Layout Design Contest

[Anonymous]

Trainboard (www.trainboard.com) is proud to announce the first Internet Layout Design Contest open to anyone with an interest in furthering his or her layout design skills. After we have been in the model railroad hobby for a while some of us become interested in layout design. However after designing our own layout, our skills at track design often languish. We become very good at designing for "our" space, but track design beyond our space is often left unexplored.

The purpose of this bi-annual contest is to encourage designers to step outside the familiar and grapple with various layout challenges employing various sizes and themes of layout shapes in various room formats. Because the traditional 4 by 8 foot layouts in HO and door style layouts in N have been done to death, we will not be offering challenges in these sizes.

The layout design contest rules are as follows:
#61550; The contest is open to anyone, with the exception of Trainboard moderators.
#61550; Anyone may submit up to three plans.
#61550; The contest closes on June 30, 2004, midnight GMT time. If you are submitting on the last day of the contest, be aware of your time zone in relation to GMT.
Layout plans using any of the following will be acceptable, a CAD or RR CAD program such as 3rd PlanIt, a scanned paper and pencil submission, a paint program, or any other form of electronic internet submission.

The track plan is what is being judged so any additional visual details, such as buildings or other structures, and scenery are optional but not part of the judging.

The best source of judging guidelines and an excellent resource for planners is John Armstrong’s Track Planning for Realistic Operations and the Layout Design SIG’s Layout Design Primer. Judging criteria are from these sources.

You are asked to submit the following along with your track plan.
#61550; The theme of your layout
#61550; Your intent.
So for example: The theme of my layout is high iron in the Canadian Rockies; my intent is to illustrate typical operations in the Jasper Alberta area.

HIGH IRON RAILROAD LINE

The theme for our first track planning challenge is modern railroading on today’s class one lines. You are being challenged to design an L shaped layout for N scale that incorporates a number of features.
#61550; An L shaped layout in which both ends of the layout touch the walls; in other words, no access at the ends of the L shaped bench work. The dimensions of the layout area is as follows, one leg is 8 feet long, the other leg is 12 feet long, and the maximum width is 40 inches – 2.45 metres long by 3.65 metres long by 1.02 metres wide.
#61550; Elevations determined by the contestant and must be specified
#61550; Bench work height to be determined by contestant and must be specified
#61550; This layout will be multiple decked, the number determined by the contestant.
#61550; There will be at least one SD90’s running the mainline and passenger service.
#61550; There will be a barge area.
Written submission along with the track plan will include:
#61550; Minimum radius
#61550; Maximum grade
#61550; Length of the mainline
#61550; Layout height
#61550; Turnout sizes must be specified

The time frame for this contest will be through June 30, 2004.

Please post each entry as a new topic.

The prize will be a Pentrex DVD!

Thanks to Pentrex for sponsoring the contest. Make sure you visit their web site today to see what's new!

Here is the link to the site to submit entries:
http://www.trainboard.com/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/55/t/000002.html