This is my first post but I’ve been looking around the forums for a few weeks now after trying to get back into model railroading. I’ve been trying to design a shelf layout I’m content with and have reached a roadblock. I inherited a series of PRR locomotives and long passenger trains that were my grandfathers favorites and I’d like to have a small layout to be able to run them but I currently am finishing college and live in a small apartment (and the Mrs. said I can only have half the spare bedroom [;)]) However, I also love the look of running long mainlines through the scenery and like to “set and forget” while I’m working. I figured I could create these long runs with a shelf style layout, but I obviously can’t fit in the turnarounds required to reverse the train at each end (I’d estimate I need a 4’x4’ area to do so at each end properly with the passenger cars). Over the past few weeks I’ve run through what I feel like is every possibility, including a turntable at both ends, detachable loops that are only up when I run, and of course I could always just do it manually and the switch set below. Only the engine needs to be reversed at each end, and I do have a few identical engines where I could do a little behind the scenes “switch”. Like I said I really like to set them and forget them, and I was wondering if all the years of experience on here would be able to do better than I could. Thank you guys.
About the only way to make it work is to do a wye in a corner, with the tail track extending back toward the corner. I used this arrangement for Crater Lake on my layout.
The problem is that it’s quite a reach back there. This one is done with 18" r curves, which may be be too sharp for many PRR locos.If you can negotiate a very narrow shelf to carry the track around the room, it would give you a continuous run. In practice, the wye would be where you turn back, thus you’d need only one wye to serve as the end points in treating the continuous run as point to point for ops purposes.
There are a few assumptions here. First, most participants in this forum model in HO scale, and I’m going to assume that’s what you’re dealing with. (Other scales are perfectly legal and socially acceptable, of course!)[;)] Please clarify if you’re dealing with another scale.
Depending on the particular equipment you’re operating, a four foot wide table may or may not be adequate to turn a train. Many full-length HO passenger cars really require a 26" or 28" radius to operate smoothly and reliably, and that would mean a table width closer to 5 feet.
Here’s an idea that might work for you: Forget the turning loop. Build a passenger terminal, since you seem to like passenger trains. Pose some of your favorite mainline trains at the terminal. Have a switcher that moves cars & engines around the terminal. This means moving mail cars to and from the nearby Post Office siding; moving Railway Express cars to and from the nearby REA siding; moving diners and cutout sleepers to and from the Commissary building for resupply; moving sleepers from one train to another. A commuter train with shorter, bidirectional cars could operate from the terminal to a suburban station. This suburban station might have a turntable to turn the engine. The commute cars would typically have “walkover” seats and wouldn’t need to be turned.
This scheme would not give you your “set it and forget it” plan with trains running through a scenic landscape; but I think you’ll have a hard time developing a plan that does that while fitting a shelf layout into a half bedroom in the first place. Sometimes we have to compromise.
So although my layout is small and in early stages, I’ve spent a lot of the past year thinking along similar lines as you, so I thought it’d be appropriate to share. I’m in a similar boat, getting back into the hobby, finishing college and my wife and I are moving between small apartments; my layout is approx. 6’x9’ and when we place it in our next apartment it will basically be set up as a short shelf layout with a donut extension for continuous run. Here are a few pics from different stages:
The last is how it stands right now, since I’m getting ready for the move, but the idea is that the entrance is on the room side so I can get into it and operate from the middle. If I want to let trains run, I can by putting in the liftout bridge. If I want to have trains running from one point to the other, the tracks going off the southeast and southwest ends will run to cassettes for now (and can be extended in the future, if I want.)
The trains pass through the one small town on their way to other places, so it’s not designed for that breadth, that aspect of “going somewhere” that is so nice to see on larger layouts. It is a terminus/interchange for a short line, though, so I can justify some switching as well. The limited space gives me real constraints, though: I can run a passenger train but only about 3 cars, and keep freights short too, so they don’t overwhelm the space and are somewhat proportionate to it.
Some more information would be helpful-- what size is the room and what part of it foo
An around the room donut shaped layout will almost always allow broader radius curves than a dogbone or a water wings shaped layout that needs turning loops.
Perhaps you can negotiate a longer right-of-way by offering to take less than half the room, with the required real estate using only the perimeter. A shelf-type layout needs depth only at the corners, and you could get 30" radius curves by coming out only about 2’ from the corners. Add a simple lift-out section at doorways, and you’ve got continuous running, while still leaving the bulk of the floor space to meet the CEO’s requirements.
My lift-outs (two-level layout) are on 3/4" plywood, as the tracks are curved, but you wouldn’t need a very wide piece for straight track.
I used shallow U-shaped brackets cut from the same material to maintain consistent track alignment, and added a plug-in feature for power - the plug is the larger of the black dots on the fascia in the photo below:
…and the lift-out is seen here, at lower left, leaning against the benchwork:
ACY,
I do really like your idea for passenger terminal. This may be enough to keep the interest without having those long runs, so I think that’s become a leading option.
Pt714,
I really like the way your layout is set up and almost “modular”. How big are each of those and how did you build them? I think using something like that I might be able to get away with taking up some more real estate by “removing” the sections that hang out when not in use. I also like the idea of using a donut shape to ease the curve sections.
Doctorwayne,
I know that a complete wrap around shelf would be the best way to do this but unfortunately I haven’t been able to get CEO approval for that quite yet. However if I combined a shelf with say a free standing set of modules to cut across the room might work so I’ll play around with that
I also had one idea to run by you guys. I might be able to get away with enough room for an 18”R (or even 15”R) turn around at each end. Now I understand that the passenger cars (which I believe are 85’ but they’re packed away) would not look good on these curves, but it could be blocked from view just to turn everything around. I was thinking I could add a guard rail to keep everything running smoothly. Do you guys think this might be a viable option?
I missed the part about the guest bedroom. In a bedroom, the furniture could be limited to 36 inches high, right? Your guests would actually have more floor space with a 16 inch deep shelf layout around the room anywhere from 48 to 54 inches high, than something on a table taking up one half of the room.
In any finished room, the space that’s 48 inches and higher tends to be useless nomansland that we fill up with pictures to detract from the otherwise bare walls.
Have a lift out section along the door that can be set in place during op sessions only. Consider using nicer more decorative brackets to hang the shelves and nicer boards to trim the edges since its a finished room that would be used for other purposes.
I’ll send you a PM on the design. Running 85’ cars on 18" or 15" curves isn’t just a matter of looks but given their long wheelbase, (typically) body-mounted couplers, and the number of cars sent through, the corners may press against each other in the sharp curve, or the force acting on the train as you turn it around the curve will pull the cars towards the center-- either one will derail them. Some locomotives with long wheelbases won’t go through such sharp curves, either.
The Athearn cars have truck-mounted couplers that extend out further, which is probably why mine can be coaxed through 18"R (though not without trepidation…) See for yourself-- if you have any 15"/18"R curved sectional track, set it up in a semicircle and try pulling your passenger cars through it.
With small pax trains it is easy. You set up a push pull operation. A rural two track terminal at one end, A four or six track city terminal at the other end. You can automate it with detectors, rectifiers and automated switches.
Route of LION has nine miles of mane lion, but unwrapped it is just a single two track line, with a loop at one end and a terminal at the other. The LION can run eight trains at once, but they are all automated. My web site tells all.
There seems to be a common thread going thru many of the replies:
Modular sections to an “around the wall” layout".
Consider this: If you attach a 24 inch wide shelf along one wall. ONE. And then you can make part of that wall a scene that can flow into the second wall; thus creating an “L” that you can simply fold the legs under or even pull them out of a pocket built into the frame of the “L” section. That “L” section could be placed under the bed, behind the sofa, in the basement, standing up in the closet.
And then you simply repeat two more times, a second “leg” that makes a “U” and of course, the third leg that covers the opposit wall making a oval that you duck under (and be sure to duck the frying pan from the lovely Mrs…)
Keep your scenery to a minimum. This is NOT your lifetime train layout, it is your “while in college living in the apartment” layout, so make the focal point the first section on the wall. Passenger depot, freight house, a couple of industrial building flats for shipping and receiving box cars of goods. Along the next wall, perhaps another industry as an “extension” of the town/city scene on the original wall. On that second wall, leave plenty of “rural” scene that you can simply paint the shelf an earth color with some green paint. You can also paint in your highway that crosses the railroad. When time comes to take down the “L” you simply put the structures (flats or low relief structures) into a large storage box that you keep in the same closet you keep the “L” shelf.
On the third wall, perhaps a runaround track with a coal loader or other appropriate industry for the area you model of the Pennsy. Again, store in the closet, under the bed, behind the door, by pully against the ceiling…and the coal loader goes into the same large storage container.</
As far as loops go, you can allways use a min radius near the back and broaden it near the front. On a 24" radius you save 6" and 12" on a 30" radius. Then hide the back part with a veiw block of some type.
You can build a long four wheel cart. With track. And move it from one end of the shelf layout to the other. I’ve got an audio/visual cart that would do nicely for a base–then add the long part on top. The top could be removable for storage, so that, when you’re not using it, there’s the cart plus the top leaned up against the wall.
You’ll be wanting a nice smooth un-carpeted floor for this idea.
If you’ve got “real” HO models of passenger cars, I’d recommend not going below 48" curves.
And, as (another) plug for Free-mo, I can recommend making modules instead of a true “bolted down” layout. Then you can take your passenger station out for a ride, and it can play with other modules and make a nice big layout.
