doctorwayneC'mon, Tom, you didn't really think that would alter the conversation, didja?
Not particularly, Wayne...but it may help keep the simultaneously running threads under 10 for a short time.
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
cascadenorthernrr Slow down there pal. I would have a layout already but my parents haven't been too accomodating to my hobby.
Slow down there pal. I would have a layout already but my parents haven't been too accomodating to my hobby.
Mike
I too say start small and add on. Your first layout is not going to be your last. Even John Allen started small.
My Dad passed away when I was young. I was determined to keep model trains going, so the first year I just put up what we always put up over the holidays, we didn;t really have room in the house for a permanent layout. But I wanted to have a layout all year, so I broke out the old N scale stuff and bought some more. I built a 2x4 layout from an Atlas plan book. I did have room in my bedroom for more, so i ended up building a 4x8 HO layout, no real track plan, just built it like the temp layout we used to set up, with a few extra touches like an abandoned siding. Wanted more so I went back to N scale, and built a 3x6 where I think I got most of the idea from an Atlas book but added some additional touches like a steep mining branch up the side of my mountain. This all before I was a teenager. Then I got into computers and the layout just languished through high school and college. After college I met a girl who's Dad was a model railroader, mostly armchair since he too had no space to build a layout. He had a couple of dioramas he made and briefly had a 2x4 N scale layout, but most of all he had all the 80's MRs I had missed while away from the hobby. I picked up a couple of locos and some car kits, and I was back. My apartment had a "walk in closet" that was just a bare room - no place to hang clothes or anything. I had a table with my computer in there and figured if I put up some bookshelves I could run a layout around 3 of the walls. That worked out pretty well, but I never got to the third wall. On one wall I modified a plan out of 101 Track Plans. On the second wall, I designed it myself. My plan for the third wall was another modified plan from 101 Track plans. This was my first layout I actually designed something for rather than just using a book plan or throwing down a loop of track and hoping it worked out. Things again conspired to keep me away from the hobby for a few years, but then I had a house with a HUGE basement. I started with an 8x12 donut (you can see my old plans on my web site) with plans to connect it to the rest of the basement. Through many iterations I came up with a workable plan to fillt he basement, but that too was not meant to be. Back to an apartment and I had room for a long narrow switching layout. Just as I started building the first section for that, I found a bigger place that had a spare bedroom available and came up with the plan posted previously in this thread. Also after a few tries - I had wanted to use that alcove area for track as well, I ended up putting my workbench back there. And now here I am back in a house again with a decent but not huge basement, working on yet another design.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
doctorwayne Steven, build it! Whichever one you want...just do it!
Alton Junction
tstage Then all this superball track planning is a waste of time for everyone - including yourself. Find out from your folks what size layout they would consider as "acceptable" and plan your layout using those dimensions. You'll find that "fences" will force you to think how best to utilize your mrring space and you'll be freer to work within those confines vs. running out to the end of your choke chain and strangling yourself everytime you come up with your next great layout idea. Focus on small and achieveable goals for your first layout then plan your US version of Miniatur Wunderland when you have the money and the space...
Then all this superball track planning is a waste of time for everyone - including yourself.
Find out from your folks what size layout they would consider as "acceptable" and plan your layout using those dimensions. You'll find that "fences" will force you to think how best to utilize your mrring space and you'll be freer to work within those confines vs. running out to the end of your choke chain and strangling yourself everytime you come up with your next great layout idea.
Focus on small and achieveable goals for your first layout then plan your US version of Miniatur Wunderland when you have the money and the space...
tstage Posted by tstage on Wednesday, March 15, 2017 12:12 PM Making the link to the new thread clickable: http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/261849.aspx ...and locking the old one.
Making the link to the new thread clickable:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/261849.aspx
...and locking the old one.
Oh and Ed it's 8 feet total two 2ft wide levels a side.
Steve
If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!
And my layout could just be "dormant" during college or I could work on all the trees, structures, rolling stock, etc.
I'm pretty sure it's permanent.
Just to tell you a bit about myself I may be a 16 yr old but I watch M*A*S*H and Hogans Heroes reruns and my entire Itunes library consists of mostly Billy Joel, Andy Williams Dean Martin, etc... I don't believe there is a single song from this millennium in my library. Ohh, and I bought a '69 Ford Mustang when I was 13 with my own savings (its just the body and chassis)
cascadenorthernrr After staring at a blank sheet of paper for long enough I finally came up with this.
After staring at a blank sheet of paper for long enough I finally came up with this.
How wide is it?
The club that you joined, is it a modular railroad club or do they have a permanent layout or something else?
If modular layout, maybe consider building a module to their specifications?
If I recall you said you were 16? Do you have plans for after high school (college, work, technical school) and if so, what do you plan to do with your layout?
Many people have suggested that you bite off a smaller project. My previous layout got to the stage of limited blue foam scenery and 70% of track layed. That took 3 years. It was somewhat larger than most of your plans have been. I wont tell you what it cost.
Take a look at this article. It should give you an idea about what a railroad costs to build. It is a very simple layout with very sparse desert scenery. It has only 7 turnouts.
http://www.jimspavins.com/trackplans/deseretpowerrailway
My layout was less than half that size, but the cost was going to be in the ballpark.
My suggestion, build something small that you can take with you. That T1 probably wont see much use for the moment (maybe on a club layout?) save it for later when you have your own space to build a layout.
For me the answer is simple when and if I get a wife and she doesn't like trains and doesn't want to make the concession for a layout room I can just build a building for it! And yes I know how to build a building last year I helped my dad build a 16x16 addition to our existing 16x24 building he built 8 years ago and at 50 years old and running two hotels for a living (it's the same company and they are literally right across the street from each other) I ended up doing most of the work.(Not that I'm complaining I actually really enjoy framing to the point I have considered it as a career)
richhotrain cascadenorthernrr Slow down there pal. I would have a layout already but my parents haven't been too accomodating to my hobby. Wait till you get married, lad, it only gets worse.
Wait till you get married, lad, it only gets worse.
Unless you find the one that plays with trains. Probably 1 in 10,000 chance. Maybe more. I found one. But she also likes cats, I now have 2 catzillas running around the house. But she's building a door to keep them out of the layout room, so it should be fine.
Since I was modeling something that is at least partly still thre, I used Bing Mapsn and Google Maps to look at what's still there (and it's not far away so I visited in person as well). For my new plan, I went through a few dozen ways of laying out the track before I hit on what (so far) I am planning to go with. It's not an exact model of anything. How i did this was first get an accurate outline of my space. You might want to draw that on graph paper, and then get some tracing paper for drawing by hand. I use CAD and different layers. First thing was to figure out a run for the main line. At this stage, no real concern where to put industries, just plan a main line. Next step for me was my main yard and associate track (also another layer - ie, another piece of tracing paper). Next I will start working on industry locations. By using tracing paper until you get a certain part fairly well fixed, you don;t have to worry about erasing and having ghost lines that confuse you. The room is fixed, so that can go on permanant paper. Tracing paper for each try as the next phase of the design. If you're doing it right you'll go through a bunch of tracing paper coming up with the design that gets the most railroad the way you want it in the available space.
I will try that.
cascadenorthernrr Back to the essentials. I want a reletively compact layout, but one with grandiose mountain scenery, a long mainline, a small yard, and a mining-logging branch. I have tried and tried but I just don't have that knack for trackplanning. If you want I could post my first attempt at planning. (It was pretty gruesome)
Back to the essentials. I want a reletively compact layout, but one with grandiose mountain scenery, a long mainline, a small yard, and a mining-logging branch. I have tried and tried but I just don't have that knack for trackplanning. If you want I could post my first attempt at planning. (It was pretty gruesome)
Don't know if you have available what you need to do this.
What I used to do years ago was find track plans with features (from books and magazines back them) Copy them using to the same scale using a copier that allowed setting the % print size. Then cut out the features I liked and arranged them on a large sheet of paper and drew connecting tracks as necessary. When satisified I glued or taped everying down. I did this with prototype track maps also.
Today I scan hardcopies into my computer and/or use on-line resources, then do all the manulipation in the computer.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
The reason I started this new thread is to get ideas I can't track plan I'm horrible at it! So if anyone wants to help please do!
456 posts in less than 3 months. I'm afraid unless Steven shuts off his computer, he will never lay that first piece of track. Of course, there are a lot of "arm chair" modelers in the hobby.
Upon trying to sketch it out I'm stumped!!! Anyone interested in helping??? I see now that the idea I had was not going to work too well.
cascadenorthernrr Picture a long rectangular two level wedding cake.
Picture a long rectangular two level wedding cake.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusman I know we have told you this about 10 times already, but I'll try just one more time, making an 8 ft wide table is a really, really, really, really bad idea.
I know we have told you this about 10 times already, but I'll try just one more time, making an 8 ft wide table is a really, really, really, really bad idea.
As I previously stated it is going to be built in 2x4 foot sections.
As a member of a club that has an 11x140 sectional layout - none of our sections is over 3' wide and most are less. There are even grades - there's a lower level cutoff through an engine terminal which enters the main from a lower level in two places to accurately represent the actual track in the prototype location.
The other problem with wider sections, besides the reach in, are when it comes to transporting them. Both in trailer/car space AND getting them through doors. The wider sections are the corners and are shorter than most. Even the two big yards are more liek 30" wide, only the end of the coal yard extends wider in order to have a place for the huge breaker structure.
Or like this, this is my last layout in a 10x17 room.
The top part with the small yard and staginging hidden behind (removable backdrop) was 2' wide. The part at the bottom, the benchwork was only 1' wide. The penninsula with the cement plant (which never got finished) would have been 2' wide. I built it all as 2x8 sections but put the track and roadbed across the gaps continuously, I cut it all with a Dremel when I moved. It's all currently stacked in my basement but I have no desire to reassemble it as is, I have much more room to work with and have a completely different idea with two decks in the plannign stages. But this little railroad fairly accurately represented a branch line near me. The place names are correct and in the right order, but the whole thing was compressed, plus the cement plant was torn down in the early 70's and is now a business park.
Steven: You have received a mountain of advice from readers of both your threads, which I believe shows the desire of those readers to help you in any way they can. I won't muddy the waters of their fine advice other than to say this: "Do it". Build the SIW or the cascade logging road or whatever you choose. But get started. You will learn more from the experience of building a layout than you will ever get from reading about building a layout. We all wish you good luck and smooth rails.
Old Fat Robert
Also I must point out that I happen to be over 6ft tall.