I am just starting in the hobby and am stalled trying to design my layout. I have a pretty good idea of what I want, but no idea how to get it drawn out on paper. I have tried using RealTrack but have just gotten more frustrated. Hopefully someon here can give me advice.
This will be a continuous run, HO scale, DCC layout to operate at least two trains at time. One of the trains will be double headed. But I want the ability to swap different locos in and out of operations.
I have an area 14’ long by 52" wide, so I want to do a “long” dogbone style. My idea is to have either 22" or 24" turns at each end that elevate and connect to a splitter that feeds two runs of track across the back that is 3-4 inches above the main layout. Sort of like a run across the mountains. Inside the loop at one send I would like to have a coal mine operation, and inside the loop at the other end I would like some sort of switching yard. The section across the middle in front could be less than the 52" width at the ends, but I want to have a passenger depot with tracks on each side, plus two or three main run lines, and maybe even some sidings.
Can anyone suggest where I could find a layout that could merge into soemthing like this or how I would go about trying to creat one myself?
As you can see there is not much of a middle section. And you will have to allocate some space between the tracks and the wall. Three or four inch off the center-line is the minimum.
The plan is drawn with 22" and 24" radii and #6 switches. The result is layout with severe reach-in problems and that needs all the 52" width, even a bit more!. The spacing between the outer and inner track should be 2 1/2 inch in curves. When the outer curve is 24" you will need 2x24 + 2x3 = 54 inches.
And a dog-bone?? When the middle section is less wide there is no space at all for a station. All you need is compass and a piece of paper to figure this out.
A more pronounced waterwing with a narrower middle gives better access to the distant tracks. Room could be provided by moving the engine service facility to the opposite end of the yard, near where it says “yard lead.”
What you might end up with is less a dogbone - where you compress the middle of an oval so it looks like a double track mainline - and more a ‘water wings’ I think…sorta like Paul’s track plan only narrower. It should still work. If you use 22"R curves you would have about four feet or so in the middle where it could be very narrow. Note that in HO 22"R curves are fairly sharp, so you’re going to have some limitations on what you can run.
Stix did his math right. You end up with 4 feet between the blobs. IMHO not enough length for a multitrack station with a depot. In the space he has he could build the Marquette and Independece Ry.(from small railroads You can build, Kalmbach 1978)
I know, because I build the layout and even enlarged it twice. Single track, 18" radii and #4 switches. Size 14x4.
While prototype railroads often have tracks on both sides of platforms, it is rare for tracks to be immediately alongside both sides of the depot. With tracks on both sides, patrons entering and leaving the depot would have to cross a track. That would be both unsafe and inconvenient.
