Hello! Since the last months, I have not really done nothing more than read, read and read about model railroads. Now is the time to do something but I’m always procrastinating because I feel there is so much I have to do that I can’t tell where to really start.
I know I want to recreate a N scale layout that represents a region of Quebec called the Laurentides or another region called Estrie. I have a small room that measures about 11.5 feet by 10.5 feet. In this room I need enough room for a long desk (about 5 feet long) for modeling and also for working at my computer.
I would like to have as many trains running together as possible for this layout. Having a freight train (Canadian National) and a passenger train (VIA Rail) could be very fun but if it’s possible to have at least two freight train, I will go for it. For the era, I would like my layout to be in the mid-seventies because I want to use the Canadian National locomotive with the red front and black and white bar in the back.
On my layout, I want to create a small city or village, put some industries and add a freight yard.Having some forest, a bridge and a tunnel will also be welcome.
But my first question is, where do I start from now?
You should start with more planning. Don’t just go buy stuff, have a plan. Plan the table size and shape, and the base material first. This step evolves around your track plan, have that done before you build too. Then you can buy and lay the track, then to the electrical. Then you should do the scenery and landscape (buildings too!). The final step is usually train cars and locomotives. Finally have fun, this a fun hobby and not meant to be stressful. Have fun!!!
Sit down with a sheet of graph paper and start drawing. Erase whatever bad ideas emerge, keep the good ones. Repeat seven or eight hundred times. Planning is free, and fun too!
Two pointers come to mind. One, don’t be stuck on continuous running; It’s nice, but not truly necessary. Two, raise your railroad up enough so it can run overtop your desk without costing you space.
The idea is immortalized in one forum member’s signature (it escapes me who): if you’re having fun, you’re doing it right.
You can read til you go blind and you can plan until you fill up the library of congress. Pick a starting point and begin there. It could be a piece of paper and a pencil or you could say hang the plans and start right on the tabletop putting track together to see what what fits where. That’s what I usually end up doing and it’s what I was doing today. When you get to the track stage might I say use something else other than Atlas? If I had to wait for code 83 Atlas track to be in stock one of two things would happen. Maybe both. I’d end up pulling my hair out. My Social Security would probably expire. As it is I’m using code 100 Bachmann EZ-Track so it’s not hard to find.
I see that you’re talking N-Scale. If you decide to use a track type with built-on roadbed I suggest you avoid the N-Scale Bachmann EZ-Track as if it was a three headed alien. It’s total crap. For track with built-on roadbed Kato’s Uni-Track is the best to use. For putting track through a town scene I recommend putting in the scene first then the track and adjust things as you go along.
Can you do an around the room shelf? It appears that you want to be able to have continuous running. Even if all you have is a simple gate at the door to allow it and operate a point to point when it is removed. Around the room will give you a lot more options and longer runs than a table. As mentioned, have it high enough so that you can have your workbench and computer table underneath.
LION has had many layouts. Him as a little lion cub started with American Flyer, but then switched to HO. A 4x8 over the stair well (if you can picture that) was my starting place. I built many different layouts on that and then after we moved, I had a 4x8 in my bed room. I guess I had to pull the table away from the wall to work on that edge, but then could push it back again.
I have built three layouts here at the monastery. The first was built on two ping pong tables end ot end in an old basement room designated for hobbies. That room was converted into a meeting room and the railroad migrated to a 24x27 foot classroom on the third floor of the library building. This is the second layout built in that space, and this is about the third revision to the layout. At the moment I am completing a total rewiring of the project. The original pair of ping pong tables forms the “east blob” and a pair of 3’x16’ benchork tables side by side forms the “west blob” The new construction is the three deck “back forty” along the east and south walls.
I originally built the layout without helixes and my big locomotives had no trouble making the grades. Perhaps they were as much as 6%, who knows. When I morphed into a subway layout, the power cars could not make the grade, and so a helix was installed on each of the blobs. On the west blob the helix is very long, and hosts more subway stations. The east helix worked just fine, but it was only a two track helix, and I tore it out and replaced it with a very nice four track helix.
Bottom Line: PLANNING FOLLOWS construction. No matter what you plan, what you do, you will want to change something. Building a layout does not really follow a blue pring, but it follows the land and grows (or shrinks) with the amount of and kind of work the
I remember a study somewhere where they said the quicker you get some simple track down to actually run trains, the more likely you are to stay in the hobby. So lay some temporary track or join a club. Or create a small shelf / circular layout to build your skills.
Next get some layout planning software. It’s a big help. I like Anyrail personally. But there are plenty of pieces of software out there.
Once you do that, lay some cardboard cutouts of your foot print out on your layout with the propose track lines, and see how it all fits together. (You can omit this step if you are doing pure countryside/mountains as there are few buildings)
I think it’s a great idea DigitalGriffin. I just watched on Anyrail website and unfortunately it only works on a PC. I have an old Mac version 10.5.8
Do you have another good software to suggest me that can work on my Mac 10.5.8?
Thanks again everybody. I will put more energy into planification but not too much because I know that my plan is going to change during this long process.
I can say that I have been there and done that. I know my thoughts might not be the norm, but I feel I wasted about three years in planning my last (retirement) layout.
Once I got that planning out of my head things have moved ahead quite well. Three things you must decide on is Scale, point to point, or continuos running. Once you have that in place then you can determine rough radii for your curves.
From what I read in your statement, I would build your layout at about 50" in height so that the track caan go right over top of your work station. Make those descions and start building that section of bench work as there you will have a definate width that you will want to use to keep the work station as usable as it can be and not being a head knocker.
There you can get some track down (not permanently) but place it down so you can run some trains. That alone will spur you on and ideas will develope more readily and acurrately. Then as those plans formulate you can keep extending your modules as you see fit. Either straight, L shaped, U shaped or around the room for continous running. There are several different ways of getting by the doorway, but that can be discussed later.
Start with that and you won’t go wrong. Remember that there isn’t anything in model railroading that can’t be re-done… We do it all the time until we like the way it looks.
But I know nothing of it. According to their website they support Peco and Atlas N scale track. (as well as a few others)
Lion is right, your layout will change a lot over the long haul. I went through 40 major design attempts (over a year) before I settled on one (yes I’m serious) But programs like this make your life easier because it allows you to implement John Allen’s “By the squares” technique a lot easier until you find the one you like.
An idea: You did not mention, how high you are going to have your layout, but I incorporated my desk, ‘‘work shop, computor area’’ with a 8&1/2 inch back wall, on top of which is my double track main line, with one double ended siding, block control, so I can turn it off, or test engines. While I am at my desk, the trains are running right over part of my desk, sorta like, killing two bird’s with one stone. If you are DCC, you can use that as your program track, your computer and tools will be right there at your finger tips. I am DC, but it works great for me. The shelf across the backside, is only about 9 inch’s wide, at eye level. Sometimes I just sit there and time the trains going by and I have a rather large layout, If I don’t see them crossing in front of me,in that time, well, you get the idea![:D] I am in HO. If I want, I turn on the 32’’ flat screen, that is six feet away from me on the wall. Retirement is grand.[:)]
I didn’t plan anything for my layout, I purchased ANYRAIL5 software and began playing with it. My Nscale layout is in my garage and the first thing I did was go to home depot to buy 1x3’s and 3/8" plywood. I built 24"x96" tables and screwed them together,after I figured out what shape would please me most. I attached the panels to the walls @ about 54" off the floor for visuals and proceeded to ANYRAIL5 for track layout. after I was satisfied, I saved all progress and Printed just the TRACK plan to 1:1 and layed it all out on my recently installed benchwork. From then on it was all about purchasing track, turnouts, roadbed etc. I started all of this in April,2013 and I love it! I watch alot of YOUTUBE, Great instructional videos! YOU CAN’T RUN TRAINS IF YOU DON’T GET STARTED!
The best planning guide you can get besides graph paper is get a bunch of cheap sectional track, the stuff nobody wants. You can lay it down and get a feel of the way the track will run. They don’t need to all connect and the most important are those of your min. radius.
It is always a marvel to run your first loco on your first layout. I have a dummy loco that I used for testing tracks as I built them. Put all of your track nails in a hopper car and move them aroud with you as you build. It is more fun that way.
First, I would like to congratulate you on your progress so far; you have a focus on what you want to model. You want:
Scale: N
Location:a region of Quebec called the Laurentides or another region called Estrie
Timeframe: mid-seventies
Road names: Canadian National and VIA Rail (good choice, lots of locos and roolomg stock available)
Type of layout: around the walls of a 11.5 feet by 10.5 feet roon with clearance for a desk
What to model: small city or village, industries, a freight yard, forest, a bridge and a tunnel
This is a GREAT start, much further on than many who ask advise from us.
For a first layout, an around the walls is an ambitious project for a beginner. As someone mentioed above, maybe you should lay down some track and run some trains. I say this because most people on the first layout will rip it out with a year or so, and start over because of improvments in their modeling skills. I would recommend you buy a hollow core door, put some legs under it and start building somethig simple with the idea it is a learning experience. Getting your hands dirty is the best way to to start RR modeling.
For some track plan ideas, the MR website has a library of track plans of various scales and complexity. If you subscrbe to MR, these are available to you.
One reference I recommend for layout design is “Track Planning for REalistic Operation” by John Armstrong. IN particular, chapters 6 and 7 give a lot of detail on track standards with respect to curve radius, grades, easments, vertical clearances, etc. Curve radius is particularly important fro runnig long cars like passenger cars. Ch 7 introduces the concept of Squares in design, where a Square is a set of dimensions that will fit a quarter of a circle of a certaim radius. For instance, in N scale conventional curves are 16" and broad curves are 20" Thsi book is availabe from Kalmback, most hobby shops or
The way I see it, there’s ultimately two ways to start.
If your goal is involving directly duplicating or heavily inspired by a real physical location, time to get a lot of researching done and developing the track plan.
Or
If your goal is just getting the right feel for an area, there’s a lot to be said of building your loop or whatever and letting it grow organically from there. This can also require certain other decisions to make, like using a prefab track/roadbed system so that you can make on the fly changes easier or going with more traditional building methods (track nailed down, not glued to foam, can be readily altered)
I was in classic “analysis paralysis” for years, with ideas so totally impractical and grandiose that even I knew better than to start laying any track.
The “aha!” moment for me was David Barrow’s classic series of articles on planning and building using benchwork dominos. His point is that the domino sections are all the same size, so you can easily “plan” on graph paper using the assumption that the entire layout will be a sequence of 2’x4’ domino pieces. I used one inch graph paper cut to the size of my room and mounted on heavy stock, and made 2"x4" dominos out of cardstock to actually see what I could do in my room. It did look like a big domino game!
Moreover you can start building the dominos before you do any track planning, and that is what I did. Eventually I had over a dozen, and I could move them around my basement like chess pieces, trying this and that arrangement.
Actually seeing a probable and practical arrangement of benchwork in my basement proved tremendously liberating in terms of getting me to sketch out a track plan. Plus the ability to build something was keeping my hand in the game even when I had no good ideas for a track plan.
All my track plans were drawn to the same scale, 1" = 1’, so that they too could use my “domino” based floor plan. Also if I had a siding I liked, or a switching district, but the rest of a plan was scrapped, I could just save the various parts I liked and reuse them in a future plan. Eventually I had a library of layout design elements – prototype based situations drawn out that I could mix or match as I saw fit.
I think one of the most interesting aspects of the David Barrow domino system is that the benchwork building can come first, before the track plan, because the benchwork dominos can be moved around and reconfigured.