First, if you're an MR subscriber, I'd highly recommend you look through the archive of mid-sized N scale track plans. There's a ton of really good ideas in there.
Second, when planning your towns, think of them in terms of how the railroad serves them. With the configuration you've got, I'd suggest placing a larger city in the vicinity of the yard (a big terminal with a roundhouse would most likely be located near a major city, at least here in the east they are...) The second town could be smaller, with a couple of industries.
Another thing you'll want to consider is staging, so your trains have somewhere to "come from and go to" as they cross through your railroad. Here's a diagram I drew up that gives an example of traffic flow for a simple continuous run style layout, with staging added for running as a point to point...
Your yard and terminal could be either the east or west staging, or it could be "on line" along the main. Looked at in the context of through freight, the train would "arrive" from the east, then make the circuit around the layout. You could add laps to simulate time and distance. If the yard is part of the main layout, you can pull in, swap pick ups and set outs, and then continue the trip west. After a couple more laps, the train leaves the layout and enters the west end staging loop.
Return loop staging is my favorite, because it simplifies writing waybills. A car that leaves the layout to the west, can return from the west without having to fiddle much with the cars.
Hope this helps. Keep up us posted on your progress.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
I asked a question almost like this one and got a few good responces. I want everything you said except the grain elevator and I am using a 6x3 area. I saw a cool layout somewhere where the tracks from the yard went under a street overpass, I wish I could locate another like that, I would love to do that.
I have spent more time than one can imagin working on layout designs to fit our space and fit the things either I or Nik would like to have in a layout.
Here's an image of the benchwork (made to fit the room)
We've gone over things we'd like \ need to have on the layout:
turntable
part of a round house (what goods a turntable in the yard without a roundhouse?)
a little yard
ability to run multiple trains in dc mode
would like to have a mine and grain elevator, but can give up the elevator if needed
would like to build two small towns
would like to have elevation changes, so that some trains can pass over\under, and to add more interest (and get more into the layout)
Would like to have broad enough curves to run a variety of equipment. While we know that we should have incredibly broad curves to make things look better, we're going to sacrifice that to make things fit. All of our equipment, form bullettrains to big boys to xxx runs on kato track that's 13" or less in radius (we're in n), so we'll keep curves in the 12.5"-15" range.
I'm looking for suggestions of how\where to place the yard\TT, etc (inside or outside of the loops)? thoughts and ideas on layouts that folks have built that are similar in shape. I think what we're really looking for are suggestions on using space to the fullest.
We've been dabbling with the red rock northern layout, but can't get it to fit- I think the issue is our TT & roundhouse are huge compared to the one used in that layout.
I"ve plowed through years of MRR and n-scale mags, the online database here, etc. We have found lots of plan ideas, but getting them to translate to our space, and fit the few things we'd like to have on the layout gets me in a bind.
Sign me "tired of look at a bench of pink foam, and itchy to build something" (You can sign Nik as "dad, when are we gonna get started?)
Apologies for sort of not asking a direct question- more of a "up in arms in frustration"
thanks