16" wide. Your are planning aisles as wide as 16" around the peninsula, so you must be very young or very slim or both. You must have noticed this by now. Todays standard is 30 inches.
3)Your bench is rather wide, you will have severe reach-in problems in all the corners.
part of your design is done in CAD, so an hour more behind the screen and you had your plan finished.
5)TMHO It’s not that you are not an artist, you have to put more energie in it.
6)Good planning is thinking and drawing first and doing later.
Do you have any idea’s about staging? Did you make a schematic? The more crossovers the merrier?
Your plan however is basicaly very good. A large lap, partly hidden, in the back; a station and some industrial sides up front. So the big picture is OK. Getting the details right is were you have your problems. It starts with logic; take your logging side. As far as I know they are far away from the main, high in the mountains and rather scattered. Question is: can you create a isolated spot on your pike, far away from the rest and big enough to built a realistic log camp? I think you can, but at a prize (forget Thurmond or …??). Is it worth that prize?
A schematic is very important because it tells how you envision to operate your trains. If you do not understand something ask, I always get answers and much more then that. Apart from the things I do not understand, you have drawn your room, your plan and you are asking for comments; a great step, alas not a great start.
The layout is HO. I know I have several problems that why I am looking for some help. I would have completed the layout in the cad program but the demo had a limit on track.
I have consider doing away with Thurmond but there is some history with that area… My Father was born there and my grandfather was a supervisor at the coaling tower.
Sorry to be rude, but you gave one straight answer and one bad excuse. If the Cad is limited, you still don’t have to draw a 8" curve, whether it is done by hand or not isn’t the issue.
I never said I wanted you not to built Thurmond; the point I wanted to make is that every scene needs a certain space. If you don’t have that space, because of different priorities, skip that scene. Logs can be brought down the hill by trucks and you’ll only need a translaoding facility.
TMHO with a little bit of effort you could do so much better. Take your time, I will always try to help you.
Paul, I think he answered you with what is important to him. Thus, it merely becomes a limitation to what he can do over all in his space, and is neither good nor bad. Excusing your own admitted rudeness serves no purpose except to possibly drive away someone who may go on to become a highly regarded expert over time, except somewhere else. [:D]
MC, do you really mean #4 turnouts, or are you intending to use the Atlas version that is really a #4.5? A true #4 is very confining, most find, except for the smallest of rolling stock and steamers. The concern I had for your parallel track centers may be generated largely by the sharp diverging angle necessitated by sharp turnouts. If you are quite confident of this and have it all worked out, we can move on to other aspects, such as storage or staging, switching, operations, structures, power, etc.
The switches I have are Atlas HO Custom line Mark-3. The Item #'s are 281 & 282. I also have a couple of the Snap switches item #860 & 861. I can’t determine from the Walters Catalog if they are true #4 or #4.5.
I used them in my previous layout leading to the Coal Tower and my yard. My K-4’s (2-8-4) doesn’t like them at all.
I am not confident of anything at this point. I am trying to determine what my next steps are to keep from putting something together that will never work. I have been searching through layouts for over a year and can’t seem to come up with anything. I really like the Red Rock Northern (102 Realistic Track Plans)and have discussed some changes with some of the folks here on the forum. I have also looked at the 59th Street Branch (MR-July-2007) and the peninsula from The Virginia & Ohio’s Muddlety Creek Branch.
If you get the idea that I have no idea what I am doing you have made the right assumption. I just try and take the space I have and lay out track until I have something I feel will work and so far nothing is working. Maybe I sould find a new HOBBY! What about slot cars? Ha Ha
Thanks again for the advice and help. Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
When someone is asking advice, I am looking seriously at his plans. When he draws 8 inches curves, 16" wide aisles and #2 switches he must expect some comments. When MC’s only reponse is :" i am not a CAD artist" MC is TMHO not taking other persons seriously. No problem to you, but i don’t like it.
The sharp diverging angle has nothing to do with track-spacing, as you very well know; unless MC is using Marklin switches. Looking at different locations MC uses quite different switches and spacing, so I do not understand his drawing.
MC,
I would like to see a redraw of your plan very much. I would also like to hear about aisle width and other points mentioned.
Paul
It’s too bad some folks have been a little abrupt, although there are issues with the plan as drawn.
I think it is especially challenging to come up with a good plan when one builds benchwork first and/or moves to CAD too soon without a foundation in basic layout design. In fact, I think these are two of the trickiest traps in layout design.
A lot depends on what you want for your railroad. Is this a long-term plan, meant to provide engaging interest for many years? A quick effort to get trains running that isn’t expected to last for a long time? A testbed for ideas for a future, more permanent layout? Are you interested in operating challenge? Model railfanning? These are questions only you can answer – and it might necessitate stepping away from the CAD for a while to think them through. It seems everybody hates to do that.
In one of your other threads I or someone suggested W. Allen McClelland’s Muddlety Creek Branch design from Model Railroad Planning 1996, and apparently you obtained that back issue. This is a pretty well-thought-out plan that would seem to have a lot of what you are looking for. Perhaps one area of thought to explore would be to determine what about that plan does not suit your interests and think about modifications.
If your primary interests are to see some trains running quickly and have a place you can name “Thurmond”, a rough sort of plan without a lot of work in determining how traffic will flow, staging, operational schemes, etc. might turn out fine. If you wish to design it yourself <
The Custom Line #4s are closer to #4.5. They are a good match for curves of 24" minimum radius or so. The Snap Switches are effectively much sharper, because they have a built-in 18" radius curve as well as a slightly tighter spot through the frog. As you have discovered, they’re not a good match for equipment requiring broader curves to operate reliably. If it were my layout, I wouldn’t reuse the Snap Switches.
I’ve read about turnout-number-to-radius matching fairly often lately - what’s the background behind the match?
Is it a function of equipment length - i.e. ‘you won’t be running long equipment on 24" radii anyway, so there’s no point in having turnout numbers higher than X’? Or is it something else?
That’s the reason I think about it – there doesn’t seem to be much point in wasting space with #8 turnouts if the layout has 18" radius curves on the main line (to give an HO example).
You pretty much hit it. When you are trying to fit 10# into a 5# bag, using extra space for one component when another is going to be the limiting factor, makes stuffing the bag that much harder.
Specifically, the closure rail radius (where the turnout has its sharpest curve) of turnout numbers is given in the NMRA RP12.3 (RP stands for Recommended Practice) for HO. The Atlas #4, which is actually a #4.5, has a closure rail radius somewhere around 22"-24" - and it is a very short length of that radius. Walters/Shinohara #4 turnouts are not quite as sharp as RP12.3, either. #5 turnouts have a limiting radius of 26", and #6 turnouts have a closure radius of 43".
If you are generally using curves in the 22"-24" range, Atlas #4 or #5 turnouts from other manufacturers take less space and can handle the same rolling stock as the curves. A #6 turnout with those curves is overkill unless used in a crossover between 2 parallel tracks. But in a yard ladder, every #6 turnout instead of a #4 takes away a 1/2 car length from the yard track.
The problem is that N. American style turnouts curve through the points on the diverging route, but once at and beyond the frog, they become a tangent that diverges…no more curvature. Accordingly, all you can work with is what is known as the “substitution radius” for the turnout, and that means how good a match a given numbered N. American style turnout is going to be partway along a curve of a given radius. In the case of a curved diverging route, true #4 snap switch, there is no substitution radius per se, but a direct match, and that is on a curve of 18" radius.
For the other turnouts, such as a #6, the substitution radius is much, much larger, in the order of 40" or more. That means you would not sustain something approximating a 24" curve by placing, or substituting, a #6 N. American style turnout in it at some point…there would be a distinct straightening through the frog and beyond to the point of the next rail joint, thus making your intended curve move way out into the 42" area…and your other 2$" curve half would not end up where you had drawn your center line. Imagine a nicely drawn 24" curve, but you cut out a section and install a #6 turnout that is largely straight, except for 6" of curved point rail. If you picture what must perforce happen beyond that inserted turnout, and then join on the rest of the curved rail sections, your end of curve will now be many inches displaced from your centerline.
Try using Atlas freeware layout designer software if you are planning to use Atlas track and switches. You can do it in HO scale; Just my opinion if you can and have the money to switch; N scale would give you much more room for your “room” size that you described.
i was and am in the same boat as you are and i found that what i thought i wanted to do and what i am going two do are 2 difrent things. i have layed track just to find out later i want to put something in that spot or i want to put some thing else in another spot so i rip it out and lay it down and rip it out again i look at it like this how many times have railroads riped there tracks out and put more down so they can fit a new roundhouse or car shop in where a set of tracks or building was. BUT it is best to have some sort of plan and making plans in scale is the best way to go i use packing paper you can get from wal-mart and draw on it its like a 2’x3’ pcs of paper you can put your track on it your buildings on it and see how its going to fit and if you dont like it throw that page away
i also found that once you have a track plan to brake it all down into small 3’ sections start with one section and once your done with that sectiion move on to the next that way the hole lay out dosnt become to over welming exp. my lay out room is a 12’x21’ room and my plan is to do what you are doing run down one wall and down the next but to do all of that at one time isnt going to happen well it will but in stages all im working on now is the 12’ run down the first wall and i broke that down into 3’ sections im finished (maybe) with 2 of the 4 and working on the 3rd and thats where i have ben ripping track out my first plan was to put a city / town at thai point but now i want it to be an indistry / maint. segment
but thats my story and im sticking to it untill i deside to do something else
