A recent change in living arrangements has taken me from a house with a whole spare bedroom for my layout to an apartment with no space. I do, however, have the space to stow a few 2’x4’ modules (and have the space to have one up while its being worked on). I’ve been toying with the idea of maybe temporarily going with a scale change to N but that’s another discussion (maybe).
What I’m curious about, is if there’s an sort of standards for N or HO module benchwork with significant below track scenery? I’m not thinking of anything very high or deep. Maybe a three or four inch clearance between railhead and a river below at most. I’m prepared to sketch up some of my ideas if I need to clarify what I’m thinking about. I know such things exist, because I’ve seen them. But I don’t know if they were one-off ad hoc non-standard conforming modules a specific club had or one of a cluster of modules designed to be unlinkable with standard ones. As in something like this: standard end–non standard end/non standard end–non standard end/non standard end–standard end
The great thing about freemo is that the only “standard” benchwork-wise is the end plates that connect to other modules.
The length and shape between the ends is pretty much up to you (and you can have non-standard sections connected together, with just the far ends standard).
There’s a lot of great modules that have scenery below the track level.
I am pretty much in the same situation, having to live in an apartment with close to no space at all for a decent layout. A 2´ by 4´module would be way too big for me, so I have started to build a layout consisting of mini-modules of only about 6" by 12". They are easy to handle, and building them does not leave a big mess in the apartment either.
You can get 2’x4’x2" white beaded insulation foam and layer two pieces or more together for height. one layer is enough for support as long as you don’t go crazy with heavy rock casting. My whole layout is built this way including a high steel trestle that I can pick up with one hand, would be one finger but I have extensive 1x4 framework as I don’t need extreme portability. Saw one person who built one but backed it with a peice of ply but the ply was not for support but so he could hang it on a wall.
My children belong to the Youth in Model Railroading organization. Their module standards are very close to the NMRA. The children now have three below grade scenery modules. I never even considered that they would be any different from any other module. The ends have to match to the other module ends. The track alignment has to match to the other module ends. The wiring has to match to the other modules wiring. The top of rail height has to match to the other modules. Other than minimum radius and turnout placement (outside track cannot be broken with a turnout in our standards), I never considered anything between the two “standard” ends to come under control of the standards. I would think one could drop the bottom of the scenery as far as linear space allowed as long as the top (rail head) could be lowered to the lowest height specified in the standard. I believe our standard state the module height is to be 37" plus or minus two. So the plunging scenery could not cause the bottom of the module to be deeper than 35".
The picture below has a “normal” flat top module connected to my son’s “canyon” module. In my opinion they