Hello everyone. I was just thinking about when I built my layout and how I had a plan in my head that I tried to stick to but, somewhere along the way things went their own way and it turned out the way it did. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining but just saying that's how it goes sometimes...
marksrailroad Hello everyone. I was just thinking about when I built my layout and how I had a plan in my head that I tried to stick to but ...
Hello everyone. I was just thinking about when I built my layout and how I had a plan in my head that I tried to stick to but ...
Except for a mistake in the height of my last layout, due to an error in cutting all my support legs 4" too short, all my layouts have turned out as I envisioned...with very small variances here and there. Now, mistakes in planning...that's a little different. I didn't plan for staging on my second. I corrected that for the last one I tore down two years ago and have it already in place below the main level on the layout under construction...now two years on.
My early layouts I planned in detail and pretty much followed the plan. But they didn't always turn out as I had hoped. The last 2 layouts I have done general planning - things like yard location, siding/town location. Then during construction I mock up the track to see how it looks. This gives me a chance to re-arrange the track until I get something pleasing. This has worked out much better.
Paul
My layouts always turned out as planned, but rarely as intended.
.
It has taken me more than three decades to figure out what I want from my layout. Hopefully my next layout will be exactly what I want. If not, it will not be because of lack of planning.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I am pretty happy with the way it has turned out so far. I would like more room to add some things like a harbour/dock/carfloat scene. I could fit it in, but, "less is more" has worked well for me to this point.
I decided my yard was too small to look good or work well, so I changed it to a Rocky Mountain pusher station where I have a turntable/roundhouse and a balloon track. The yard I thought couldn't cut it as a working yard offers up lots of parking for plenty of steam power waiting to lend a hand. This will allow for lots of locomotive movement while I have two decent sized trains coursing the rest of the layout. I have two A/D tracks where trains can stop and add help. Once over the mountains, there is range land with cattle pens, a grain elevator, and a station for the small community.
I have found another a spot for a larger town that I hadn't pictured until the layout was up and running and I could see things in 3D. Realizing that trains generally follow a river through the mountains, this means the towns are often placed up above the tracks on the side of the mountain, and I have the perfect spot. My thinking was not that way until my last trip to Alberta through the Rockies.
The best thing I did was to make my trackwork as perfect as I could. This allows me not to have to worry about trains going around the layout while I am moving engines around the yard. My few derailments have been caused by me, or freak accidents or failures of equipment.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
My layout turned out exactly as I had planned it. However, I left a good piece of "open rural territory" at one end in case I decided to add more to it. Which I did. And these later additions have turned out to be some of my favorite parts of the layout.
Eventually, it did. As my skills improved, so did the quality of the layout; benchwork, subroadbed, roadbed, track laying, etc. Experiments in scenery making have yielded the results I was seeking.
I have gotten to the point that if I ran into less than ideal trackwork, I had no issue with tearing it out and repairing. It makes for more pleasurable operation sessions.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Previous ones have, at least as much as I planned it to (pun intended). I do draw out the track plan with CAD, but I don't print it full size and trace it out. I work from the plan and the track alignment closely follows the plan, but other than potentially critical areas there's no attempt to locate everything to the nearest millimeter.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Actually it did initally turn out as planned but, and that is a big but. I was 78 when I started my first layout and with my last r r experience being with Lionel trains I emphaized running. It has a double track main with two crossovers and a reverse loop. The trains can change both from one track to the other and direction also.
I have very little artistic ability and didn't plan for grades, bridges. etc. Lighting structures was rare at the time and now mine are mostlly glued in place with scenery. Also I am too "stiff" now to do wiring under the layout.
The oddest result has been that I get more pleasure and spend more time fiddling with the scenery than I do running trains.
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
No..None of my ISLs end up as plan because I don't use a plan other then what I vision in my head but, I usually shift ideas in midstream.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
My original plan was a sketch that would have more-or-less filled my newly acquired basement. However, early on in benchwork construction, upper management appropriated approximately half of that space.I moved the benchwork into the new oddly-shaped area, re-configuring the open grid layout tops as necessary. I then cut two sheets of 3/4" plywood into curves (30"-36" radii) and temporarily placed them at each of the ten corners of the room. When everything seemed to fit, I simply connected the curves with straight-ish track.The only planning involved was to calculate the elevations of the various parts if the layout, as I had decided early-on in the new room that part of the layout should be double-decked.
Folks are probably sick of seeing this sketch, but the trackplan is sorta in a "Y" shape, but with the upper arms of the "Y" one above the other...
The track splits at South Cayuga, with one branch descending through the base of the peninsula to Elfrida, and the other rising as it follows around the perimeter of the peninsula. This kept the maximum grade at about 2.5%, but most of the curves are at that limit. The second level is in place (above the area in grey on the diagram), and there's a continuous running option beneath the stacked staging yards (mainly used when my grandkids want to run trains).
I still haven't made a trackplan, but if anybody's interested, here's a Layout (room) tour, with lots of photos....
While the heavy grades limit train length (most trains are doubleheaded), I think that what I ended-up with is more interesting and more interesting to operate than what would have been afforded by the original sketch. If I were to regain that lost space, I think that I'd simply space the towns a little further apart, with less severe grades between them.
Wayne
"
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
No,
(but it was still fun!)
superbeThe oddest result has been that I get more pleasure and spend more time fiddling with the scenery than I do running trains.
Boy oh boy... that sure can be true.
In all of my previous layouts, I reached a point where I was happy with the reliability of the layout and begain building scenery. At that point, scenery becomes the focus and trains take a back seat.
My last layout, the one I call the "spare bedroom" layout, spent about two years with limited trains running, but some beautiful scenery was built.
What do you mean "Turn out"? Mine will NEVER "turn out"! After seventeen years, it has become painfully obvious.....
Mike C.
Mine turned out, after some years of construction, to be dumpster fodder.
Not at all what I had envisioned.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
Mine started out based on the Red Wing track plan from December 94, I think. I planned to add a few more Grain Elevators, but keep it essentially the same. I'd laid much of the track, when Walthers released their Ore Dock kit. Growing up in Minnesota, I'd visited Duluth and the North Shore countless times. I had to build that kit. But its was 4 feet long! Where to put it on my 4x8 granger layout? So, I added an 8x2 "extension" off the left side, which would become the harbor/ore loading slip. In the process I determined to add some of the features of Duluth and the surrounding area that were so much of my childhood. But the ore dock had to have a reason for being, so now I needed an iron ore mine... and track/trestles to get the ore to the dock. I had a second 4x8 at a right angle to the original train layout, home to my HO scale slot car track, with its 200 race cars. So i pulled up the slot car track and added an ore mine and track, grades and elevated trestles...well, you get the idea. That was 22 years ago and the original layout never did get built. I still have the grain elevators, dryers, feed mills, etc in boxes. Over the years I've added on more "real estate" twice, as the thing has taken on a life of its own. The slot cars and track were sold eventually, and the money reinvested in DCC engines and controllers. Will it ever be done? Doubt it. Did it "turn out" the way I'd planned? Nope...but for the most part, its better.