Hello all. I am brand new to the forums here and this is my first post! My wife and I recently purchased our first home. It has a basement and I have laid claim to my "man room." It is a 13.8 x 14.7 x 9.4 room complete with a 10ftx3ft workbench. My useable space I have figured on for a layout is roughly 9.4ft x 9.4ft x 7ft x 5ft x 4ft. If you can picture it, it is a square minus one corner that is replaced by a diagonal. Anyway, I'm just trying to brainstorm ideas for a layout. I know it is small, but I'd like something that has some switching ops, maybe a yard and some mainline runs that I can run some pax trains on. Thanks for any advice and I am sure I'll be posting again as I progress.
Hello, and welcome! You might want to read and think on many of the points in this thread, now on page 2 of the General Discussion sub-forum. There are a lot of hard-earned lessons here
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/158691.aspx
-Crandell
HOn21/2. Do this before putting the platform (plywood, etc) on the layout. Do all of your electrical (Lights, outlets, etc.) before starting the framework.
Egad. Does the world need another table top layout?
Hi
welcome,
It is hard to picture, on someone's elses thread we needed 30 postings before a nice drawinging of the room appeared. It is worth the effort. RTS a drawing program of Atlas is a free download. We will help you getting it on this forum.
You do not have a small space at all, and you didn't mention if you are a N-scaler or doing HO or S; it is making some difference. You will notice that a good plan depends on in the input you are giving.
JeremyDavisbut I'd like something that has some switching ops, maybe a yard and some mainline runs that I can run some pax trains on
Your basic idea's are sound; but can be done in a 100 ways in your space, only not every way is sensible. Planning takes time, don't rush to the store now.
BTW do you know what staging is?
Read a lot; trackplanning for realistic operation by John Armstrong is still a must and try to buy Model Railroad Planning by Tony Koester. Makes taking about idea's much more dedicated.
Search the internet: Spacemouce , Byron Henderson (Cuyama) and LDSIG have nice intro's for first timers. If you can't find them, ask; links are easy made.
Have fun (most important) and good luck
Paul
I agree with those who say take your time and do a lot of reading. "Dream-Plan-Build" is a philosophy you may hear. I'll restate it: "Dream, Dream, Dream -- Plan, Plan, Plan, Toss Out, Replan, Replan, Replan, Revise, Revise, Revise -- Build"
I'm being a little silly, perhaps, but you get the gist of it. You have a perfect opportunity to get your dream layout up and running -- don't ruin it by being in too much of a hurry. Personally, I think experimenting with track plans is a lot of fun, no matter what. You can use pencil and paper, with or without templates, get a free track planning program (although I'd advise against one that is tied to a particular manufacturer's products), or invest in a commercial product (CAD or otherwise). For me, a $50-$100 investment in software which allows you to design and operate a virtual layout is money well spent. My personal favorite is Anyrail for layout design and Trainplayer for operating, but there are many other options. A quick search of these forums will provide many ideas.
In addition to doing some reading, if you have the opportunity to visit a local club, or even a friend's layout where you can actually operate trains, this may help solidify your ideas for what you like to do. I've found, over the years, that I'm not satisfied without a continuous running option, no matter how impressive the switching operations are. That's practically heretical to some people on these boards, but only you can say what works for you.
But whatever you do, welcome to the hobby, and have fun!
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
markpierceEgad. Does the world need another table top layout?
Absolutely not, and there's no reason this layout needs to be one.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I downloaded the program from atlas but I am having trouble figuring out how to work it. I also cant figure out how to freehand my benchwork. The stock choices are not what I have in mind so I want to make my own. Anyone know exactly how to do that? Thanks for the help.
PS - I am doing HO scale.
JeremyDavisThanks for all the suggestions. I downloaded the program from atlas but I am having trouble figuring out how to work it. I also cant figure out how to freehand my benchwork. The stock choices are not what I have in mind so I want to make my own. Anyone know exactly how to do that? Thanks for the help.
Bad start. For two reasons:
1) Atlas RTS is made for selling Atlas track. It is tied to one manufacturer - exactly what you were cautioned against earlier in the thread.
2) First step is not to get a CAD program. First step is figuring out what you want from your layout - ie what your vision or goal is.
CAD programs allow you to draw things accurately (so you don't e.g draw turnouts branching off way too sharp for what is possible to do on the layout).
The program does not help you design a layout - the design has to come from the user. Which means that the user first has to learn how to do layout design.
I'd advise you to put the program away (for now) - and instead spending some time thinking about why you want layout and what you want on your layout.
Your original question was:
JeremyDavis I'm just trying to brainstorm ideas for a layout. I know it is small, but I'd like something that has some switching ops, maybe a yard and some mainline runs that I can run some pax trains on.
I'm just trying to brainstorm ideas for a layout. I know it is small, but I'd like something that has some switching ops, maybe a yard and some mainline runs that I can run some pax trains on.
Here is some standard advice I often post in this situation:
steinjrFWIW, here is my approach to this. You need to ask yourself three questions, and the first two questions should not be skipped:1) Why do I want to build a model railroad ? A surprisingly large number of people fail to consider why they want a layout, or just go "because it is cool, duh!" and leave it at that. Don't skip this step. No one but you can define why you want a layout and what you expect/hope to get from your layout. Think about what you hope to get from your layout, and write it down. For three reasons: a) there is no "one size fits all" when it comes to how to design two layouts for two widely different purposes. A layout designed to support you playing dispatcher at a CTC will often be quite different from a layout built mainly to give you a place to show off and take pictures of your detailed model trains, or a layout which can run in continuous display with various animated effects to entertain young grandchildren, or a layout built to allow you to do a lot of yard switching, Some people like to build, and tear down their layout and start over again pretty much right away after they finish building their railroad. Some people feel that the building part is a necessary evil they have to go through to get to the fun part of running trains, and want to keep it as simple as possible.b) if you can't explain even to yourself why you want a layout, it may not be the smartest thing to commit to spending quite a bit of money and quite a bit of time on building a layout until you have figured out why you want a layout, and c) Once in a while when you are working on your model railroad you can do a reality check - are you getting what you wanted from what you are doing? If not, it is probably a good time to change either your goal or your approach :-) 2) What would I like to model ? Two subphases: a) Identify a theme, era and location that inspires you b) Find scenes that inspire you Different people like different things. Tastes are different. No one but you can define what you want on your layout. But if you start out with era, location and theme, you are well on your way. An 1890s narrow gauge logging line in the west is pretty different in character compared to switching in Brooklyn in 1942, which is pretty different to having Budd RDCs carrying passengers to a remote settlement in the arctic north of Canada, which is pretty different from a helper base in West Virginia in the 1950s, which is pretty different from a modern 110 car coal unit trains departing from the Powder River basin in a steady stream of traffic, which is pretty different from a Harry Potter layout, which is pretty different from a Thomas The Tank train layout and so on and so forth. Once you have a theme, an era and a place in mind, it is time to go look for "scenes" from that time and place that fits your desired theme. Tony Koester came up with a smart layout design concept in an early issue of Model Railroad Planning (an annual from the same people who publish Model Railroader Magazine): the Layout Design Element (LDE). An LDE is a small model railroad scene that is based on modelling a smallish part of a real railroad somewhere and sometime. Inspired e.g. by a photo that grabbed your attention or a place you have lived, or visited or read about or whatever. By breaking layout design into first designing a small number of scenes you want to model, and then afterwards figuring out how to string your scenes together in the space you have available, the design job gets less overwhelming. By "small" I mean something on the order of 3 or fewer LDEs for a H0 scale bedroom sized (10x12 foot) layout, and typically fewer than 10 LDEs for a H0 scale basement size layout, even though you obviously can squeeze in more scenes by making each scene smaller, running shorter trains, having more viewblocks that prevent visual interference between scenes etc. To find LDE candidates, you look at pictures - both pictures of your prototype railroad/area/era, and pictures of other layouts that inspire you. If you have a location and a theme in mind, it will be easier to figure out what kind of LDEs to look for and where to look. Let's work some more on theme and selecting some scenes you would want to include on your layout: Some things to think about: Location(s): - Urban, small town or rural area? - Farming communities or industries ? - Mountains/Hills? Forests? Riverfront ? - mainline or branch line ? - RR junction, "on the line" or "end of line" ? Traffic/Operations: - Express streamlined "named" passenger trains stopping at the Union Station ? - Long through freight trains passing through, possibly dropping off blocks for a local switcher ? - Local switching - one car at a time for various small local dealers ? - Big local industries needing lots of in plant switching ? - Lucius Beebe's "Mixed Train Daily" serving sleeping branch line ? Have you had a quick google for sources about "your" railroad to see if you can spot interesting themes or locations ? 3) How do I fit what I want into the space I have ? This is where advice from more experienced layout designers can help you see solutions you maybe hasn't thought of yourself. There are quite a few tricks and tips on fitting in layouts in rooms in various ways. But the time to worry about the how to model (and to make the decisions on what comprimises you need to make to make things fit the space) is after finding out why you want a layout and what you want to model. Think a bit about the why and what, write it down and go through it a few more times on your own. For some more questions you might want to ask yourself about the why and what, have a look at these web pages which contain more questions you might want to ask yourself in order to narrow down some more what you want:Byron Henderson's checklist for potensial customers: http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id13.htmlLayout Design SIG primer: http://macrodyn.com/ldsig/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Primer
FWIW, here is my approach to this.
You need to ask yourself three questions, and the first two questions should not be skipped:
1) Why do I want to build a model railroad ?
A surprisingly large number of people fail to consider why they want a layout, or just go "because it is cool, duh!" and leave it at that.
Don't skip this step.
No one but you can define why you want a layout and what you expect/hope to get from your layout.
Think about what you hope to get from your layout, and write it down.
For three reasons:
a) there is no "one size fits all" when it comes to how to design two layouts for two widely different purposes.
A layout designed to support you playing dispatcher at a CTC will often be quite different from a layout built mainly to give you a place to show off and take pictures of your detailed model trains, or a layout which can run in continuous display with various animated effects to entertain young grandchildren, or a layout built to allow you to do a lot of yard switching,
Some people like to build, and tear down their layout and start over again pretty much right away after they finish building their railroad. Some people feel that the building part is a necessary evil they have to go through to get to the fun part of running trains, and want to keep it as simple as possible.
b) if you can't explain even to yourself why you want a layout, it may not be the smartest thing to commit to spending quite a bit of money and quite a bit of time on building a layout until you have figured out why you want a layout, and
c) Once in a while when you are working on your model railroad you can do a reality check - are you getting what you wanted from what you are doing? If not, it is probably a good time to change either your goal or your approach :-)
2) What would I like to model ?
Two subphases:
a) Identify a theme, era and location that inspires you
b) Find scenes that inspire you
Different people like different things. Tastes are different. No one but you can define what you want on your layout.
But if you start out with era, location and theme, you are well on your way.
An 1890s narrow gauge logging line in the west is pretty different in character compared to switching in Brooklyn in 1942, which is pretty different to having Budd RDCs carrying passengers to a remote settlement in the arctic north of Canada, which is pretty different from a helper base in West Virginia in the 1950s, which is pretty different from a modern 110 car coal unit trains departing from the Powder River basin in a steady stream of traffic, which is pretty different from a Harry Potter layout, which is pretty different from a Thomas The Tank train layout and so on and so forth.
Tony Koester came up with a smart layout design concept in an early issue of Model Railroad Planning (an annual from the same people who publish Model Railroader Magazine): the Layout Design Element (LDE).
An LDE is a small model railroad scene that is based on modelling a smallish part of a real railroad somewhere and sometime. Inspired e.g. by a photo that grabbed your attention or a place you have lived, or visited or read about or whatever.
By breaking layout design into first designing a small number of scenes you want to model, and then afterwards figuring out how to string your scenes together in the space you have available, the design job gets less overwhelming.
By "small" I mean something on the order of 3 or fewer LDEs for a H0 scale bedroom sized (10x12 foot) layout, and typically fewer than 10 LDEs for a H0 scale basement size layout, even though you obviously can squeeze in more scenes by making each scene smaller, running shorter trains, having more viewblocks that prevent visual interference between scenes etc.
To find LDE candidates, you look at pictures - both pictures of your prototype railroad/area/era, and pictures of other layouts that inspire you.
If you have a location and a theme in mind, it will be easier to figure out what kind of LDEs to look for and where to look.
Let's work some more on theme and selecting some scenes you would want to include on your layout:
Some things to think about: Location(s): - Urban, small town or rural area? - Farming communities or industries ? - Mountains/Hills? Forests? Riverfront ? - mainline or branch line ? - RR junction, "on the line" or "end of line" ?
Traffic/Operations: - Express streamlined "named" passenger trains stopping at the Union Station ? - Long through freight trains passing through, possibly dropping off blocks for a local switcher ? - Local switching - one car at a time for various small local dealers ? - Big local industries needing lots of in plant switching ? - Lucius Beebe's "Mixed Train Daily" serving sleeping branch line ?
Have you had a quick google for sources about "your" railroad to see if you can spot interesting themes or locations ?
3) How do I fit what I want into the space I have ?
This is where advice from more experienced layout designers can help you see solutions you maybe hasn't thought of yourself. There are quite a few tricks and tips on fitting in layouts in rooms in various ways.
But the time to worry about the how to model (and to make the decisions on what comprimises you need to make to make things fit the space) is after finding out why you want a layout and what you want to model.
Think a bit about the why and what, write it down and go through it a few more times on your own.
For some more questions you might want to ask yourself about the why and what, have a look at these web pages which contain more questions you might want to ask yourself in order to narrow down some more what you want:
Byron Henderson's checklist for potensial customers: http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id13.html
Layout Design SIG primer: http://macrodyn.com/ldsig/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Primer
Here is another approach - thinking about how you want to run your model railroad:
steinjrA real railroad consists of miles and miles and miles of just plain track (single track or double track or all the way up to four parallel tracks for the Pennsylvania Railroad in some locations). These tracks pass across fields, plains, or deserts, through forests, hills, mountain passes, tunnels and cities, under elevated road overpasses, over bridges - some low, some high, some spanning roads, some spanning creeks, rivers, valleys and a lot more. It can be very beautiful to watch a train passing through such a scene. But if your main interest is watching longish trains snake through scenes (ie a "rail fanning" type of layout), then consider the smaller scales like N (1:160) and Z (1:220) instead of H0 (1:87.1). That way your trains look smaller relative to the landscape, and you can fit in more landscape (and longer trains) into a given area in your house, and have longer runs to admire. One key to making such a layout enjoyable in limited space is to move your trains at slow speeds. Having a Z scale train take 4 or 5 minutes to complete a loop is a lot longer than having an H0 scale train speed through the loop at full speed in 30 seconds. Also - consider throwing in some places where a train needs to stop - e.g. a siding where one train pulls in and waits while another pass by in the opposite direction, to extend perceived run length. You can do realistic operations on such a layout - but it is mostly related to dispatching the line. Having trains of lower precedence "go into the hole" (take a siding) to let more important trains past, or trying to run a procession of trains in both directions according to a time table. Dispatching is most fun if you have lots of staging, so a lot of trains can arrive on your layout or depart from your layout during an operating session. But those long stretches stretches of single track through the scenery probably are not so interesting to model, if your main interest is switching - picking up, dropping off and sorting RR cars, or routing - breaking down and making up trains and sending them off towards various off-layout destinations ("down towards the coast", "towards Chicago", "up the valley towards the Anthracite mines" or whatever). For a switching focused layout, think about making the focus of your layout modeling one or two clusters (towns/sites/areas) with groups of tracks serving several industries/businesses that ship or receive stuff by train. One big industry having several buildings or several tracks can serve the same function as several small, and will often look more realistic to booth. For a switching focused layout, it is perfectly fine if your sites are "along the railroad" or "at the end of the railroad" (as opposed to being "at a junction between two or more railroads or railroad lines"). For a routing focused layout (or possibly routing and switching focused or routing and rail fanning focused layout), staging is fairly vital. I know you already know what staging tracks are - hidden tracks that represent "the rest of the world", the place where trains come from or depart towards when entering or leaving the visible part of your layout. But another thing that is vital for a routing style layout to be interesting to operate, is that you usually would want more than two possible destination routes ("up the line" and "down the line"). Which quickly leads to the concept of modeling a railroad junction, either where two (or more) lines cross each other, or where one line connects to another line. Junctions has several interesting characteristics, both for modelling routing and switching. They are often where railroads hand over ("interchange") cars to each other, to forward the car towards it's off layout destination. Interchange can be modeled as simple as a single ended siding, where one railroad picks up cars "previously left" and set outs cars "to be picked up later" by another railroad, whose railroad lines, engines and operations is not modeled on your layout. And it is a "general industry" - any kind of car from anywhere can show up at an interchange track, and any kind of car to anywhere off layout can be left at an interchange track. A junction town can also have two lines partially modeled - a branchline where you will do quite a bit of local switching, and mainline where only a short piece of visible track (through town) is modeled, while mainline tracks on both sides of this modeled part consists of a couple of hidden staging tracks. A freight train comes into town from staging, drops off cars at the local yard, and "heads on" (into staging). A passenger train can come into town, and stop at the depot to drop off and pick up passengers. And then head on. If the the junction town is at the end of the line for that railroad, the train would instead "head back" (into the staging from which it came). Staging for such trains can be single ended tracks, which you "reset" by backing the trains back into their starting position before the next "operating session". And these trains do not need to be long - passenger service for small communities were sometimes run with stuff like diesel rail cars. A junction town also often has a small yard to sort cars into "cuts" or "blocks" or cars, that will head out on a given train ("next manifest freight for Chicago on the mainline" or "evening local train up the valley"). Anyways - what I am doing here is trying to make you think about what the main theme for your layout will be. Once you know what effect/illusion/vision you are trying to accomplish, you can start looking at how to model this in a way that fits into your available space.
A real railroad consists of miles and miles and miles of just plain track (single track or double track or all the way up to four parallel tracks for the Pennsylvania Railroad in some locations).
These tracks pass across fields, plains, or deserts, through forests, hills, mountain passes, tunnels and cities, under elevated road overpasses, over bridges - some low, some high, some spanning roads, some spanning creeks, rivers, valleys and a lot more.
It can be very beautiful to watch a train passing through such a scene. But if your main interest is watching longish trains snake through scenes (ie a "rail fanning" type of layout), then consider the smaller scales like N (1:160) and Z (1:220) instead of H0 (1:87.1). That way your trains look smaller relative to the landscape, and you can fit in more landscape (and longer trains) into a given area in your house, and have longer runs to admire.
One key to making such a layout enjoyable in limited space is to move your trains at slow speeds. Having a Z scale train take 4 or 5 minutes to complete a loop is a lot longer than having an H0 scale train speed through the loop at full speed in 30 seconds.
Also - consider throwing in some places where a train needs to stop - e.g. a siding where one train pulls in and waits while another pass by in the opposite direction, to extend perceived run length.
You can do realistic operations on such a layout - but it is mostly related to dispatching the line. Having trains of lower precedence "go into the hole" (take a siding) to let more important trains past, or trying to run a procession of trains in both directions according to a time table. Dispatching is most fun if you have lots of staging, so a lot of trains can arrive on your layout or depart from your layout during an operating session.
But those long stretches stretches of single track through the scenery probably are not so interesting to model, if your main interest is switching - picking up, dropping off and sorting RR cars, or routing - breaking down and making up trains and sending them off towards various off-layout destinations ("down towards the coast", "towards Chicago", "up the valley towards the Anthracite mines" or whatever).
For a switching focused layout, think about making the focus of your layout modeling one or two clusters (towns/sites/areas) with groups of tracks serving several industries/businesses that ship or receive stuff by train. One big industry having several buildings or several tracks can serve the same function as several small, and will often look more realistic to booth.
For a switching focused layout, it is perfectly fine if your sites are "along the railroad" or "at the end of the railroad" (as opposed to being "at a junction between two or more railroads or railroad lines").
For a routing focused layout (or possibly routing and switching focused or routing and rail fanning focused layout), staging is fairly vital. I know you already know what staging tracks are - hidden tracks that represent "the rest of the world", the place where trains come from or depart towards when entering or leaving the visible part of your layout.
But another thing that is vital for a routing style layout to be interesting to operate, is that you usually would want more than two possible destination routes ("up the line" and "down the line"). Which quickly leads to the concept of modeling a railroad junction, either where two (or more) lines cross each other, or where one line connects to another line.
Junctions has several interesting characteristics, both for modelling routing and switching. They are often where railroads hand over ("interchange") cars to each other, to forward the car towards it's off layout destination.
Interchange can be modeled as simple as a single ended siding, where one railroad picks up cars "previously left" and set outs cars "to be picked up later" by another railroad, whose railroad lines, engines and operations is not modeled on your layout. And it is a "general industry" - any kind of car from anywhere can show up at an interchange track, and any kind of car to anywhere off layout can be left at an interchange track.
A junction town can also have two lines partially modeled - a branchline where you will do quite a bit of local switching, and mainline where only a short piece of visible track (through town) is modeled, while mainline tracks on both sides of this modeled part consists of a couple of hidden staging tracks.
A freight train comes into town from staging, drops off cars at the local yard, and "heads on" (into staging). A passenger train can come into town, and stop at the depot to drop off and pick up passengers. And then head on.
If the the junction town is at the end of the line for that railroad, the train would instead "head back" (into the staging from which it came).
Staging for such trains can be single ended tracks, which you "reset" by backing the trains back into their starting position before the next "operating session". And these trains do not need to be long - passenger service for small communities were sometimes run with stuff like diesel rail cars.
A junction town also often has a small yard to sort cars into "cuts" or "blocks" or cars, that will head out on a given train ("next manifest freight for Chicago on the mainline" or "evening local train up the valley").
Anyways - what I am doing here is trying to make you think about what the main theme for your layout will be.
Once you know what effect/illusion/vision you are trying to accomplish, you can start looking at how to model this in a way that fits into your available space.
Anyways - there are many ways of designing a layout. But I would recommend not starting with learning how to use a given CAD program, but rather by thinking about what you want to accomplish and why you want just that.
Good luck, Stein
I agrea with Steinjr Cad-design comes second at best. Not knowing how new you are in the hobby all the advise can be overwhelming. And how can you know what you will fancy the very most?
Learning some RTS the mean time can't do any harm; so some tricks.
1) RTS has no option for benchwork then it's standard four forms. Draw your benchwork the same way as you draw polygones in ms-word. (tools / draw / polygone : click L, etc,...., click R and ready). Tag / properties / lines: and you can colour the line and the area. Draw in "20" first and go back to "4", tag and on the corners green "+" will appear, so you can adjust your drawing.
2) Work in layers. Under element / properties / general you'll find layers. In the drop-out menu you chose layer 001 and you draw your benchwork; go to layer 002 (elem/ prop/general again) and draw your tracks, etc, etc.
3) But go first to: view /properties / workspace and give the size of your layout; even better give the size of your room plus a foot or two extra,left,right, botom and up.
When you buy a better Cad later you'll have an idea how it will work.
If you really have no idea what you would like to build say so, a middle of the road approach is not bad at all. And make a drawing of your room with doors, other obstacles and the benchwork in it. Designing is about doing your work as well.
An other site by Chip Engelmann about all the mistakes he made as a newbie.
http://www.chipengelmann.com/
Keep smiling and having fun
Good luck
Paulus Jas Not knowing how new you are in the hobby all the advise can be overwhelming. And how can you know what you will fancy the very most? Learning some RTS the mean time can't do any harm
Not knowing how new you are in the hobby all the advise can be overwhelming. And how can you know what you will fancy the very most? Learning some RTS the mean time can't do any harm
Original question by new poster was:
Emphasis added by me. Observe that Jeremy was looking for layout ideas. He was not asking for a ready made track plan for his space.
Learning a specific CAD tool (like RTS) was not part of the original question - using a CAD program (and actually recommending not using RTS, since it is locked to turnouts from one specific manufacturer - Atlas ...) was brought up by someone responding.
What I suggested was some possible approaches to coming up with ideas for a layout. I am not claiming that these are the only possible approaches.
There are many different approaches to coming up with a layout vision and a layout design, and most work in some way for someone somewhere at some time.
But whenJeremy writes : "some switching ops, maybe a yard and some mainline runs that I can run some pax [passenger] trains on", it sounds to me like he already has an idea that he wants freight and passenger traffic, and that he wants both switching and mainline runs.
It may be that he just wants "a little of everything", or it could be that he actually is inspired by a specific layout he has seen or by pictures a specific real railroad in a specific location at a specific time or something else.
In either case, it certainly does not hurt to explore what his vision/goal is. Being able to firm up what your goal is (be it extremely prototype-like or totally freelanced or somewhere in between) allows you to figure out how to work your way towards that goal.
In my opinion, spending a significant amount of time in the initial ideas phase on learning how to use some specific CAD tool may quite possibly do some damage to the goal-exploring process, if he instead of thinking about what he wants and brainstorming ideas spends his time on learning how to make tracks meet in whatever CAD tool he picks.
As Byron Henderson somewhat sardonically comments in his old web article "The tragedy of CAD too soon" (http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id40.html), it is easy to get blinded by "a beautifully-rendered image of a terrible design"
By all means - if Jeremy wants to put the brainstorming part aside for a few weeks or months to first learn how to use RTS, then so be it.
But in my opinion, brainstorming comes first (exactly where Jeremy put it), and CAD comes later. Initial idea does not have to be extremely detailed.
Those issues brought up by me and by the LDSIG primer and Byron's web page are things he might want to consider - but not stuff he has to make a final decision on right away and carve in stone for eternity.
Design is above everything an iterative process. You will always go back to make changes and maybe explore a different path.
And if things are moving too slowly for your liking, you can just plop down some track and run some trains on a temporary layout while you think about how to proceed - taking up and changing track is dead easy - if you use latex caulk to hold the tracks down, rather than superglue :-)
Taking apart benchwork and redesigning it is a bit more work, but with the right tools, old benchwork also will come apart so it can be modified or replaced, if need be :-)
In general, a modeller should not be don't be afraid of just trying various approaches - we all learn more from our honest mistakes than we do from our accidental successes.
Also, to see e.g. whether he actually likes switching ops, Jeremy could e.g. try to lay out a small shelf switching layout based on some published track plan and play around with that for a while. A couple of good candidates for some switching action that appeals to me (but not necessarily to him) is:
Jonathan Jones "Mid-Atlantic and Western" from the May 2001 Model Railroader Magazine, with some modifications by Byron Henderson (cuyama in these forums):
And a modern corner switching layout plan by Robert J Beaty (Arjay1969 in these forums) :
There are many other possible approaches here. These are just some ideas to get a brainstorming session flowing.
Grin, Stein
Stein has given you a lot to digest, but it is highly recommended reading. If you are truly just starting out, one suggestion would be to build a small, simple "test bed" layout. While the operation aspect might be limited, it will give you the opportunity to try your hand at building some basic scenery, laying track and installing wiring, and building some structure kits.
If you are ready to design the more complete track plan, you can accomplish the same thing by selecting a portion of the layout, maybe a few square feet, that you can fully finish out, then move on to the other areas.
Good luck, have fun, and keep us posted.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
I'll offer a counterpoint to Stein. I wasn't going to get into the pros and cons of layout software (because that will kick off a huge debate), but I can't make my point without doing so.
First of all, Stein is absolutely correct about Atlas's RTS -- use the "Uninstall" feature and get rid of it. Most of the free products out there are free because someone is trying to sell something else -- in this case, Atlas Track.
Stein also makes some good points about knowing something about what you want to do before you try to design a layout. Your era and prototype location will, among other things, dictate the size of your equipment and the types of structures / industries you'll be trying to fit in. You need to know whether you prefer continuous running, switching, or a combination of both. But having some ideas along these lines, that's where planning software comes in. It's a lot easier (and cheaper) to create a lot of "beautifully rendered bad layouts" on your computer than in your basement.
Now -- and here's where others will disagree with me -- I would recommend against CAD software, because the learning curve is just too steep. Stein's right in that you spend most of your time fighting with the tool rather than doing anything meaningful with it. That's why I like the Anyrail / Trainplayer combination. Trainplayer lets you operate trains on layouts designed by others (twenty or so are included) or yourself. Anyrail lets you plan layouts using a dozen or so different track libraries, which you can export to Trainplayer and operate. This will very quickly show you whether a layout design meets your needs. The combination doesn't have much in the way of scenery or building options though -- you have to keep that in your imagination or reference photos.
But whether you jot notes on a piece of paper, plan on graph paper, or use a software tool, get a fairly firm vision of where you're going with the layout BEFORE you start building.