TRACK PLAN HELP NEEDED

[BILL6051]

I recently moved into a new home, and at the age of 61 I find myself starting a new HO scale layout.  The problem is that the room for it is 14 foot square, and I cant find a plan for that size with a modern feel and alot of grain and industry potental.  Any advice would be very helpfull.  bill6051

[Carnegie Falls]

I assume you'll have to find something close and adapt it to your specific needs/space.  You may get some more thoughts if you post a pic or schematic of the room (where's the door? any windows? closets?).  Do you want a shelf/around the wall layout?  Are you OK with a duck-under or a lift-out section by the door?  Do you have a minimum radius you would like to maintain?  With a room that size, you could probably have 30" radius turns and still not block the door.  Have you searched MRR's track database?  You can choose 100-300 sq ft and specifcy a type of layout (island, shelf, modular, walk-in, etc.) and look at some options.

[BILL6051]

Thanks for you input.  The room is wide open with no closets or widows, and the front wall is completly open.( A three sided room if you will).  My last layout, I designed using AnyRail, but I am not the best at it.  I had alot of things that I wish I had done better (Different).  I have looked at the MR tack plans as will as several others, but nothing has caught my eye yet.

[snjroy]

Sorry to ask, but are you sure your math is right? Seems very small to me.

[Schuylkill and Susquehanna]

I think "14 foot square" means 14'x14', not 14 square feet.

S&S

[Steven Otte]

It's unlikely you'll find any single pre-existing track plan that could fit all your needs (and your room). Instead, look at our Track Plan Database for ideas you can adapt. Print out plans with interesting elements, Xerox them up or down so they're all the same scale, cut out a yard here and a town there, and slide them around your room's floor plan until they fit in a logical and satisfying way. Then connect the ends with flextrack, and bingo! Track plan.

[dknelson]

Over the years the Kalmbach annual Model Railroad Planning has featured a number of "bedroom" sized track plans -- you can search for them in the magazine index on this website -- and some of them are surprisingly ambitious layouts.  Just remember that you don't necessarily have to fill the available space.  Nor do you have to do the whole layout at once; another MRP idea was a sort of temporary/portable staging yard that was used at the end of a finished portion of a layout, but later to be replaced by more layout.

Dave Nelson

[skagitrailbird]

Duckunder or swing gate (up, down or sideways)? If you are willing to accept one of these you can do an around the room layout, allowing continuous running if that is your thing.

No duckunder, etc? then consider a U shape. This could either be point to point or, if continuous running is your thing, then make it with loops at each end. These would be return loops if single main between them or make it look like double main with no reversers required. This latter idea is basically an oval, much elongated and wrapped around your room's three walls.

The loops could be up to five feet wide allowing for 28"-29" radius. There would still be over three feet bgetween them for human access. But be careful what you plan to do with the space inside the loops because of reach considerations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BroadwayLion]

A 14' wide room allows for large islands at the open end. These could hold a helix or a turning loop.

You say the room is 14 x 14, with an open end. Does that mean that you can fudge things a little by putting the table right up against the open end, and then work on that from the other side (stealing an isle as it were from the adjacent space)

You want grain and industry. Here in just a 30 mile stretch of BNSF mane lion we find

1) The Hebron Grain terminal, this is perpendicular to the mainline with a loop of tracks serving the elevator.

2) The Hebron Brick Factory, a few spur tracks parallel to the mane lion.

3) The Richardton Yards. Five industries in here, anchored by a pipe storage opeation. The sidings loop back upon them selves for no apprarent reason other than they were un able to buy property to make them straight.

4) Red Trail Energy an Ethanol Plant here in Richardton. They have four tracks, the easter tails of which run into the Richardton Yards.

5) Halliburton is building a Fracking Sand Depot, the concrete elevator tower yet to rise from the ground. This has two loops of track for holding incoming trains, and for unloading them, some additonal utility tracks and lots of space for trucks to cart the sand to the fracking fields.

6) Taylor has a passing track that is over two miles long, the halso have a siding for setting out defective equipment.

7) The South West Grain Cooperative has about 12  concrete silos and a long siding track for loading grain trains.

8) The Minn-Dak Elevator handles specailty grains with siding perpendicular to the mane lion.

9) The Dickinson rail yards used to be a divission point, it has several tracks for holding trains, and a yard for switching things. Local turns still operate out of Dickinson to cover all of these industries.

10) The Bakken Oil Express sits on a square mile of land west of 115 Street (a dirt raod which is used by oile trucks brining crude from the fields to the terminal), and two loops of track, four tracks on the east loop, and two tracks on the west loop.

11) A new diesel refinery has been built just to the south-west of the BOE terminal. Most of this fuel is for local use so I have yet to see if diesel will be shipped by rail or not.

Now you can go to Google Earth, and see the track plans for these places and then try putting them in your layout room.

ROAR

[cuyama]

I'll quibble with Steve Otte a bit here. Combining bits and pieces from different plans may work, but it may also leave out important elements. For instance, if the arrangement of a town depends on a runaround in the adjoining town of the original plan to allow switching, it might not work in isolation in the new "Franken-plan".

Likewise, differences in era, prototype, minimum radius, etc. between different published plans all may cause an element from one layout to not play well with others.

Not to mention that not all published plans are buildable or operable as drawn.

Nothing beats learning some fundamental layout design principles by studying a good resource like John Armstrong’s Track Planning for Realistic Operation.

[mlehman]

A little bit more info from the OP may help here. You mentioned an era, modern, and a focus, grain and industry.

Modern suggests broader curves to handle the generally longer rolling stock and still look good for mainline running. There tends to be less focus on wayfreight and more on unit trains. To a certain extent, this might imply a layout oriented more toward a railfanning experience. Generally, the spaces this is done is are larger, but if you concentrate on it it's doable in your space. Think Polle Soeberg as an example.

However, you can squeeze things down some if you focus more on switching. Tighter curves, more dense structural environment, more city, less country. Some call this industrial short line (ISL), but you actually have a little more space than they usually do. Think Lance Mindheim, but maybe a little larger palette.

In practice, you can mix the two, but with your space it'll be hard to do both justice and easier to focus on one or the other.

The other factor that may help here is knowing any prototype interest you find attractive. Being more specific here could ease the process by narrowing the potential range of choices to something at least partially suitable to begin with, instead of needing to invent it all.

[Doughless]

IMO, a lot of grain traffic sounds like the plan should have more straight track than curved, one mainline rather than many, and a no grade; but anything can be made to work I suppose.

Google images for "San Jacinto District" and "Heart of Georgia" (or HOG) HO scale layouts.  The SJD is a classic plan by MRs own Andy Sperandeo.  While the HOG is a bit of a gimmick designed to use only one 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, the basic plan could be expanded to fit your 14 x 14 room quite nicely, as could the SJD, which I believe was designed for a 11 x 9 space.  There have also been adaptations of the SJD by various authors that can be found with the same search.

[bing&kathy]

   I took one of MR's 12' x 12' plans , widened it 2', lengthed it a bit and added my own railroad center, and put in a 7' staging area. Currently all bench work is in, foam base is in, grades established and scenery is started. Track work will come after scenery is roughed in.

Find something close to what you want and let your dreams run wild. Don't be discouraged by the wadded up paper you have piled up around the waste basket. And don't be afraid to change as you go. I speak from experience. Good luck and have FUN!

[rogerhensley]

Here is one idea. The drawing is not to scale but will give you an idea.