Is there anyplace that a person can go to to have a layout designed ? somewhere you just give the dementions of the room and what you want and THEY design the layout?
I guess this whole planning thing is wearing me out to the point I wanna sell all my trains and buy more guns!
J.W.
ChessieFan13 wrote: Is there anyplace that a person can go to to have a layout designed ? somewhere you just give the dementions of the room and what you want and THEY design the layout?I guess this whole planning thing is wearing me out to the point I wanna sell all my trains and buy more guns!J.W.
There are plenty of guys here that love to plan layouts. I'm betting many will do it for free. Just give them your room dimensions, model scale and era, and a few things you would like included. I'm sure you will be quite impressed.
Just start a new thread asking for layout planning. Maybe even offer a prize like spacemouse or cudaken have done.
ChessieFan13 wrote: Is there anyplace that a person can go to to have a layout designed ? somewhere you just give the dementions of the room and what you want and THEY design the layout? I guess this whole planning thing is wearing me out to the point I wanna sell all my trains and buy more guns!J.W.
Layout planning is both the hardest and most important part of the layout building. I know you are getting a lot of advice, some of it contradicting, but even if you hire someon, the part about developing your vision will still be on your shoulders. The pro will force you to come up with the same kind of answers and make the same kind of decisions you need to make now.
Take your time and develop your givens and druthers. Write them down. Not for us but for you. You got to know what you really want. If you don't it'll be like trying to shoot down a cloud with a 12 gauge.
Then again, guns are cool. My other hobby, Cowboy Action Shooting.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Bear "It's all about having fun."
I have found the membership here to be very generous, both in material and emotional support. I think if you post your dimensions in a scale outline so that folks can use it, you are likely to get a few of them who would be willing to take the time to help you out. Planning a railroad is much faster for those who do it regularly, and easier, too.
With Christmas so close, you may be further ahead to not get involved right now anyway. Let it slide until you get a better head of steam for the project. You are probably torn in too many directions right now.
My
Do what I did, let the track flop until I run out of space somewhere. =)
All of my planning on paper over 3 decades is a horrible misfire. All flash and no bang. Now I gotta make it work the hard way =)
Now you know where the saying "Flash in the Pan" comes from.
Hang in there!
If you've got lots of money and no time (or patience) there are folks out there that'll do it for you. One that comes to mind is that Lance Mindheim guy whose Florida switching shelf layout was just in MR magazine. Forget his address but you can probably google it (shelflayouts.com or something like that). It's a *lot* of money though.
I agree, the planning sucks - and it's hard. I think, with some inspiration from looking at others' work and some help from the folks on this forum, though, you'll eventually get there if you can hang in there. I personally punted on the design aspect for my first small layout (4x1 shelf) and am adapting a design from Iain Rice's small layouts book. Next time, after I've learned a thing or two, I'll give the design thing a go.Good luck however you go!M
I hear you on the designing sucks! I have a hard time thinking in the third dimension. I've thought about having someone design my next track plan. That will be quite a ways down the road though.
Lothar-- yea that 3 demention thing man i just cant do it ....But on the bright side all these guys are doing a bang up job on helping the plannning thread I got going. This forum rules!
Thanks to all who contribute to making this place great !
Hi J.W.,
Well for what it is worth, I believe that I wasted about three years in the planning stage. I finally said enough is enough and started to build my benchwork and then down with some track so I could get some trains running.
I kept in mind,and still do, that there is no sin in having to redo something. Start building and having some fun. If you are anything like me, I didn't find the planning very much fun, or as much fun as I wanted.
To this point I have about 2/3rds of the track down and all I have pulled up was some in the classification yards. If I was doing it again there are a few things I would arrange a little different but they are not major and I can live with them.
One thing I can suggest though, is to make sure you stay away from your walls or backdrop at least 3" or more so that you have a transition area in which to do your blending from the bench portion to the backdrop. I'm pretty close in a couple of spots and I am going to work with it but it seems that it will be more tricky.
I do go along with Spacemouse in the fact you have to have somewhat of a vision of what you are trying to do. First: What do you want, continous running or point to point, Second: what type of terrain do you like. Mountains, Prairie, the waterfront, mining logging etc.etc.once you got those things set in your mind just get started, this is not a contest and there is no time limit ( except for us old pharts ) Start building and if you don't like it adjust make the necessary changes. WE ALL HAVE DONE THAT>> and I don't think anyone will correct me on that.
Good luck, stay in touch, the regulars on this forum are such a great help and give willingly of their time and skills. BUT--- get laying some track, Those trains have to have somewhere to go. Just don't be afraid to re-do something if it doesn't look right or will be an on-going problem correct it and carry on.
Johnboy out.................
James:1 Verse:5
The "Wobbly" is out of the shop and headed for the Main.
from Saskatchewan, in the Great White North..
We have met the enemy, and he is us............ (Pogo)
Planning is hard but....
You learn a lot.
You get to really understand you layout.
Your mistakes don't cost much!
Get the book, (obviously, "Track Planning for Realistic Operation"), a few assorted layout books, Armstrong's and perhaps Iain Rice's. Look at the new MR libreary of plans on line. Di some research. Stop whining. And have fun!
Jeff But it's a dry heat!
Yes, Armstrong's Book and the right attitude:
Think of it as a learning layout. Perhaps start with a small but active center with tracks leading to future sections. Plywood and cork are cheap, so consider those disposable, and lightly tack the track in for at least a few weeks so you can make changes. Un-tack, scrape up the cork and re-lay as needed. Work with your test layout. Imagine what needs to happen, for example, which cars head left and which need to head right, and what is expected to arrive that doesn't need to stay and what will arrive that will tie up track for a few days.
When you find it has purpose you will also find it relies on a broader world that needs to exist just beyond where those tracks to future sections currently end. The next section over may become a more important and more active center to your railway, or it may become merely a scenic section with light local traffic.
I uses these observations for my own planning:
My work takes me to an industrial part of town several days a week. When there, I park my car only a few hundred feet from the local railroad. I watch what goes on there, and when the weather is warmer, I'm going to follow the slow freights and see where they go. But some I can put together just by eating a late lunch by the tracks. Coal for the power company, lots of gravel for the new commuter rail, plywood and drywall for somewhere-- I'm guessing contractor supply places in that area, box cars which I wish were transparent, and on some weekends, one to a dozen vintage heavyweights. The singles I see seem to be private coaches, and the train length groups, I am told, are tourist cars being restored and used for romantic excursion/dinner trains.
On the other hand, any and every issue of MR, plus this and other sites are full of plans. Borrow one you like and mess with it. Right now, I'm building "Inglenook," one short lead, three short industrial tracks. It needed five pieces of flex, six pieces of cork, two turnouts for the yard, plus two as a crossover to a main that currently ends to the left and the right-- less than a hundred bucks. This weekend, I'm going to experiment with ways to crush lime stone from a nearby creek and sift it to make my own ballast. If I don't like the results, and since I use water soluble wood glue, I am out sixteen bucks-- 12 for the plywood and 4 for the cork. To me, that is just fun.
Crews
The sun comes up burning off the fog. The engine house is alive with activity as the steam engine is "Booted up" very early in the morning. In the mean time there is a switcher set assembling the train for the short trip to Falls Valley further down the line. A few tanks for the oil depot, boxcars for the bearing company, some reefers for the coldstorage and perhaps a few more coal cars for the dealership who still has a few homes that fire with coal for heat and hot water.
In the mean time the short commuter train has stopped to get what few people heading to the big city far away.
The agent is gathering paperwork for the day's work and trying to sort the stack of mail and milkcans accumulating at the creamry. The creamry workers sort the milk tank car connections and anxiously look down the line towards the interchange track watching for signs of the connecting railroad that is a few minutes late arriving to pick up the milk. Perhaps the yard office agent is buried in phone calls trying to get a road crew up and wrestling with the stacks of waybills for the conductor for that day's work in town.
Not even 8 AM and there is alot going on.
Note that I havent actually got the train on the way to Falls Valley yet.
Im not very good at telling stories. But if you work the track and set up small areas to make the story tie together in the space you have then you have a seed of a railroad yah?
With that in mind I already know I would want room for a small engine house, water and coal etc. A station, freight house and creamry and trackage necessary to connect and a very small yard with just enough room to sort cars for falls valley and interchange with a connecting railroad.
I already have these structures. The problem is the passenger train, connecting train and trackwork to make it all happen in the room allocated just for these three items and it all has to be seperate from the industrial area nearby even if by just a street and a retaining wall.
Falls valley is on the other side of the room slowly growing to fill the availible space and track work is literally growing in bits and peices each month. I know that when the last two industry buildings are placed, I will have to stop buying structures and focus on track, scenery and little things to blend it all in.
I feel the same way about track planning as you do. I finally ended up with a published track plan that fit my space (a spare bedroom) perfectly and met my major track plan needs but was not exactly what I wanted. I finally gave up and went ahead and built the benchwork without struggling to finalize the trackplan. After the benchwork was built I laid out sectional track and finalized the trackplan after playing around with many alternatives. I ran copies of many of my unbuilt structure kit instruction sheets, cut them out and Scotch taped them together to move around and see how they fit with my track pieces in 3D. I stacked up shoe boxes where I was considering placing mountains and then moved them around. I ended up with a plan that was about 60% changed from the published plan I started with. It took a little time to come up with my final plan but was a whole lot easer since I could actually place some cars on sidings to see how many would fit and see it with my own eyes etc. I now am working on scenery and really am enjoying building my layout, if I had waited until I had a perfect trackplan I would still be sitting here with dreams and pile of paper and no layout.
Mike B.