Not new to MR, but i stuck on plans for a 30x70 table top. Any ideas for track plans, Ive had the Atlas RR beg. books for yrs but they are pretty bland. Pls help. thanks jsilva southern california
So I don’t have to repeat myself. Read my comments to Olerish
Try “Mike’s Small Trackplans Page”. Lots of good ideas.
http://www.cke1st.com/m_train2.htm
Regards
Ed
Please forget the slip of the enter key with the wrong cut-copy-paste in my preceding post.
As Roseanne Rosanndanna used to say on Saturday Night Live, “Never mind!”
Anyhow…
I recently purchased a nice book with over 50 operational track design suggestions from Carstens (http://www.rrmodelcraftsman.com/) for $11.95 called “Track Design.”
The listed articles for the book contents are at this Model Railroader link…
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=BOOK&MO=3&YR=1989&output=5
I found the concise advice from “Track Design” to cut through a lot of the so-called mustard with its many trackplans.
Here is another link to a really great website that illustrates all sorts of timesaver yard designs and many smaller layouts called “Micro Layout Design Gallery” by Carl Arendt…
http://carendt.us/microplans/index.html
This might give you a jump-start.
Do you have a place picked out that you want to model? How about a time? Prototype, or freelance? Big time class 1 RR, backwoods operation, or somewhere in between?
These questions really should be addressed before you get to the track plan as they will very much influence it. For example, it makes little sense to have a double track, perfectly flat mainline if you’re trying to model a backwoods mountain logging operation. It also makes little sense to model big giant mountains with steep grades if you’re modeling Iowa. See, it makes sense to decide these things early on.
Now as for track plans, there are many published plans available to you. Somehow though, those have always left me cold. It’s someone elses dream, not mine, you know what I mean?
I’d suggest you decide some of these issues first, and also, pick up a copy of “Track Planning For Realistic Operation” by John Armstrong. Even if you don’t create your own plan but use a published one, it will still prove to be invaluable in learning how trains move and why.
With all of that said I’d like to show you a couple of plans that were custom developed by collaboration on this forum to meet the specific needs of the people who were building them.
This one was an adaptation of a 5’ x 9’ HO layout that was scaled down to fit a 30" x 8’ area in N scale.
Click to enlarge
The idea was for a moderate sized modern midwestern RR to have two scenes (one city with the yards and engine facilities, and one country small town) divided by a scenic divider to offer more then the traditional layout that occupies the same area.
The second is a New England 1930’s 2’ x 8’ layout in N scale that is just the port area (to the bottom center and right) of what will eventually be a larger layout.
OK, here’s one that meets your 30x70 requirement. It has kind of an eastern United States feel to it. It has a small engine facility, a yard, and on the other side of the backdrop it has a business park.
Click to enlarge
Giving you any ideas?
Got your Email JESS SILVA. No problem! Anything else?