-- What is your layout space like? How did it seem when you first view it? Was it limitless and expansive?
Was it limitless no, was it expansive, sorta. It was expansive enough. It would be able to model either of the two sites I would like, but I think it will do just to one more than the other.
-- Do you have all the space you would like to have? I know many people actually say they could get by with less. So okay, what about the way the space is laid out? What compromises did you have to make to get your layout designed? How might it have been different if some (you pick) element had been different?
The amount of space is good, but the layout is dicey. I am hoping to be able to shift some things around, but it is now turning out that the original builders took some very iffy shortcuts and we may have to add some vertical supports to the center of the room, there is also the storage spaces I wouldn't mind getting rid of, but "she who must be obeyed" says no.
-- What about specific features on your layout? What did you initially want? What did you end up with? What were the thought processes and trade-offs you had to make as you went from your initial concept to the actual plan you developed into your layout?
My original plan was to keep it small, and to do a yard to yard layout. Small yard to small yard, nice interchange possiblities, Soo Line, Milwaukee Rd, GB&W, CN&W. Soo Line and Milw at one end, GB&W and CN&W at the other, my RR in the middle. Lots of traffic, but small yards. My wife though is making the arguements that I should do a small yard to three yards. I just am not sure, scratch that I am positive that I couldn't give the justice to 4 yards as i could to 2. And in the this case the shrinking wouldn't do anyone any justice.
The original plan also had me having a significant passanger volume, but that has also changed. Partly form actually reading the history of the area and mostly because space wouldn't allow for it (thought the current MR has given me ideas). Now I'm down to a doodlebug and trailer and a milk train with a combine.
The trade off's are years of sitting around actually contemplating the construction to be further hampered by a house that has suffered years of modification, but little upkeep.
The first house that I owned in NJ which gave me enough space to do more that a 4X8, had a large basement. So, my 4X8 concept RR started to expand.
My vision was Northern California steam logging. It started out more whimsical than prototypical but the expansion plans soon ended when like many others with a growing family my space soon became limited to a 1/3rd corner of the basement.
When we moved to Memphis, most of my kids had grown up and had stared their own families. I then thought I had all the space I would ever need over our new two car garage. My vision then was to build a part narrow gauge freelance logging RR blended with prototype SP in the Mt. Shasta area of CA. At the beginning of this year, I had all of the trackage in place and about 60% of the scenery. However, as Einstein may have once said, space and time are interconected. And as the old Philosopher Satchell Paige did say, " Don't, look back, something might be gaining on you". In my case it is family health issues which have put my layout plans on an indefinate hold. In the end , time may be the key factor rather than space.
Peter Smith, Memphis
We moved into our "final" house after completing my service. The basement is finished, with a small extra bedroom that I can use as the "man cave". It houses 2 computer work stations and equipment, my modeling workbench, and a recumbent exercise bicycle. Not a lot of space left for layout unless I can make the other functions work under the layout. The "someday" dream is to build a detached garage with walkout train room underneath close to the house. This would give me a 20ft x 24ft train room, if it ever happened.
Reality has poked its head into my dream world, and I have discovered that time and money are far bigger constraints on my model railroading than the small bedroom space is. And time is even more limiting than my modest hobby budget. I swore I never would commute 90 minutes each way to work, but here I am doing it. And I'm still raising teenagers in my 50s, with college tuition to come.
So for the present, small layouts remain my forte. I'm currently struggling to try to complete one enough to give switching a real honest try to see if it will prove to be as enjoyable as I hope. My past layouts have all been about layout building, with perhaps some simple either back-and-forth or loop running before it was time to move and start over.
Scenes for the current layout are the standard/narrow gauge transfer facility, a dog hole harbor with dock, a lumber mill, and a log landing. Depending on final configuration, a fishing village may also find a space. Setting is foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900.
Fred W
Okay, it's a tract house in the Sacramento Valley of Northern California. "Ranch" style, whatever that's supposed to mean, LOL It comes with a 2-car garage. NOBODY in Northern California parks their cars in a garage, at least here in the Valley. We have driveways for that. Garages are for storing things or shops. Ergo, I had 24'x24' for the Yuba River sub. It's a Sierra Nevada mountain railroad.
In HO, it means I can pretty much duplicate some of my favorite Sierra Nevada sites with judicious Selective Compression. In N, I could have put in a lot more of the mountains. In Z, I could have done the whole darn mountain range, California Valley to Nevada Desert, LOL!
Since I'm HO, I've been able to approximate what I want out of the 'miles and miles' of running by doubling the mainline back on itself with elevations. No Helixes, just plain doubling back and varying the scenery enough so that the eye follows the mainline through various elevations from foothills to high peaks and back again. The space allows me the generous radii (34-36") that I need for my big articulateds to look at least halfway decent on the many curves, and the space also allows me to keep my grades (2.0-2.4%) within mountain mainline railroad practices.
And since I'm running California mountain railroading, there is not a lot of local industry--I'm modeling a portion of a Transcontinental line--so what yards there are are kept small. My main yard at Deer Creek exists mainly for changing out "Valley" to "Mountain" locomotive power, not for industrial switching. So my action is not working yards as much as it is either changing out or adding/dropping helpers to the motive power fleet as the trains move either east or west.
I'm the type of guy that gets most of his pleasure from running the trains, not necessarily making or breaking them up. So the Yuba River Sub is mainly a 'miles and miles' of watching big steam and long trains surmount a difficult mountain route.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
In my case, I had the luxury of custom building my house to my specs which meant I had a basement to accomodate the railroad I wanted rather than building my railroad to fit the available space. I had been developing this railroad in my head for over 10 years before I got around to buying the land and building the house for it, so the railroad I am building now is what I had in my mind for a long time. Naturally, I had to make adjustments as the railroad went from 2-D to 3-D and I realized what looked good on paper did not necessarily translate well to the 3-D world. And as the railroad was built, I came up with new ideas for spaces that was better than the original plan. Still, I would say what I am building now is 90-95% true to the original concept. If there is one frustration, it is the small amount of track through natural scenes as opposed to towns and yards. But realistically, is there any other way to build a model railroad. Even with a large space, there is no way to accurately depict the miles and miles between cities and towns. So most of us model the points of interest and leave the miles and miles between them to our imaginations.
I want to echo something stated by Heartland and Atlantic Central: I'm never going to tear down another railroad (unless I want to, of course). I've had to dismantle two basement-fillers, and although neither was anywhere near that mythical "complete" stage, it was entirely disheartening.
So what's my layout space like? Well, I don't really have one, but I got sick of waiting. So I started building a sectional plan on hollow-core doors. I've switched from HO to N scale, so you can actually pack a lot of railroadin' in a 30"x80" space.
I expect to have "permanent" layout space in the next 3-4 years, when we either add on to our house or build a new garage. (I'm laying claim to a roughly 20'x18' space.)
In the meantime, my plan is to build one door-sized section a year (the track is now down on door #1). Since I've already designed the final track plan (important to let me know how much space I ultimately need), 90% of the track I'm laying will not need to be altered in the future. For instance, the section I'm working on now will be the middle of a three-door major city. But buy putting temporary half-circles at each end (making it an oval), I'm able to run trains and even switch a four-track packing plant, with a two-track yard on the other side. When I add another table next year, I'll simply remove the half-circle at one end of this door, and put it in place at the far end of the next section; bigger oval, more switching and more yard space.
The "layout" is currently in our one-stall garage. Since we live in Minnesota, I only have "rights" to the space from April through October. When cold weather arrives, the door will be stored in our basement. WIth the legs folded up and the door standing on end, it takes up about two square feet of floor space. When I want to work on it this winter, it's a simple matter to unfold the legs and stand 'er up.
It's a very minor pain, but it allows me to keep building and running trains while waiting for the new construction. And even better, if we ever move, I'll have stand-alone sections that can be transported and re-assembled with minimum fuss.
I wish I'd started down this road of layout-building 25 years ago! And I'd certainly advise anyone who's not completely settled to build in sections.
What is your layout space like? How did it seem when you first view it? Was it limitless and expansive?
My layout room is located in the lower level of a hillside house. The layout room is 64’ long and its widths vary from about 10’ to about 15’. It is against the foundation wall on the uphill side of the house. Much of the rest of the lower level is a “walkout” basement with recreation room, etc.
How did it seem when you first view it? Was it limitless and expansive?
We built the house, and the layout room was planned in advance.
Do you have all the space you would like to have? I know many people actually say they could get by with less. So okay, what about the way the space is laid out? What compromises did you have to make to get your layout designed? How might it have been different if some (you pick) element had been different?
The room’s length is fine, but more width would have allowed wider curves. My minimum radius is 30”, and I would like 40” curves.
What about specific features on your layout? What did you initially want? What did you end up with? What were the thought processes and trade-offs you had to make as you went from your initial concept to the actual plan you developed into your layout?
My construction concept is similar to what “Atlantic Central” posted earlier in this thread. I would like to be able to move the layout if needed. I have torn apart layouts in my earlier years, and I do not wish to destroy this layout if we move. Therefore, the layout is sectional.
My layout plan, simply stated, is a double track mainline with a loop at each end. This plan allows for continuous running. Each end has a city with freight and passenger terminal facilities. There are towns and industries along the way. Branch lines are added.
There is another very important lesson I have learned from past layout construction. I changed the procedure because of this lesson.
Previously, I would acquire trains, first. Then I build all of the bench-work. Then I installed all of the track. Next, I would do all of the wiring. At this point I was looking at boards and track with wires underneath and trains on top. Unfortunately, I would be moving to another location and tearing down boards and track to start over at the next house. I did not have scenery and train operations were minimal before the tear-down.
My construction methods have changed.
This layout is being built one section at a time. The design is similar to “domino” construction as has been published in Model Railroader. True domino construction has interchangeable sections, and I can not interchange my sections.
I built my town of Blackhawk first, and it included industries. Scenery was installed, and so were downtown buildings. Soon, I had a neat switching layout, and could keep busy switching cars in and out of industries. I had a freight train parked on the mainline, and the switcher would move cars between the industries and the freight train.
I constructed more sections moving westward down the line. A large double track bridge crossed a river, and scenery was installed. Next section had a farm scene and a county park. I small rural town (Prairie View) was next, and it included a grain elevator and other appropriate industries. I then had a two town layout with interesting operations.
Next, construction crews returned to Blackhawk and built the branch-line to serve a steel mill. The steel mill was constructed, and more operations took place.
Construction continued eastward. The small town of Valley Heights was built along with its junction with the branch-line to Hinterland. More operations result from this addition.
Presently, the eastern city is under construction. It will have a Union Station complex with numerous support tracks. A streetcar line will connect downtown with Union station. Industries will be included.
Eventually, I will return to Prairie View and build westward to the western terminal, and branch-lines will also be included.
Conclusion: I AM HAVING LOTS OF FUN ! …. My model railroad time continues to have much variety. I have several on-going projects that entail bench-work, track laying, wiring, backdrops, scenery, and structure assembly.
Meanwhile, I enjoy operating trains on “completed” sections.
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Hreat topic this week!
As a model railroader, I've always built my layouts to fit the space/time/funds. As a kid, I shared a 12 X 12 bedroom with my brother, so my layout was 4 X 6 feet and it was suspended from the ceiling with a pulley system (I could raise it out of the way when I wasn't working on it). As a teen, I had more room, but less time for trains (school and college were priorities), so my layout was an L shaped design of 20 square feet - 2 feet wide with a six foot leg and a 4 foot leg.
During those years my interests filtered down to the things I really enjoy in model railroading:
The cool thing about this is that my interests actually make it easier to get what I want in a smaller space than many model railroads consume. Here's mine:
The room is 16 X 8. The layout is on one side and my work bench is on the other. The layout has a furnace right in the middle, but bridges front and back made that a non-issue.
This is the track plan:
The only compromise that I made was that it came down to building a curved truss bridge, or eliminating a passing siding. I opted for the bent bridge:
I'm in the process of moving and I'm bringing the layout to the new house, more or less intact. We haven't picked out the new house, yet, so I don't know about the space I'll have available. I expect to have no less than I do now, so I'm toying with ideas for what to build between the two sections (where the furnace currently separates them.
Anyway, I see the process of layout design as not so much a process of compromises as it is finding what works. By the way, 1:1 railroads have constraints, too: mountains, cliffs, property issues, wetlands, and much more. Just like the big boys, we have to design to operate within our limitations.
Phil, I'm not a rocket scientist; they are my students.
My current layout dates back to 1984 as a starting point, built on the bones of an earlier layout started in 1979. In 1979 I had remarried, I had two teenagers, so did she and they all would live with us. So I sold my house, we bought the current one, she stayed in her house for another 4 months before we were married and then we sold her house. The basement is under a tri level house and the space is 29ft by 36 ft, with furnace, etc at one end. The rest of the basement was mine with one caveat, we had one too many kids for the bedrooms, so part of the basement became a very nice paneled bedroom, a full bath was added also. That reduced the train space quite a bit.
Two years later, the kid in the basement finished college, married and moved away and the bedroom was added to the mix. I did not want to tear it out, so settled for a helix, and a major terminal yard to fill the space. Then I started the Santa Fe in Oklahoma 1989 which remains today.
Train room space is 29ft by 33 ft, including the ex bedroom which now houses Oklahoma City Flynn yard, staging, and a hidden area to make up and break up trains the "armstrong" method. A mole hole to many.
The railroad includes the Santa Fe main from Oklalhoma City with staging north to Guthrie OK, all on the top deck. At that point the Enid Dist. goes off one direction and the mainline to Arkansas City goes into a staging area. The Enid district continues down to the middle level making two loops around the layout area including all the towns on the line from Guthrie to Enid with switching of many grain elevators. Enid, a major focal point has many large grain elevators, the Champlin refinery (now gone) and in the time I model, early June, is a wild place with grain trains coming from all directions. The middle deck also includes the old Frisco now BN line from Tulsa staging, through Enid, and then dropping down to the bottom deck with the ATSF line to Kiowa following suit.
That bottom deck is used mostly for running and staging, but does include Cherokee OK with grain elevators, Kiowa KS, and finally Waynoka OK which is visible staging and sceniced. So with three decks in that space, an empty grain train from Texas (in staging at OKC) begins a trip around the layout that can end at Enid, Cherokee, or Waynoka. This routing is the focal point of the operations and grain trains.
One interesting side light, Cherokee OK on the bottom deck contains elevators and the remains of another ATSF branch line (used for staging). Since working Cherokee can put your behind and body in danger during a session, the Cherokee switching is done at the beginning of a session while everyone else is getting set up. After the session starts, Cherokee is used for pickup and setout only, no switching.
Bob
dehusman One of the major design irritations I have is "big" trains. I have a 12x23 ft layout room and run 6-8 ft long trains and have about 1 train length between stations. People I have know have taken huge spaces and designed layouts with 30 ft between stations, then run 25 ft long trains. Operationally they have no more space than I do in my layout, one train length between stations. In my opinion, they would be much more sucessful to take the 30 to 40 ft between stations and then only run 10-15 ft trains. If you throw in the reduced siding/station length, that will jack up the distance between stations to 45 ft or so. That's 3-4 train lengths. That buys you a longer run between stations, and allows a design that more realistically give the feeling of single track where there is 10x the train length between stations.
One of the major design irritations I have is "big" trains.
I have a 12x23 ft layout room and run 6-8 ft long trains and have about 1 train length between stations.
People I have know have taken huge spaces and designed layouts with 30 ft between stations, then run 25 ft long trains. Operationally they have no more space than I do in my layout, one train length between stations. In my opinion, they would be much more sucessful to take the 30 to 40 ft between stations and then only run 10-15 ft trains. If you throw in the reduced siding/station length, that will jack up the distance between stations to 45 ft or so. That's 3-4 train lengths. That buys you a longer run between stations, and allows a design that more realistically give the feeling of single track where there is 10x the train length between stations.
Many of us who run "big" trains are now choosing to only model "one" "station", or just a few stations is a large layout space.
My layout represents one division point yard and citiy, the trackage in that city and five to ten miles either side of it. There are several local commuter stations, but only one main "station", one yard, etc.
Almost all the industries are located on a belt line in the one city. Trains enter and leave this "stage" where they are serviced, broke down, made up, distributed to/from industries. Only commuter passenger and beltline local trains begin and terminate on the visable part of the layout.
Mainline freights are 35-45 cars, or as you say 20'. Passenger trains are often 8-12 cars and the passenger terminal is sized acordingly.
The layout, when complete, fills a 22 x40 room on two levels and will have 8 scale miles of double track mainline, just in case you did not read my earlier post.
A friend of mine is building a PRR layout on 3 levels that fills a 30 x 40 basement. He is only modeling the PRR operations in Baltimore City - same type of concept as mine.
Sheldon
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
jwhitten-- What is your layout space like? How did it seem when you first view it? Was it limitless and expansive?
Do you have all the space you would like to have? So okay, what about the way the space is laid out? What compromises did you have to make to get your layout designed? How might it have been different if some (you pick) element had been different?
From down here at track level looking at the bridge one cannot tell it is over 1000 feet to the top of the canyon and the suspension bridge above.
My current layout space is a 22 x 40 room above my detached garage. It has heat and A/C and building was designed by me for its various purposes, including the layout.
Bigger would be better, and the next layout space at what will be our retirement home will likely be larger - and may also be custom designed by me.
The current layout under construction is modular, not to "modular" standards but to my own modular standards to allow the layout to be moved and possibly expanded to fit the new space when we move.
I have made a vow to never "tear down" another model railroad, so from here on out its all modular, movable sections for me.
The layout - continous double track mainline with through staging, one each - major visable yard, engine terminal, passenger terminal and urban industrial area. Very few industries along the mainline, most located on branch or industrial belt lines.
Two decks, most operational items on lower level, upper level mainly scenic vista - the trains running through the country side.
Major industries - auto assembly plant, coal mine, piggy back operations, reefer traffic, other manufacturing.
The ATLANTIC CENTRAL interchanges with three other roads - B&O, C&O, WM.
The layout is designed to stage about 20 trains, train lengths are 35-40 cars for mainline freights.
Curves - 36 minimum, most larger, turnouts - #6 and larger, grades - all less than 2%.
Control includes 8 wireless DC throttles, full signaling of the mainline, and simplified CTC operation.
The track plan also supports display operation of up to 5 continious loops.
The current plan provides for about 8 scale miles of double track mainline and a 3 scale mile single track mainline representing the WM.
Initially, I wanted a layout with all sorts of features of the Santa Fe within 50 miles of Houston plus other stuff I just wanted...
Would have taken a 30 by 40 foot room for N scale, preferably with a stairway entry so the track could run all the way around the room with no break...no doors. Who needs windows (other than the fire marshall)?
The Big Picture:
While I waited to win the lottery or something, I built a small 3x7 foot layout with just part of the East Texas Piney Woods portion of the overall scheme, written up in Model Railroader Feb85 p.106, and reprinted in Top Notch Railroad Plans.
Got married in 1994, moved into my wife’s house, and moved the layout into a spare bedroom of my wife’s house- without the wraparound scenic background I had in my own house. Eventually, I figured out I was never going to win the lottery and build a 30 by 40 train house. But I still had the spare bedroom.
The most unusual impediment in the room is a cabinet for storing flat storage of super-poster size art on boards... my wife’s drawings and watercolors. Goes floor to ceiling. I can store some of my own posters and plan drawings, but it is for my wife’s stuff and it stays. So I cannot go in to that space and I can’t completely block it.
The room has a corner closet which must be somewhat accessible. Two normal width windows right in the corners, and a super-size window which is on the front of the house.
I experimented with trying to draw all the big city terminal stuff in the space, leaving out everything else. Could not make it either satisfying or workable. Meanwhile, my interest in Galveston grew over the years, from simply having staging for Galveston, to having glorified staging with scenery though not a real “working” scene...to eventually making the Island Seaport the focus of the entire layout for this room.
There is a lot of railroad interest AND “character” in Galveston...
I wanted the long causeway to the island...
I hoped for what I call the “Garden Warehouse District,” a broad palm and oleander lined thorough with an esplanade, through a four block long array of vine-covered masonry cotton compress buildings.
A “big city” looking passenger terminal (now a museum) in a small cross section, up against a downtown of Victorian-era commercial buildings--
huge export grain elevator, sulphur export dock, banana import terminal, sugar import terminal, and picturesque features such as above-ground cemetery like New Orleans, a shrimpboat harbor,
bathing beach with a famous/notorious gambling pier, a clattering rattling old-time wooden roller coaster, and tourist shops
A beachfront hotel made to resemble a ship
solid neighborhoods of Victorian houses
World War II naval shore defense battery bunkers
It looks like I will have to leave off the ship hotel, the cemetery, model only a smidgen of the Garden Warehouse District...uh, and that’s about all I need to cut. And I need to use a lot of tricks-- partly because there is so much else in the room, such as 50 years of Model Railroader, 35 years of Santa Fe modeling journals, etc. Lots of etc.
Layover over bookcases against wall. Additional storage in rollout cabinets in front of bookcases.
Causeway on rollaway section to allow access to room, flat art cabinet and closet when layout not in use-- and (hopefully easy) duckunder when in place.
Swingdown dropdown section
So much for space. Now the TIME problem. Layout is on temporary hiatus (Hi ya, Toos!) while I am pursuing a graduate school history project organizing, cataloguing and donating about 2000 photographs of South Texas history (half railroad and “interesting structure and industry” pictures) to a university archive.
But I do take a little time for Philosophy Friday.
When my wife and I purchased and occupied our 'last in this lifetime' house, I had several options:
Reality check time:
Then, a miracle happened. My sister-in-law visited, and was impressed by what she saw, even though it was just the bare beginnings of my truncated empire. I don't know what she said to my wife, but two weeks after she returned to Japan I was given title to the whole garage. That nine foot dimension suddenly became 19 feet, plus! I'm still stuck with an aisle across one end (opposite the roll-up door) from the personnel door at one corner to the water heater at the other. I can live with that.
So, the lumpy doughnut (with the drawbridge I never had to build) became a walk-in shaped like a dogbone that had been folded in on itself to form a double-G shape (with a fat T with droopy carats aisleway.) No drawbridge, no need for duckunders and easy reach-in access all the way around. I simply allowed the trackplan to expand - while actually symplifying parts of it where space constraints had added complication.
Is my space big enough. Now it is, for what I'm building. Would I like more space? Of course - but I would mainly use it to provide walk-in access behind areas that are now against the walls (and the garage door.) Realistically, given the glacial pace of construction, the layout I can build now in the space I already have will probably be as much as or more than I'll ever be able to bring within sight of completion.
As I commented in a different thread, a nice size empty basement might appear to be about the size of Kansas. It shrinks in a hurry when you start filling it with aisleways and benchwork.
I've allowed for my aisleways, and have built a lot of my benchwork. I can operate reliably on the track I have now, and am slowly extending it into previously virgin territory. I am content.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - behind schedule, under budget)
I'd started work on a 9x12 L shaped layout. The 9' leg was 24" deep and the 12' was 30." I occupied a corner of my bedroom, an 11x20 room. I actually built the 9" leg and decided to start working on buildings and such. This turned out to be wise, because somehow a year later (which was last month), I moved in with my girlfriend.
She is a supportive gal, but issues such as a long distance relocation for both of us and my having lost a job in the process mean we're in a small place for a while. By sheer chance, I have everything I need to work on train projects without spending much or anything. For example, I have a small fleet of about 40 cars, but not a single one is weathered. I have modular wall sections for four factories that need built. And so on.
I was allocated the second bedroom in our house. Its not very big. In fact, I'm not sure how it could have functioned as a bedroom at all. Its 8x11. Fortunately I didn't have more than my 9'x2' "diorama" so it was able to fit in. But it also has to share space with my desk and some other stuff.
If not for my desk, I'd be able to fashion a pretty nifty little 9x8 U with no trouble at all. Unfortunately I need my desk for the PC. I had to abandon two of my larger industries (a facility that produces armor fighting vehicles and a power plant) as well as a city street scene. But I will get by as I can.
Ideally I'd just switch to N scale, but hell even if I had a job right now I'd rather stick with what I have.
Wow !
What did I do to deserve this?
My screen name prominently mentioned in the opening paragraph and an acknowledgment for suggesting this week's topic in the closing paragraph.
I am honored.
As an old American Flyer fan, I had a couple of trains as a kid growing up in the 40's and 50's. One was a freight train pulled by a PRR steam engine and the other a C&NW swticher.
About 8 years ago, when I could no longer get either engine running after 50 years in storage, I decided that it would be fun to visit a hobby shop and buy an HO scale version of each engine. I did so and buit a simple oval layout on a piece of 1/2" plywood, measuring 4'x 8' and suported by 2' x 4' legs.
I quickly became bored with that simple layout and added two more 4' x 8' plywood sheets to form an 8' x 12' layout with 4 ovals connected by crossovers. Then, my LHS guy talked me into DCC so I could run both engines at once.
That grew old quick so I built a bridge to another plywood section measuring 12" x 6'.
Then, my brother-in-law, an avid HO scale model railroader, stopped over and convinced me to use up more of my empty basement space to add a 3' x 18' module to my ever-expanding layout.
At this point, the layout was too disjointed, so I turn it all down and built a P-shaped 30' x 22' layout and completely landscaped it. This is my current layout and I love it, but it was missing a large city style passenger station so, last winter, I added a 4' x 12' annex for an 8-track downtown passenger station.
That is it. My wife will not let me expand any further in spite of the fact that our otherwise unfinished, unused basement measures 44' x 60'. Hey, guys, think of the possibilities.
The one last addition that I would like to incorporate is a provision for turning entire trains around. I have a 130' turntable in the center of my layout (see last week's thread) and the basic configuration is a large "oval" with plenty of yards, industrial sidings, engine servicing facilities, etc. But, as trains leave in one direction, they eventually return in the same direction they left because they travel around the large oval that forms the periphery of my layout.
I have thought about a helix, a giant wye track, but to no avail. I have thought of routing trains under the layout, above the layout on a second tier, whatever, it all seems to complicated. I have no space on the surface of the current layout to turn an entire train around so that it can return in the opposite direction from which it departed.
Anyone have any workable suggestions?
Rich (aka Richhotrain)
Alton Junction
jwhitten So My Questions For This Week Are: -- What is your layout space like? How did it seem when you first view it? Was it limitless and expansive? -- Do you have all the space you would like to have? I know many people actually say they could get by with less. So okay, what about the way the space is laid out? What compromises did you have to make to get your layout designed? How might it have been different if some (you pick) element had been different? -- What about specific features on your layout? What did you initially want? What did you end up with? What were the thought processes and trade-offs you had to make as you went from your initial concept to the actual plan you developed into your layout?
So My Questions For This Week Are:
Funny you should ask. I have recently moved into my retirement house (this past March) and the basement is all mine. So it's time to build the big one.
The space at first seemed okay, but not limitless. The basement is a nominal 1400 sq ft. Actual inside space is probably around 1250. Usable space for a layout is around 1050. Actual space that I'll be using will be around 850 sq ft.
The basement is unfinished but is basically two rooms one of which is 12' x 31' unencumbered. The other is 14.5' x 50' one end of which has to allow access to the door outside and the opposite corner has the furnace, hot water heater, and electric panel. The rooms are parallel and separated by the stairs and roughed in plumbing for a bathroom.
I have done preliminary planning for the layout including some detailed planning.
In order for the layout to use both rooms the furnace/hot water heater/electric panel will be cut off from the rest of the basement and need a gate or liftout for access. Most of the benchwork will have to be narrower than I would like and the roundhouse will be partially painted on the backdrop. This will allow for 220 ft end to end trackwork.
If I could change something in the basement, I would have put the utilities, outside door, and the bath room in the smaller room and just used the bigger room with the added bathroom space entirely for the layout.
I will be able to operationally fit in everything that I want but some scenic elements will be compromised. I had wanted to include the Baltimore terminal of the Ma&Pa in it's entirety, but I won't have the bench work depth or length for it. So some tracks will be eliminated, the roundhouse partially painted on the back drop, and it will be about 20% shorter. The 12' width of the smaller room (and I'll lose some width when I finish it) means that my minimum radius will have to be 33". This is okay, but I would have preferred at least 42" with 48" being ideal.
But otherwise I'll have a point to point representation of the Ma&Pa including both terminals with interchanges, Delta, Red Lion, and Dallastown, plus one more town TBD. This is what I really wanted, so I'm happy with it. I hope to have the basement ready this fall with layout construction to begin by January.
Enjoy
Paul
Well, my space is rectangular, a single car garage stall. It could be wider and it wasn't limitless.I would have liked to have more space, and I probably could have if I would have rebuilt the layout upstairs where my previous layout was. (My current layout is a replacement for one that I had to take down because of selling the house, then the deal fell through.) However, as I am in retirement, I know my time is limited and didn't want to start something that I couldn't get running well in a reasonable amount of time. And I didn't want to have to go up and down stairs a lot in my later years. That would have limited my enjoyment of Model Railroading.The main compromise I had to make was to use 18 inch radius curves as the minimum for the main line. That limited me to 4 axle locomotives and 40 & 50 foot cars. If the space was wider, I could have had a larger radius main line. (The room size is 24 by 9.) I also had to span two doors.I don't plan with specific features in mind. I knew I wanted a short line type main line RR, with a Port, and wanted Coal as the main commodity, but also didn't want to limit it to only coal. I favor plans with twice around the room main lines. I would have liked to have more staging tracks, but didn't want to get into hiding them in hard to-get-to places.All in all, I am pleased with the space I have and how the railroad is turning out.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
Okay so I get my 15' x 24' room. Move the Grand Piano out of it one day to the living room while the wife is at a dog show for a few days. I rub my hands in glee, grab my two foot by three foot graph paper and away we go.
Well actually let me backtrack a bit. I had my plan done before the above happened but it wasn't easy to settle on a plan. I had three doors a six foot wide entrance area a large window and a fireplace to deal with. I could not make a track plan fit this room and work no matter WHAT!!!! Grrrrrrr...
I decided to think a little outside the box. I thought if I drew up my benchwork to take up as much of the room as possible while allowing me to move about easily and still be a nice room to be in, that might be the way to go. In real life the railways had to build to the geography. The land came first. I drew up a half dozen benchwork only plans and settled on one. The trackplan was designed to fit the benchwork and went onto my flat earth with very little tweaking. This is the complete opposite of how it is suppose to be done. I am delighted with how it has turned out.
I also quickly realized that most things I wanted on the layout would just take up the whole room all on their own. So I decided that my division of the CPR would just have things on it that one might see along the way through the Rockies. It is a very good compromise.
My room. Captains chair is in front of the fireplace. I just sit and let them run usually two at a time.
How I dealt with the fire place. Mantle has been removed and a mountain above is currently being built out of real cement on mesh.
A look at how I drew it up. The yard is nothing like what is on here. I put everything on and then took lots away. Again a little backwards but I am very happy with what I ended up with.
All in all I don't think I would change a thing. But that doesn't mean I won't tear it out and do another one.
Brent
PS; The wife came home from the dog show and saw the Grand Piano in the living room as soon as she opened the door and said "I see you've started on your train room "It never occurred to her that the Piano would have to go somewhere".
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
jwhitten So My Questions For This Week Are: -- What is your layout space like? How did it seem when you first view it? Was it limitless and expansive? -- Do you have all the space you would like to have? I know many people actually say they could get by with less. So okay, what about the way the space is laid out? What compromises did you have to make to get your layout designed? How might it have been different if some (you pick) element had been different? -- What about specific features on your layout? What did you initially want? What did you end up with? What were the thought processes and trade-offs you had to make as you went from your initial concept to the actual plan you developed into your layout? As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments!
As always, I look forward to your thoughts and comments!
-My layout is in a room that is 9' x 8'. It has one wall of about 2.5' deep of storage stuff taken out of the 9' length, leaving about 6.5'. My layout is 5.1 feet x 3.5 feet HO. It is about all I can squeeze in there, and around the walls is not an option due to the storage "wall o' shtuff" The closet is packed and actually overflowing as well.
-It was exactly as I saw it, and it did not seem so large to me either. I knew I was pushing the size and having HO. I could easily have had a 2x4' N scale fit in better, but I wanted HO!
-Obviously I would like to have MORE space for a good sized pike. I could do wiht less if I did the N scale mentioned above.
-I have an 15"r oval inside an 18"r oval...the 15 being a comprimise I made. I am going to try to expand to have an 18"r oval inside an expanded larger 18"r using short straight pieces to expand the outer oval.
-The different element would have been to go N scale. I could get more inthe space, or have a "vast empire" in N scale. But agian, I was greedy and wanted HO.
-I didn't really have room to have room to comprimise, and I think I got all I wanted in the layout. I have a 4 spur short yard for cars, a 2 track engine service/storage terminal all inside the inside oval. I have two ovals to run trains on {I like roundy-rounder continuous run}. Onlyest thing I miss is a TT and roundhouse for my steamers, but the two stall straight engine house serves the purpose for now.
-I can run two trains at once, one of my goals, one on each oval. I can play yard consisting in the inner oval {though it technically breaks the rule of fouling the secondary main}, then send the train out on the high "main run" on the outside oval. I can consist another trian in the inner oval and run it too...they are interconnected ovals so I can trade off trains CAREFULLY by swapping them over. Then I can deconsist one train, then the other, park the engines in the engine service facility and call it a day.
-I swap out a few things here and there and can run steam, early diesels, or run middle diesels, or even run short modern diesels, so I am not stagnatingly locked into one era on my pike.
-It is a small layout and many would think it too small, but it gives me the enjoyment I want in even having a layout to "play on", and I am happy to NOT be just an "arm chair model RR". Many may not even bother to have such a thing, but I pushed the limits and have a happy little RR.
-WE hope to buy a MRR space that has at least a 2 Br 1 BA house covering it, Then I will have a "vast apce" for a "vast empire" to build in aobut 3 years hopefully sooner!.
But for now I am happy as a hobo on a sounthbound freight in the middle of February !
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
This is not a direct answer to your question but it is related.
Growing up I had a nice Lionel layout built in three sections totaling 12' long by 4' wide laying on the floor. Another section was added when my son came of age and was put on legs.
When I decided to get back into trains I choose HO and thought I would have a railroad empire. After all look how small this HO stuff is compared to Lionel. Besides Lionel could operate on 27 inches curves so just think what I could do with HO.
One of the first reponses I received from the forum explained that the 3 rail 27 inches was a radius and the 18 inch HO was a radii.
What a blow that was to my plans. My room wouldn't allow any thing larger
Needless to say I have worked within the physical constraints.
Happy Railroading
Don't Ever Give Up
My layout space started years before I actually returned to the hobby. But, I wanted to, so I added a "train room" above the garage to the wish list for its construction. The plans went ahead, and we ended up with a 24x24 foot room, heated, air conditioned and attached to the house. Nice. Very nice.
Too nice. It became a "family room," complete with a big TV screen and two couches. It slowly filled with games and musical instruments. But, I did retain one corner where I built my original 5x12 foot layout, on wheels so that it could be pushed back against the wall and out of everyone else's way, or pulled out for access to the back. That was Phase 1, and it took 5 or 6 years before the last of the pink foam was covered and all the track was ballasted.
As the layout grew, our daughter did too. She left for college a year ago, and I was granted official permission to take over more of the room. I rotated Phase 1 90 degrees, and began Phase 2 in the same space.
Phase 2 is narrower, more of a shelf layout, but with a balloon at one end. It applied lessons learned. There are long staging tracks, and space for more industries to make switching more interesting. I figure it will take 2, maybe 3 years to get Phase 2 where Phase 1 is now. Then, I have plans for Phase 3, a narrow, single-line shelf down to a turntable and runaround track, designed for modeling and switching.
Really, it's plenty of space. Planning ahead, I could be 70 before I finish what's already in my mind for this space. Of course, I'm a Builder. Everything takes a long time when you're a Builder.
Then, there's the uncertainty of what the future holds. I like our big home in New England, but would we rather retire somewhere warmer, once our legs are too old for serious skiing every weekend? Do we need a smaller space, overall, for just the two of us?
Hmmm, there's another topic for you -- What does retirement do to your layouts? When you look for that "downsized" home, do you downsize your layout, join a club, or what else?
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
"Miles and Miles of Miles and Miles"
Howdy all!
Picking up this week from something Richhotrain mentioned last week... I know when I moved into my current house and started 'surveying' the basement the available space seemed more than commodious, it seemed virtually endless! And in my head, as I would stand here and there imagining this and that, it really felt like I could put darned near anything into that space for limitless railroading. And indeed, as I sat drawing track plans it was easy to pencil in all sorts of things, a yard here, a servicing facility there, some mountains to climb, a nice big industrial area to switch, etc. All that, you know, and plenty of room to spare! And then came the time to do up the plan "for real" so I could get started-- and that was the beginning of all my troubles.
I bought a RR Cad program (3rdPlanit) and set about the task of figuring out how to develop the plans for my layout. In case you haven't ever used 3rdPlanit (or any of the other RR Cad programs), they all have a *huge* flaw-- which *really* oughta be corrected-- in that they all do things the "right" way and don't cheat. Now that might not seem such a big problem, but stick with me here, and I assure you it most definitely is. (And the programmers of all such programs oughta be soundly thrashed for including it-- what the heck were they thinking !?!?!?) The situation of course, is that they work with the *real* space that's actually there and not the imaginary space that's in your head. So those endless miles of railroading start diminishing rapidly as you start entering in all those yards and mountains and the programs faithfully render them using their real, true measurements and radii and so forth. Perhaps they should include a pair of "Rose-colored Glasses" in every package...
(Sigh)
And if that wasn't bad enough... right about the time I began to accept my fate and come to terms with my model railroading reality, that's when I started noticing certain "features" of the basement that made designing the layout difficult. That pesky door leading to the outside of the house, for instance.... right where I wanted to put the tall trestle over the river. How on earth could the builder have been so short-sighted as to have built a door *right there*.... twenty years ago.... I'll never understand. And the electrical box. Nice and wide-- two panels really, side-by-side. And you'll never guess their placement? Yup, right there in the corner where a coal mine would probably look pretty darned good. And the water shut-off valve for the outdoor faucet? Yup, you guessed it! Of all the places they could have put it-- right in the middle of the wall at layout height. And we'll not even talk about the drain clean-out plugs, or the main water shut-off valve for the house-- or any of the other dozen issues and obstacles that I would just swear up and down were put there to confound a model railroader. Each one challenging me to come up with a workaround and eating just a little bit into the overall available space for the layout.
Of course all that's just par for the course, and routine stuff for Model Railroaders to deal with. And I'm certainly not really complaining as I have a decent amount of space to work in. I know there are lots of folks who do beautiful work in much less space than I have. But my real point here is the one that Richhotrain made last week about the amount of room stuff takes up on the layout. When you really start adding it up-- when you buckle down and start using real dimensions and radii-- you really have to start making some decisions about what to include, what to leave out, what to compress, etc., to come up with some effective compromise between perceived space and actual space.
Pictures, of course, are always welcome.
(And thanks also to Richhotrain for suggesting this week's topic!)
John