OK I am back once again with a new plan. My wife took a look at the switching layout I was working on and asked how does the trains go round and round. Well they dont on this type of layout. She didnt like that (an well neither do I). After a little while of talking she decided that it would not be a bad idea to let me use a different part of the house so I could build a layout with continous running. Here is what I came up with.
I wanted to build the “Beer Run” but put my own industries on it, but at 12’ long we would not be able to get into the bedrooms with out going under the layout. That was not an option. This layout is 4x10 with 18" curves. The southern part of the layout is the industrial part of the city and the northern part is going to be rural with a couple of small buisness’ to service. I am thinking about putting a backdrop down the middle to act as a location divide.
How does this design look to you guys out there that have built a few layouts and how does the operations look to you? I am not good at visually working the ops out on paper but I do OK at the throttle. I would like some opinions on the ops and the layout before I start building. In the past you have helped me build a better layout, and I am hoping that we can all work to build another good one this time too.
planning a layout is not really easy - see my postings “Lost in Space”, but I received a lot of help here in the forum, so I would like to pay a little back to my fellow model railroader.
There are two things I noticed in your plan that may cause a problem:
Passing tracks are very short - limiting considerably the train length you can operate on this layout.
With exception of that curved spur in the upper part, all tracks are neatly aligned to the side of the layout - this will look boring after a little while…
there are many nice layout plans for 4´ by 8´ in the track plan database - take a look at them!
I made a few edits to your plan, and will highlight them below working from the top down.
By switching the switch for the siding or run-around track and the single ended spur that runs down near the middle, you gain length for the siding. Unless you plan on filling the single ended track with cars, you’ll gain the ability to run around longer trains.
The area boxed in with the light blue will be a real pain in the butt to switch. Switchbacks such as this are a real burden to train crews, and you risk trapping your motive power on a customer track if a car derails.
Moving the area highlighted in green to the left enough to add in one additional switch leading to the “line” highlighted in yellow will give you a lengthy yard switching lead. This would allow you to “work the yard” without tying up your mainline.
Your plan works pretty well on its own. The only issue that really presents itself is the lack of staging unless you build a train, run it to the customers, and run the previous sessions cars back to the yard to switch them out. Finding a place to model an interchange with another railroad, or a place to move cars “off scene” (out of site, “off layout”) would add to your operational abilities.
This track plan looks like you laid a bunch of track to get as much as you could do on the space and have little thought as to what an actual railroad would do.
The key to making any model railroad work is to have a purpose. Now that purpose might be to look cool running through some nice scenery, or it could be servicing industries and movement of good. I don’t see much possibility for either.
Take a second and read my “Beginner’s Guide” which you can find in my signature. Take you about 5 minutes to read.
Don’t restrict yourself to a 4’ width in HO just because MR did – that’s an easily avoidable limitation (and it’s a shame MR needlessly perpetuated it with what otherwise was a terrific project). If you can find another foot of width it will open up a less-restrictive radius and ease problems elsewhere. And yes, as others have said, the switchback industry spurs in the middle will prove tedious and annoying after a while.
As Byron pointed out adding width will help with the radius and transition curve issues common to most 4x8s. Even adding 6" of width would allow you to use 20" radius curves with transitions instead of 18" radius in simply scaling up your favorite 4x8 plan. An extra foot of width allows you to scale up to 5x10 and 22" radius curves with transitions.
My own preference in rectangular island layouts is the continuous run with a branch, rather than 2 “towns” on either side of an oval. Examples of what I am talking about are Atlas’s Plywood Summit Lines, Laurel Highlands from 48 Track Plans, Jerome and Southwestern, and Iain Rice’s Lilliput Logger. John Allen’s original 4x7 Gorre & Daphtid from 101 Track Plans is in the same category. These generally follow the form of a climbing branch from a junction with the continuous run. This usually leaves room for one “town” or small terminal on the rectangle.
Even better is if the branch can extend off the rectangle on to a shelf along the wall, giving space for a second terminal. Now you can have both point-to-point operations along the branch, or continuous run on the rectangle. Well-done examples include the Portage Hill & Communipaw, and the expanded Jerome & Southwestern.
Massey, don’t count me for knowing anything (I’m still figuring out my own design!), but it seems that you’ll be fouling the main in the lower right anytime you want to do classification for your three-track stub yard. If it’s really there for storage then it may not be that big an issue.
What do you want to model - era, location, look and feel ?
How big is the room you want to put your model railroad in, how is it configured and what other uses of the room must your layout coexist with ?
You obviously have found an area that is at least 8 x 12feet big, if you want to plonk down a layout that is 4 feet wide and 10 feet long, with room for at least 2 foot aisles on both long sides and one at least one passage between the two aisles along the one end - you want a center divider - which means that you need access from both long sides.And you apparently have to squeeze past the layout in some way to get to a bedroom - so it may be in a living room or hallway or some such thing.
If all you want is continuous run, why not make a dogbone shaped layout up against the wall, then ? say 2 feet deep along the central part, 52" big turnback loops at the end.
You can make a loop layout with far wider curves and room for a lot more scenes in 6 x 10 feet (same space you would spend on your layout, giving you exactly as wide aisles past two ends of the layout as a 4x10 rectangular layout. I’ve done just that in a small room just a little bit bigger than your layout:
OK first let me say that I was trying to make a purpose to my layout both visually and in function. the southern part is for my industrial part of the city and the look was going to be that of like a down town area with business’ to serve. I didnt know about the switch back industries I will try to make a change there. I was hoping to achieve 2 levels of industry for my trains to serve. and the northern side was going to be a rural town with a couple of stops to make. The 2 tracks to the north east were going to be a lumber yard that supplies wood to the barrel factory that sits in the southern industrial area. (see there was some planning but I am not that good at the execution of those plans)
As for the size I am kinda stuck on the 4’ width. The room that the layout is going to be in is only about 8’ wide and that leaves around 2’ on each side. and no access to the western side since it has to be against a wall. I thought also about making the layout be reconfigurable like MR did but again due to my lack of space I gave up on that idea. also making an around the walls is out in this room because of the shape of one wall and the fact that there is access to the kitchen in the room that I cannot block, if I build it here it has to be in the middle of the room or I am building the same corner layout I was working with before. The 18" radii was my choice, and I know I could have went to 20 with room or 22 along the edges but I didnt want that here. The locomotives are going to be geeps and smaller switching engines that will handle the curves just fine.
The 3 track yard is not really going to be a yard but kinda stage on/ stage off and storage. I didnt put it in the plan (computer was not letting me) but there is going to be a couple of switches in the yard there to get the engines out. (sorry forgot to mention that in the first post) prolly some snap switches due to lack of space.&nb
OK I dont have the modified track plan yet but I do have a picture of the room it is going in. Here is the shape of the room and how the proposed layout sits in the room.
Stein’s version would fit that space. Just saying.
Now from an operational standpoint, the first version has some possibilities–now that you made clear that the lower section is staging. Let’s suppose for a second that the three staging tracks represent three distinct destinations. You can either assign them or let them float. But let’s say for instance, that two of the three tracks are east-west on one railroad. And the other staging track is a small regional railroad. You could then have trains from both directions dropping cars to be delivered to your industries via your regional railroad.
You could make the two top tracks on the north side your interchange tracks. That way, you would be not only switching cars to your industries, but between railroads as well. What happens is that you have more variety with how and where cars move. (And can be done quite easily with car cards/waybills)
BTW: Don’t waste space putting an engine escape. You already have a switcher pocket. Let the train pull up on the main and disconnect the engine and let your switcher park the cars. The engine can then reconnect to the other end if you want. Escape routes use too much valuable space on a small layout.
After considering some different doughnut configurations for an around the walls I just dont have enough room to make it fit well. In order to get enough walkway to the kitchen (24" or more) and workable room inside the layout I would be restricted to 18" of bench to play with and only 24" inside the layout. I feel I can accomplish more of what I really want using the table top approach I am working on. That being said:
OK I am still not sure about the industrial portion of the layout’s middle but I made a couple of changes that allows me to get a loco out of the middle and still serve the industries there. There are only going to be 2 or 3 cars at a time at each industry the run around should be long enough, but is the area going to flow? running trains on XtrkCAD is seems ok but digital trains and real models are never exactly the same.
I made a change in the north with the passing siding and that made it longer and also gave me more room for the street by moving the tracks to the warehouse a little more north. I also added some lables to let you all know what I was planning. Again thank you all in advance for your advise and opinions.
Two foot wide aisle’ are tight, especially if you’re going to access the kitchen from the layout room often. On the other hand, it seems like the space used for the north aisle could be better used.
Actually, if you had a layout with a total north/south depth of 66 inches shoved aginst the north wall, you could have a 30 inch deep south aisle. A 36 inch operating pit surrounded by 15 inch deep table tops would work, and is actually decent space to work with. A lot of the more knowledgeable posters here could do alot with that space. Stein’s layout is a bit deeper. You could even have a 12 inch deep extension running along the window wall for staging, thereby using up some of that awkward angled wall. 12 inches should be shallow enough to access the window.
However, if you’re committed to using the space the way you have proposed, you probably won’t be reading a lot of support for the two level switchback industrial area, even with the tiny runaround added.
Here is a very quick sketch illustrating how one possibly could fit in a donut layuout in that space without making it a constant pain to get stuff into or out of the kitchen through a long 2 foot narrow aisle:
Have not tried to sketch in much in the way of industries and industry support tracks and such, but with 20+" deep benchwork along three sides (right, left and top), there ought be plenty of room for city scenes and track - especially since one can put partial buildings and flats up against the walls.
My own layout, in comparison, could quite easily be scaled back from 24" to 20" depth for the top and right part - by deleting the road in front of the yard for the top part, the front warehouse on the right part, while the bottom part could
Stein, Thank you for some new ideas. I remeasured my space and yea the doughnut may work. The only stipulation I have from the wife is that there must be the ability to just run a train round and round. Honestly she would prolly be happy with a loop on some ply but we all know that only works for a few minutes before boredom kicks in.
I will attempt to make something out of the doughnut and dogbone type layouts but I dont have much for trackage ideas at the moment. I could have some elevation changes wtih a figure 8 on the dogbone. Lemme see what I can come up with and I will post the results as I come up with them. Again thank you for your assistance
Stein’s 2nd option is awesome for the space avail.
Remember that less is more when it comes to track.
You could possibly add some staging underneath the layout, along the top wall, since you will already have an over/under nearby. You could fit 2-3 long tracks that run the entire length of the top wall for staging.
Since this will be an integral part of your home, I would highly suggest you finish your layout with stained lumber (like Oak 1x4’s or 1x6’s), rather than a painted hardboard fascia. It will make it look like a centerpiece when you enter the home, and your wife will be proud for people to see it.
I could not come up with anything that I liked with the doughnut so I pretty much scrapped that idea.
I played around with a walkin dogbone and I think I got something. I am happy with the results. How did I do this time? I have less track, more mainline, more room for the scenery and 3 different areas that I can model. The only part I see that may give me trouble is the yard I have a 2’ reach to the yard and I was wanting to put some of my houses there. How did I do this time?
