I understand you are a young man/boy living in his fathers house.
You felled for her good looks, but you didn’t pay attention to her character or if she was available. Or maybe even worse, she loves Chelsea. What to do now?
If you study the footprints I gave you, you will see that filling your fathers workshop with a 6x4 is not leaving both of you with any usable space. Maybe you can convince your father to let you use a small part of his shelves. An N-scale shelf layout should be build at shoulder level, so it can be build pretty high, if needed above workbenches or on top of storage shelves.
Every man wants more then is good for him; just go for the one you love. Shunting a yard and an industrial zone, not mile long freights through the desert, with some sparse trees and rocks as the sole activity centres. BTW Caliente was a crew-change point and had no industry.
It would be an idea to let your father, it is his room too, participate in this thread.
I asked you to listen to Californian Dreaming. It was not the song, it is one of the small switching railroads designed by Byron Henderson (Cuyama) for an island type layout. http://www.layoutvision.com/id49.html Straightened out on a shelf it would be a gem.
Good luck
Paul
Better then I have ever heard, the Mamma’s and the Papa’s sang about “leaving rainy climate zones” and heading for a new life under
I’m the only one who actually uses the workshop to be honest. My father only uses it to store his DIY stuff on the shelves and workbench area. He’s not bothered as long as he can reach it. I have doodled a couple of shelf top layouts but keep coming back to one with a continuous loop. Not had to chance to run a train and watch it go by since my first train set with the loop of track and GWR tank engine! I’ve been back out with a tape measure and can at most push the size to 6" x 3"6’ decided to reduce it to a single track main line as this makes it less cramped and i can have a couple of small industries with sidings on the other side. so far it looks like this: Top one has all the industrial area running alongside the benchwork edge to lower on as been edited to be more at an angle with passing loops to allow the sidings to be worked with out fouling the main line
You’ve drawn some shelf layouts, great, combine it with your oval.
Going to single track ain’t bad; you should be more clear about the locale you finally want to model however. Are we still in the desert? Did you have a look at “Californian Dreaming” BTW?
My feeling is one side of you want to keep the LA & SL (the looks) and an other part does want something else (the character and the space). A layout that looked pretty, was meant for shows, not for operation can’t be modified into a so different type of plan. “What to do now?” as I said before.
You could make a drawing of your room, with the usable shelves and your oval drawn in. And with all obstacles like doors drawn in as well. The most serious problem you have is obviously getting staging, in a neat way, in. Staging can be done in so many ways, I gave you some examples in a previous posting; but the drawing of your room has to be the starting point.
Whatever design you finally choose, you’ll be well-advised to avoid the sharp s-curves – where opposing curves meet without straight track between them.
This is especially troublesome when shoving a long string of cars of mixed lengths, but can cause problems when pulling, too.
Most folks find a straight track (ideally the length of the longest car) between opposing curves to be a good practice (as on MR’s current project layout).
Top one has all the industrial area running alongside the benchwork edge to lower on as been edited to be more at an angle with passing loops to allow the sidings to be worked with out fouling the main line