So here it is. I’ve tried my hand at designing my first layout.
The big brown thing in the middle is supposed to be a mountian. The road is going to cut through the middle linking the two sides of the town. On the bottom section of the track there is a coal loading facility and at the top there is a lumber mill. The town seems pretty rough now so any suggestions would be greatly appriciated. The main thing is make comments on it. Tell me whats bad and what I should do.
Thanks everyone
What scale and what size is the table? Some of the curves look tight and the center of the layout looks a long ways from the edge to work on. More ideas will come as we get basic sizes.
Sorry about that. It’s 4x8 and is in HO. Don’t take the picture for actual size it’s only a rough drawing.
Two things that pop out to me immediately. One, you have a lumber mill, but no logging camp. Two, you have coal loading but no coal mine. The rough material has to come from somewhere, and having those items would add tremendously to your operations. Otherwise, you’re going to get bored in 15 minutes.
Your plan looks pretty good. Spesking from experience my first layout was on a 4x8 and I had a pretty hard time reaching into the center to add scenery etc. If you have plenty of room to walk all the way around it will work out much better. Just my opinion. good luck Dave
I hope that there is a little more curve on that right hand end. If you are going to run steam I would use a 20" radius over there. Take it from a experianced 4X8’er. I used 18"radius on mind and at times my 4-8-4’s have a hard time on them if I run 6 or more cars and thats just 40’ box cars. Its food for thought.
Ok heres my two cents it seems you have to major industries coal and logging, With a 4x8 you should pick either one and go with that if you pick coal you can make a coal mine coal loading ect… and have a coal mining town.
If you pick logging you can have something like this Logging camp gives too the lumber mill And have a layout dedicated to logging. Its hard to fit both of thoose large industries with requiqer alot in a 4x8, you should choose one and then add smaller industries around it.
And too get everything too fit correctly too scale you could sude software such a xtrkcad or atlas layout designer to design your layout better. Thoose my thoughts. Good luck with your layout and welcome to the hobby.
Sir plz step back and relook the 4x8 table top layout. There is a webpage that shows u why not to use 4x8 and helps you understand what can be done with the same amount of lumber.
Someone plz help this guy b4 he builds yet another LOOP D LOOP RACE TRACK
I agree with conrail92. You should plan for one or the other. 4X8’s limited on space and also leave a extention route for later expandition.
You need to step back. I started with 4X8 20 years ago and I have expanded from it. Just because you might have a 20’X40’ room to do something fantastic not every one has the space. I didn’t when I started. Now I got 20’x15’ basement to fill up.