ok I was finally able to get to the new apaprtement wife and I will be moving in soon. After some discussion we agreed we’d use the bigger of the 2 room for our hobby. Shes into scrapbooking and reading and well…im into trains… this will be my 10th layout and will be the biggest area ive had to work since. Because im so used to working in tiny space though, ill need help to refine a track plan that will fit in my space and my within my requirements. In the style of John armstrong, here are my given and druthers
scale: HO standard gauge
prototype: era - transition (1955-1960)
region - So. California
RR - ATSF with interchange with SP
space: total space is 7 by 14 space has to be allowed for workbench (2 by 5 at least). Layout has to be accesible completly (all turnouts within reach i.e to allow manual uncoupling). so in all relaity useable space for layout is more like 4 by 14 with maybe one end being wider)
Governing rolling stock: full lenght and “short” heavyweight passenger car, first generation diesels. 40 and 50 feet cars (21 inches curves would be bare minimum)
Emphasis: - Scenic realism would be a priority ( prefer sincere track plan over spaghetti bowl track plans)
-mainline running with some switching included, interchange and yard
Dave I am sure not the one to help you on this project just glad to see your name again and things are going better. You still in the states or up North now?
On the work bench, get the main bench up to say 34" and have a roll out work bench 29" high. With your taste for detail 44" high might work as well.
Folks, Ranchero is sort of the reason you folks are stuck with me! Dave and I meet on a slot car site last year after I bought my first train misstake (cheap LL). Dave started answering really really really dumb questions. Then started talking about the better stuff like Athearn, Peco, Atlas, Proto etc.
7’ X 14’, is that the room for the bench or the room it self? Guessing it is the room. Either way you must feel like it will be a giant layout compaired to what you have had.
PM me your number and we will chat again. I all so have some DC engines I no longer need.
hey Ken, its always fun to read your post. Must be the slot car car in you cause somewhere somehow it always end up with a sentence like " will pull 74 car on level surface at 45% of throttle" hehe[:D]
The entire room is 14 by 14. was suppose to be the main bedroom but i manage to convince my wife that we didnt need the big big bedroom for sleeping ( i know , that one is a near miracle, im thinking of renting my selling talent to other unlucky modelhead[:)]) The area that i get to use is 7 by 14 so about half the room. The other half has to be train free as my wife wants to set up a rocking chair for reading and a work station for doing scrapbooking and crafts
The idea of a rollout bench occured to me too and im not putting it away but thing is right now a roll away bench is all i have and at 16 inches by 24 i barely got enough place to build rolling stock and small structures. Id like a nice workbench so i can have all my tools organized and all my paints within reach. Maybe set up the airbrush too.
One of the thing ive learned along the way is to set up the layout has high as i can (im 6’) so 48 inches off the ground is a bare minimum. 50-55 is more comfortable. I also want a higher backdrop. I find it comes in real handy when it get to photography.
Ken you should email me again rancheroemail@yahoo.com im up in canada now, moved there last december after some ummm issues… with INS
If you are going to be over 48" off the floor, have your workbench under part of the layout. Can you convince your better half (butter her up) that a narrow shelf over some of her space wouldn’t interfear with her space and you could have a staging area or part on a continuous loop above her work area? (Mine designated a nice space for me but has filled it at various times with a divorced son, mother-in-law or storage for an uprooted son, so that I have never had a chance to do the bench work. {Could store the kids stuff under the layout, but the room needs to be finished, alas!})
Dave, you could get a real good sizes work bench under a 55" high bench. Use 4" X 4" beams to cover say a 48" span so there would be no flex. You could all so use some old cabints to store gear and be part of the support system for the bench.
Far as E-mail, best way for us to chat is in the PM section. I don’t check my E-mail much, bet there are 400 of them right now.
So I presume this has to be a free standing layout. No bolting multiple decks of benchwork to the wall?
minor point, the transition era is more like 1937-1957. Especially on the Santa Fe, especially in California. The last steam locomotive to run on the Santa Fe Coast Division was an excursion on February 5, 1955. This is more a first generation diesel era.
I presume there is a closet door in there somewhere too.
I would say more like 24".
ouch, the yard is going to be in major opposition to scenic realism espeically with only 4x14. That isn’t really that much bigger than a 4x8 if you think about it. Why do you want a yard when you will have the interchange?
What is a full length passenger train to you? My SuperChief of this era runs 13-14 cars. El Capitan 11 cars. Chief 13-16 cars. Fast Mail & Express up to 20 cars. Grand Canyon Limited - 14-20 cars. San Francisco Chief - 20-24 cars etc.
No way to squeeze another couple inches of width at each end?
Have you read Grandpa Coyote’s Santa Fe / Route 66 layout threads. They might be
My current layout is 58" high, underneath height is 54". I have a dining room table under it that I use occaisionally as a work bench. This works very well because the bottom of the layout is above my head. So I too recommend a high layout with bench underneath. If you set it up facing the other half of the room where your wife is, you can easily talk to each other while working on your different hobbies.
After thinking about this for a while, I think I am going to recommend some sort of variation of the out and back. The idea is the train can leave the “yard”, go out and loop as many times as you want without passing through the yard each loop. It then reverses and re-enters the yard. So you get the effect of a point-to-point with only 1 yard. For passenger operations one has to “back” into or out of the station OR spend a lot of time turning the locomotives and cars.
