One general comment I'd make is that on a shelf type layout you have an advantage that you can use use broad curves and turnouts, since you're not restricted by the width necessary to turn a complete loop to allow for continous running. I currently have an L-shaped shelf layout using 31" R curves and No.6 turnouts as minimums. Yes it takes more room than 24"R curves and tighter turnouts, but I find it's nice to have something closer to prototypical track dimensions...plus I can run anything I want, including 85' trailer train piggyback cars with no problems.
Taylor,
you get new designs from Stein. A remark on the last one.
It has a curved runaround; coupling or uncoupling on a curve is always a problem. Unless the radius of the curve is 5 times the length of the longest car involved. Using modern 1 foot long cars means a 5 foot (60 inch) radius. Choosing for 50 ft long cars (7" in HO) means you'll need a 35" radius in the curve. (Unless all the coupling is done on the straight part; both cars involved have to be on the straight, which is quite a length when it concerns two 89 feet long cars.
In the last MR-magazine you can see another switching layout; twice as big as yours. It has 4 staging tracks. Every train holds a number of cars. When the owner runs a train a day, only after four days he would have the same cars back on his layout again. Having fresh cars the next day, to serve the spurs, is garanteed this way. If you do not want to spend so much room on staging, because your space is very limited, you can get fresh cars in a different way. From a convenient spot you pick them off your pike by hand and put new cars back on.
You can always combine designs: take Byron's city with Stein's yard on the wing; but you never responded to questions about your preferences.
Study the websides of Lance Mindheim and Byron Henderson. Both are professional designers and both start with lots of questions. If you don't answer to them they can't come up with a decent plan; same on this forum.
Paul
So Taylor, what you seemingly want is for someone else to design a layout plan for you, based on your description, instead of learning for yourself how to design a layout ?
Summarizing what you have written so far:
- Space available for 18-24" deep shelf layout is 10 foot down one wall and 8 foot down adjoining wall- H0 scale- "Modern age"- "Not too complicated"- "City buildings" - "I would like at least 3 industries to switch that would keep one, maybe two people busy"- "would like a warehouse, grain elevator, and something that takes tank cars." - "would also like a industry that takes grain hoppers and one that takes boxcars and containers."- "Grain Elevator, warehouse, and maybe an oil dealer or propane dealer" You are probably not going to be able to combine "not too complicated" and "keep two people busy" on a H0 scale layout that size.
You have already been told that "modern" long cars in H0 scale might be a bad choice for a H0 scale shelf switching layout, but you have not responded to that.
You seem fixated on re-using some buildings and rolling stock you have, and yet you do not describe them very well. What do you mean by "city type buildings" ?
People around here is generally willing to help, but you need to put in a little more effort on your own if you want to get help.
As for suggestions - you could e.g. take Linda Sand's 9x5 foot plan from the article "Big City Railroads don't require big spaces" in Model Railroad Planning 1999 and unbend it from U-shape to L-shape (by cutting away the center part of the plan).
Here is one adaptation of that plan - in the figure below, it was expanded from 9x5 feet to 10x6 feet.
H0 scale cars illustrated in the plan above is 40' cars - 60' cars are 1.5 times as long, 89' cars is 2.2. times as long - or put another way - you would only have room for half as many 89' cars on a layout this size. Your layout is quite a bit smaller.
Here is a variant that has been unbent as suggested above:
Cars shown are 60-foot (tank and box) and 89 foot (flats/containers/centerbeam).
Will it "keep 2 people busy" ? Depends on what they do. Switching lead for yard area along right side is the same piece of track as the switching lead for industry area along top.
Does it have staging? No. You don't seem to understand the concept of staging, and you don't seem all that willing to read up on layout design and learn on your own - in my experience that is not so unusual for teenagers who can't spell very well. So staging is probably wasted for this layout.
It has a small industy support yard area, so you can do a little sorting. And room for half a diesel enginehouse at the upper right of the layout and some diesel fuel pumps at the lower right end of the layout - a lot of people like "railroady" structures on their layout.
Will it use you "city type buildings" - that's up to you. Buildings can always be cut in two and made into backdrop structures by placing the two halves next to each other.
Observe how big those 89 foot cars are and how few of them you can fit on a layout that size. Compare with the 40-foot cars on the first sketch. Runaround in yard and along top is long enough for running around two 89 foot cars or three 60-foot cars.
All turnouts are Peco code 75 medium turnouts. Curve radius for main curve is 22".
Up to you whether you want to use the plan, use part of it or not use anything from it, and whether you want to modify anything.
Here is another idea, also based on a Linda Sand plan (this one called "Nicollet Avenue in N and H0 scale", from Model Railroad Planning 1998, if I remember correctly). Basic idea is to have have one longer runaround around the corner, instead of two smaller runarounds on the two straight sections:
This one allows two leads being used at the same time - one person could switch the yard using the front part of the runaround, one person could switch backdrop industries using the rear part of the runaround. They would have to cooperate for actually running around cars, though.
There are tons of ways a plan can be made for a space like what you have. Up to you what you like and want to do.
Smile, Stein
Hey Paul,
That is all the space I can use. The buildings are a few city type buildings, not industries. The cars I would probably replace since they came in a train set and aren't very good, I do have a few athearns I would keep though, bnsf covered hopper and ttx lumber car. I would like atleast 3 industries to switch that would keep one, maybe two people busy. Grain Elevator, warehouse, and maybe an oil dealer or propane dealer. 24 radius curves atleast for mainline. Alittle flexible on spurs and staging.
To tell you the truth, I don;t know what the differences in staging are. It could also be used as a yard with some staging hidden behing it, I don't knoe if that works.
Thanks,
Taylor
Bear Down!
here is the basic idea i am using for my shelf / switching layout. i don't remember who the original designer was.
this is what i ended up with. HO scale, 2' x 10' with basic benchwork and foam base. i added a spur and a crossing for extra interest. i kept the spurs short trying to make a switching puzzle (Time Saver??) which can be added to the bigger layout later.
close up of coal unloading track.
my wife tells me the pink foam is perfect to get girls into the hobby. so far my 3 daughters have not been interested in watching the trains go back-and-forth.
Here's some decent designs..
http://www.huntervalleylines.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=random&cat=0&pos=-3
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
hi Taylor
You are learning very fast. You have provided a great drawing and you did it at once. Great job!. You have a nice room; big question however is: Are you allowed to use the whole room or is this your bedroom and has the room other purposes to serve as well?
You have allready cars and buildings, so may be you can tell us more about them. It can give an idea where you are heading at. And please tell what you think about the design Byron Henderson gave you. Feel free to do so; the more we know about your "wishes" the more easy it gets, to come up with an alternative if needed.
Staging is a nice example: "do you want whole trains in staging and no hands on the cars " or "no staging at all" or "staging as a small BNSF transfer yard" or .....?
And remember: your plan, your wishes and your desisions are making it your ultimate pike.
modelbnsferI have a drawing of the room and layout size drawn and where it is going but how do you post it one here.
1) Sign up for some free image sharing website - e.g. http://www.photobucket.com
2) Upload picture to photobucket
3) Under picture at photobucket you find various links, including ones that start with [ img]
4) Copy that link, paste into your post here.
That's it :-)
I pay for all of my stuff except for birthdays and stuff. Sorry for making things harder for everyone, i'm trying hard to get this right. I have a drawing of the room and layout size drawn and where it is going but how do you post it one here. Thanks for your and everyones help. I am also staying with HO because I have trains, Freight Cars, and Buildings.
Thanks Everyone,
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Hi Tayor,
The design I gave you was intended to let you think. You did respond in way I did not expect; you seem to make problems where there aren't any and don't seem to notice where the real problems are.
Stein spelled it out for you, hidden or not is not the issue, the staging track is only three foot long. If you want more staging tracks you need to add switches and you will end up with no length at all.
Using your space well, let the extension do double duty, would be no problem to me unless I had a far larger space. The final choice is yours, of course. Stein used different words: I call his idea's "on line staging". Byron Henderson's PRR interchange track could be used that way, perhaps you can add a track up front on the extension that can be used in the very same way.
Staging is about setting up your trains or cars prior to a operating session. You can do it by hand; so cars switched the previous day are taken off the layout and new "fresh" cars are placed on the layout. This is the ante-session. Only after this is done the real operating can start.
The choice between modern or older is a real problem area as well. Stein spelled it out for you allready. If you want to have a continious run (an oval) also, N-scale would be a better choice. Better change now, then waiting till you have spend a lot of money and regret your choices afterwards.
SPEEDY EXP. CO not only cares for transport but does warehousing as well. Oil facility's were usualy set aside from other buildings due to fire hazards. Most important spurs are the team track and the interchange facility; never forget those. This was a non problem; but I even designed another flaw in: the radius leading to the intermodel fac. is only 18". Not to your standards.
Does it makes the design bad? Depends on what you want; if you want your staging track to hold just a few cars brought in by the yard switcher early in the morning, three foot is ok. If you want three tracks long enough to hold a train each, it is bad. If you want long cars into your "round the corner plant", the 18" radius is bad; if you have max 50-ft boxcars it is ok. If you want to replace cars manualy it would be easy to have the "home-interchange" up front; but then the radius becomes a problem again. You could also, during the ante session, pull these cars out and replace them at another more convenient spot.
Draw a plan of the room you have, with doors and other obstacles drawn in and the footprint of your pike of course. Let us see the trackplan you came up with. So far you did not give us an insight in what you really think or like. You never responded to the plan Byron gave you. Do you like to change your cars by hand (fiddling)? Your input is of upmost importance.
Stein gave a reaction on my plan; it should be yours.
BTW maybe your parents should be involved in this discussion. I assume they have to pay most of the bills and can give you permission to add a foot some where (or not of course)
modelbnsferThat is like exactly what i would like but the part with staging would be just for staging, what I would like is a warehouse, grain elevator, and something that takes tank cars.The wall is 10 feet long and their is no windows or doors to worry about. The staging yard would be 4 feet long and 1 1/2 feet wide, It can be staging where it is not hidden, I don't know if it's staging then.
The wall is 10 feet long and their is no windows or doors to worry about. The staging yard would be 4 feet long and 1 1/2 feet wide, It can be staging where it is not hidden, I don't know if it's staging then.
Hi Taylor --
So, the space you have available is L-shaped - 10 feet long and 2 feet deep along one wall, and either 4 or 6 feet out from the corner along the neighboring wall - about 18" deep on that wall. It is not clear from how you describe your layout whether four feet is from the wall or from the edge of the ten-foot length baseboard. Which is it ?
In four feet of track, you can have a grand total of about 4 H0 scale modern 89-foot railroad cars. Or 5 60-foot cars, or 8 H0 scale 1940-1950 era 40-foot cars.
Or 7 N scale 89-foot cars, 9 N scale 60-foot cars, or 14 N scale 40-foot cars. Needed length for cars are found by taking car length and dividing by scale factor (87.1 for H0, 160 for N scale).
If you don't want hidden staging (i.e. if it is not important for you to simulate trains "arriving from <somewhere else>" or "departing for <somewhere else>"), you might as well forget all about staging - just put the cars you want onto your layout "having just arrived" or "having been dropped off by a previous train", and use the space for modelling your industries instead of having an arriving trains drive 4-6 feet totally visible from staging into the main leg of the layout.
I would advise just going with Jonathan Jones' plan, as modified by Byron Henderson (cuyama) above - it is finely tuned and will work well as a switching layout. Btw - let's spell it the right way while we are at it: "switching".
What industries you put on your layout is up to you. If you want an elevator, a warehouse and a place that takes tank cars, you can e.g. declare the industry in the rear left corner to be an elevator and the industry in the rear right to be a warehouse, and the industry in the center left or front center to be e.g. team track or transload facility, where tank cars can be unloaded.
That is like exactly what i would like but the part with staging would be just for staging, what I would like is a warehouse, grain elevator, and something that takes tank cars. The wall is 10 feet long and their is no windows or doors to worry about. The staging yard would be 4 feet long and 1 1/2 feet wide, It can be staging where it is not hidden, I don't know if it's staging then. Thanks for all your help. Sorry if I have been confusing. Name is Taylor btw.
Thanks Everyone.
hi
I reworked Jonathans Jones and Byron Henderson's plan a bit into an L-shaped plan.
On the new shelf one track is for staging behind a row of containers.
We can only help if you tell us your ideas and your feelings.
Here's a Bing Birdseye of a "small" container facility in Detroit. You could do a compressed version of something like this along the front edge of your layout, and flip it in order to imply the container lot as being in your aisleway. It will still eat up some space, as you'd want to leave room for trucks and trailers to detail the scene.
I second Paul's suggestion for considering detachable cassettes for staging, as they can be removed and stowed out of the way when the layout is not in use.
Posting a sketch of your room with door/window/other obstacle details would be helpful, so we can see where other elements can be squeezed in or tacked on.
Hi,
some months ago I started a thread called "Ideas for scenic Switching Layout" and received many valuable answers and comments
http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/153668.aspx?PageIndex=9
You may find some interesting options there.
My last plan for a switching layout may not fit in the space you have, but it could also act as some food for thought:
hi, without a name
Problem is your input. Cuyama (Byron Henderson) gave you a nice design. The industy at the top (right) could be an elevator complex, all the other's can take boxcars or containers. A container is a modern box. Or do you want a container terminal; these are uaualy big, fitting in on a small pike can be difficult.
If you can make a L-shaped layout you could hide the staging tracks behind a row of containers. But, your input again, you do not tell how wide your extension can be.
Helping you to a start is made more easy when you tell us what you like or dislike. What do you really feel about Jonathan Jones' design? Did you really study the websides mentioned? Were there any layouts you fancied? Name them; give us a clou. Did you go through the trackplan database? Or 102 trackplan book? Try to get Model Railroad Planning magazine and Great Model Railroads from the last years. There must a RR of two you wow.
Byron Henderson named cornerstones of a good design on his webside; find them and remember them. My cornerstones are: 1) getting cars to or from the rest of the world (staging and interchange), 2) spurs to load or unload cars and 3) a passingsiding to get cars on or from facing and trailing spurs. Every modelrailroad with these three points in, can be operated like the real thing.
Have fun doing and share the results.
Hey Everyone,
Thanks for your help, i'm starting to get an idea of what I would like but I was thinking, do I need a staging yard because I would like to operate it as a real railroad and I don't know if I could do that. It can be just on the side so the layout would be 10x2 with a 4 foot extension off the edge so it looks like a L. I would also like a industry that takes grain hoppers and one that takes boxcars and containers. This is my first true layout so it can't be to complicated. I model HO by the way. And thanks for helping me out guys, this forum is a big help.
My layout is 10 foot by 2.5 feet switching layout bases on an Ian Rice track plan from a few years back based on a harbor , my layout is freelanced in the 1970's so I run some larger cars .
hi bnsf 'er,
If you like urban railroading Byron Henderson presented you a wonderful design. Only problem I see is staging; if you build it as it is, you will always have the same cars on your layout. Even worse the cars "you" loaded never leave town. The PRR track and the track directly above it could be fiddled. You take, with your own hands, the cars from the track and place others back on; cars from the PRR on the outer track and cars from the BNSF on the inner home track. (PRR should be UP of course).
Or you could extend the curve at the right side to a cassette; it takes 3 foot extra space (one for the curve extension and two for the cassette) but could be done as a removable part stored elsewhere.
Cuyama is very helpfull, you can ask him how or if he would add staging.
For a more rural look you can find in the trackplan database the Walla Walla. The east leg with its passing siding will fit in a 10x2 space. Some adjusting will have to be done.
one other: Bob Smaus' Port of Los Angelos layout (also on Byron Hendersons=Cuyama's webside; home.earthlink/modelrailservices/inspirational layouts) and two websides:
http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id13.html
Keep smiling and having fun
I am currently modeling a switching layout myself in the modern era. The size is about 64β by 96 βin HO scale βUβ shaped. I am not following any particular prototype, but I am loosely basing my layout on the SE Side of Chicago around the Lake Calumet area. I do have a yard where everything happens. The one big industry I have is a grain elevator. I also have plans for a large lumber yard (transload), a scrap yard and an area to load/unload automobiles. Based on your ideas you will be running many locals and not any through freights. I wish I had a printed track plan for you but I always make changes on the fly. 10 by 2 sounds like more than enough space for what you are doing and the possibilities are endless. Good Luck!!!
The above layout offers some pretty good switching on a point-to-point layout. May I suggest that you use SceniKing sequential 11"x7" panorama, for the background. If you plan to paint the wall behind the layout, you can match the uniform blue color of the tops of the SceniKing sections, or perhaps tack on a 2-3 ft. high background to the back of the layout. Perhaps an urban industrial background of kitbashed industries along part of the wall. Bob Hahn
Welcome to layout building!
"Modern" implies fewer, larger industries and sometimes longer cars (such as intermodal), which can be a bit of a challenge in a small space, But here's an example of an HO layout with some fair-sized industries in 2'X10'
This is my slight modification of Jonathan Jones' terrific switching layout from MR May 2001. The version i drew above is 24" minimum radius except for the one tight curve indicated. Turnouts are HO PECO Code 75 Medium or larger.
We discussed this layout in some detail a while back.http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/133130.aspx
There are number of other shelf-style switching layouts in my layout design gallery, but this is a fine one that is already the size you are considering.
Byron
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
Have a 10 foot wall that I would like to build a switcing layout on. Does anyone have any good ideas. It could only be 10 foot long and 2 feet wide. I would like it to have 24 radius curves and be modern day UP or BNSF. Already have BNSF stuff so BNSF would be better. Have only been modeling for almost 4 years and would be first serious layout. Any help would be nice. I model HO by the way.
Thanks everyone