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Hi Cookie, How's that plan coming along? Any chance of seeing a picture of your drafting? If you can put it up somewhere on the web as a jpg, post a link! Anyway, to answer the question about radii: On a 4x8 layout, the biggest radius you can have for a return loop (i.e. end up going in the opposite direction) is about 22". That makes a circle of diameter 44", leaving a little space on either side. Minimum that most people would recommend is 18" radius. However, if you have a specific theme for your layout, you may go smaller - e.g. "traction" or streetcars - they can operate on much tighter radii than normal - in HO scale they could be as small as 10 - 12" radius. You can alos have curves with bigger radii, but of course, you will not be able to fit a whole circle (or even a 1/2 circle) on the 4x8 table. HO cork is about 1/4" thick, and about 2 inches wide. It can be used to represent well-maintained, high-profile ballast that you might see on a main line. Some railroads did not use, or did not maintain, their roadbeds very well, so over time, it would look as if they had none, or that the track was just running on a grassy raised area. For more info on this and other aspects of building/designing a layout, look at Model Railroader's "how-to" articles here: http://www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/004/474duagg.asp Andrew
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