Your new train room is 500 square feet. Given a choice what shape is it? A long narrow rectangle, say 50’ x 10’. Or 25’ x 20’. Maybe an “L” shape or something else.
I like to be able to see the whole layout from one spot, so that would figure in to my final decision. There are so many ways to be creative given virtually any shaped room, so what would it be.
Track plans and pic’s also welcome to assist in explaining choices.
And yes with suburbia rolling within a few miles of our once very rural home we are actively house hunting again. We will probably buy acreage and build this time. 500 Square feet will be enough space for these worn out bones. Now is the right time to get the shape of the room down.
After looking at the Thread title,I just had to read what is was about,although I can’t really give much advice,I can say I had a friend once,that wanted,to downsize in a home purchase,but he believed himself,that he made a mistake…He went too small,in fact,he would always complain,that whenever,he would put the key in the front door,He’d knock out the back windows…[(-D][(-D]
Well if you use 30" for the layout depth on each side it leaves 5’ for a 50’ aisle. How many wide bodies will you need to pass and how well will the “old bones” take to hoofing it all night?
Assuming a 2 ft deep bench, a 4 ft wide aisle, that makes a aisle 8 ft wide.
If you go with the 10 ft wide room you don’t have enough room for a central peninsula, just two long runs on either side of the room. So you end up with 112 ft of main track.
If you go with a 25 ft wide room you have enough room for 2 peninsulas, each 14 ft long and around the 25 x 20 ft room. That adds up to about 138 ft of main track.
If you want a looong scene and being able to see the whole train, go with the 10x50. If you want more independent scenes and to allow the scene breaks to make the railroad seem bigger, go with the 25x20.
What do you want to do? If you are operations oriented or do you usually just like to watch loooong trains running along the track?
Do you like duck unders? If not, but you like continuous running you will have to have the room wide enough to accommodate loops of sufficient radii for your rolling stock. (You didn’t mention the scale you intend to model but this will be a significant factor in space requirements.)
Consider listing your givens and druthers as suggested by John Armstrong. Good luck!
A disadvantage of long and skinny is that if you want a continuous run the radius of the curves at each end might have a radius smaller than desirable. Especially if you run passenger cars.
To me, the best room for a layout would be one where you enter via a staircase (either up or down) into the middle of the room. It would have no windows (except maybe high ones) and no doorways so that a layout can be built around the perimeter with ease.
Lion, you did not say if you liked the shape of your room or would prefer something else.
I run Ho and am leaning in the direction of a longer narrower room. I like to watch long trains snake their way through the mountains with lots of bridges and natural impediments that make building a railroad in such terrain tough. Also I would really like a long wall to have a long yard along, to park all those long trains.
Frank both the wife and I need breathing room, so I think even though we are talking smaller, we need at least 3000 square feet to accommodate our hobbies. We have a pretty big house now and every room is used right now. We will see what we end up with if we build a custom home. Those ain’t cheap, so if we want to build instead of buying an existing house it will need to be smaller in the 3000 SQ.FT. range
I have pretty good idea what I can do with any particular room size. I am really interested in the why part of it. As in why would you take one room shape over another. How would it accommodate the ways and whats of how you do MRR.
I agree. My current layout room has a large window, three doors, a fireplace and a large opening in to the room. What a pain. It is 15’ x 24’ though, so I am enjoying it regardless.
Some of the house plans we have drawn up have a large room over a large 3 car attached garage. This may work depending on how it is configured. The benefits of building a custom home is you can pick and choose. The space will have a full bathroom and will be easily be converted in to two large bedrooms if a new owner so desires.
I was gonna suggest that wide is generally better than long and narrow, unless you have something like modeling the Prairie Provinces in mind. You obviously have different ideas…[:$]
OK, so you want to do mountains in long and skinny. I would definitely think about wider than 10’. That way you can get wider or narrower to alter the vistas - a straight shot down the entire aisle just doesn’t say mountains to me. Then you can also tuck a helix in one corner to double deck. The wider aisle can better accommodate a rolling workbench, which you’ll find a necessity more than a luxury in building a layout as you age gracefully. It also makes it easier to get those operators moving past each other.
I didn’t mean to sound like a goof,it was a joke,Anyway,mine is in my finished attic,it is roughly,121/2x40x121/2,a large dogbone,with three separate control panels,for a DC 3 cab system,one end has a window,the other side,has patio doors,with balcony,Almost center,are the stairs to go up or down,there are no Isles and everything can be reached,right across from the layout is a large desk,work bench long a flat screen TV,a lazy boy to fall asleep in if need be and also a washroom,forgot storage shelfs,and all tools necessary to fix,or destroy most things,I want to…I do get a lot of excercise,from the stairs though…[:)] One drawback,the slopped ceilings,I should have put the layout,on the other side,which has the dormer,head room is not the problem,but back drop is,only ten inch’s to slope…
…and here I thought the thread title was going to be about " a long cool woman in a black dress"…[sigh]
Gidday Brent, If I had 500 square feet I would more than likely go for a shape that would not allow myself to view a train all the time. I like the idea of using view blocks to try to give the illusion of distance. As I prefer "operating"I like the idea of going with the train, though I might reconsider that, if ,or when I get to the stage of needing a zimmer frame. [:(]
I hates house hunting so good luck to yourself and your good lady.
I think an answer will come to you without anybody else helping. However, I am extremely jealous, most of us do not have the luxury of being able to design a layout room!
My layout(s) have been in an 11x15 room for the last umpteen years. They have filled the room, with a big duck under and an opening in the center. Obviously, I would love to have 500 feet available for one.
Since I was a kid (I’m 69), I have sketched out layout possibilities, with some being for actual spaces, but most being “dream layouts”.
I’ve drawn up all kinds over the years, around the wall, island, “L” shaped, “E” shaped, free form, etc. and found plus/minus points about each. So your question is really a hard one - although one many of us would like to be faced with.
I think it comes down to what kind of railroad works for you, and what your personal requirements demand. Said another way, do you want long runs, mountainous terrain, full cities or edge of town, triple mains or single track, and so on. Also, do you want to easily reach all parts of the layout, or will you have a layout of significant depth - which I have?
You have been around the hobby a long time, and I think you will end up making a list of “wants/needs and don’t want/need” and that will give you the answer you are after.
I did day dream about building a layout in the basement of the slype. (Go look that one up!)
6’ wide by 200’ long, enough room at each end for a turning loop (or two) I could have contrived a four track 12" wide shelf layout. Being a subway, mounted on a cement wall would require no scenery whatsoever.
LION likes what he built better, but then LION could build in any shape space that he could get access to.
I hate moving, however. The only time in my life I wanted to move was when I decided to leave the city for a bigger train room. The newer house in the country (on acreage) was three times the size of the house in the city for the same price. And that’s how I got a decent sized train room. There are always tradeoffs.
In the last five years urbanization has been coming at us like a juggernaut. Our local fire hall 1 mile away has gone from a one-holer all volunteer Fire Dept. To a 3 truck fully staffed (14 firefighters) station. We got bus service this year. Last year the closest bus stop was 8 miles away. That speaks volumes.
Below is a photo of the border between the U.S. and Canada very close to where we live. Use to be we never heard a peep. Now since 2008 it’s helicopters and constant patrols 24 hrs. a day. No more heading out through the fields in the morning mist with the dogs. Too much road traffic and too many illegals asking which way to the Alberta oil patch.
The Border. Roads, U.S. on the left Canada on the right. We are on the hill in the distance.
Every half mile there is a Border Marker. The locals on both sides tend to wander back and forth though.
Lion, I looked up “slype”. There are some very colourful definitions of that word.
Anyway thanks for your suggestions. This will likely be our last house so we may as well get it right.
On the bright side the value of our house has gone up a lot, so it is as if we are movin
My current layout is in a square garage just a bit short of twenty feet in each direction. Door placement, access to a hot water heater and the door tracks take about a meter out of the east-west dimension leaving me with just over 16 by just under 20. The benchwork plan is a rolled-up dogbone, shelves (12" to 32" wide) across the door and along both walls, with two long, L-shaped peninsulas filling the center. Aisle plan is an H on its side, the bottom bar extending from the personnel door to that [#dots] water heater, the top bar shorter with teardrops dripping from its ends. Where the top bar meets the crossbar the Main JNR (CTC) panel is across the aisle from the Tomikawa Zone panel. The panel that controls the entire Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo is on the end of the peninsula it occupies, next to the JNR panel.
If I had a room expander I’d increase the size to <24 by <32 (sized for standard-size building materials,) widen the aisles and get some hidden track into the open behind the backdrops, with 24 inch access all the way around. Other than that, nothing in the basic track plan would change - but I might be able to add a one track/one car rural electric line that ended up on the cutting room floor when I was folding and rolling spaghetti to fit into my present bowl. The absence of the water heater would allow a crew lounge or small workshop in the SW corner - the logical location for the window code is sure to mandate.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
[EDIT - I tried to make a keyboard-character drawing of my space, but the output didn’t much resemble the input. Oh, well…
