My opinion (for what it's worth) is to conceptualize what your railroad is supposed to do before drawing up any track plans. Is it hauling coal, wood, oil, passengers, effluvium, or what? Where is it going, that is where point A is and where is point B- (real places or made up places doesn't matter)? Is it steam, transition, diesel, or European, SA USSR or what other prototype, if any? Is it a miniature representation of existing or historical railroad, or your own whimsy line?
These questions must be looked into at some level to aid your track planning. Otherwise you will have a spaghetti bowl of track that really does nothing and you will quickly tire of it. Once you nail down the concept, then decide if you want a loop, dog bone (or any variety of bone), out and back, switch back, or point to point. Then you can start penciling in some track elements that could possibly meet your needs.
You have enough space to build a very fine and interesting layout. I would hate the thought of you spending all the time and energy building haphazard and then not liking what you made in the end.
I am designing a new HO layout for myself (most of which will be penned while I'm overseas) based on the Eastern Shore RR of Va. I've got the era, the motive power, the prototype and the track plan more or less conceptualized in my head already. It will be a simple point to point with two ends on the walls and a center island with a scenic divider. The track plan is very simple, Single track main starting at the Cape Charles car ferry on the South end, C&O (or CSX) interchange on the North end. 4 or 5 small sidings will serve for industries; mostly I am going for the long, straight nowhere look of the prototype as anybody who's ever driven RT 13 through the ES of VA will find familiar. My goal is high craftsmanship and flawless mechanical operations, so simple is better as it will allow me to uber detail my rolling stock, track and scenic elements.
I've thought long and hard on this concept, and I've spent many, many years building and learning on other layouts. So I don't want to discourage you in your efforts, but in fact try to encourage you to build a real railroad, not just a toy train. Whatever you end up doing, learn, grow and continue on in this great hobby. There is no failure but to quit, if something is not going right, change it. It's ok to admit a mistake and perfectly all right to tear it out for a redo. Don't judge your work by the results of others, ask them how they did something that interests you, and hold on to that information until such a time as you need it.
Good luck, post some pix when you get started on the build
The Dixie D Short Line "Lux Lucet In Tenebris Nihil Igitur Mors Est Ad Nos 2001"
Hello all. I have a quick question to run by everyone.
I'm starting my first "real" layout, but I've hit a snag. Here is where I'm at, I was pretty much given the right to use a small 5'4" x 6' foot table that use to be a work bench. I think that this is a good start for me since I'm just now getting into starting my first actual layout. I plan on using a scenic divider to make the layout appear some what bigger. I have part of my track plan figured out for one side, but I cannot figure out anything that I like for the other side of the table.
Here is a what I have so far:
http://www.geocities.com/lilbeckett88/index.html
Red line: A simple one track hidden staging; Green line: What I plan on building mountains to help seperate the scenes. Blue line: Is the scenic divider.
Now, I cannot firgure out what to do with the other side of my layout. I would like to enter the bottem left with a double tracks into the scene, and maybe leave the top middle as a single? Now I would like to have a small coal operation (Maybe just like two tracks heading into a coal mine?). I would like to have another industry or two. (Possibly a small oil/fuel loading/unloading platform, and maybe a small two track "freight yard" for incoming/outgoing cars).
Thank you for reading all of this, and hopefully I am clear in my explaining everything. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and I'll try to answer them as quickly as possible.
LilBeckett88