After much helpful advice from MRM readers, I’ve abandoned the dog bone/ waterwings layout (Aldinga Central). Inspired by todays MRM feature (Wolverine Junction), I tried this layout.
(Buildings etc just for effect & do not reflect final layout)
I then tried the plan laying newspapers on the floor (finally found a decent use for our local tabloid).
Nothing is further than 24 inches away and still make for an interesting layout including some continuous running and at least 3 or 4 industries/facilities.
I am afraid this one is not much better than your previous plan posted in another thread. Why? First of all, that yard in the middle won´t be of much service, the tracks are too short. That switchback on the left of it will only hold either a loco or a car, but not both. Some other points, track spacing is too big, all track neatly lined up parallel to the edges - I don´t think you will like it after you´ve built it.
Why not start out with a proven concept?
The Heart of Georgia layout by Scott Perry would fit your space. It is a nice little layout, not too difficult to build and fun to operate.
Just a quick observation. Think about how you will use the yard. Are the last two tracks long enough to really do anything? How many cars can you really store? .How much aisle space does it eat up by having the peninsula that wide.? For what gain in layout space?
I don’t know what the three pinkish things are in that spur in the peninsula. Look at the switch that starts that spur. is there enough length of track, called a tail track, to have even one car coupled to a locomotive that will clear that turnout and allow you to switch the three pinkish things?
If you tighten up the spacing of the tracks throughout the layout, make them closer together, you might be able to have wider walkways. Its something that you’ won’t regret.
Note that Wolverine Junction is designed for a space two-thirds larger than you have. And even with that, the yard on the original Wolverine Junction layout is probably too short to be really usable. And note also that the two-foot aisles shown in the Wolverine Junction plan are really the bare minimum – certainly a “no-passing” zone for two people.
Not every published plan is perfect – and especially not in a smaller space. In your situation, I think the central peninsula might take away more than it adds. There are other approaches (like John Armstrong’s “non-branching branch”) that can provide some of the same opportunities but leave you with more workable aisles.
Creating new designs in CAD is a very addictive process, but it may not be the best way to get to a layout design that will really meet your interests and needs in the long term.
No one ever follows this advice, but I just can’t help myself from giving it over and over again. Taking a small step back and deciding what you’d like to see in your layout and what you’d like to do with it once it’s built is often time well spent.
What kinds of scenes do you want to see? What kinds of trains do you wish to run? What will those trains “do”?
If you want to learn the design principles of good track planning, it’s hard to beat time spent with a resource such as John Armstrong’s Track Planning for&nbs
Do you want to model railroading in Southern Australia or the US Northeast or in Sweden north of the Arctic circle ?
What kind of era are we talking about - 1920s? 1940s? 1970s? Modern times?
Mainly freight oriented, or mainly passenger oriented, or a mix?
Do you get most enjoyment from watching trains run through a scene, from having trains interact (as in one train taking a siding to let another train pass), or from switching industries?
Do you have some specific scenes or types of scenes you would like to model? Say a passenger station, or a coal mine, or a viaduct, or a passing siding in a desert landscape, or street running in an inner city area or something.
Do you want the layout to accommodate visitors - either other operators, or people who just want to watch - friends, relatives, kids or whatever?
Thinking about stuff like that is a very good way to start - i.e coming up with a general theme (say rural branch line), a location (e.g. Southern Australia) and an era (e.g. the 1970s). From there it becomes easier to figure out what the trains should do, and then start looking at how to fit a reasonable subset of those things into a room.
I think you are wise to take your time in planning, but don’t overthink yourself into never getting started. I speak with the voice of (sad) experience,
Fully agree with Colorado Mac, while it’s wise to seek advise, (after all who really needs to reinvent the wheel?), and from cruising this forum for a while, it’s great to see the amount of excellent words of wisdom freely given, it can get rather confusing. Bottom line: yes you may make mistakes, WE ALL DO! but don’t get disheartened and miss out on the fun and satisfaction this great hobby can provide.
Time spent on the conceptual design phase - i.e figuring out your main goals - what you are trying to model, is hardly ever misspent. If you don’t know what your overall goal is, or what direction you want to go, it is fairly hard to get to your goal
Conceptual design can take a short time - if you already know what you want to model, or a long time, if you just “want to have a layout”, i.e. any layout, and have no idea whatsoever about what you want it to look like or function like.
Questions to ask yourself here is like “do I like to stand in one spot and se trains come from ‘somewhere else’, pass me, and go ‘somewhere else’, or do I want to walk along with my train?”, or "do I want staging, so I can model trains arriving or departing during the session, or do I want to start a session with trains or cars that “arrived last night”, and end it with a train “about to depart” or cars left in a track where they “will be picked up my the afternoon trains”.
Stuff like that - what is the overall story you want to tell?
Time spent on structural design - i.e. figuring out how to fir the major elements of your layout into the room - layout footprint, water wings, around-the-walls, peninsulas, aisle width, benchwork depth, where to put yards or staging - stuff like that, is also well spent.
Thanks Bear, this project was starting to lose the fun element. Paralysis by indecision was rearing its ugly head. So I’ve bitten the bullet and going with my Gippsland layout, right or wrong, good or bad. I’ve taken on board a lot of good advice and will keep it all/most/some in mind. My plan may have faults but it’s my plan and my faults. I don’t want to wait any more, I want to play trains.
I think Paul has an improvement to offer you here. The central peninsula yard is more useful. If nobody would mind a suggestion, especially Paul, I could see drawing themain on the right side of the layout, as shown, tighter to the aisle, and using a curved turnout to access the tracks closer to the wall and make that the yard. You’d easily shoehorn another two tracks in there, and look how long they’d be if you curved off the upper right wide main curve. From there, you could choose to keep the central peninsula or ditch it. If you get rid of it, you could make the right side of the layout another 10 cm deeper/wider and get even more yard tracks. This will have the effect of dropping the lower right main curve radius a bit, maybt two or three inches. And the liftout gate at bottom may have to shrink that much more. I am doing the same thing, and feel that a properly eased curve can easily be made to run over the bridge, even with a gap at each end. The curve will be largely changed to tangent tracks, so there is no need to have only tangent rails on the liftout if that is a concern.
In layout planning, there is really not that much to get “wrong”. Its more a matter of preferences. Wrong things are things like poor access, too steep grades, too short of spur tracks, things that compromise a person’s reach or the ability of the trains to negotiate the track. These tings cause real frustration and are difficult to change once built.
About the only thing “wrong” with your plan is that the peninsula does not allow adequate aisle space, and probably contains too many short tracks for them to be useful. My previous post was trying to get you to think about those things so that you would conclude, on your own, that having the peninsula at all was a bad idea.
If all you did was to eliminate the peninsula, you would have a buildable layout that would provide you with fun and experience. Having it be deficient in some areas that can be defined broadly has other folks’ , including my, personal preferences should not prevent you from getting started.
Read as much as you can, and learn as much as you can, but if you just built the around the walls part of your current plan, you would not have done anything wrong. It would operate just fine, with plenty of access to get around.
I can’t look in your wallet, the Lion’s way might cost you lots of cash.
The great advantage of this forum are all the diffeernt views. IMHO Selector made a wise remark.
If the yard is on the East leg, you can easily have longer tracks. The peninsula can stil be added, and could be an industrial area, which could be build later if wanted.
The suggestion to place your yard along the east wall and wait to build the peninsula later, to see for sure if you really want it, is a very good suggestion. Adding another table to a table top layout is pretty simple.
I sure agree with that. its a lot more fun to build a dozen different scenes in the same spot instead of being chained to a plan. Every time you will come up with somthing better that spot.
As much as I enjoy looking at trackplans, this is the way I built my layout. Its rather easy to do it this way, if your benchwork is simple. Not so much with open-grid, multi grade, ribbon-like subroadbed.
The OP’s space really only supports the around the walls footprint. He could build the table tops then play with arranging the track later and actually see what he likes before he marries the plan. I would lay the track on the plywood directly, rearrange it unitl I like the final arrangement, use two feeder wires for power to run some trains. Then when satified, draw lines, take up the track, lay roadbed and do it right from that point forward.
