Hey! I’m just some young guy who won’t be moving out of his house for years but wants to build a layout of his own. It going to be freelanced branch line in HO scale in the Point Pleasant Beach area. My railroad will mostly be passenger service. My basement is 17x13 but I only have room for a 6x10 layout.
Well that’s about it. Any ideas on what the trackplan should be like? Or should I go at it and design it myself?
FYI Passenger takes up much more room than freight and requires wider radius turns. If you want to model much older era, there were some 40 foot passenger cars pulled by small steam engines.
6x10 might me farther than you can reach into the layout. It is very important to consider how far you can reach when building ANY size layout.
If you will someday want to take it with you when you move out, or will want to expand it, consider building it in manageable size modules bolted together. Each module should fit through any doors and up any staircases. Mine is built in 8 foot by 30 inch modules, but fills a two car garage.
My passenger cars are 34 foot and minimum radius is 18, so I’m good. I don’t plan on running bigger trains anyway.
As for the reach, I got it planned out. Besides, I’m a pretty tall guy.
Why waste space on a HO 4x8? check out the rest of the web site as well
Its probably best to sketch up a plan of your available space, and post it here for people to give you some ideas how to best utilize the space.
ditto. And also ditto to the link from layoutdesign.com
NP.
Point Pleasent is at the end of an formerly PRR branch that had commuter traffic to New York. They used k4 steam engines followed by Alco PA and Baldwin BP20 diesels. Red Bank was A stop where GG1s would take over for the run to NYC. the last G’s ran on this stretch for New Jersey Transit in the 80’s. There wasn’t much in the way of freight traffic. You might want to do some research before slinging track.
The GG1 never made it to Red Bank. The engine swap was done in South Amboy NJ Transit ran the farewell trip from Matawan , that’s as far south as they got.
Yeah you are right. Could be the highlight of a small rr.
Hello Mogul:
My approach to this would be to first find or make a map of the track layout in the real-life area you want to model, as it is/was during the time period you want. Then make a scale drawing of your available space. Then see how you can fit the prototype in there. It probably won’t all fit, so you will have to decide which features you can do without, and which features are “must-haves”. The “must haves” may be important to you for operational reasons, or scenic reasons, or sentimental reasons.
You didn’t state it specifically, but I get the impression you intend to make this a big, free-standing table. You’ll get more trackage into your space if you design it as an around-the-walls layout with a central operating space. I imagine modules about 24" to 30" in depth would work pretty well.
ACY
I agree that a U or donut shape would work better for accessability. PLus it could be built in sections, say 2 ft by 6ft which will make it easier to move if the time comes.
Sections can be built and operational on a small budget, rather than trying to get the whole thing up and running at once.