I hope this makes sense… I have recently moved to my new house, finally one with a “train room” the plan of which is above, I have visions of a railway empire (don’t we all) as usual its not as big as I would have hoped for but a lot bigger than I have ever had before! I have no intentions of moving from this house so this is it…
I have been anticipating this moment for many years and now its here the best I can do is confuse myself. After many years planning layouts in my head and on scrap paper the conclusions I have come to are:
I want to model a railroad right of way not a city or country side so a 12 to 18 inch shelf type (around the wall) layout is all that will be required, wider or narrower as necessary i.e. wider for a yard or large industry or narrower for a wider walkway or removable entrance bridge or swinging door (favoured). A duck under is not an option, I built one when I was a teenager and hated it then, my back is not the best so I will not even entertain this idea now.
It will be multi layered to add distance.
Point to point operation, a continuous loop option would be desirable but not an absolute if the point to point were long enough. A point to point would have at least one return loop.
Walkways will be as wide as possible, 30" min but a small pinched area won’t be dismissed.
What I’m after is input to a long mainline, I can add industries and yards etc once I know where I’m going, these will be of proven design after prototype practices. (Copied from maps and selectively compressed also borrowed from other track plans).
FYI I am modelling CNW in the mid 70’s in HO scale (N scale is not an option but thanks for the suggestions) It will be of a run down laid back type prairie setting, no city’s or such, very rural. At the moment I
Sorry, no input as such, other than I’m jealous. Sounds like a good space.
I’m more of an armchair collector at the moment, saving up track, loco’s & rolling stock until the kids leave home. When they do go (oldest is 14 now, 15 soon), their room will be so full of model railroad they won’t have a bed to come back to. LOL!
I have a pile of broken ceiling tiles available here at work if you would like some of them for rock formations?
It’s comforting to see I’m not the only Kiwi on here.
It seems like you already have a good concept for what you want. All I can tell you is what I would do with the same space.
I would reserve all the North and East walls from the room entrance to the toliet for storage, workbench, and perhaps an easy chair. That way you have no issues with transversing the room from the entrance door to the toliet.
I would put a turnback curve on the Northwest wall in the corner next to the toliet. You have about 6 feet there so that would make a nice 30" radius without problem.
I would put another 30" radius turnback curve between the entrance door and the corner of the room. Right above the 9’8" dimension on your drawing.
If you want two levels replace either one of these with a helix.
Connect the two curves around the East, South and West walls.
You could bump out a peninsula or two along the way for variety.
That would give you at least 55-60 linear feet of layout per level. Quite enough to keep one occupied for a while.
John has some good suggestions. If you don’t need a workbench or sitting area in the room, you may be able to expand the space by re-hanging the entrance door to swing outward instead of inward like it is now. If it’s an inside door, that’s not a problem. I like a no lix myself. I would make the lower benchwork 24 inches wide and the upper level 12 to 18 inches wide. This is what our club has done and you aren’t banging your head into the upper level when working on the lower level. You could also leave an isleway from the main entrance to the Loo. Then you could possibly choose a location along that walkway area for a lift-up or drop-down on the lower level. You could still stoop down some if there is an upper level there without being cramped up.
Perhaps this might give you some ideas. The depth of the room at the entrance door is just (barely) sufficient to bring a peninsula out. The two sides of the peninsula will need to overlap each other a bit. Hold onto that no-lix thought.
A no-lix is incompatible with a continuous run unless there’s a helix (or something else) to make ends meet (elevation-wise). Perhaps there’s just room to put a helix to the immediate left of the entry door suprimposing on one of the turnback curves.
But that helix is going to be an issue if you use a 30" radius in it. If it has a real 2.5% grade it will seem to have a 3.5% grade because of all the curvature in it. Longer trains will seem to have a steeper grade, shorter ones will be closer to the 2.5% (this is due to extra friction from going around a curve).
You mentioned putting the helix in the garage. I think you will hate that because 1) you can’t see your trains while they are spending multiple minutes traversing the helix, 2) it’s in a nasty dusty, and unclimate controlled space, 3) putting holes in the walls for the trains to go through will also allow the garage environment into the train room.
I’d guesstimate about 110’ of mainline per lap with a peninsula coming from the right wall. In a no-lix the track can’t all be on a slope - sidings/towns should be flat to avoid run-aways. If you allow 50’ of flat per lap that leaves about 60’ of grade. At 2% thats about 15" of elevation change. At 2.5% that will be about 19" of elevation change. With narrow benchwork this is workable. Or you could use a concentric helix with an extra lap for gain another
Thanks guys, this is the sort of input I was after, above is what I had in mind when I first posted.
My thinking was the lower level could be a branch line connecting to the continuous loop upper level mainline that could have double ended staging representing all points east & west.
What I don’t like about this plan is the branch is too short and curvy, I can go into the train room and visualize this plan and I’m comfortable with it, but it is far from perfect as a base main line run at this stage and after reading and considering the above posts and trying to look at it from different angles I have come up with several variations, nothing set in stone but all leaving me several decisions to make,. Like a small modification would leave a direct uninterrupted access to the toilet (thanks for the suggestion John) from the entrance and avoid any duck unders or swinging bridges, although I still would need some sort of access to the layout the toilet access would be fine. This is where the easy access vs. wide sweeping curves decision comes in.
This was an idea I came up with which gives a longer “branch line” run and still keeping the continuous loop idea going, the point where “A” meets “A” could be flipped over to follow the branch curve but on a higher level, I was just experimenting and still have decisions to make.
I have been toying with John’s suggestions for the turn back curves and although so far they look promising they also cramp the available space so more decisions for me to make.
I have looked at the re-hanging of the door thanks to Elmer’s suggestion, re-hanging would interfere with the access from the garage to the stairwell which I would be able to live with but for the amount of space saved in this instance I don’t see it as bein
Hey Munster, I’m waiting for the 21 year old to move out so the 15 year old can move to his room and I can use her room to store the ‘stuff’ that’s taking up valuable room in the train room at the moment! I have been a ‘collector’ for some time also but the time to put it all together is getting closer. I think you will find a few Kiwis pop up here from time to time, cheers.
Are you able to put another door into the layout room from the garage, ie on the 9’10" wall in the corner with the 23’6" wall? This would only serve mainly as access to the toilet.
Would you have room to put a helix fully or partly in the garage? Granted a garage is not a good environment but the helix could be well sealed up.
Don’t forget to allow for sufficient aisleways. You will quickly grow to hate your layout if your passageways are cramped. Go stand in various doorways and visualize those widths as being your aisle. If your elbows touch the door jambs (2’-0" doorway) or two people could not get past each other (2’-6" doorway) then you will know how to layout your aisles.
I’d agree that ailse-way width is important. But since you’ll be operating with a skeleton (mostly yourself) you won’t need huge aisles. Try to keep to 36" where possible but having some pinch points will be fine. If you’re pinching an aisle down to ‘single-person’ width (no passing) then you can get down to around 19" or so and still be fairly comfortable IF 1) you only do this for a short distance, and 2) there are wider spaces on both sides of the pinch point.
Regarding your second plan (with the longer branchline), were you planning on following a train around the mainline on the upper deck? If so how high will the branchline be where it comes off the peninsula and hits the wall (under where ‘A’ is)? Will a duck under there be ok with you at that elevation? Or will you need to back track all the way around the layout aisles to get to a place where you can resume visual contact with your mainline (upper deck) train? Or are you planning on a pancake flat layout where you can look over the top of the peninsual to see you train on the ‘other side’?
If you’re planning on ‘flat’ terrain, will you be ok with a branchline that will lose close to 200’ of elevation (scale feet)? If that’s ok then perhaps some rolling hills on the upper deck would be ok?
If you keep the 2nd plan basic foot print what does it take to turn the whole thing into a no-lix with a end-to-end connecting helix at the end of the peninsula? And how many feet of track do you get in an orbit of the room and peninsula?
Have you started thinking about scenic and operational features? Where will these go and how much space will they require?
Hi there. As I’m at about the same stage as you are, Steve, I’m trying to follow any “newbie” or first layout threads. I am a bit confused by one term that you use: no lix. What does that mean? Guessing, I would have thought it meant “no helix”, but from the context of a lot of the posts to this thread, it obviously means something else. Help me out here, guys.
A no-lix is a term given to a layout that climbs from one level to the next by going around the walls increasingly up grade until you are above the level you started. It only works in very large spaces.
With a steady 2.5 -3.0% constant grade on the branch (until reaching its terminus), there is sufficient branchline track length for a nolix giving 16-inch track separation between lower and upper decks at the branchline terminus. By the time the branchline reaches the SE corner, there will be sufficient vertical separation from the mainline (about 4 inches) for the branchline to enter a tunnel. (If you extend the visible portion of the branchline along the next wall, there will too much separation to maintain the image of flatland scenery. However, the necessity of having steep grades on the branchline is contrary to the flatland concept.) The branch could then reappear somewhere on the lobe where there would be sufficient vertical separation to make visibility worthwhile. Only the lobe and branchline terminus areas would require a double- deck framework. At least half of the branchline wouldn’t be visible, but that’s the price you probably have to pay. If modeling a more vertical landscape, most of the branch could be kept visible.
The continous mainline with a point-to-point branchline, as you propose, is my favorite track schematic. Good luck!
Thanks for all the input, I will make sure there is plenty of isle width, this is obviously advise from learning the hard way so I will take note.
Moving the door makes a lot of sense but is a more work than I am willing to undertake.
Yes Charlie I do plan on following the train around, its one of the issues I have with this plan and what I was trying to achieve having ‘A’ from the branch line turn clockwise but as you can see it would take up far too much room, I was looking at the same sort of thing you have done with your Bear Creek & South Jackson (above) where the lines overlap and join the main by the 9’8" wall, unfortunately this interferes with the room entrance.
There is room for a helix at the end of the peninsular, I actually miss-drew the radius on that plan at 43" instead of 36" so there would be approx 36" of isle all around it. A 40" helix would fit. I have been giving this some thought and the idea is growing on me, I’ve visualized it in the room and it feels good. My thoughts are to use it to drop the branchline down and have the branch and the main on separate levels.
An orbit of the room would give me approx 74’ of mainline, the branch as drawn is about 110’.
Come to think of it, in the mid-1960’s I built a no-lix on a 5x10-foot, donut-shaped layout in HO scale. The upper deck covered about half of the lower deck. That plan worked out fine.
I’ve drawn up that plan, the aisle ways are less than three feet from track to track so will be even less with benchwork and wont leave sufficient room for towns & customer yards on the main.
I’ll keep throwing ideas at it until I come up with something I’m happy with.
