Speaking as one who has been building and rebuilding roughly the same track plan in 4'x8', I offer just abit of advice. Start with a general goal , but do not fear letting your concept and scenery evolve. When I started , as a fairly young person, with a loop of track and one spur the layout operated as the Great Atlantic and Pacific RR. Over time, what has evolved is a short line, bridge line, interchange railroad known very locally ( i.e. within 10 or 12 feet of the layout space) as the Cascade Valley Railroad. What I try to do is to incorporate just enough prototype modeling to give the impression of a very real place. With a standard 4'x8' board, as others have already posted, you do need to make some choices as to what you enjoy most, if you are using HO scale. You will find that you have tighter curves than what can be built into larger track plans. Long locos, long cars will inevitably have problems. I was gifted with a scale 83' passenger car the now is part of Joe's Railroad Roadside diner simply because its lenghth created unsolvable problems.
I have some industry, an impression of a backwater town, and just enough mountains to create a homage to the cross Cascades tunnels that were built in Western Washington. If I was starting to plan the type of layout that you are describing, the recommendation would be to pick a track plan that has an intriguing configuration ( there are many, but feel free to improvise) and the build some Wisconsin signature elements around the rails. Remember that it is your layout and enjoyment that is important, because without that satisfaction your plans will most likely become a railroad that only exists on paper.
41/53dodges hi all, im not new to HO railroading, but i have been out awhile for lack of space. now, winters here and i need something to do inside, so i am building yet another 4x8 in my workshop. i have tried for plans, but couldnt find anything good so far. i am looking for some kind of northern wisconsin feel, with some forestry and fields, maybe farms, with a slightly complex layout. it has to have some room for some larger locos, like a 4-8-0 and SD-9's, but some areas good for the small switchers and whatnot. yes, the space is about 4x8, and the thing has to be less than a foot tall, as it will be on hinges and fold onto the wall. any ideas are appreciated.
hi all, im not new to HO railroading, but i have been out awhile for lack of space. now, winters here and i need something to do inside, so i am building yet another 4x8 in my workshop. i have tried for plans, but couldnt find anything good so far. i am looking for some kind of northern wisconsin feel, with some forestry and fields, maybe farms, with a slightly complex layout. it has to have some room for some larger locos, like a 4-8-0 and SD-9's, but some areas good for the small switchers and whatnot. yes, the space is about 4x8, and the thing has to be less than a foot tall, as it will be on hinges and fold onto the wall. any ideas are appreciated.
Hi Josh.
Sounds to me like you ought to consider some other approaches too.
If you want continuous run on a table, consider N scale and a 30" x 7 foot table instead. It allows wider curves (about the equivalent of 24-26" radius curves in H0 scale), can still be reached across from one side (so it can stand with one long side along a wall), and gives room for scenery and track plans equivalent to a H0 scale 5 x 12 foot layout).
Or maybe N scale and some other shape of benchwork:
The curse of the 4x8 foot continuous run H0 scale layout is, as someone put it recently, that four feet "is both too narrow and too wide at the same time".
It is too narrow to allow a good curve radius for turn back curves - which constrains how you can run tracks pretty severely. And it is too wide to reach across the entire layout from just one side - making it a space hog in a small room, since you need access from several sides.
People have come up with a number of schemes to deal with the space hogging qualities when the layout is not in use. Standing the layout up on the end when not in use, or winching it up to the ceiling or something.
But when the layout is in use or is being worked on, it will need pretty much 8 x 10 feet of floor space - allowing for two foot wide aisles on three sides of the layout, to be able to reach things. Which is a lot of floor space to give you 32 square feet of layout.
It is also pretty hard to get a number of scenes on a 4x8 layout in H0 scale. You are talking about "some areas" (plural) for this, and some areas for that.
Basically, the "loop on a 8 foot table" format tends to limit you (at best) to two scenes - one on each side of the table, if you use some kind of central view block down the spine of the table.
Or you can do something inventive, like having one scene above ground and one below ground (viewed from opposite sides of the table) - like poster Geohan illustrated in this thread: http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/183323.aspx).
But it is still hard to create an impression of a train moving through a number of scenes on a 4x8 foot H0 scale layout. If what you want is to create an impression of a train running through several scenes, think "long and narrow(ish)" baseboards rather than 4x8.
I.e consider whether you can do shelves or narrow tables, maybe several walls, spanning over furniture or work benches.
That's the way I went for my H0 scale layout - since the only place I could build a layout was way too small for a 4x6 or 4x8 foot layout - a basement room of 6.5 x 11.5 feet, with a chimney base taking up some room in one corner. So I went with narrower (from 9 - 24" deep) layout along the walls:
The along the walls approach works pretty well when you also need room for other things in the same room:
Yet allows you room for a number of scenes that doesn't visually interfere with each other:
Sometimes, breaking out of the format H0 scale loop on 4x8 foot table can give you a lot more layout while still co-existing better with other uses of the room.
Doesn't have to be a layout all around the room, or a continuous run layout.
A very nice switching layout can be had in just a tiny bit of space - say 8 feet of length and 1 foot of width for this N scale layout:
(last two pictures are from the layout of a friend named David - who wanted urban switching for modern cars - and thus went for N scale, since 1:160 works better for modern long cars in a small setting).
I have also seen good switching layout plans for an L-shaped layouts, like this one by poster Robert Beaty (Arjay1969):
There are lots of approaches out there. Most of them work for someone, somewhere. But if you actually have little space, I would encourage you to consider a change of scale or a change of type layout, allowing you to go longer and narrower than you could on a H0 scale continuous run 4 x 8 scale layout.
If you still want to do an H0 scale 4x8, have a look at this plan: http://www.layoutvision.com/id48.html and tell us what you like, and what you don't like about that plan - it would give us some ideas about what you are looking for.
Smile, Stein
I got this book from my local library,
By Kent J. Johnson from Kalmbach and it was great starting tool. I built most of the St Paul layout http://books.google.com/books?id=cKjCumFtU_YC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=st+paul+ho+scale+layout&source=bl&ots=AhUV23FwoN&sig=rTES1sVSPLrPDiKdVVaFmobUAVk&hl=en&ei=xbn-TOuvDYW9nAeWtOymCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=st%20paul%20ho%20scale%20layout&f=false and it was easliy expanded to additional 4x8 tables as I made room. It has a lot of great ideas and I am sure you can find something that might be close to what you want or give you inspiration to go off of. But 4x8 is a tight space, if you can do it, you might want to a shelf layout around the room. I did that in my garage after I found my 4x8 tables limiting in what I wanted and doing the shelf around the room gave me more free to move around room and more train running space.
Welcome Josh!!
Read this http://www.layoutvision.com/id28.html Consider cutting the sheet down the middle into two 2' x 8' pieces and butting them together. It will fit in the same space operationally but given you a better run and options for fitting everything in
ratled
Modeling the Klamath River area in HO on a proto-lanced sub of the SP “The State of Jefferson Line”
Not being rude, and borrowing the idea from another poster, what you have given us is basically this:
I would like a house.
It should be big, but not to big.
It should have at least one bathroom.
It should have a blue wall.
Maybe it could have a den/man cave/ office
It could be on a hilly lot or flat and level and some of both is ok too, but not too tall.
I've looked at plans in books.
Can you please to help me design my house?
You need to make up you list of "GIVENS" and "DRUTHERS"
Given are things you basically cannot change. Druthers are things you would like to have.
Click here and Take a look at the first post in this thread and see how the poster gave us givens and druthers and operations ideas of what he wants his layout to be and how he wants it to run:
http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/183071.aspx
If you come back with a spelled out list as he has, perhaps we can help you more!
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
thanks!
josh.