Railroad enthuiast with hardly any time...

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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Hello everyone. Ive made a few posts a while back, but thanks to the military im back overseas again and havent had a lot of time to continue my hobby. But ive started an N Scale collection, but am having trouble deciding a layout. I see everyone with shorline layouts, is there such thing as someone doing a mainline layout anymore? I need some input from you experts out there on choosing a layout in general.

John

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No takers with any help so far?? wow

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A lot of us are in N scale due to a lack of space, so that may skew the responses. For example, my layout is built on a 3’-0" x 6’-8" hollow core wood door, and is definitely branch line stuff. Not to say one couldn’t model a portion of a Class 1 railroad in that space.

There’s a beautiful N scale model railroad of the Norfolk Southern Pocahontas Division in this month’s issue of N Scale Railroading, but that guy has a basement 18’ x 42’.

If one has less space, there’s a plan for building a multi-level layout of the Norfolk & Western in N scale in a 12 x 12 room in the March issue of Model Railroader Magazine. Definitely mainline stuff.

Having said that, what type of help are you looking for? And how much space are you planning for?

btw, thanks for serving.

Best regards

Ed

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It must be a slow day, John. Never fear…folks on the forum will respond.
As for main line modeling, you kinda need some space for that. Like Ed, I’d ask how much room are you considering? Fortunately with N gauge you can do a lot in a small space, but for a better “main line” feel, some distance is required, in my book.
Have you considered a point to point along two walls of a room? That way you could have small yards, two different towns, lots of industries spread out over the line, etc.

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For people with space limitations shortlines and branch lines allow us to design a small layout with realistic operations. But I’ve seen decent N scale mainline layouts on hollow core doors.

One thing you might consider is moduler construction. There was a really good Pennsy n scale layout in one of the Model Railroader special issues a while back that was four hollow core doors.

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I’m not N scale (HO) but the principle is the same. I am building a 14 x 16 layout out of modules that are compliant to NMRA standards. The advantages to me are portability because I’m moving in 3 years, meeting new people through module meets and once you have one module you can participate in meets and run trains as much as you want. With a layout like mine you have a double-track main all the way around and can model industrial sidings.

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Keep the faith, brother!

There have been many mainline layouts in N scale, including a real beauty (for a 22 foot by 28 foot space) in ‘John Armstrong on creative layout design.’ That one is based on the UP in Wyoming, which was and is about as mainline as you can get.

For someone who is going to move around a lot, modules are the way to go and N-trak is probably the best way to get there. I recall seeing a home model railroad which incorporated several N-trak modules. When the local club was ready to set up a modular display, the modules could be detached from the home railroad and incorporated in the display pike.

Actually, N scale’s big selling point forty-odd years ago was the ability to model heavy mainline trains in modest space. That was before control systems and locomotives evolved to the point where they are today, and the N-scale locos of the time had very questionable low speed performance. Happily, that is no longer the case.

All this from a retired MSgt who actually models twice-N (1:80 scale, aka HOj.)

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I am in relatively the same boat as you. I’ve been collecting N scale for a little over a year with no ryme or reason. I’ve been on an out of town work assignment since last summer. I rent a studio apartment and spend a lot of time building structure kits. I have a doorslab platform with a grassmat laminated to it and use Kato Unitrack. The Unitrack system allows me to rearange the track, add spurs, etc as I add structures to the layout. I figure some day I’ll have the plan I want and can put down permanent flextrack, switches, terrain, and scenery. There is a lot of flexibility here. Especially with Unitrack and flat terrain. In essence, I’m designing my future layout by using layout components as design tools. It allows me to run trains so I can get a feel of the layout. If I don’t like it, I can easily change it. As I collect, I get a better idea of what road(s) I want to model.

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Well ive got a good amount of space, im running it along a wall , that section is about 3X10, then a corner of a room which is where i am putting the controle, then another 3X8 section to the left, so a good bit of room. Which i think is pretty large for n scale. I have been thinking about the shortlines, but the problem is finding locos and stuff like that. Where is a good place to find custom locos for short lines and that kind of thing? And well the main ? is, what would be a good shortline, or mainline section to model?

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A good shortline to model is a matter of personal taste. Model Railroader publishes tons of shortlines to model with track plans. As far as custom painters are concerned, they aren’t cheap and you can spend a fortune on equipping a layout. I suggest you buy an airbrush, compressor, and how to book on spray painting. You’ll save a bundle. You can practice on cheapy LifeLike and Bachman cars.

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As soon as our basement gets finished, I’ll be building a 10x14 foot N scale layout, that will feature mainline running for a major, fictitious, Class 1 railroad.

Like Ed said, many N scalers have a smaller space, and want to fit as much action into as possible. You can fit more of a shortline into a smaller space than you can a mainline, and could possibly have a very large portion of a whole railroad, thus creating more action within the space. <Maybe?>[^]

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You might like to look at these ideas…

  1. many modern shortlines are sold off bits of Claas 1 railroads that dumped trackage after de-reugaltion (I think you call it something different… there was an Act passed by Congress - or whoever- “Hagars”? something???). Anyway the track didn’t change , mostly just the paint jobs. (You can get to have some interesting locos as they often bought in what they could get/afford to start up)
  2. Same thing applies with Regionals… shed bits of Class 1 roads. Advantage is they are generally bigger/longer and have more of their own locos and stock… which also stay on line. (Many/some shortlines were locations for investments… they sometimes had more cars with the line’s road mark out on hire “somewhere in the USA” than they had miles of track to fit them on. I think this was before the 1980s slump… when the slump hit and the cars didn’t get hired and there wasn’t room for them at home they got sold off cheap to the big boys or cut up… in the former case they ended up as “Patch jobs” for a time at least. I think that since that slump cars have been leased by straight forward leasing companies.
  3. To be shed from class 1s these roads had to be class 1 lines in the first place… they just weren’t the most used/most profitable bits… but you can keep them alive as class 1 road by re-writing history a bit. you end up with the same tracks again… just more trains .
  4. You can combine at least two of these if not all three… many smaller lines carry bridge traffic for bigger ones. So long as their track is up to standard this can mean run throughs of whole trains. So you get the Class 1 working right through the lesser lines territory with all the trimmings. If a second Class 1 had trackage rights when the route got reduced to a Regional (sometimes to a Short Line) they may still exercise their rights… so you can have them too.
  5. Then again … if a bigger road gets a derailment or a bridge out it might divert via the smaller l
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Two other things…

  1. Beware of 3’ deep baseboards… if it can go wrong/need maintenance it will need it at the far side of the 3’ where you have to reach over the most awkward point.
  2. Your headline says you don’t have much time… a layout the size you quote will take time… both for building and maintenance.
  3. (oops) where you gonna go next? As in “will a layout this big be able to fit in”? If you start with a few modules you will develop skills and can either link them in with other modules or build up around them later. PLUS they will travel easy.

HAve fun :slight_smile:

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Allright, appreciate the advise guys. Im thinking of running a section of a CSX line, mixed with Norfolk Southern. With the main line being CSX, and NS having track rights. And with a regional track or 2 branching off. Im looking in the direction of somewhere in the south as a layout. Anyone know of any good points in the south to where CSX ans NS share the same track?