As mentioned, if you have to go with an oval, put a divider down the middle and try to get some switching on at least one side. Easier in N than HO if you're pressed for space.
You could hang a reverse loop on each end of a shelf switcher if you had enough space. Then any train would give the look of going somewhere and coming back instead of magically reappearing in the same direction over and over again. 'Course the wiring will be a bit tougher for reverse loops but you could leave the loops "naked" - no scenery aside from maybe painting the tops green or something. Hide them behind curtains or valences or whatever if you want.
I think the best solution is to go with an around the walls or donut like the HOG i f space allows.
I myself am building my 2nd and probably my last N scale layout. And also have enjoyed the continuous running of a train. Since this will be my 2nd and last I am going from my first 4x8 layout to a larger 12x8 (2 4x8 plywood) L shape. I am intending .. lol.. trying to run two mains and one freight line.. off to various places. But keeping in mind that if I started a train on Main #1 and never turn off for a station or some other place.. and left it to run.. it would then switch over to Main #2 and start the run all over again. Now if I were not to touch anything.. that train on Main #2 .. after completing its loop would then switch to the main line... in which it would then start its long route back up the mountain. I know.. I know.. yep, now once again.. if were to do nothing it would then switch to the timber line. I won't get into the last final phase transition, but its the idea of having a continous loop.. switching over to another / 2nd mainline.
Now as far as your other part of your post, if my pic of me came out and is now posted on this thread, you 'll see two wooden stencils I drew out and cut. Concerning your layout.. I would suggest making these.. of differnt sizes (minimum radius for freight and max/min for Mains).. and see just what and how many turns you can use in any layout. But there is only so much space for any given turn. As far as Bang For Your Buck.. I've always thought N scale .. for its size and price was the best way to go... as possibly have a continuous running layout. Good luck.. and God Bless.
In order to get what you want here, you may consider building lightweight foamboard sections that can be put up, but taken down easily. It might be an engineereing feat, but if you wire the track in the removable sections with an easy plug in for power you won't even have to worry about railjoiners if you align the track carefully. you can then make these sections narrow and easily stored when not in use.
oh yes, being able to run in a circle is important. Sometimes like in a coal drag, it'd take a while to get to the destination, so you'd have to kick back and watch that run for a while right!
steinjrccaranna What advice do you have for someone with a limited budget and space in this situation? Well, Chuck, I would advice that you follow up on the threads you start. You posted your question on July 30th, and your last forum visit was on August 7th, but you have not posted anything in this thread since the initial question. Do any of the suggestions made so far appeal to you ? Any other direction you would like to explore ? Grin, Stein
ccaranna What advice do you have for someone with a limited budget and space in this situation?
Well, Chuck, I would advice that you follow up on the threads you start. You posted your question on July 30th, and your last forum visit was on August 7th, but you have not posted anything in this thread since the initial question.
Do any of the suggestions made so far appeal to you ? Any other direction you would like to explore ?
Grin, Stein
RailfanSHello, My situation is similar to yours, I have a 5x10 L-shaped HO scale switching layout. And though I love switching I also love letting my trains run. So the solution for me is very simple: before I had my layout I had an oversized loop of Bachmann EZ track on the floor. Now I simply upgraded to an all Nickel silver loop (which is much easier to maintain) and use "the hand of god" method to interchange equipment between the floor and the layout. I even added a staging yard for the loop under my bed which has a capacity of about 15 cars. I can now run 25 to 30 car consist continually. The funny thing is that when I built my layout I thought that it would be the end of track on my floor. WRONG. Though you can't (or at least I can't) put ground foam and sceinic cement on my floor, I can let my locomotive and large rolling stock fleet run continually at mainline speeds. Happy Railroading, Jamie
Hello,
My situation is similar to yours, I have a 5x10 L-shaped HO scale switching layout. And though I love switching I also love letting my trains run. So the solution for me is very simple: before I had my layout I had an oversized loop of Bachmann EZ track on the floor. Now I simply upgraded to an all Nickel silver loop (which is much easier to maintain) and use "the hand of god" method to interchange equipment between the floor and the layout. I even added a staging yard for the loop under my bed which has a capacity of about 15 cars. I can now run 25 to 30 car consist continually. The funny thing is that when I built my layout I thought that it would be the end of track on my floor. WRONG. Though you can't (or at least I can't) put ground foam and sceinic cement on my floor, I can let my locomotive and large rolling stock fleet run continually at mainline speeds.
Happy Railroading,
Jamie
Similar to Jamie, I found a small portable loop to be the answer to several problems.
- it satisfies my need to run trains NOW. This is both urge-satisfying and gives me more patience for the handlaid track of the primary layout.
- it serves as a test track and break-in for locomotives (most of mine are built from kits). It also serves as a minimum radius test.
- if the portable loop is built a little bigger than absolutely necessary, it can serve as a "test" layout for new techniques and experiments that I want to try. In my case, my HO/HOn3 portable loop is 48" x 70", which allows for a couple of mini-scenes and limited switching. If done well enough, such a small layout could be exhibited at some nearby train shows.
- the drawback to a portable small "layout" is that the time takes away from construction time for the larger, fixed, primary layout.
It's all fun anyway, no matter which layout I'm working on.
Fred W
Cape Vincent Southern Railroad
HO scale Horseshoe Curve in 5’x10’
My YouTube
jecorbett It sounds like you'd like to have both continuous running and switching and I think you can achieve that even on something as small as a 4x8 in HO scale. For starters, I would put a divider down the middle which will give you two 2x8 shelf layouts connected by a loop. Each location could represent a distinct area, such as a town and a rural area or maybe a whistle stop. You could have a small yard on one side of the divider and still have space for a few industries on each side of the divider. You could put the yard on the outside of the loop at the cost of having to use a smaller radius for the loop. Corners are good places to place industrial spurs but you could also have spurs inside the loop as well. I would also have a siding one each side of the divider to act as staging tracks. Lastly, on a small layout, small equipment will look and operate much better. You might get a Big Boy or 85 foot passenger cars to run on 22" radius track, but they will look silly.
It sounds like you'd like to have both continuous running and switching and I think you can achieve that even on something as small as a 4x8 in HO scale. For starters, I would put a divider down the middle which will give you two 2x8 shelf layouts connected by a loop. Each location could represent a distinct area, such as a town and a rural area or maybe a whistle stop. You could have a small yard on one side of the divider and still have space for a few industries on each side of the divider. You could put the yard on the outside of the loop at the cost of having to use a smaller radius for the loop. Corners are good places to place industrial spurs but you could also have spurs inside the loop as well. I would also have a siding one each side of the divider to act as staging tracks. Lastly, on a small layout, small equipment will look and operate much better. You might get a Big Boy or 85 foot passenger cars to run on 22" radius track, but they will look silly.
Yes. Good idea. Operationally, the towns or spurs can represent different switching needs each time the train passes by, ignoring each time the train passes the outside yard (we have to use our imagination no matter what size layout we have anyway). Spurs on the outside of the loop, in the corner(s), can be modeled with era generic buildings or partial buildings, with cars placed there by hand when ever we want to stop and switch that spur. After several laps of switching the spur, occasionally ignoring the spur on some laps to build distance, we would have a different train to finally pull into the yard and break down. Delivery off layout could be simulated, not actually done via staging (a space hog on a small layout), then those cars could be reassembled, or replaced by hand with similar cars with different road names and numbers, and the train can do laps and deliver the cars back to the spurs. If generically sceniced, we can detail all sorts of different equipment of different eras, from 1920 to present, changing themes to suit our wants at the time. Because it is generically sceniced does not mean it must lack detail.
Its not a perfect concept and it requires more handling of the rolling stock than may be you want, but its something to consider for a 4x8 space. (Not keeping a lot of cars and locos on the layout keeps them from getting dusty too).
I got into model railroading cuz I saw one when I was about 6 years old and grew up in a railroad town, seeing trains in the flesh. I must realize that the reason I am a model railroader today has to stem from the undeniable fact that I think that watching trains is really cool. Any kind from any era. Do I want operations? Absolutley, but I can't ignore what got me here.
- Douglas
I too find myself confronting the same issues, i'm devoloping a branchline themed layout that will eventually occupy a 100 X 60 room. My prilimary designs envisioned a point-to-point design with reverse loops for stagging , but as the plan evolves, the possibilty of 100 car PFE reefer blocks moving on and off the layout cannot be discounted, in my scenerio, a continous loop would provide the needed illusion with the greater percentage of trackage concealed behind backdrops requiring only the occasional appearences at interchange locations and at select visible locations.
Dave
My "true" layout will be an L switching in the living room. My continous loop track will be a tripple track loop, two HO tracks and a single N track, set on 1x6 pine boards, an attached high up on the walls around the roughly 18x11 foor living room. I had this idea for a while, but one overruling source kept it a big no-no. Now that source has seen my test track (4 foot section of so planned display loop) and thought it looked really neat with my trains sitting on it. Then she pulled a me and started thinking. Now all I have to do is get a job to get money to start building, and the previous arrangement of "only if I an all pink train for me is running around on it" is no longer viable.
Mine came to me because I kept seeing more and more trains and cars that I wanted to have, but had no place on any layout plans I had. So I started to sound more like a collector. "Oh that Mohawk would look neat to have. So would that Hudson there. But then I would have to get that Mike so display shelf wouldn't be all passenger trains. And then I would have to get some cars to go with all the trains so people wouldn't think that Decapod is for people." At least this way my collection can be used, not just sitting there on a shelf looking pretty. Now it can be rolling around a track looking pretty. I did sort of do that though. It was going to be all HO but then I saw Kato's add for SD70ACe's in UP heratige paint (particularly the C&NW model) and instantly knew I needed an N track loop. It will also scratch any itches when I just want to see a train running but not have an OP session on my real layout, and will scratch the long runs/long trains itch. Then the no longer over-ruling source told me the idea of using just one HO track and one N track and put a little scenery behind the "big track" as she calls it and maybe a few buildings. I'm still messing with this idea, but personnally I think it would better to have one freight consist and a passenger consist in HO both going. The N track is going to end being mostly for lokes, not full consists.
So in there amongst all that is another idea. A single or double loop track, maybe a little scenery, going around the room. We have 8 foot ceilings so the board will be about 7 feet off the floor. The room is just big enough that standing at the center you will still be able to see all trains moving.
Not to diverge too much from the topic at hand, but Maryland's the same way. We've got a major port, big time passenger service and intricate street switching in Baltimore, heavy mountain railroading in the western part of the state, tons of Rapid Transit and commuter rail around DC, and sleepy grainger branch lines on the Eastern Shore. A little bit of everything...
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
CTValleyRR(and yes, this is prototypical because the trains on this line ran from Old Saybrook to Hartford and back)
CTValleyRR - Connecticut offers a surprising amount of prototypical operation options considering the small size of the state, doesn't it.
Alan (aka Doc)
Co-owner of the proposed CT River Valley RR (HO scale) http://home.comcast.net/~docinct/CTRiverValleyRR/
Hey dude. Not sure how old you are now, but I'm 23, so I can relate, I guess, haha. I totally know what you mean with wanting ANY form of continuous running, even if you only have a 4x8 table. All of the operation in the world can NEVER satiate the desire to be able to just turn the power on, set the direction, throttle up, and just sit back and watch.
I like to think of it as OEM: Open-eye meditation. I borrowed the abbreviation from CEV and OEV (closed-eye visuals and open-eye visuals, in regards to occular phenomena of the psychedelic kind...hehe). Anyway, there is no denying the calming, zen-like experience inherent in watching the repetition of a train continuously circling a designated path.
Theres a reason that rocking a baby puts it to sleep. This is not unlike an adult watching a train go around a circle of track.
ANYWAY..... on to Suggestion City. Depending on your available space and modeling skills, I would suggest contruscting a staging level of your layout, preferably underneith, but overhead could be done too, and maybe even easier. This way, you can get the continuous run, as well as added storage space to enhance your operations when you feel so inclined.
The EASY way out, however, would be to extend your layout a few more inches away from the wall, and then have them run behind a backdrop. Seeing your trackplan would DEFINITELY help us out so much more in being able to suggest practical and feasible possibilities.
But i think the best thing for you to do would be to build a lower or upper staging level. This is wayyyyy easily accomplished with the Woodland Scenics risers. It may be easier for you to just build a loop around the edge of your layout if you don't feel like doing that much more construction.
but again, lets see your trackplan dude
wm3798 Ratled, that's exactly how I run mine. I'll turn a train loose on the main, then either fiddle in the yard to set up the next one, or run a local to one of the switching locations. Lee
Ratled, that's exactly how I run mine. I'll turn a train loose on the main, then either fiddle in the yard to set up the next one, or run a local to one of the switching locations.
I'm with you guys. I have a "C" shaped 10x15 with a mainline that runs around the outside (continuous loop -- a 5' wide peninsula at each end turns the train in a 22" radius loop)) and lots of industries to switch on the inside. A pair of double crossovers on the long leg of the C adds some livelihood as well. If I'm by myself, I'll set out cars at the stations and the industries and throw a long passenger train into a 45-50 mph cruise around the loop, stopping at the stations on either peninsula (and yes, this is prototypical because the trains on this line ran from Old Saybrook to Hartford and back). Then I'll slide a slow freight on from the stub track representing the Shore Line and try to pick up and set out freight cars without disrupting the passenger train.
If one of my kids is operating with me, we vary the speed and station stops of the passenger train, and depending on the number of operators, we may add a yard switcher and another freight, to really mess things up. I've developed a system of Passenger / Cargo and Destination cards which tell you where to go, and how fast to get there.
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
In my opinion there is a lot to be said for N scale. I have a big interest and a rather smallish space... You can check out what I did in any thread titled PB&J, happy to help in any way I can... Though I ask more questions than I can answer....
My layout is a 22" x 96" switching layout in n-scale. It is actually a rural town with a double mainline, a crossover on each end to move between mains, a siding along the double main, a station and 2 industries. 3 industry sidings that hold a total of 16 cars and the siding on the main holds 12. Sounds like alot but it's actually pretty open and easy to work with plenty of runaround room.
I wanted to keep the selective compression to a minimum. The layout can be run on it's own as a switching layout, keeping a person busy for quite a while or it can be a loop to watch trains on. The double mainline allows it to be expanded later on as it was designed to be either freestanding or a part of a larger layout. When I want to just run trains and not operate, I just install 2 loops on it and now the double mainline is an east and west line. The loops are removable so as I expand the layout I can just keep moving the loops to the end of each new segment until one day when I've got it where I want it and don't need them anymore. It works great. I can even switch trains and then use the loops as staging.
On my new layout I'm working on now, I'm kinda doing both...the upper level is point-to-point running from staging to an iron ore yard. Operations will be centered on yard switching, taking cuts of loaded cars to the ore dock and bringing empties back, making up empty trains to go back to staging, breaking down loaded trains that arrive from staging, and locomotive servicing with roundhouse and turntable. The lower level - not connected to the upper - will be a fairly large (about 2 scale mile run) L shaped dogbone set up like a double track mainline. There will be some industries for wayfreights, but a lot of the time it will see fairly long passenger trains running on the continous loop just to see them run.
In your case, if your switching layout works OK, as noted you could try adding loops to the end to allow continous running - even if they're on some type of removable benchwork...kinda like a modular layout.
I think I found the best of both worlds
I found that after the layout was built, just having the trains go round and round got old fast. I love Operations BUT I still have a the mainline go round and round. Since I am a solo operator I use the mainline to a run a drone or two. This simulates the trains that would be other operators on a larger layout.
The next phase is to add staging for real ops. Since I'm not ready for multi operator sessions I'm in no big hurry. I hope this helps
Modeling the Klamath River area in HO on a proto-lanced sub of the SP “The State of Jefferson Line”
ccarannaHi all, As a younger man in my teens and 20s, I was often very interested in the switching aspect of a model railroad. So much so, that I constructed an L-shaped HO layout switching layout without staging. However, now I miss continual running, no matter how mundane and "round and round" it may seem. What advice do you have for someone with a limited budget and space in this situation? I want to keep the hobby interesting, but back and forth switching has become stale. I just want the trains to run.
If you want to stay within an L-shaped foot print for permanent use, a few possible options are:
1) Change to N scale, make a dogbone shaped layout or a loop - in N scale you can make a workable turnback curve on a shelf no deeper than 26-30". while you need 40+" shelf depth for a turnback curve in H0, or
2) Change what you are modelling to something that won't have to be turned around to head back in the opposite direction when runs running in continuous mode - e.g. a subway, street car, interurban or maybe a push-pull commuter train. There are electronics that will help your train stop at one end of the run, wait for a little and then start moving in the opposite direction, or
3) Make a sectional donut shaped layout where two sections can be set up on temporary legs to run in continuous mode, and packed away on shelves under the other two sections when you are not running in continuous mode. No reason for why you can't make this layout quite high, so duckunder is not so much of a hassle.
I am sure there could be quite a few other options - including going all around the room on narrow shelves with liftouts for doors and windows, making a 4x8 that is not left permanently set up (but instead hung on the wall or set on the side against the wall or hanging from the ceiling and so on and so forth.
But since we don't know what you mean by "limited space" or how your room is configured, it is hard to make really concrete suggestions of how to fit some kind of continuous run into your layout room.
Smile, Stein
Ha!
The first one to confess that he just likes to see trains circle the loop!
Seriously, although I am deep down into operation and currently designing my L-shaped switching layout, I do dream about having that grand layout available where I can watch my trains (long ones, pulled by a consist of min. 3 locos) run through breathtaking scenery..
Like you, I don´t have that kind of money and space. I even thought of giving up HO scale and going into N scale, just for the purpose of having long trains.
Risking to be beaten up in this forum, I vote against a 4 by 8 layout. Whatever you do there , will be just a loop disguised as a layout (easy, guys, I have seen many a well built "table layout"). If you have a space of, say, maybe 12´ by 7` , go for a "donut" shaped layout, build in segments that you can store while your are not operating the layout.
Check the "Heart of Georgia" - layout or Stein´s Minnesota based layout - both are well designed examples of what can be done in small spaces, having run-around facilities and a lot of switching ops as well.
Chuck,
What maximum width and length layout you can have in your space? If it's L-shaped, how wide can each section be?
I only have a 4 x 8 layout but I have (actually, will have) both a small switching yard and a servicing terminal. Plenty of switching action PLUS a continual loop for "railfanning".
Go for as large as a curved radius on your continual run mainline as possible. With a 4 x 8, I could only go as large as R22" - except for a small section of R18". Your locomotives and rolling stock will both look and operate better on the larger radii.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I'm a total ops geek, but I've got to have a continuous run option available. Having the trains looping around is not unlike a peaceful fountain burbling away in the corner of the room... Lot's of choo choo zen in that.