Do you plan out the track to fit your space and then add structures to fit that? Or do you know exactly what buildings you want first and then plan your track around that?
If you are planning on running trains, then track first, if it is nothing but a big diarama, then buildings unless you have a really realy large space.
I actually did both for my current layout. I had a couple industrial structure kits that I knew I wanted to use and planned the rails around their locations to accomodate. The other spots, buildings will have to fit or be built to fit.
Mike
Thinking like rrebell. I layout track first, keeping in mind what industries, towns, etc that I would like to incorporate. I want the best train operations I can achieve, and the buildings, scenery and such comes after.
Mike.
My You Tube
For me; the trains are a excuse to build. I'll build a building,find a place to set it. If the track needs to be moved,added to,or removed, so be it.
I design the track plan knowing which structures I am going to use. But they have to both work together so the structures have to go where the track plan allows. Sometimes I have to modify the structures to fit in the space. Just like in the real world you can’t just build a structure and then run a set of tracks to it. You have to figure out where you can run the tracks and then place the structure next to them. So my answer is that you do both at the same time.
rrebell If you are planning on running trains, then track first, if it is nothing but a big diarama, then buildings unless you have a really realy large space.
I agree. The track has to come first if you want an operable layout. Structures can be placed anywhere...simply build them to suit the locale. You need to view a structure kit as simply a box of parts, waiting for your imagination to make it into something useable.
Wayne
I do both. As curve radii dictate much of the track plan the plan has to come first but I always try to consider certain structures that I have or want to build.
Michael
The Breitenbach - Rosenheim Railroad V3
I'm modeling a specific prototype so I know where the track and buildings go. The challenge is making a realistic representation in the space available. I have a couple places where things I want to model are going to have to go in a different place on my layout then where they were on the prototype.
I think that you have to know where the track will be then build the structures to fit.
Jeff White
Alma, IL
Good planing requires equal consideration to both.
Sheldon
I think you have to at least have an idea of where you want buildings to go while you're doing the track plan. Otherwise you could end up like the guy John Armstrong (IIRC) referred to in one of book who built a layout with a great track plan, with plenty of industry spur tracks - but no room for the buildings of the industries. Same goes for scenery.
That being said, seems like no matter what, once you have things in place, you start to get 'better' ideas and move stuff around.
With room dimension constraints and track geometry, definitely track plan first then structures. This is why Walthers offers the back ground version so you can fit them in if you don't end up having enough space. OTOH, track geometry often can't be compromised.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
I built my framework and working from the track plan I built foamcore mockups of the buildings and placed them. I made quite a few adjustments to both the track plan and building areas prior to laying the track. Sounds like it was a long slow process but it wasn’t. The foam core mockups gave the RR definition and were/are great fill-ins. My layout at its widest is 24” deep. Next time it will be 30” to allow for more scenery and buildings with no track farther then 24” from the edge of the layout.
TomO
I keep several plates spinning on the beam at once. I have to get my minimum radius into the space in a twinned main closed loop. I want some form of yard and engine servicing. I want a passenger station with platform. I want a small coal mine and a small logging/sawmill complex. I have to know what kind of a footprint all the structures will need and then to design a workable track plan allowing rail service to each of them.
And, not just structures, but tunnels, rock walls, water courses....what are they to look like, where will I place them, and how will I work tracks over, under, by, or through them with the gauge loading clearances required?
How about grades? How do you craft a track plan without knowing where grades will be, and how steep they must be for any overpasses? What kind of curvature on the steepest grade can I get away with? How high any hills?
IOW, it's an integrated process requiring several considerations to be borne in mind while making an operationally sound track plan for the rolling stock and motive power I have.
Both.
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The "Must Haves" come first: 180 degree roundhouse, Atlas Passenger Station, Tyco Ma's Place, AHM Ramsey Journal Building, Campbells Bret's Brewery, Walthers Carfloat, JL Design Hubermill Warehouse, etc.
"Must Haves" also include track: Two Turntables, 4 Track Yard, 2 Continuous Loops, Interchange Track, Engine Service Area, etc.
Then you design a track plan that fits all your "Must Haves".
Then you add the "Want To Haves" if you have space. Woodland Scenics Tool Shed, Walthers Front Street Warehouse, FSM John Allen Enginehouse, and so on.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I also like mock-ups. At first, I simply cut "footprint" rectangles from the dimensions for each kit, but later I discovered that I got a much better idea of how the buildings and track interacted with the space by going with 3-dimensional cardstock mock-ups. This tight, busy space called "Mooseport" had little wiggle room for making after-the-fact adjustments, so I designed my structures around mostly DPM modulars and used sectional track to fit it all together.
Many months later, it came pretty close to the plan.
I got the image of the old mill canal curving through the various buildings and the track down to the carfloat terminal, along with the optical view down the canal.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I'm going to put my almost never worn rivet counter hat on.
What would a real railroad do? Having connected the east coast and the west coast, the tracks had to go to the industries and the coal mines. The railroads controlled where towns and yards are built and where passenger stations might be. They didn't build a track and say let's dig a mine or a quarry or build a factory.
If you have a structure you are hot to have, it is your responsibility to figure out how that fits in with you total layout. A grain elevator in the middle of a city scene makes not the best sense. I know there is one in Lubbock, but not in most cities.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Count me in the track first camp. Track is then connected to the scructures with their footprints marked by paper to replicate their respective footprints. In practice, that didn't happen on my first layout and I hated having to rip up track to account for the structures.
It's a process that includes bth.
The big picture with track is important to start with. Major locations like mains, curves, and yards need to be located to use the space generously.
After that, I have some idea of what goes where. Big structures may require a secific footprint and hence track location. Most others provide multiple choices. I usually had many structures to choose from when actively building, built and unbuilt. The built ones and/or mockups of unbuilt ones were shuffled around multiple times before settled on a final location. Sometimes I moved track and sometimes not.
And the changes weren't necessarily due to track planning. Oftentimes it was about something like reachover for uncoupling or even just gettng an important sightline for your operators to switch. Good luck with planning absoutely EVERYTHING, because there are so many variabls in building a layout to take into consideration. Get the big ones figured out and the rest will usually take care of themselves, though, provided you do not try to take advanatage of every chance to squeeze a trrack in, because slack is the layout tuner's friend.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL