Layout design mental block. I can’t decide which would be easier. Lay out my track and add scenery to fit or add the buildings and lay track to fit around them??? I’m planning a shelf/walk around comprised of several sections of 2’ x 8’ benchwork arranged in a U shape with a bridge to connect the top of the U.
I’m planning a mostly urban/city layout. I’d like a continuous run mainline that has many spurs and sidings next to under and around the mainline. I have specific industries I want to model. My question is it easier to get the industries built so I know ho much room I have to work with or modify the buildings to fit in and around the track. That larger buildings I plan to use DPM modules so I can modify as need with smaller kits to fill voids in the scenery.
Wondering if anyone had experience with a similar layout and would share their experiences?
The technique that I used is to lay out the main line, sidings and yards, then place the buildings, then decide where the industrial spur tracks need to be.
Most people lay track first and then put the buildings in place, probably for the simple reason that once the buildings are put down it’s very difficult to reach over them to lay track.
On the other hand, you need to know where the buildings are going to be located to insure that the track does not wind up in their way, so it is good practice to draw an outline of the buildings to insure that the track will fit.
If you’re using a tabletop construction method, you can loosely lay the track and buildings out to see what makes a good arrangement. If you haven’t built the buildings (or even bought them) you can use mockups for them. Once you have everything arranged, mark the locations and then install roadbed, track, and wiring. Once this is tested and trains run satisfactorily, install buildings and scenery.
If the buildings were there first - the rails will have to be routed to clear them, or they will be condemned and moved or razed. Those which aren’t moved or destroyed may or may not get rail service.
If the buildings were built along or adjacent to preexisting track - the location and orientation of the building will be determined by the location of the rails.
If both the rails and the buildings are built at the same time (as in present–day industrial parks) both will be designed at the same time to work together.
Taking those facts into consideration, you can `date’ features of your layout by the way they relate to each other.
On a practical plane, when you design your layout, if you know what buildings you will be erecting and what their footprints are, you can design them into the trackplan. Don’t forget road and sidewalk access, parking…
If you are building without a detailed track plan, you can include full-size `foundation plans’ in your flex track bending (or sectional track assembling) so that there won’t be any unexpected [oops] moments when you discover that building X doesn’t quite fit the intended site. However, the buildings themselves shouldn’t be placed until everything except ground cover has been installed.
In my own modeling I have some buildings obviously placed because the rails were there, and a few that were there 200 years before Commodore Perry demonstrated the first train in
The place you are modeling - what kind of place is it? Did the industries get built first, and then the railroad came in to serve them, or did the industries grow up after the railroad was built?
Gidday, I am assuming that I am in a similar position to yourself as I am currently planning several modules for the local clubs new modular layout.
I have a picture in my mind of what I want and I know the limits that the module dimensions impose, and then do a scale drawing, so once the mandatory double track main is in place , I then cut out the “foot prints” of the buildings I would “like” on to card which allows me to shuffle them around as I then fit in the track, also taking into consideration roads, footpaths, public spaces etc.
A personal observation is that most modellers, including myself, try to cram too much into the allowed space. I find especially if I am also trying to incorporate a vertical element to the track that it takes up more room than I think, and that is allowing for, in my case, tight radius curves and “steep” grades in the old inner city industrial area.
I find that my building foot prints do change as I find I have to employ “scale compression”. It is a challenge, and as I draw using pencil and paper I find that my eraser is in much use. [:)]
I try and discipline myself to the philosophy that “Less is Best”.
I am also prepared that what looks good on paper may need a tweak when it comes to the actual “doing”.
I have also found that there are some very clever and helpful people on this forum, not only for layout design questions either, and find myself reading their replies, even if I may not totally agree with them, and even if the OP is not directly what I’m into. Its all free education and you never know when and where you’ll find a good “tip”.
To paraphrase a saying from the “Field of Dreams”, Build a Railroad and They Will Come.
Follow the prototype practice and that was for the railroad to lay track. The towns and industries followed, building homes and factories along the right of way.
Beyond that consideration, it only seems logical that you would lay your track first, then erect the buildings. The other way around seems odd.
I like to know what size buildings are and how much room I need for them. Most building manufactureres give the dimensions of their buildings on their websites. I cut out templates of the buildings in the area where I’m laying track that way I can position the track and the buildings to avoid any surprises when I actually build said building and install it on the layout.
When you lay the spurs here is something else to consider and that is it takes atleast two car lengths of straight track for in track magnetic uncouplers to work.
In some cases this may not be possible but where it is be sure to do so. I had no thoughts about uncoupling when I laid my first track and have several spurs where I could have easily have done this and am now paying the price.
Also by pinning the track as you lay it you can adjust the track when you place the structures. If you have a foam top get some ladies hair pins, shorten them and push them over the ties outside the rails to hold the track. They are all most invisible and will stay in place until you pull them out.
As with so many other things in this hobby, the answer is, “It depends.”
From a layout design perspective, you should definitely have a theme: is your layout representing an area that had buildings already, and the railroads moved in to provide service (as in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, etc.) or places that sprang into being because of the railroads (Laramie and Cheyenne)? You should keep this in mind as you design. If you want my advice, I’d say you should already know where you think every building is going to be before you try to actually build anything.
Translating one’s design to an actual space doesn’t usually go exactly as planned. Rails end up in a slightly different location, a model structure has a protrusion that wasn’t accounted for in the advertised footprint, etc. So once you’ve got your rails roughed in, test fit the structures and make sure they work. This is especially important where the rails interact with the building (roundhouses, platforms / loading docks, engine houses, warehouses, etc.).
When it comes to actually building the “permanent” layout, I build rough scenery shapes, lay the track, finish the scenery, and then install structures. I reserve space for the structures during construction by tracing them on to card stock and taping that to my layout. Each of my structures has a couple of pieces of strip wood glued to the layout to keep it from moving around (although I don’t permanently mount structures other than bridge abutments to the layout). The last step in the process is to attach scenery details to hide the bottom of the building where it meets the layout. The only things that go on my layout after the structures are figures and vehicles.
This is true for railroads built through virgin territory, where getting the buffalo herds off the proposed right-of-way was a major nuisance. It isn’t true for areas, like my prototype, the northeast US or Europe, where the railroads were a latecomer trying to find a way through areas that were already heavily developed.
In my case, the rails were being laid along (more or less parallel to) a highway which had been there for well over a thousand years, through towns whose street and land-use layout had been fixed in cement for centuries. Some buildings, which almost screamed for rail service, couldn’t be reached by a spur for various political or physical reasons. (The rice warehouse was built on a knoll, partially for protection from the occasional flood, partially to make it defensible. It never, ever, had the track connection that would seem a natural. Likewise, if a pagoda or Shinto shrine was astraddle of the desired route, the rails were diverted around it.)
From a practical, layout-building point of view, the track should be in and bulletproof before buildings are placed in close proximity. The trick is to make sure each building will fit where intended, and then to add details that make the pagoda look as if it had been built three centuries before the rails came…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - an area that was first developed in 500BC)
To paraphrase a saying from the “Field of Dreams”, Build a Railroad and They Will Come.
Follow the prototype practice and that was for the railroad to lay track. The towns and industries followed, building homes and factories along the right of way.
Beyond that consideration, it only seems logical that you would lay your track first, then erect the buildings. The other way around seems odd.
Rich
This is true for railroads built through virgin territory, where getting the buffalo herds off the proposed right-of-way was a major nuisance. It isn’t true for areas, like my prototype, the northeast US or Europe, where the railroads were a latecomer trying to find a way through areas that were already heavily developed.
In my case, the rails were being laid along (more or less parallel to) a highway which had been there for well over a thousand years, through towns whose street and land-use layout had been fixed in cement for centuries. Some buildings, which almost screamed for rail service, couldn’t be reached by a spur for various political or physical reasons. (The rice warehouse was built on a knoll, partially for protection from the occasional flood, partially to make it defensible. It never, ever, had the track connection that would seem a natural. Likewise, if a pagoda or Shinto shrine was astraddle of the desired route, the rails were diverted around it.)
From a practical, layout-building point of view, the track should be in and bulletproof before buildings are placed in close proximity. The trick is to make sure each building will fit where intended, and then to add details that make the pagoda look as if it had been built three centuries before the rails came…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 -&nb
" Likewise, if a pagoda or Shinto shrine was astraddle of the desired route, the rails were diverted around it.)"
Here is a bit of railway diversion but for a different reason.
During WW II Stalin ordered a railroad line to be built straight from Vladivostok to Moscow and he took a ruler and drew the line on a map.
Years later some American officials were riding on a train from Vladivostok to Moscow and in the middle of a large flat plain the train made a half circle and then continued straight again. When the Americans questioned why there was this diversion they were told that the story is that when Stalin drew the line on the map the pencil hit is thumb and no one dared question him.
Slightly off topic and an interesting theory, but far from being true. The Trans-Siberian Railway was built during the Tsarist era before the Bolshevik Revolution. Stalin had nothing to do with it, and it’s not perfectly straight, either…
The Baikal-Amur Magistral, or second trans-Siberian railway, was begun before Stalin came to power and was abandoned for nearly 20 years after his death. Again, he had nothing to do with it’s routing.
When I designed my shelf layout 9 years ago I made sure I had room in the foreground for full size industries with the spur in front or behind the structure with the main line toward the rear on a 24" wide shelves. It adds to the illusion of longer trains since the buildings and trees block the view.
In other locations I allowed 4-6 " toward at the rear of the layout which is ample space to add a building flat of 2" with room for a spur off the main line.
So my advice is lay your track with an eye toward allowing room for future structures and land forms.