All right I need some help with a layout. It's my first one and I'm not really sure where to start. I have a space lof about 12X17 but With a tunnel I have access to another room that would total to about 12X29. I'm not really sure where to set it, I would really like to put it on the Eire Lackawanna any where between the 1930s and mid 1960s, bur I am having a really hard time finding prototype information. Another option would be a present day norfolk southern line. Yet another would be to freelance the eastern carolina mountains. So where do I start??
Welcome to the forum. You have a nice space. There are so many things you could do. Start by picking a scale. Then do some reading. Some of the planning books are helpful. The ballance between track, buildings, mountains, yards etc needs to be determined. You can have a lot but not everything. Then determine the table style. Then draw some track plans. In the mean time build some buildings and rolling stock to see what you like doing. You will get a lot of advice. You do get to make your own choices.
I don't know your age or skill level, but you have a HUGE space compared to most. A layout THAT size could be complicated and frustrating for a newer modeler. (you did say it's your first) Look before you leap and know what your going to be landing in! A nice layout can set you back around $100/sq. ft. with all the bells and whistles. Make sure you and your wallet are up to the task.
A good place to start is my "Beginner's Guide to Layout Design." Click from my signature. It will take you about 5 minutes to read and might start you asking yourself the right questions.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
"Track Planning for Realistic Operation" by John Armstrong is a great book to have in your collection. My suggestion is to read it twice. The second time through, it comes together. This book is a study of how real railroads do things, and how your track plan can model these operations in a smaller space.
Think about the industries which you'd like to model, and the era when they were appropriate. Coal was, and still is, a big-time railroad cargo. Livestock transportation has largely disapppeared today, and this was primarily done west of the Mississippi. Container traffic is a modern thing.
I was firmly set in the 1960's, but then I fell in love with steam engines, and my layout is now dual-era. I can change between the 60's and 30's by swapping out the trains, automobiles and, in the future, a few buildings. With a bit of planning, you don't have to lock yourself into much with this hobby.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I know I intend on useing HO scale and as I said there are three different areas I would like to model.
The thing I need help with is finding prototype information. Then actually designing the railroad.
Have you tried google? Have you tried the prototype forum here, or the trains forum here?
http://www.erielackhs.org/
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Until 1960, the Erie and the Lackawanna (DL&W) were separate railroads. They merged on October 17, 1960.
Yes, Yes and Yes. The info that I am looking for may not even exsist such as what locomotives were used and what the scenerie was like, not to mention it is nealy impossible to find a DETAILED map of the erielackawanna.
http://www.erielackhs.org/Lackawanna/LackawannaSmallMap.html
http://www.erielackhs.org/Lackawanna/LackawannaPrototypeInfo.html
http://www.erielackhs.org/Erie/ErieSmallMap.html
http://www.erielackhs.org/Erie/EriePrototypeInfo.html
You have a massive amount of space to work with.
Dont run out to the hobby shop and start buying stuff just yet. I spent years buying rolling stock and engines until light came on and I started to focus.
Start in one corner. then a wall. Dont put anything down until you have tried it and like it. I used Kato track. A bit pricey but it allowed me to take my small railroad through 8 generations of change until I got it settled to point of scenery work.
Plan your expenses in a cascading fashion. For example I have a Scenic foam on order this month, some DCC items the same month and wood peices to finish the front of the layout. That is enough to keep me busy all Janurary. While Im doing this Im already thinking what I know I will need by Feburary.
Last year my list was simple. Wads of money buying trains at impulse. OOh, ahh. recent new release announcments were particularly expensive becuase they FINALLY released stuff I wanted for 30 years. Ugh.
Never pay full retail on sight. If a choo choo arrives at 500 dollars, wait 6 months and get it on hobby shop discount or on ebay. A year or two from now it will either settle to a 200 'is dollar value if it is a good engine or fall down into the 30 dollar range if it is a junker engine or very old run. (Cracked gears etc)
Hobby Shop may offer you a Layaway policy for pricey items. Try to put some money down and have the rest ready when the item comes in. Dont rely on Layaway too much.
You are already displaying a strong preference for your railroad. It is a fine railroad and you model it the way YOU think it should be modeled. Select only small LDE type sections that you know you WANT and keep an eye on oppertunities to take care of a few extras.
Extend into the new space AFTER you know what exactly you are going to do. For example I have plans to run through a wall into the next room for a future town site and yards. The problem is the Vice President of Housing Operations aka the Wife. If I do this... there is much.... what is the word... preparations to be done and honey do's to be done to make spouse happy first.
With that in mind, plop track down and run a train in a loop. That will probably help you understand what can be done or not. I did a 31 inch loop on the floor a year and two months ago and a 20 car train. I discovered a slant in the floor due to a leaning house and that helped me plan my benchwork so that all spotted rolling stock stay where they are at the dock.
Good luck! It is a journey not a race.
As usual lots of great input from fellow modelers,I especially liked Loathers take on the cost; 100.00 a square ft. ,I'd never would of thought of that ! I best not do any figuring on my project. Getting back to the subject, I suggest easing into the project, as You do more research, You may change Your mind on what is preferred. Best of luck...
You would be giving a completely new meaning to the term "freelance" if you attempted the building of a railroad thru those imposing "eastern carolina mountains".<Sorry! Couldn't resist.>
I will ditto loather's comments: your 12X17 is probably a managable portion while that additional 12X12 space could prove just a little bit too big a bite for your first modeling effort. These two rooms--the 12X17 and the 12X12--are ideal sizes for layouts and I would try to design a layout that would allow for easy expansion into the other area. The hobby press has published numerous articles on this very subject: a design that allows for future expansion. A smaller layout will give you experience in honing all of the skills necessary to a successful model railroad. I know a number of people--by a quirk I ran into one just a couple of months back--who bit off a health morsel of railroad and gagged their way right out of the hobby.
I am a freelancer; my railroad is--will be would be a more adequate description--set on the west slope of the Appalachians in West "by god" Virginia. Depending on whether or not I decide to knock out a wall and collect two rooms into one I will have between 300 and 400 square feet of layout space available which should render me somewhere between 200 and 250 square feet of actual layout surface. This is more than I have ever had available before. I am somewhat of a dreamer--my first wife always said I ran around perpetually with my head in a cloud--and over the years I have dreamt of completely impractical layout spaces; at least impractical from the standpoint of one man construction and one man operation. My new layout, when it gets built, will most likely be my last. I frequently borrow ideas from other layouts for incorporation into these fantasy layouts.
In coming up with a practical plan for your future layout you want to be on the lookout for features which look interesting as far as scenery or operation. Almost all plans are practical for a given prototype; perhaps the most dynamic scenery in the east is the C&O running through the New River Gorge and there have been track plans with this theme but in the interest of fidelity I would hardly advocate that you run your E-L through New River Gorge scenery. The hobby press periodicals have published numerous plans over the years for either Erie or Erie-Lackawanna centered layouts--there have also been a number of eerie layouts published over the years--but finding them could be a little difficult unless you have access to a back-issues collection.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
Don't build more than you can maintain. Remember that track will move, electrical connections will fain, wheels will get dirty, the whole layout will gather dust -- and if you put off housekeeping, you will grow tired of a railroad that does not run smoothly. I am retired, have lots of free time, and my 10x12 layout is about all I want to take care of by myself.
Appalachaingreenbelt, welcome to the site and the hobby. You have been given some good advices. I have been in the hobby for a little over 3 years and have made ever mistake there is to be made. Here are some of the ones that I truly regret.
1 If bench is against a wall, do not make it wider than 3 foot! Mine is 4 foot and is a pain in the caboose to work on.
2 Don't use 2 X 4 lumber, there is no such thing as a straight 2 X 4. Good bench work is a big part of the puzzle and more than you may think. A level bench with no bumps in the wood working will help stop derailment problems before they happen and trains will pull more. In my case, my trains is in the garage, bench is 38 inch tall, so it should be level right? It's not, turns out the garage floor had it's on grade to drain water out, so my bench now all so has a unwanted grade.
3 Make sure you have the needed tools to cut, lay track, measure the gage of wheels and coupler height. It is a lot harder to pull a 25 car train than a 5 car train.
4 Stay away from old TYCO, Bachmann and Life Like (Life Like Proto stuff is great) you may see on E-Bay unless you like to fiddle with stuff to make it work. I bought a lot of the cheap stuff and caused a great amount of my early problems. But, for me in the long run it helped, I had to learn how to fix stuff and did enjoy it. Now when when my better stuff has a problem I can fix it. But, at one point it all most drove me out of the hobby.
5 Bigger the radius of the turns the better off you will be. I wont say you cannot run bigger engines on 18 inch turns like some will, I have ran some every big engines with no problems. But after a while they will start to look goofy to you like they did to me.
This not a hard hobby, but is sure does have a learning curve to it. That is why folks here recommend to start with a small bench at first.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
quick question is it better to lay a piece of plywood across the hole bench work or just put it where track will be and the use another medium for the scenery. (I have seen both, some have a combination)
I have used plywood for support then added 2 inch foam insulation board on top. It is easy to carve to add some depth to the layout. All so can be used for hills that can be removed if there is a problem in say in a tunnel.
More or less its what ever works for you, right?
Right. Take the time to think it through. In other words, plan ahead.
I opted to place doors that are absolutely weathered over the dozens of years since the house was built. They have been inside, outside 0 or 150 degrees they dont warp. However they are dirty. So 1/4 inch birch with enough counter sink number 8 wood screws until I sleep at night dreaming about wood screws. Then 1/4 inch foam to 1/2 inch foam as necessary under the buildings. I used modulars to build the industry area and the 1/4 matched the dock height with the Kato track "Good enough" and the half inchers allowed me to drive high cubes into the inside loading bays if necessary.
What happened was the corners went up first, then the doors then leveled then the birch and finally the foam is spreading like some sort of ice age coming across the layout. Little by little by little.
At some point in the future the hills, trees and background will go up but NOT before the entire DCC/Electrical, Track joint connections are all proven and tight for at least 6 months. I run trains each week for several hours and pull maintance before and after each session.
I may or may not be the worst or best out there, but what I see in that room is small amounts of progress followed by much "Bed time thinking" or "Arm chair" thinking before I do the next item.
If you put something onto that layout table, let it sit a few weeks. Eventually you will LOVE it or find something picky picky and readjust that something somewhere else or find/LEARN a new way to solve whatever it is that is bothering you about that spot.
I considered tearing down a industry building because there was just no credible room for tractor trailers to reach the dock. I thought about it and one day I turned it around. BINGO. Problem solved and gained a crane track to boot. I almost tore it down and threw it away if it was not for slow, easy does it and take your time to think about it for a while.
It took me 35 years to stop dreaming and lusting after the large mega layouts in the magazines (Dont start... hehe.) and just do what I can do with the managable space I do have.
If you are married with a spouse, remember to take care of the spouse first. Look at her like you love to take care of her, dont let her see you looking at that shiney choo choo that just arrived the same way LOL.
I consider myself a newbie, I started in1983 with a Soo Line HO set my wife gave to me and my two daughters for Christmas. I built a couple 4' x 8' layouts and I was in a moduler club for a few years. In 1992 I started a fun pike using my module for a base. The layout sat dormant from 1997 until September of 2008, coinciding from the time my children lost interest to the time my grandson discovered the remains of the layout under a pile of Model "A" Ford parts in the "Train Room" in my basement.
My advice? You may make a few mistakes, (I recently constructed a place on my layout called "Errors Rock" a pun on the Australian landmark, a pun on my propensity to make mistakes on my layout and a celebration of the fact that there is no such thing as errors in model railroading). For example, my close friend, (and the father of my daughter's husband) and I were having coffee in the "Train Room" and contemplating the next steps necessary to proceed with the layout - when suddenly, we notice that a portion of a "mountain" did not look like a mountain should look. I picked up a small saw and with a few strokes cut down the offending portion, trees and all, and re-constructed the mountain peak in a flurry of fun lasting several days.
My point? It is FUN to mess with trains & layouts. Appropriate planning is extremely important, however, if you bump into "Error's Rock" don't worry, the whole experience is designed to create frustration, improvisation, and pleasure. Also, it appears to me you have come to the right place for advice, ( this forum). I have spent the past few months "lurking and learning" and my layout has benefited significantly.
Enjoy!
I have an idea of what sthe benchwork should be like I intend on useing HO scale, but how do you determine how the actual track should be laid.
Where do I start?
The book Basic Trackwork For Model Railroaders should answer your questions and more. As for for era, Norfolk Southern would be nice, you can tell because of my Youtube account! Anyway, I suggest, if your modeling freelance in North Carolina, you could go with my roadname, Henderson Valley Lines, this means you could use an Erie Lackawanna SD45, lashed up with a Norfolk Southern GP40-2 you borrowed from them, not to mention you could buy any engine in the US and use it on your layout, fallen flags or anything else. If you want to include Norfolk Southern, try an interchange. You could have a brand new ES40DC if they even make them yet, I can almost bet you Tower 55 makes them. Forgot to mention, Henderson Valley Lines is a shortline that I thought of. Onto layout size. If this is your first layout, DON'T build to big of a layout, me, I'm building a 5x10 layout, HO scale of course. If your modeling modern era, I would go with a size like this, so you could have a large radius curve for Big GEs and auto-racks. If you need any more info, just send me a PM. This is all coming from a 6th grader. FYI.