Help Indoor G Scale

[Anonymous]

Due to illness I had to take down my outdoor G scale layout. I am now considering seting up indoors. I thought I would use 5 sheets of 4 x 8 plywood to give me a 20 x 8 base. I guess i would have to use 2 ft radis turns. I need help on my track layout

[vsmith]

Hello Fickle welcome to the forum.

You in the same boat i am, planned an outside , now inside the garage. I can tell you right away that you will have to make you layout a little wider the R1 curves ar 4' diameter at their centerlines so a 4'6" width benchwork is minimum 5' is better. Also be very carefull about providing access to switches and other parts of the layout. My first preliminary plan I realized I couldnt reach some places and thath would create a problem if a derail or similar happened.

Some basic questions:

Where are you planning on location it? Spare room, garage. basement.

How big is the room?

Will it be accessable from one or two sides? IOW plywood up against the wall or free stainding in midle of room.

Up against the wall restrects your reach, and you should never build something you cannot reach. 3' width should be the max against a wall. In this case you can build a folded oval or dogbone layout with your curves in the corners and straight s along the narrower sections of the walls.

If freestanding then you can get access from either side and thats alot better.

Let us know aliitle more info, theres a lot of experinced people on these forums. and you can also learn a lot of good info about traditional indoor layouts on the Model Railroader forum. Like me you'll be straddling the fence with feet on two different gardens.

Good Luck, Vic.

[Grefflyn]

Dear Fickle
4 ft radius is min but it does somewhat limit what trains you can run. If you have the room get 8ft radius curves. Its easy on the math and I haven't heard of any trains
you cant run on it.
Have Fun

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Grefflyn

Dear Fickle
4 ft radius is min but it does somewhat limit what trains you can run. If you have the room get 8ft radius curves. Its easy on the math and I haven't heard of any trains
you cant run on it.
Have Fun

In principle I agree with you , wider is better, but in practice, indoors in a confined area, this just does not work unless your planning to build in a small warehouse ! [:0]

8' radius equals a 16' diameter curve. Thats a MIGHTY BIG chunk of real estate!
Dont forget the associated scenery area in front and behind the curve that gets taken up by that diameter. The minimum is 2' radius or R1 curves = 4' diameter, even 8' diameter R3 will take up a heck of a lot of room. 5' diameter R2 might be as large indoors you can get, practicly speaking.[sigh]

Speaking from my experience, Indoor layouts are more compact. They have to be otherwise you run out of space super fast. So we have reduce and refine the layout. I live with the fact that I will only run engines that work on the R1 curves, this isnt as issue for me as I'm never planning on trying to run a SD70 on my line. If you are planning on running some of these bigger engines then yes, you'll need 8' diameter but you will run out of space, very, very fast. [:(]

To Fickle:
Are you planning a free standing modular type setup with the boards end to end or side by side, or around the walls (basement?) type of arangement.

If you want, contact me via e-mail and I can send you a copy of my layout plan. That could at least give you some ideas of how to approach your layout, Later, Vic.[8D]

[Anonymous]

Hi Fickle,

There are meany alternatives when modeling large scale inside. vsmith has chosen small rolling stock others run European trains with 4 wheel wagons and still others have chosen to model on a narrower track gauge.

Using "O" scale mechanisms and wheel sets with "G" scale superstructures you can model a 30" gauge railroad in large scale.
Using "HO" etc. you can model a 15" tramway.
Using "S" etc. you can model a 2' gauge railway.

Click on my F.Y.I. links thread on this forum for more info.

OLD DAD