So longtime lurker, first poster. I’m moving into a new home and finally have space for a layout after several years of my equipment living in boxes.
The space I have is a finished basement, and a bit odd. While it’s a nice-sized space, I have to work around various doors, fixtures, etc.
While I don’t expect anyone to go designing a layout for me, I was hoping folks could look at the space I’ve got and perhaps suggest trackplans or other resources for “inspiration” as I confront my challenges.
Without going into too much detail, I am generally a lone wolf, I enjoy mainline running more than switching, I model transition era PRR, and my equipment (HO) is geared toward mainline passenger ops. While I run a lot of K-4s (obviously) I have many full-length passenger cars, a couple T-1 locos and other equipment that require a 32" radius to not look ridiculous (and a 22" radius to not derail even in hidden areas… though I prefer 28" just to keep things reliable). #8 min turnout on mainline, #6 min turnouts hidden.
I prefer to avoid duck-unders (back ain’t what it used to be!)
Your suggestions welcome. I’m attaching a diagram of the room (to scale, 24" grid) and welcome any/all input/help/suggestions.
You could start by pencilling in something like an L-shaped dumbbell or waterwings layout, with the middle portion being the corner by the sumppump. (Not clear how much access or clearance is needed there?) If the grid is 24", you could easily widen out to 8’ at the ends and have 40" R curves if you wanted to. That would look great for your passenger trains.
You have a nice “fix” on the railroad and the era, and it is certainly a railroad and period that offers plenty of opportunities for modeling. Still, it would seem that your next step would be for you to examine YOUR PRR interest to determine what you wish to include on this layout. I believe that the current popular term is “design elements” for such features. Are you enthralled by the struggle over the mountians and have a desire to stand inside Horseshoe Curve while that T-1 circles around? Is your interest more on the frequency of trains in Jersey or the speed of them crossing Ohio? The PRR was massive, and setting locale is now the task. Clearly, you mention an interest in passenger service, so is there some station or terminal that you have visited (in person or via books) that could become a centerpiece for your operations? Your area is large enough to allow you to include a couple of these design elements once you are comfortable with what you wish to depict.
When I think of Pennsy T1s, I think of those great photos showing PRR passenger trains leaving Chicago for the east through Indiana and the like, sometimes with a NYC train nearby that they are “chasing.” To capture that raceway look you don’t want things too cramped so fight the urge to fill your space with track.
Further to bearman’s comment, what’s in the utility room, washer/dryer or is HVAC in there too? Is there a way to relocate the bath door to the shared utility wall? You’ve gotta give your plumber access to the bath. And that’s a big bathroom. Just a commode & sink or is there a shower in there too? A new sump pump will slide under the layout but new bath fixtures is a bigger issue.
Graffen, bearman, and Paul D have just covered the first three initial thoughts I had. Actually I didn’t envision two layers & helix but the same layout footprint. Was wondering about the bathroom access. My experience with sump pumps made me not so worried about it.
I was thinking a double track folded dog bone such that the center of the dog bone looked like a Pennsy 4 track main line. That could work on 2 levels too.
I presume from your loco roster you are talking about west of Harrisburg, so there isn’t any catenary requirements.
That kinda depends on how the plumbing is arranged. I wouldn’t be surprised if that wall actually carries a bunch of plumbing for the bathroom and washer and dryer in the utility room. Maybe not. Maybe a chance that doors could open into a hallway outside, rather than the train room?
I’m also old enough I don’t want any duckunders on the way to the bathroom[8)] If the OP’s back is hurting, very good advice is don’t even think of doing duckunders at this point.[angel]
OK, here’s my suggestion if looking for inspiration and it’s a little weird, but not much…
Go the the MR General Discussion forum here and check out WPF – Weekend Photo Fun. Every week it’s full of cool ideas from different folks. Not all layout stuff, but a lot is. It also is usually not as close cropped as the magazine images are.
These pics show the surrounding environment of the layout and really help you get a scale of size and proportion, in other words, how do you think it looks within the perspective of the room and the layout’s height, width, lighting, etc. Just browse and think about what works for you and what doesn’t. Good and bad, and I think there almost always good stuff, but even the stuff that doesn’t work for you teaches a lesson.
If you see my stuff in WPF – and it often applies to the pics by others, the pics can be clicked to take you to my photo account where there is tons more views. Feel free to browse if it’s helpful.
Also look into some basic trackplanning info. The room is nice-sized, but not huge. If you want to run passenegr cars, you can, but will need to be a little creative and probably accept the need for a couple of well-executed pop-ups…ouch, my back![#oops][sigh]
you may want to look at what Bruce Chubb, who developed C/MRI, did on his Sunset Valley Railroad. He ran his layout through his bathroom with a removable section across his shower. He has great book, How to Operate your Model Railroad, that describes it.
you may want to consider moving the utility closet to a different wall and with the doors face the middle of the room so that you can run tracks through the back of it. With the utility closet moved and after running track around the outside wall inside the bathroom (like Chubb), you could loop track around where the closet was into a pennisula centered around the support pole similar to what Graffen suggested, or just build a terminal where the closet was.
I would suggest removing the framing between the support post and the Utility Room to give yourself a 3 ft aisle down the wall to the bathroom.
This is a fairly good size space, so I have some questions:
Do you want walk around or stationary operation?
Is this primarily a railfan operation or timetable operations with a crew?
Are you in this house for the long haul or could you move in 5-10 years?
How much layout can you support both financially and time?
For inspiration, start with the trackplan database on this site at the 300-600 size for HO. If you haven’t already, get copies of 101 Trackplans, 102 Trackplans (if you can find one), and 103 Trackplans. Also John Armstrong’s book Trackplanning for Realistic Operation is a must.
While most of us try to cram as much layout in as possible, you could very nicely do an L shaped island layout with 3-4 ft aisles all around it.
This is a pretty big space for a home layout. Think about how long it would take to build this. I’ve put a lot of time into my layout, and over the years I realize that I’ve spent about one month for every square foot of the layout, including all aspects of the hobby. Yes, some is building rolling stock and some is installing decoders, but we all do those things, too.
So, my recommendation is to not let your plans get too big. Consider filling half the room, and make staging one of your first priorities. (Staging does not require scenery, which is a big investment in time.)
For inspiration, use Google Earth or something similar to scan along the PRR right-of-way. Stop and zoom in when you find something interesting. There are a lot of interesting spots along the railroad that no one here has ever seen.
Like some of the other Forum members, I’ve been playing with trains for a very long time, and learned quite a bit about layout building (mostly the hard way). Anyway, may I suggest…
Assuming this will be your first layout of size, I urge you not to bite off more than you can chew. In fact, you would do well to build a relatively small one (say an L in the corner of the area) and make provisions for expansion in your track design. This way, you will quickly get trains up and running, and the problems you run into (and solve) will be of smaller size - making them easier to resolve.
Get some quadrille paper and do scale drawings of your proposed benchwork and ultimately the track design. This is a step folks seem to rush thru, but attention here will save you a lot of grief later on.
Build it right. Be it benchwork, trackwork, wiring, etc., do it right. Make your “good enough” threshold pretty high. Rushing through the build process will leave you with a lot of headaches later on. Gee, how do I know?
Take your time and enjoy. To me, and to many others, the build process is an awful lot of fun.
You need a GG-1, or maybe several of them. You have the space to run reasonably long passenger equipment, and if you plan for an electrified mainline from the beginning, you won’t end up wishing for one (like me.)
At the same time, don’t forget coal. It’s kind of the “signature cargo” of the PRR.
How high is the ceiling? (Or, how high are the bottoms of the first floor rafters?)
The reason I ask is that the best utilization of your space might involve ‘mushroom’ design a’ la Joe Fugate, or walkunder benchwork with raised operating aisles as Paul Mallery designed for The Model Railroad Club in New Jersey. That would solve access problems, and allow for storage and alternate use of much of the basement floor space. (The con side is that it involves non-standard construction methods, a lot of them non-intuitive.)
The first thing I would do is overlay your space with Armstrong squares (as described in, IIRC, Track Planning for Realistic Operation.) That book will give you a lot of good ideas about ways to get the results you seek.
I leave you with a final thought. Long cars and locomotives on curves always look better when seen from the concave side of the curve.
A lot of ideas floating around, but we need to hear some “yes”, “no”, “maybe”, “absolutely not”, “absolutely right”, or “I’ll think about it” types of answers from the O.P. I’m wondering whether there is a particular locale in mind, such as a place where you used to watch trains with your Dad. Places like that can have a powerful influence. For the passenger trains, do you want to see them flashing by at speed, or stopping at small towns along the way, or maybe a big passenger terminal? If the latter, will there be a place to service the passenger trains? How about freight yards or loco service facilities? Could it be a Union Terminal type of operation where trains of other railroads also appear? If you want particular trains (Broadway Ltd., Spirit of St. Louis, Red Arrow, etc.), that could dictate some of the answers. What terminal/towns/etc.? How important is the scenery? You mention passenger trains, but we don’t know what role, if any, freight trains will play. I haven’t actually offered a single thing here EXCEPT to suggest that you take a lot of factors into consideration. I do like the fact that you seem to have a fairly realistic understanding of the importance of broad radius curves for those big T1’s and 80 foot passenger cars.
