My buddy was in a local building and was talking to his wife about my layout while waiting in line. One of the building managers over heard that I was building an advanced train layout. They told him they had a 15’x14’ Room and they were interested in having us build them a layout. Now we have a meeting with them on Thursday to go over some ideas. Everything will be paid for by the owners of the building.
Here is my problem; I have looked all over for some plains for a 15ft x 14ft layout. I have come up empty handed. I have designed some but I do not much care for them. Do you guys have any Ideas on a U Shaped layout? It is only visible from inside the U.
Room Layout.
it is 15’ x 14’
The enterance is on one of the 15’ walls and there is 6’ on both sides of the door.
I am partial to dogbone type plans. You shouldn’t need to find one for a 14x15 space. Just about any plan designed for a similar sized area can be stretched to fit the space without radically altering the basic design.
The biggest problem with building a continuous-run layout is the fact that there would either have to be a duck-under or stairs dropping down or popping up in the middle of the room. Their biggest advantage is the ability to leave a train (or two if you have a dbl track main) running constantly as you ran locals between industries and yards. It’s fun to try and dodge hot-shots while switching.
However, if you’re more into realism than running the same couple of trains around the layout a few times, I suggest a stage yard to stage yard idea (could either be a point-to-point with run-arounds at the end or a loop to loop track running around the yard. Be advised, the latter takes up more room). This allows trains to run through a given location once throughout the session. If you’re layout has many intermodal trains and you only have a few 5 unit cars, swicth your pwer out in the stage yard. For example, If you run a 5 car intermodal (25 units) with a SD70M and two dash 9s, take out two engines, and add different ones to give your new train a different identity than the last one (I have an Athearn A-B-A F7 set that allows shells to be swapped pretty rapidly). The only realistic exception is the road switcher ducking into the staging yard to swap cars.
I have lots of ideas, but no ones ideas are worth anything without knowing more about what is expected from the owners. So far all we know is 15’x14’ size, where the door is, and that it will be viewed from inside a U.
Are the owners wanting lots of trains running, spectacular scenery, some specific location, specific railroad, is it supposed to operate automatically, or manned? How many people? Are they interested in prototypical operation, orbiting trains, industry switching, or mainline dispatching? Do they want specific industries represented? Will the layout be viewed only by some people or is it open to the public? Does there need to be a transparent view barrier. Is this supposed to be some sort of advertising thing? Is their a specific era or time period they want represented.
I get the impression this will be your first model railroad “contract” work. Use standard project management techniques, and start by getting their requirements and specifications in writing. Until then “designing” is a moot point.
The layout will be open to the public during operating hours Mon-Sat for 6-8 Hours perday. The System will be unmanned most of the time. So it will be started and left running until they close.
It will use a computer program to run all the trains and control functions.
As far as the number of trains or what goes on the layout, I have a free run on it.
It will be done in HO scale.
I would like to see one town on the layout at both ends with some stops along the way.
A yard to hold and have trains unloading Cars and Trucks from Car haulers.
They would like to have a couple of their building on the layout.
Which is:
2-Office buildings,
1-Small car dealer,
1-Metal Storage Shop
1-Metal Fab. Shop
2006-2007 Time Line
That is all of the information that I have at the time. I have to go over everything with the store manager this week. We will be doing a contract in the next couple of weeks, we will not sign a contract until every little detail in plained out.
Once again thanks for all of the help and imput.
Baker
I replied and answered all the questions last night and give alot of information about this project. But for some reason it is not here! I am on lunch a work so I will have to retype everything out when I get off later tonight.
Ouch, all equipment will have to be highly reliable. The fewer turnouts on the continuous run the better (preferably none).
Modern car transports, dictate large radius curves. This is especially true since super reliable operation is required. That in turn almost dictates a dog bone arrangment in the small amount of space available.
Could use some more clarification there. My office building is 52 stories tall, I presume they don’t want that.
The office building will be single and two stories. Things are working out pretty good. We have not finalized anything yet. I am now working on the drawing of the layout. If any one has any idea’s please feel free to post them. I am not meeting with him again for another 3 weeks.
If you have a for-show-only loop, place every turnout as trailing-point - customers see as “backwards” - so the train cannot accidentally head somewhere else. Or place power gaps (maybe a 1" piece of sectional track with its own power-on push button) just beyond facing-point turnouts to stop errant trains before they get too far.
If your landlord will spring for it, a fully decked out, sound and lights and smoke and everything, steam locomotive is a good customer attention grabber.
Make sure one easily visible billboard has your landlord’s ad on it. [;)]
Thanks for the advice, they will have a couple of bill boards for their companies. The Turn outs will be layed as Trailing-Points and there will not be very many!
I am working on a train changing system.
There will be a long and narow yard under the layout. Where we can pull a train under the table and out of sight and then back out another one. Just to hide things, although I am not sure how this will work because that means there will be a switch and it would be located in a tunnel. Which I am thinking is a bad Idea.