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track plan critique
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<p>Lee,</p><p>I am the same age and, as I said, I am working with the same amount of space. My 8' x 20' space is actually in a room of that size so I knew my exact boundries starting out. I took about a year to design what I wanted before I ever cut a board.</p><p>Some of the considerations I went through:</p><ul><li>I may move. Even though I own the house and it is where I plan to retire, things do happen. Therefore I made sure my layout was moveable. That is NOT the same as modular but many of the same principles apply. The layout could be broken down into 8 foot by 24 inch wide sections and loaded onto a truck for transport.<br /></li><li>The 24 inch width was determined by a number of factors. </li><ol><li>Reach/accessibility.</li><li>Two pieces from a 4'x8' sheet of plywood.</li><li>If moved would go through a doorway without tipping.</li><li>Gave me a nice wide aisle and working space in the middle of the room.<br /></li></ol><li> I am a good carpenter with years of experience and I have had a reasonable amount of previous model RR experience so I gave serious thought to a multi-level layout. I decided against a multi-level layout because:</li><ol><li>Complexity of framing. I just had other things I wanted to do.</li><li>Ability to move the layout without significant and major surgery.</li><li>Visual effect. The lower deck of a multi-level layout has a hard time looking like wide open spaces and big background mountains.</li><li>Reach/accessibility.</li><li>Visual effect. One deck always has to be higher or lower than the optimum height.</li><li>Amount of layout. Double deck effectively doubles the amount of layout available. This can be good but it also means that the layout will cost more and take more time to finish.<br /></li></ol><li> The height of my layout is essentially 51 inches at the zero elevation point. I chose this number because:</li><ol><li>It is high enough to provide a side-on view of the layout instead of the (in my opinion) toy train helicopter view.</li><li>It is 3 inches below my armpit so I can generally reach-in without knocking over rolling stock.</li><li>I can easily duck-under the area spaning the doorway (51.5 inch actual clearance at that point).<br /></li></ol><li> I was able to satisfy my "druthers" with these limitations. My druthers are:</li><ol><li>Continuous running for display, family, and grandkids via two separate "loops" around the room - one mainline, one branchline.</li><li>Visible staging. One long wall is essentially a staging yard without scenery (that may change). The other three sides have full scenery.</li><li>Lots of switching and operating capability. The staging area is designed to operate as a division point yard. Mainline brings in cars which are switched and arranged for a branchline pickup and delivery to a minimum of 10 different industries.</li><li>Include a sub-branch section for logging operations with its own local switching operations besides transfers.</li></ol></ul><p> As I said, it took me a year to come up with a plan I liked but so far I think I will be satisfied with the result (still under construction).</p><p>My most important suggestion, if you have not heard/done this already, is to study Armstrong's <em>Track Planning for Realistic Operations</em>. The information in this book will keep you out of a lot of trouble.</p><p>Good luck,<br />-John</p><p> </p>
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