Hi, how is everbody doing. I havent ben around for a couple of years, or so. Kinda lost interest in the magazine. But I am back now and more involed in my HO layout since I retired July fist of thi year
The fist thing the wife and I did was move the layout from the small room in the basement to the family room, needed room for expanding. The second thing that was done was that I tore up half the layout and decided that 15 inch radius just wasnt working. So i decided to go with some 18 inch radis and mostly 22inch radius on the new expasion area. For a nice 12x12 layout when I am done.
Doug
Hi Doug,
Glad to see you back in business! So, how did you convince your wife to let you take over the family room?!?
Cheers!!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Welcome back. It sounds like you hit a homerun getting to move the layout to a larger room.
Glad to hear you will have more time for your layout now that you're retired. Retirement is great!
York1 John
hon30critterGlad to see you back in business! So, how did you convince your wife to let you take over the family room?
I somehow convinced my wife to let me have the master bedroom.
I just had to build her a 10 by 11 closet!
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Hi,
I see no mention of scale, so I'll assume you are in HO. And while a 12x12 space has a lot of options, you would be limited to a U shape dogbone or a round the edge of the room with a duckunder. Yes, you could put an 8x8 table in the center of the room as well too.
IMO, a key to an MR's happiness is wide radius curves. While 18 and 22 inch are ok for those running small locos and short trains, 26 and higher are preferable for both operation and visual effect.
I've had "duckunders" and they can be a pain, but an around room layout will allow you this - if that is what you prefer.
Of course if you are doing small trains or narrow gauge, the other layout types could work as well or better.
The thing is, you need to spend a lot of time in the planning stage - even before you buy track or cars or locos or whatever. You won't be sorry you did so.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
18" is fine for smaller stuff but if using flex it is best to go a bit more. Once you get over 40" for cars you need a bigger radius for looks, more modern 80' you need at least 36" for looks even if it can run on 18".
My layout is HO scale 14’ x 10’ using a single 24” radius as my mainline minimum and 30” to 32” for the norm with #6 turnouts. My yard uses 18” and #4 turnouts. All my locomotives and rolling stock negotiate the tight yard radius at slow yard speeds. I have a 3½% grade climbing to 10”.It has a Wye, Trestle, Howe open Truss bridge, 135’ scale turntable with a 140’ roundhouse and a mainline double crossover, you can do a lot in a small space.I run large locomotives, Cab Forwards, Y6Bs and E7 diesels with no problems. My longest rolling stock is 72’ passenger cars, longer looks silly on such a small layout but 85’ cars work great. Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California Turned 84 in July, aging is definitely not for wimps.
My layout was originally intended to fill the entire basement, but other "family considerations" pared that down to about 560 sq. ft., in the oddly-shaped room that was left...
I never made a trackplan, so instead, built benchwork completely around the room, in a manner that allowed for fairly generous aisles, then cut out, using several sheets of 3/4" plywood, into curves of varying radii, beginning at a 30" minimum and eventually going up to a couple in excess of 40".
Most of the track is on risers, so I simply laid out the various curves where they looked most suitable, then joined them with straight-ish roadbed. Wherever there was room, I added turnouts and decided that all of the towns would have double track with crossovers to facilitate switching maneuvres. Any space that was left got covered with plywood (often as left-over pieces) for supporting structures, and most other areas were covered over with aluminum screen, followed by applications of Durabond-90 patching plaster.
My layout is DC-powered and meant for only one operator running one train at a time. I've yet to find any major flaws in the design, nor in the execution.
I consider myself to be one of the "feelin' lucky punks".
Wayne
After reading Wayne's thoughtful post, I find my mind drifting back to the precepts espoused by one John Armstrong. He, the author of "Track Planning for Realistic Operation", stated early in his wonderful book that one must have a solid grasp of planning methods, but also of one's givens and druthers, and of one's available space. He took pains to point out that almost any space can be converted to an interesting track plan, provided some imagination and some careful thinking went into the process prior to acquiring materials and starting construction.
In Wayne's case, he knew what he was going to find acceptable as a minimum, but also had a firm understanding of what was going to be needed to get there. I think Wayne's vision, experience, and skill all gave him the ability to pretty much build it as he thought to, and on the fly. We all see the results. For the rest of us mere mortals, we must think it through, map it out in scale on paper, maybe pass it by some trusted knowledgeable modelers, and then go about crafting it.
Actually, we both talked about moving the layout up before I retired. The wife is also involved some what with the layout, she does help me out with the land scapping.
Welcome back on board, Doug.
As mentioned by others the wider the curves the better.
My only other suggestion. Not to have complicated trackwork. It can become very frustrating when operating.
David
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