Here’s my plan for my layout I mentioned last night in the “Feeder Wire” thread.
First, the table is going to be 11ft3 X 8, and it should cover all of the track until the inside oval makes its bottom turn. The rest of the layout down from that will go directly along a wall (on the right side), go through a tunnel into my closet, and back around, out of the tunnel, and over a bridge to the table again. There are two sidings off of the inside oval, and two switches that will someday become the crossovers from the inside oval to the outside loop. I want to be completely honest here, but I do not have RR-Track, even though that’s what I used to make this plan. What I did was copy their picture of the FasTrack library on the website, split the picture into individual track pieces, and rotate and place the pieces accordingly. [:D] It appears everything is to scale. I welcome any comments. Can my two 80-watt transformers power these two loops individually with feeder wires? I usually run one locomotive per loop with up to 12 freight cars or 5 lighted passenger cars.
Looks just great. Thanks for sharing. Very clever picture. Those five passenger cars may be quite a load for one of your transformers. Though each transformer can each power their own loop with a lockon or soldered feeder wires. I’ve done this for up to five loops. Just remember to isolate each loop with the plastic track pins.
What radius track are you using? Any consideration for a possible reversing loop? IMO it gives the passenger trains a mission when they return to a station from a different direction than what they left. Just a thought. Very novel and creative track planning tool!
My concern is the depth - 8’ is a long reach to the interior from every side. Do you have some access holes planned for the middle? How will you put whatever scenery you intend to use in the middle areas?
#1SchemerBob has arms like an Orangutan. In which case he can reach all the way across and UNDER the table [:D]
#2 Something that occured to me since I will have a pretty wide layout when done…they have these grabber gizmos that are on a long rod and you squeeze the handle and it grabs whatever you want. Have to cover the claws in something that won’t mar paint, but it would be an alternative to holes in the middle of the table.
You are right, Dep. I have a " grabber gizmo ", works great. It has rubber cups on the end and a 90 degree bendable center to pick up cars from the top angle. I have a 4 foot reach.
My track radius for the outside loop is all O48 - the inner loop is all O36, including switches. I chose to lay out my track with two different radiuses because the inner loop is going to be a Norfolk Southern route. The engine I hope to have someday, an MTH Norfolk Southern SD60, can negotiate these curves. The O48 loop is the BNSF, and I hope to someday run an MTH SD70ACe on it, and it requires at least O42 curves. The two switches on my plan that don’t go anywhere is where the future crossover will be from the NS to BNSF. I probably won’t install it until I get some sort of command system and a more powerful transformer. I don’t know if my engines can be run with the DCS remote (I only have one ProtoSound 1 engine and the rest are conventional Lionel), so it’s probably best to wait a little while for it. I’m not exactly sure what industry I’ll have on the spur, though I know there will be one. I was thinking somewhere along the lines of lumber, or chemicals, or maybe even one of those ethanol plants you hear talked about. I have a few buildings, mostly Plasticville, and some accessories such as Lionel’s telephone poles and railroad sign set - but I don’t have very much stuff for scenery yet. I plan to just get the track up and all wired & ready to go, and then I’ll look into other things. My table top is going to be butt-joint open grid, so I can get everything set up as I build. The grabber things talked about earlier sound interesting, so I may have to check one of those out! [:D]
Bob, I like the basic design of your layout. What brand of track are you going to use? Appears to be Lionel from your description. I think that the corners that go through tunnels help hide the squared off look. For the exposed corners I wonder if you could play with a little elongated curve at the top right one corner to break the squared off look. I did that with my first O scale layout on a 9 x 5 table and it really added interest, plus it added some real estate to place more scenery. Just a thought. Good luck.
You’re right, it’s going to be Lionel FasTrack. I was real pleased with it and decided to put it on my permanent layout. One thing I like for my first layout is that it already has roadbed; I just need to put something below it to reduce the noise level. I think it’ll go well. I like all of the new ideas I’m getting on this forum!
Bob: Just curious…why did you choose Lionel track? Not criticizing or anything. Just wondered why you picked Lionel over the MTH RealTrax. I plan on the MTH for my permanent layout because I can get the 042 curves. Plus I’ll be using MTH power and control systems and mainly MTH motive power.
Although with the size locos I’ll be running, most of the bigger curves are gonna be 072.
Jim: One more quick question…that comment “has more reliable contacts between tracks”. Is that from personal experiece using RealTrax or from what others have told you? The reason I ask is I saw bad-mouthing of both Lionel and MTH products in one thread. I wanted to make sure what you say is from first-hand experience and not the rumor mill [;)]
From what I remember from fiddling around with RealTrax in the hobby stores, I think it hooks together in some sort of a “snap” form. The FasTrack can basically be hooked together the same way as tubular track, except the pins have been modified so you don’t ever have to pull them out for irregular curves & at switches. The main reasons why I chose FasTrack was because the roadbed is a more realistic color (closer to white rather than gray), the ties are more authentically spaced and they are a dark brown color, and the center rail is the same color as the outside rails; I think the black rail in the center of RealTrax is somewhat distracting. Another reason is that their curve radii is a little larger than standard - O31 curves in RealTrax are O36 in FasTrack - O42 curves in RealTrax are O48 in FasTrack. It makes the locomotives and cars look better going around them. This is ironic because I usually prefer MTH over Lionel, but Lionel has got me with their FasTrack [:D]!
Dep-- I have to jump in here because all I use is RealTrax. My first gift pre retirement train set was from MTH and included all the bells and whistles and track. Long story short, in a period of about two years I was past the point of no return with RealTrax. It works for me and it’s what I use on my permanent layout. Had I known my layout was going to get this big and become permanent and knowing now what I know I MIGHT have done things differently. I have NEVER had a reliability problem, not one, nada, nicht! I read about some of the problems folks have and I just don’t get it. I’ve been able to make everything fit without cutting and the switches all work, first time/every time. Perhaps I’m just lucky. When I was at York I looked at the Gar Graves track and Ross switches longingly, I do like 'em, it’s probably what I would switch to if I could, but like I said earlier, I’m past the point of no return. Jon here’s my web photo album with the track http://jands.logicalgeek.com
Bob: Okay…the roadbed color I understand. The tie spacing isn’t really an issue for me, since it’s still better than the “normal” O-Gauge gaps. The center rail I LIKE being almost invisible. To me, it’s LESS distracting than having that shiny third rail. So I guess it’s mainly personal preference more than anything else. That’s cool [tup]
Jon: Thank you for that post. I was beginning to worry that maybe I had made the wrong choice with the MTH RealTrax. 100% reliability is what I like to hear. I’ve got the MTH computer software to build layouts with, and it’s going pretty smoothly so far. I looked at your layout pictures. To say I am green with envy is to make an understatement. WOW! Looks FANTASTIC!!! My layout will be on an 8x16 foot board. I have the outer oval in 072 curves because I am going to have quite a few locos that require that size. The inner part of the layout will be mainly freight and switching with the outer section for passenger and express freight. I also have the option to add on to it with an “L” section. Depends on whether the wife approves or not [;)]
