I really dont have alot of room perhaps 2 foot by 1 foot may be a little bit more and i want too build a shunting layout . I have 8 boxcars and 1 engine at present . Can somebody surgest a layout book with suitable plans or a website . I want too use waybills as well too add abit of interest and have Industies also. thanks Andy
This might be a good place to start looking;
Stretch that 2ft to 4ft if you can. You’ll need it for a “runaround” track - that allows a locomotive to go around a boxcar to couple to the other end of it.
A lot of the plans on the site i gave use a “selector plate” or a “transfer table” to shorten the layout length. This way you can be much shorter then 4 feet. You can go down to a few inches if you want, this way, although the scenic possibilities suffer pretty badly.
For instance, this layout in N scale would be roughly 17.5" X 6".
or heres another that would be roughly 21.5" X 5" in N;
This is just some food for thought.
Thanks all , that website is awsome and i have found a plan i hope too build . Phillip your link does not work for some reason ?? Andy
Funny, it works for me. Guess I’ve got the magic touch!
I would almost be tempted to build a portable layout. Like make individual sections, that way you can put it together and have fun. Then take it apart and still be able to store it without getting into a space issue. But this is coming form a guy who has enough space to have a decent layout in N. But its at your descretion
I think you mean a “Switching layout.”
2’ x 4’ would great for a N-Scale layout with small cars and a little switcher
like one of the new Atlas MP-15’s or the new Kato NW-2.
gtr
Shunting is a perfectly good Briti***erm [8)] The British magazines usually have at least one shunting layout per issue – most flats over there don’t have a lot of space. Peco has 2 mags: Railway Modeller for British image layouts, and Continental Modeller for everything else (including Europe, Australia, America, and everything inbetween.)
http://www.peco-uk.com/cm/cm_home.htm
And the N-Guage Society also has its own bi-monthly Journal
http://ngaugesociety.com/index.htm
Cheers,
Maureen
hey Maureen,so you must of guessed i am British , but live in the States.
Well, talking about shunting and boxcars is a bit of a give-away. Unless I think really hard about it, I have the same problem and merrily talk of shunting cars, or switching wagons. The hazard of subscribing to MR and the N Guage Journal, and picking up RM CM and BRM when they have a really interesting article. We subscribed to both RM and CM for a year, so we have quite a stock of little shunting layout designs on hand.
The Carendt site is great, and there’s also a good discussion list for all scales and nationalities:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/small-layout-design/
Cheers,
Maureen
Especially for such a tiny layout, I’d recommend Atlas code 55 track. Like Peco, the frogs are powered which helps small locos at slow speeds make it through without stalling. And although the Atlas #5 turnout and #2.5 wye have slightly bigger frogs than Peco’s 12"r (#4); the ends of the Atlas ones can be trimmed shorter than the Peco, which might help you squeeze in longer usable lengths on each siding.
Cheers,
Maureen