Hi all. I’m the guy coming back after a long time away. Building a 16x30 room just for the layout. It will be non-proto, early 1900’s West coast/Northwest logging HO and HOn3. I’ve asked a few questions here and appreciated all the great responses. Thanks in advance for any and all that reply to this one. I took the advice and bought numerous books on track design including Mr. Armstrongs “bible” and the “KISS Method” plastic templates and I’m still stuck. It may be so simple that it’s alluding me. I’m using graph paper to try and pencil out the layout in the room. I have the stainless steel guage scale ruler and the KISS templates use a 3/4"=1’ scale. I’m not good with math, never have been. So, the question is I’ll use the templates to draw curves, “S’s”, turnouts and such but how do I transpose that scale to a piece of paper to make it all fit in my space? If I’m figuring it correctly, a 18" radius with easements will take up 36" of actual real estate. A 26" radius is 50" and so on. I haven’t seen anywhere(probably fell asleep on the page) that talks about how long to make the turnouts for passing trains to do so safely. I know, it depends on what equipment I’m going to use, right? So, I get to look up catalogs of locos and cars of what I think I’m going to use and hope they post the actual lengths, add those up and build off that? With my era and type, I’m not thinking I’m going to have mile long trains. Unless I’m missing something, I’m thinking the absolute longest train would be a loco pulling a couple of freight/box cars, 3 passenger, diner and baggage car. The only other possibility is a loco and 4 or 5 freight/box/tank cars and a caboose. Am I thinking right? When does this start being fun?
Here is something that may help. I post this every so often when someone is struggling with layout design. I hope it helps you. As for drawing the plan, I use bottle caps and other round things to draw my curves. If I am using a drawing scale of one inch = one foot, and the minimum radius is 18 inches, then the bottle cap or jar lid needs to be 3 inches in diameter. Most of the time I work with 1/2 inch = one foot.
Most model railroaders, whether old hands or just starting out, want large grand layouts. This may or may not be possible, and a lot depends on your age and modeling experience. I have come up with what I feel is a simple way to proceed in designing and building a layout that I will explain below. Most modelers start out by looking at published track plans. One thing that you will find is that all of the track plans published for model railroads will most likely not fit the space that you have. However, keep in mind that you can use elements from them and fit them into the space that you do have.
The first thing to do is define the space that you have. Do you have just a table top, or do you have a whole room? How much of the room can you use? Do you need to have a workbench in the same room? You will get more running track if your layout is along the walls with a peninsula or two sticking out toward the center. The longest that you can reach things well is about 24 inches. Thus quite a few folks make the
First cracker - an 18 inch radius 180 degree (end of the table) curve with easements will take up just about 39 inches, not 36:
- The curve radius is measured at the track centerline, where the nail holes are.
- Easements will add 20mm<1 inch, depending on how they’re drawn.
- Allow 1 inch on each side for side clearance from the track centerlines. More if you can, but never less.
Expanding to any curve, multiply the radius by 2 and add 3 inches to get minimum table width.
Can’t speak for you, but my layout construction started being fun when I flopped a couple of flattened cardboard moving boxes on the joists of a freshly-erected assembly of L-girder benchwork, slapped together some E-Z-Track my sister scored at a yard sale, put a switcher and two gons on the tramway and started hauling screws, track nails and rail joiners to the site of first permanent construction. As soon as there were a few meters of ‘real’ track laid the work train was moved thereon, the E-Z-Track went back in the junk box and the cardboard went to recycling.
OTOH, maybe if I spent less time at the throttle construction would speed up…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Chuck,
Wow! Thanks for the save on the overall curve dimensions! While I will have lots of room to lay down most of my track there a couple of tight spots and those could have gotten ugly fast with the wrong measurements. Whew!! I laughed reading the part about the E-Z Track and cardboard. That was great. I just want to try and NOT make too many mistakes during construction so I’m really trying to nail this planning part but it just seems that I run from wall into another.
Thanks for the info.
Bill
Elmer,
Thank you for the input. You wrote "What I do for layout design (have done so far) is define my area and bench work first. " This is where I get into a head banging session with the which comes first? The chicken or the egg? Ok, obviously you have to define the area, it’s 16x30 with one entrance at one end but as far as benchwork, I’m pretty much able to do what ever I want, within some parameters, like no passthrough or unders and keeping width around 24" and isles no less than 24" or more if possible. But I guess I need to design 180’s with their minimum area in mind. Like a 18’ radius will actually take up 39" of real estate. But on the narrow gauge side that will be high in the mountains where the felling will be occurring the mins will be less? I can’t find anything on those by the way. Should I just figure close to the same because the cars and loco will be the same as HO, right? UGh!! my head hurts.
Bill
Once you have your benchwork done and this only works if you have an overall base like foam, get some cheap atlas snap track, brass is fine, and start to lay out things. For turnouts use a photo copy of your switchs. This allows you to get a visual. Don’t wory about getting things too perfect as the flex track you will use in the final will give you easements and such. This meathod lets you try out many different track layouts before you attach things (I even t-pined an area once and ran a small train just to make sure a very tight area worked.
Bill
For narrow gauge in HO (HOn3), a 24" radius will be successful with just about anything, including brass models of the D&RGW outside frame 2-8-2s (K class). Passenger cars were generally limited to less than 60ft in length, so these too will work on 24" radius curves.
The NMRA clearances for HOn3 did not take into account these large engines, or standard gauge engine frames on narrow gauge trucks (Roundhouse HOn3 Shay, Bachmann Shay conversions). Our club uses full HO standard gauge clearances between track and scenery to avoid sideswiping these wider engines.
If you are not going to run the larger equipment - ever! - you can get by with 18" radius curves and HOn3 NMRA clearances. And if you keep things small, you can even manage 15" radius (or less). My FED 2-6-0 will run on 13" radius as will most HOn3 feight cars. Just be aware that model Shay mechanisms in particular tend to struggle with very tight curves because of the limits on telescoping of the line shafts. Some HOn3 Shays will struggle on 15" radius - 18" is the normal recommendation.
On my modules, I adhere to the HOn3 Free-mo standards (24" minimum radius, #6 turnouts, HO clearances). On my home layout, I have 15" and 18" radius curves and a couple of Shinohara #4 turnouts (the rest are handlaid to a minimum of 18" radius).
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
…modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it’s always 1900…(in HO and HOn3)
When I was ready to transfer my layout from paper to wood I used large sheets of cardboard (appliance boxes are great!) and transferred the grid to my cardboard. I actuslly marked off a 36" grid from the walls to the cardboard and then could measure track locatiions from the grid lines. IF you look close to the photos you can see the grid markings on the cardboard (I used large crosshairs at each intersecting grid line). I also cut out cardboard radius templates and used them to draw the track centerlines on the full size layout. I made adjustments in the full size version. I also used photocopies of turnout templates and taped them to the cardboard once I liked where it was placed and how the tracks lined up with it. This waa especiallly true in the yard areas. This was actually a lot of fun because you could play around with it ‘still on paper’. Don’t be afraid to try stuff like this before you actually start cutting wood.
-Bob
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Maybe what you need to do is decide on your scenery first. Then figure out where your track has to run. Then you will have an idea of what to construct for your benchwork. I know it sounds backwards, but some folks can do it this way. I can usually see what the scenery is going to be during the track planning stage. Not everyone can.
Good info, thanks.
Bob,
Good info, thanks. I’m still stuck, for now, trying to figure out putting what’s in my head onto paper and at a scale that will be easy to transfer to wood so I can see what I will need as far as real estate. I’ve heard of the cardboard method as well as spray painting tracks on the floor.
Bill
Fred,
Thanks for the info. I’ll have to be careful about what size narrow gauge stuff I get but I see your point of painting myself into a corner with too small of curves.
Bill
[:-^]
Hi Bill (Spook)
My sentiments have been said by Chuck. I would highly recommend getting the main part of the benchwork done and then get it covered with either cardboard or your pink or blue foam and start laying track. I feel that I lost two years in the planning stage. I could never get it right and was paranoid. So I sat myself down and told myself that none of this is life or death… There isn’t any part of this en-devour that can’t be re-done if you don’t like it and it is much easier to tell if you like it or not or even if it is going to work if you see it in the form that it will be run. So I took my own advise and have not been sorry. I have had the fun of running trains after figuring out where I wanted my Highline ( 1st Main ) 2nd Main and Branchline to be and getting the risers in place for them. THEN RUN TRAINS…
Next plan your scenery (Basic) now you will know where the space is for your industries and passing sidings and if not already done, you cut those turn-outs in to fit, and you will know the foot print space that is available for your industries.
This has worked well for me. The main problem that I have occurred is that I wanted more highways and I do not have much space for them. Although just sitting here and writing this an idea has popped into my head as how I can rectify a portion of this problem, that I hadn’t thought of before…
Do not delay, you would be only be running around in circles and never committing to anything, slowing up or stopping progress and delaying running some trains, that believe me, is what really motivates you.
Don’t get de-railed by thinking that your Railroad will be finished some day. Just like the real 1:1 roads they are always a work in progress. You will always want to make changes and the beauty is YOU CAN. It is only a little lumber or foam, plaster and track, and in most cases it can all be re-cycled, (not the plaster). You will never get
Johnboy,
Thanks for the words of encouragement and you’re right. It’s not rocket science! It’s just my type “A” perfectionist personality coming out. I’ll take a breath and go from there. However, the only reason I wanted to get a pretty good design down on paper to begin with is I have the luxury of building my layout room from the ground up. So, I wanted to try and get the location of outlets, lights, etc pretty well established for the contractor building the room. I think I have a good handle on it so far. The only thing I’m still wrestling with is the amount of amps to make the circuits.
Thanks again,
Bill
OK, so that is what is going on. I just went through that when having our new house built. (Haven’t moved in yet but it is in the final stages.)
I had a RR room built that is 9X25. About half of the 2 car garage space. We didn’t build the garage per the plans, but had it built with a raised floor as part of the house. It is a room with no windows and only one door. All switches that control circuits inside the room are mounted on the wall outside the room by the door. One long wall has the standard receptacles, but on a separate 15 amp circuit controlled by a switch. This is for all RR electronics and a small workbench. So when I leave the room, everything can be turned off from one location outside the room. The overhead lights are on another switch, also outside the room. The other three walls have the standard receptacles on another 15 amp circuit. These are not switched but hot all the time. No layout electronics will plug in to those.
Now, I made a similar wiring set up in my previous RR room that I wired up myself, so I know this would work for me. In that room the switches were inside the room and they spoiled the effect of the RR and were not convenient. So this time I had them put outside the room.
You will find that when you are installing your layout control systems, that you will want them together, usually on a shelf under the layout. This has been my experience ever since I started model railroading and building layouts. It was more convenient to have the electrical stuff in one place. It just works better that way. So the only thing that you need to decide, is where you want to put your electronics. It also doesn’t matter where it is as long as you can get to it.
Here is a photo of my electronics shelf, the part that holds the DCC system. At the right, above the power strip, you will see what looks like the start of a
A good point was brought up by several: scenery!! This is a very important feature that I overlooked a little more than I should have. My layout is 90% built and now I realize that I don’t have room for some of the scenic features that I wanted and more importantly, some of the buildings that I have kits for? I am making the scenery fit with the idea that it would be something in real life. It is better to make the track look like it was laid to fit the landscape/terrain. Just keep this in mind when designing your layout. And as also mentioned earlier, don’t get too caught up in the exactness of the design, it will most likely change before you get your track all down. I made several changes to mine while still in the cardboard stage, which was a lot easier than doing it with track glued to the roadbed.
-Bob