I am interested in seeking some opinions of a layout plan that I have been working on. The layout will be located within a finished basement, and will have to share space with other family uses of the space. Some information:
Boston & Maine Railroad in the late 1950’s
smaller is better than bigger (I don’t want get overwhelmed or discouraged)
continuous operation for both non-model railroader guests and me
I prefer modeling intensively-detailed urban/town/industrial scenes as opposed to wide-open spaces
I put together two figures, this one shows the how the layout will fit in the room:
The entire basement has a much bigger footprint than what I’ve shown in the figure, and while it would be possible to have a larger layout in the currently unfinished portion of the basement not shown, I would prefer to have a well-presented smaller layout that shares family space.
I think you’ve done a very good job of planning and setting the scene, including your selection of road and era. I see no serious issues, but here are a couple of suggestions which may or may not work for you:
The B&M ran Budd RDC cars in that timeframe. This would be an opportunity for a bit of passenger operation without long consists of expensive models, just one or two cars and relatively short station platforms. Also, there was an article in MR a year or two back about “milk trains” that would make stops at small farm platforms. That might be an option to integrate your rural scene into the railroad operations.
You might want to think about some staging. If you could move the TV unit away from the wall a bit, with the family’s permission, of course, you could extend the track along that wall and put in 2 or 3 tracks for staging. I would add a track from the other direction on that curve in the lower left so you could get to and from the staging from either direction.
Make sure you can get to the hidden track in the upper left corner easily. It looks like a long reach, and you just know that you’ll have derailments there if it’s hard to get to.
I’m not sure about the complex trackwork on the liftoffs. There’s no reason it can’t be done, of course, but each liftoff has two tracks on each end, so you’re going to have 4 spots on each liftoff where you’ve got to worry about lining up the tracks perfectly every time you remove the bridge. You’ve also got a pair of turnouts on one of the liftoffs, which means extra wiring if you’re using remote motor control for them.
Overall, though, it’s a very well thought out plan. I like seeing roads and structures on paper before you start laying track. Many of us don’t even think about these things until the tr
As an alumnus of Plymouth State University (or what was then Plymouth State Teachers’ College) I am obligated to point out that including the town of Plymouth, New Hampshire, would be an excellent idea. The college would generate a fair amount of passenger traffic and the town of Plymouth had some small on-line customers including a fuel oil distributer.
Looks like a solid plan. Should be fun to operate.
my suggestion is, where is the yard? There seems to be alot of short spurs on the left side, maybe get rid of a few of those and create a 3 or 4 track yard.
One thing that I see is that some scenes cannot be accessed easily from an operator in the “pit” - namely the rural scene in the laundry room and the Lowell-like city. If the layout is meant to be operated from within the pit only, then the liftout section may need to be lifted or traversed when trouble happens, or to switch the industries in Lowell. This could be awkward.
You could handle this by having Lowell and the “laundry” scene operated by a person standing outside the pit exclusively, with the other scenes operated by a second person inside the pit. The “inside” operator would need to assist the outside operator with any derailments or issues when it’s on the inside loop track. And vice-versa.
This is not necessarily a bad arrangement since you indicate that your slant is more towards display and scenery, especially for these outside scenes. It just could be a pain for a solo operator to do it all from the pit.
The rural scene in the laundry room seems like it is detached. An operator or observer would need to pop in and out of the laundry room to appreciate the scene. Is it possible to eliminate the door and short section of laundry room wall to unify the scenes? This may not be aesthetically pleasing to household management, however. Also it might make the rural scene less rural with Lowell next door. Not sure…
In the paper mill, all the spurs are oriented the same way. If you’re not following a specific prototype, you may want to invert a couple of them to introduce a switching challenge.
I’d consider losing the switches on the removeable/swing section. You don’t really need them and it may be best to keep the moving / removeable section as simple as possible.
You might consider adding cutoffs at the X crossing for the twice around, so that either the outside loop or both loops could run independently…that way two trains could run on their own when you just wanted to run trains, or a train could run on it’s own on the outer loop while another engine/train was switching on the inside loop.
On the outer loop, I’m a little leary of that much hidden trackage under the scenery. I’d maybe look at a way to visually separate it but still have it in the open - maybe have it be elevated slightly (1/2" or 1") from the other tracks on the inside??
Personally I would be concerned about the laundry area. Typically laundry rooms generate a lot of lint and heat. There is also the factor of someone loading/unloading clothes and that interfering with the layout.
The lint concerns me because it would get into the layout and scenery. The heat concerns me because it will affect the expansion/contraction of the track. While this is not the most major of problems it should be taken into consideration when laying the track to allow for this. I know in my laundry room we have a vent fan which helps a lot in heat dissipation.
The layout plan is nice though and definitely well thought out. Much more than I did for my current layout for sure. I spent a good amount of time around Boston and northern Massachusetts in 01/02 and it will definitely serve for a very interesting layout. Albeit I know you are after the 50’s, the landscape makes it very interesting.
Thinking a little more on staging, can you use the right-hand wall of the laundry room?
If you can account for TexasSP’s laundry concerns, you might be able to extend the current staging you have shown around and down along that wall. Then add a turnout and curve from the top end of your rural area to connect that side of the layout to staging as well. This will allow one staging yard to serve as the “outside world” to both ends of your loop.
Not sure what your minimum curve radius is, but you’d have to factor in how much those curves would interfere with the washer/dryer. Are they top-load or front-load?
Thanks to everyone who responded so far! I really appreciate your opinions and suggestions.
It appears the basic idea could work, but needs some tweaking.
I do have a couple of Life-Like Proto1000 RDCs, they’ll find a home on this layout. Although I neglected to show it, I did think about some limited staging above the 48" high TV/Strereo stand and behind/above the washer/dryer along the right-hand laundry wall. Laundry room lint/heat is a good point; the dryer is front-load & the washer is top load. It seems like it would be pretty easy to fabricate a cover for the staging tracks when the layout is not in use.
The hidden track sounds like a concern; I had planned for several paper mill structures to be located above the hidden track, perhaps a combination of removeable structures and partially visible track would work.
I like the ideas of adding cutoffs at the X crossing at the north part of the layout and losing the switches at the south liftout section. Although I plan to use Caboose Industries ground throws for manual operation, simpler is still better. The north liftout section would be rarely accessed, while the south one would be more frequently accessed.
As for operation, for times I would be operating it by myself I would likely just choose one of the different scenes and operate it without paying much attention to the other areas. I could switch at the paper mill when I felt like switching, or run a limited parade of trains past Lowell or Melrose if I just wanted to see trains run. For more than one operator, I guess there could be “inside” and “outside” operators.
And I might rethink the rural portion idea. Maybe this space would be better devoted to increased staging.
As for a yard, I am thinking of that as a distant-future feature I’d like to have. If I
Having a concept similar to you it’s no wonder that I really like the concept you have going on here. In fact, I’m going to follow a step of yours and daylight my crossover as you have at the top. Both of us will be happy having it that way. Guess I know what I’m doing today in the train room.[:D]
You will really like the twice around set up without constantly seeing the train go around and around. It will give you the sense of the trains truly going somewhere. Nothing like seeing a 15 car train go into the tunnel and not come out 3’ away.
I think you will also be happy with your pit over all. Plenty of room for a solo operator, cozy for 2 and tight for 3 who are not too large. I would watch the layout height though - higher is better. You will be tempted to treat the lift out as a duck under. Mine is 48” and I wouldn’t go any lower but that is an individual preference. If you are looking for more than more t
