I am struggling with a layout I am trying to plan for a small room (6 1/2 x 11 1/2 feet).
Obviously there has to be a lot of selective compression when you are dealing with a layout room that size
My design goal is to end up with a layout that allows me to have a taste of two different types of railroading in a small urban interchange/terminal railroad in the American midwest ca 1962-63:
taking apart and building trains - ie yard work
picking up and setting out cars at industries - ie a local freight train
I have tentatively named my layout Minnesota Transfer Railway, which is the name of the prototype railroad that has inspired me, even though what I am building is not based on the prototype track plan.
I expect to run this layout alone or maybe together with one or both of my young kids (ages 5 and 8) - who just like to see trains move, they don’t want to switch or anything (yet). I plan to do one operation at a time, and not use a clock. No automation - just throw switches by hand. Magnetic couplers on the cars, using a handheld magnet tool to uncouple cars.
Obviously my trains will have to be fairly short in a small room like this - I am planning for a maximum train length of 146 centimeters (one diesel switcher, 8 40 foot cars and a caboose). If you want to, you can imagine that each car in my train really represents 4-5 cars - ie 30-40 car trains
I’ve gone through quite a few different layout plans - all of them basically shelf based around-the-room, but apart from that rather different (if you would like to see some of my old plans you can see them at the LDSIG wiki web page at http://tinyurl.com/2uaf7o).
Now to answer your question, I would do both. I would collapse some of the space in the center of the layout and put the staging in behind the layout with the most switching.
Sorry - I should have specified that. Yes, it is H0, and N is not in the cards for me. I do know I could have run quite a bit longer trains in N and fit more track in N, but it just seems too small for me somehow.
Plus I already have enough (well - or at least as many as I can somewhat sensibly use on a layout this size …) engines and cars in H0 - six short wheelbase switchers/road switchers from the right era (a couple of RS3s, an S1, an FM15-44, a GP9, and a GP30) and about 80 or so 40’ cars of various usable types for this kind of era - boxcars, tank cars, covered hoppers, a couple of flatcars etc.
I made a couple of layout proposals a while back tried to combine quite a bit of staging with a lot of switching.
Here is an early attempt, where I went somewhat wildhog with having fairly easy routes between all points on the layout :
Here is a cleaner, less busy variant - fewer tracks.
Main problem of using more of the center of the room is mainly one of access. If you want to put a couple of tracks of hidden staging behind a 4" high (or higher) scenic divider behind 40 centimeters (15") of shelf depth, access can get somewhat tricky.
What would you move inwards towards the center of the room to make room for extra staging ?
I would like to pop in without really taking the time to fully learn and think about all the conversation so far, but I am averse to the cassette idea relying on the door module being in place. That is, to me, a second order flexibility impediment since you must rely on another “implant” to take advantage of the cassette, already an implant…of sorts.
I promise to now learn what you are trying to do and come back with something more helpful.
Edit - Okay, I have read-in. Staging is really very important, but more-so in cramped quarters because you want to preserve as much free running and operating space on the layout without resorting to using any switching facilities, engine service tracks, or the odd siding/set-out as real storage. Keep the vistas, the structures, your operating stuff in the clear and appreciable. Reaching into a yard to manipulate items when you have to be careful of the rest of your 40 pieces of rolling stock and five locomotives will quickly get old. Also, as Chip describes in his nifty guide, to which I hope he will provide a link, staging allows you to simulate “everywhere else that you can’t model” that your railroad is serving in one way or another.
I happen to like your first second-version. Unless you already have a scenery or topographical plan for it, that lower right corner, outside the curved mains, could also afford you a small industry if you would like even more work.
I would not have concrete silos needing trains running through my yard in order to service it, as you have shown at upper right. Not saying there isn’t a protype…I’m saying I would not model it because you don’t have the space for a big yard anyway. Maybe the silos can go in that lower right corner I was mentioning?
Finally, and this is just me, I would not want to have to have the door span down in order to be able to use the tracks that lead off on the divergant at its left.&n
One way I’ve seen to handle staging tracks in a small room sized layout is to put the staging tracks along the walls behind a short backdrop that you can reach over to access the track. In your case, I would have anything more than two tracks. Make the staging track part of your mainline run. Your mainline will have to cross it self to get in and out of staging, but a simple crossing / junction will do the job nicely. Given that your modeling a terminal railroad, this single junction as the entrance to staging and the staging itself could simulate interchanges with the class 1 railroads.
Rather than reference your plan directly, I will describe a part of my operating scheme which relies on having LOTS of staging:
Short peddler freight arrives at its terminus, a town with only minimal local freight switching (sawmill-log yard, freight house, lightly-used interchange and minimal steam servicing facility.)
A few cars are switched into a cut which will shuffle off to Buffalo as part of the next through freight.
One or two cars will be spotted locally for loading or unloading (including cars interchanged.)
The rest of the cars will be cut into the local being assembled to run the next subdivision.
As you can see, only 10-20% of the cars from that local will actually be switched to spots. The rest are, “Just passing through.” Through freights are even more so - dropping only 25-30% of their cars for reclassification, of which 20% MIGHT end up at a local spot other than the interchange.
It only takes a few spots to keep a switching crew busy (trust me, I know!) Since you don’t have space to model the industrial sprawl of a prototype terminal district, but do want the classification/train building action of a yard, this is one way to get it. Exactly how much staging you want to use will be determined by your willingness to watch the same consist reappear shortly after it departs.
Another point, which Andy Sperandeo likes to make. Cars standing in a yard aren’t making money. The object is to get them rolling toward their destinations as quickly as possible.
I see your point. No, the piece in front of the door it doesn’t have to be a gate and it doesn’t have to be there all the time.
But it is not the cassette feeding off down to the right (ie counter-clockwise on the mainline) that is the primary factor in making that gate crossing be there in front of the door.
That is just incidental - a cassette (if I use that idea) can fairly easily be reoriented in any which way you like. The easiest way would be just slanting it slightly differently and laying the track off the layout into the cassette on the opposite (left) end of a cassette instead of the right end.
The main factors in me leaving that thing in front of the door is
Makes it possible to use the full mainline loop for one (or more) round around the layout to stretch out the length of a transfer run before it pops into staging
It makes it easier to switch along the lower wall - can use it as part of a runaround for engines that has left cars on the siding down along that wall
Is where pretty much any tracks along the right wall has to branch off from the main, unless I want to sneak them out through the yard area in the upper right part of the room
But it is an important reminder. I have started taking that thing in front of the door for granted, and I would like to not have the door blocked any more than necessary.
Not because I expect to be in and out a lot while running trains - and I do not plan on parking anything on the gate in front of the door - that is a
What good is more staging if you cannot move the trains on your availible trackage?
What good is too much industry when you can barely dig a car out of a sea of cars?
You have a continious run, that is good.
How about selecting three industries YOU KNOW that will take alot of different cars. Build a yard that will allow you to build one train worth of industry switching and maybe keep that cassette thing as a way to feed the railroad.
Im not ready to move further with this around the walls plan unless we explore that middle space, Im thinking a folded figure 8 with a stacked loop might do it for several industries around the place.
I agree. There is a train of thought (no pun intended) that many model RRs have too many industries that are too compressed, e.g. a bunch of warehouses but there’s only room for one car per warehouse.
On my shelf switcher, I have a transloading facility - takes tanks, covered hoppers and the occasional boxcar, just as a prototype near Lagrange, Illinois does. Another possibility is a paper mill - takes tanks, hi-cube boxcars, coal hoppers for the power plant, pulpwood flats and chip gondolas and the occasional gen purpose flat for machinery in or out.
For sake of ease in describing what I am thinking of, think of your plans as 1,2,3,&4 based upon the order they appear in the post.
With plan #2 as a basis, look at both the left and right and you see a foot of straight track on the sides. That is what I would remove. Then add the three track staging like appears in #4. Instead of hiding it with a backdrop, hide it with a hillside that angles above staging. You then access staging from underneath. You might want a slight grade to add clearance, but you shouldn’t need much.
It’s like we’re living in parallel universes ?. I have 7 x 11 feet of space to work with so I can run trains with my five year old. Ops is not as important as having fun. I plan on hand thrown turnouts and slowly over time add in DCC controlled Tortoises.
One of my many past plans was a loop, just like yours, but then I settled on a folded dog bone / “G” shaped layout.
I’ve laid ½ of my mainline (the left hand return loop) and am presently am enjoying my time staing at the plywood sheet with a cup of coffee and working out the details of my “yard”.
Not only am I also working with limited space, but I want to have a transfer track with my narrow gauge line.
It would be so easy to just have a stub end yard ?
Last year, my brother gave me some track to help me start my layout…30 year old track! It was “leftovers” from when we were kids. I don’t know why I took it or kept it at the time, but it has proved useful. I’m using it to lay out my yard (sans turnouts) with push pins to hold it in place.
If you don’t mind, I’d like t piggy back on your topic and post some of my own layout pictures and issues.
I’m sorry, but I don’t quite get what you are recommending. I do understand the point about a low backdrop so you can reach over.
But even though I read and speak English reasonably well (I think :-), English is not my native language, and I didn’t quite understand the “I would have anything more than two tracks” part or the part about the mainline crossing itself.
Could you rephrase it or explain a little more about what you meant ?
Yes, obviously there must be a reasonable balance between staging, track capacity and number of industrial car spots.
I haven’t calculated the track statistics using Joe Fugate’s track statistics measure yet. Probably should have. Seen them before ? Can be found at his Siskiyou web site:
Not quite sure what you mean by “folded figure 8 with a stacked loop”, but the room has to do double service as storage as well - I need to be able to get my tools and various stored objects from shelves under the layout. So I cannot fill in too much of the center of the room.
I tossed up some of that 30 year old code 100 track. Here is a rough look at the yards. It looks like it’s going to be the focus of the right side of the layout. That will leave me with the inside of the “loops” for industry.
Here is the upper side of my yard showing the ladder and the narrow gauge line. The white box in the middle represents the shared depot. To the right is the freight house / transfer shed.
Here is the lower side of the yard with the standard gauge turntable and single stall engine house plus the NG yard.
A look down the ladder. The rail on the left side is the main line loop.
I drew a quick sketch showing the mainline and staging tracks. You’ll have to fill in the industrial sidings and yards you desire. This concept gives you the possibility of longer trains and if you count the staging tracks, a much longer mainline. The cross-over simulates a junction to go into and out of staging. There is an “interchange track” to allow completely visible continuous running. The dotted line represents the short backdrop hiding the staging tracks.
