I am in that happy position of having a virgin cellar space in a new house, which can be dedicated solely to model trains. I am probably looking at a finished area of 12’ x 22’. I have not had a layout in several years due to a nomad life style. We are now in our last house! I have some odds and ends in HO and plan the layout to be HO with perhaps some N in the background for perspective.
Now I have several dilemmas about how to proceed.
SPACE: Do I frame a new room and have a walk around similar to, but obviously not nearly a large as, the Hoosac Valley spread of Dick Elwell or Bob Lawson’s Southern RY? (My preference) On the other hand, do I have a more ‘open’ layout like the Grosser’s Soo Line? I expect that I will go around the ‘room.’ as it allows me to have trains ‘disappear.’
LAYOUT: My intention is to create an operating CAD model of the entire layout. Which software should I use? I am leaning towards trainz or 3Planit and am trying the XTRKCAD demo. I am familiar with CAD as I designed this house. I think that it will be a point to point design with at least twice around with other stuff in between.
BENCHWORK: I would like the bench work to be flexible and am leaning towards the “Mianne Benchwork” or something similar; although the import costs may make it prohibitive.
STRUCTURE: Structure is still very much an open item and depends on the layout and number of levels; Styrofoam, wire mesh and cloth, etc.
CONTROL: Starting from scratch would indicate DCC but which one? So far, I like the Digitrax Super Empire Builder starter set or for wireless - NCE PHPro-R.
TRACK: I will use mostly flextrack with cork roadbed and aiming for a minimum radius of 24 / 30". I have no preference yet for switches and that will probably be dictated by the final layout. I would expect to hav
I am not even going to try and answer all of this. Let us start from Square one:
Plan you work, 3rd planet is the on eI used and would use again. I would use DCC for sure and you will want sound.
The other items are what do you want in the railroad. Do you like STeam, Diesel a Little of both? Want long main lines or a lot of switching. With your space you could have it all if you take your time to plan it. The folks on this forum can help when you get lost but can not tell you what you want. I would start with a perfect space plan with everything where it is in real life including elevations of pipes, beams, duct work. Then just do some sketches in that space to see what you like. I cheated and found a plan in a 1977 MRR and changed it to fit.
It sounds like you will be operating a fairly large layout by yourself, mostly. My layout is much smaller (5x12 feet) but I planned it with 2 continuous-running loops, allowing me to operate switching operations “between the trains” and get a lot more action than I possibly could with a switching layout or point-to-point alone.
Your space can accomodate a very good-sized U-shaped layout, with large turning loops on either end, or, with the addition of a removeable/swing-out/drop-down bridge, a complete circular layout. You can also add “peninsulas” to the basic shape, jutting out into the aisle a bit to give more space and longer runs. Don’t short-change your aisle space, though.
The “standard” reach distance is 2 1/2 feet (30 inches) for both building and operating a layout. It’s a real number.
One thing you might consider is a peninsula with a view-block down the center. This gives you the opportunity to model two very different scenes in close proximity.
I used Atlas RTS to design my layout. Since the computer disk crashed, I have been working with XtrakCad since then. They’re both free, and both do a reasonable job.
I would always vote for around the walls rather than walk around. The focus is the trains… a walk around puts you in the prime real estate and the train routes become shorter.
I have used XtrkCad for years and swear by it. You do not need to buy something, and even though you know CAD, Xtrk is designed for train layouts and includes all the track modules for wonderful precision. I think this is the most crucial part of having an enjoyable, derailment free layout.
Again, just my opinion, but I feel that we model railroaders way overdo it when it comes to benchwork. Chunks of plywood with 1X4 supports and 2X2 legs is easy, and more than enough.
I’m building a 14’x23’ HO layout using any spare timber I can lay my hands on and some new and I am no handyman, but I get by. As I’m 61 and not getting any younger I put in a hinge section, which is working really well.
This is my first layout and my last, which I will add to later. I can walk around it inside and out.
I will be using a reverse home made periscope,so I can look at the layout as if I was one of the little figures. It just gives another perspective.
I first bought 2 Proto 2000 engines 2nd hand [ they run beautifully ] They are fairly large diesels so they require medium size radaii or larger. In hindsight I wish they were smaller engines then I could have done tighter radaii. I will see if I can find the plan, which I got from the Model Railroader for you to have a look at.
God bless you have a merry Christmas and a prosperous new year
I’m building a 14’x23’ HO layout using any spare timber I can lay my hands on and some new and I am no handyman, but I get by. As I’m 61 and not getting any younger I put in a hinge section, which is working really well.
This is my first layout and my last, which I will add to later. I can walk around it inside and out.
I will be using a reverse home made periscope,so I can look at the layout as if I was one of the little figures. It just gives another perspective.
I first bought 2 Proto 2000 engines 2nd hand [ they run beautifully ] They are fairly large diesels so they require medium size radaii or larger. In hindsight I wish they were smaller engines then I could have done tighter radaii. I will see if I can find the plan, which I got from the Model Railroader for you to have a look at.
God bless you have a merry Christmas and a prosperous new year, Alan.
The biggest mistake I made was not planning everything from the start. My last layout was a disaster from the start. I ended up hating it. Fortunately enough, I didn’t get further than just trackwork. The room I started with wasn’t the greatest for a layout for a person 6’ tall
With the current layout, I’ve been studying books, videos, magazines & peoples suggestions.
Plan for DCC but start off with DC.
Go with the “Good Enough” philosophy. Allen McClellend uses it, why can’t the rest of us?
Read & Study what you can before sawing any wood for benchwork. Get an idea of what you want to do. Do you want prototypical, freelance or protolance?
Do you want flat lands or mountain terrain? Plan plan plan plan plan!!!
While in the process of building the layout, go in stages. Build some benchwork, lay some track & get trains going back & forth, test your track laying skills as you go. It’s helping me doing it this way.
Stop on by someday, I’m in Whitby. Leave me a note
If you haven’t seen it yet, the “2008 Great Model Railroads” has an 8-page article, “Take a turn around the Southern” by Robert Lawson, that does a marvelous rendering of N Scale as forced-perspective in the middle of an HO Scale layout. In fact, this GMR is one of the best in years with many of useful forced-perspective techniques.
For what it is worth, you are already doing a lot of what is right, by opening yourself to all the possibilities, as you whittle things down to doable Givens & Druthers. The process you are using entails common sense. Keep it up!
You will come to realize that using a much larger radius was a very good choice. With all that space why limit your possibilities on the equipment you could run down the road. Once sceniced, the larger turns look so much more realistic.
This is true. With this kind of space I would never go under 36 inches. That will let you run anything in the future and it will look better doing it. 24" will give you problems with passenger equipment and a lot of larger engines will look bad even if they do make it.
Thank you all for your responses; I have made a few decisions, some based on your ideas and some of which I had pretty well decided and was waiting to see if you had any huge negative comments.
SPACE: I will frame a new room and layout around the room or at least three sides but leaving a ‘duck under’or ‘lift out’ section as an option by the door.
LAYOUT: Looks as if it will be XTRKCAD as it seems capable enough for my needs. Am pretty well convinced that the point to point will work for me. The 30" constraint will be a given.
Layout will probably have an “S” shaped aisle. I will start by getting the track laid for the circuit and then fill in the “features;” yard, industries, etc.
BENCHWORK: I plan on a custom modular design with 2 x 2 vertical and 1 x 3 horizontal. A local cabinet maker, who has done some work for us, can set it up as a production run if I give him the specs.
STRUCTURE: Structure is still very much an open item and depends on the layout and number of levels; Styrofoam, wire mesh and cloth, etc. I like the idea of the view block down a peninsular but have not seem many that I like.
CONTROL: Definitely DCC and most likely the NCE PHPro-R.
TRACK: I will plan for a minimum radius of 30" (" bogp40") / 36" (" lillen") - mainline will be 36" - and use code 83 flextrack with cork roadbed. Jack: Thanks for the advice about the Tortoise switches. I will certainly do some more research.
SOUND: Maybe something got lost in translation. ;-> was meant as humorous. I wrote the message offline so I guess that I should have added a real smilie - [;)] - Yes, sound will be important at the locomotive level but I will also find a way of tying in background sound into the room through the Bose 5:1 system in the house.
