How long is your mainline, and how long is your railyard if you have one?
Mainline is approx. 60’ and the dimensions of the railyard is 4’ x 2’ not including Turntable or Roundhouse.
Fergie
I have roughly around 120 feet of mainline, my yard is 6 tracks deep, averageing 8 feet long.
For what I’m planning, I’m going to have about a 40’ loop layout, with about 10’ of staging, and 10’ or railyard, and only 20’ of mainline.
I can’t help but feel I’m robbing myself of more mainline, but with staging and a nice sided yard it just won’t all fit.
I’m considering ditching staging and just park all the trains in the yard. Not ideal but maybe with such a small layout that would be better.
I’m not sure what you are driving at with your question. Are you concerned about the proportion of space taken up by yard versus mainline as a matter of aesthetics?
To me, at least, it would be more useful to compare yard capacity to operations: number of industries, siding capacity, number of trains in operation at one time, etc.
Just a thought…
John Timm
My layout is going to be modern Conrail, NS, CSX in NScale.
Well I do want local switching, but I was thinking operations would mostly be classification of through freight and forwarding of intermodal, coal trains etc…
So now I’m thinking about ditching the staging and just having a yard and just have a train leave the yards A/D trakcs in one direction and loop around and magically be a different train. I know that isn’t ideal, but I don’t have much space to work with.
So I guess my question was just to get a feel for everyone elses setup, I’m new to model railroading, so I just wanted to see if most people are geared towards continious running, local switching or yard switching with their layouts.
I have a continuous loop, with a large freight yard in the middle and a staging type yard at the far end. Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t right, a continuous run is fine as long as you know what to do with it and not just let trains go round and round. If you are new, remember the most important thing is to spend a little and get the better quality stuff, as in not toy store train sets, so you don’t get discouraged with models that run terrible. Good luck with the layout and welcome to the hobby.
I think it’s a great question myself.
My next layout is in planning right now and I know I want a staging area in combination with a yard. I hope to use existing walls in my cellar. In the more protected room will be my staging area and also my work area for my trains. In the open bay area will be my main line with some sidings, but the main I hope to have is in a continous loop to entertain my Grand Son and to have some long frieghts working the room. Between the two of these will be one tunnel through the wall and maybe a return tunnel also. I’ve not worked that out yet.
Mine will be Conrail/CSX mostly with some BN/Santa Fe tossed in, this is all HO Scale.
I do not have an exact Ratio plan but I figure my staging area will be part of my old/current 4x8 layout with about a foot cut off to make it 3x8 and my current in my head design would be a loop with large radii turns at the ends, possibly built in modules of 4x4/ 2x8/2x8/4x4 foot sections.
I am planing to buld only a switching yard as do not have room for a long main line.( 30" x 96" ) This could be added into an other some time, but it will be fun tell that time.
Sandy-FA The Route of the Playtime Specials
[#welcome]
The best (short) advice I can give comes down to a lis of three.
- Start simple and plan to either scrap it and start over or expand from it. Use a starter just to get experience… and to have something to enjoy.
- READ, READ,READ,READ, READ READ, READ…then do a bit of reading. Also use the web to look at hundreds of pics to see how things look/go together.
- Paper plans are cheap. If you can work out a design and then think yourself through what you can do with it. It may sound daft but it really is worth drawing a plan out large and using blocks of wood to represent locos and cars to move around. We use this for training on the real railway - so it isn’t as daft as it sounds. If a paper plan is boring for what you can do with it you have saved yourself a whole pile of time, money and effort. Even if several plans come out “wrong” persist. You will start to see where to change things or come up with more questions to ask here.
Step 4 [8D] don’t be afraid to ask. We all started out not knowing…
and…have fun [:p]
Thanks for the advice, I’ve been reading up for almost 9 months now so I think I’m ready to make a small room layout.
I’ve got a Kato Unitrak setup right now to enjoy :).
I’m using Cadrail to design my layout, but I just can’t fit it all in.
Do you guys think a yard that acts as staging and an active rail yard is stupid?
What do you REALLY want to do? Maybe you don’t know yet (that would probably be best). There’s a really useful early stage of working out just exactly what it is we like about trains/RR/ models/ etc… for some of us this takes decades [}:)] Some of us spend years thinking it’s one thing then fall over our feet and find it’s really something else. At the start the thing to do is to take time. Also (as well advised above) go for the best quality you can. If you read and look at pics loads you will begin to see both the sort of image you like to see (whether it’s yards or plain track / trains rolling by) and ways of putting different elements together.
It sounds like you’re looking at an 8x4 [xx(] (some of us don’t like these[:0]). Some of the Kalmbach books on operation and layout plans would be a really good invetsment to develop your own ideas of different ways to go.
Have you thought of multi level? this doesn’t have to be complicated… just run your mains at a different level to your yard(s)… you can join them or not as you please.
have fun [:p]
My mainline run is about 35’ and the branch is about 17’. Don’t have a yard yet but I’m working on it.
I hate 8’x4’ with a passion :), I want to do an around the room shelf layout in a 12’ X 10’ room. I don’t want to do a helix or a nolix as I think it might be too much work, so I’ve settled on a single level.
At this point I think what I mostly will like is continious running and switching a yard, so maybe I just answered my own question :).
As for quality right now I’m sticking with Kato and Atlas, and was thinking about using Peco track work as it seems to be better for alittle more money.
Have a nice day [:p]
Thanks for your advice 
[:)][:)][:)]
My new layout has a folded loop for continuous running. It amounts to about 70 feet of main, much of it with wide curves so that my Niagara can do its Limited speeds. The yard has four tracks, two double-slips, a three-way, the TT and roundhouse. Total trackage in the yard will be 20 feet. Nearest the operator, and parallel to the closest to the arrival track is the passenger track with station, a modest 5 feet.
My mainline will be about 120 feet long, and I’ll have about a 10 foot yard.
Therefore, my ratio is 12:1