I have a very small room for my layout, roughy 8 foot wide by 9 foot long. I can deal with the closet door that opens into the room, and split the door into the room from the hall to where it opens outward into the hall instead of into the room. The local club layout is based on the old Clinchfield. My motive power fits into that theme, so a coal hauling line is what I am thinking of. Single track, maybe a passing siding and a decent size coal mine to switch. Continious loop and analog track power w/blocks will be used. Drawing up track plans to actualy fit the area isnt my strong suit. Usualy have a great plan on paper, but in practice it isnt even close to fitting. I am putting my foot down on getting a layout up and running this winter! Thoughts, ideas, help? Thanks Mike
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
What scale?
Take a look at XTrackCAD. It's a free model railroad CAD program. You can find demos on youtube to help you get started.
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
HO or N scale.
For N scale twelve to 18 inch shelves will work. You will probably be operating alone, so thirty inch aisles will work. Twelve inch shelves and 30 inch aisles would give a G shape to get a little more distance at the expense of scenry depth.
Have fun, ask club members for ideas, they know you better than us.
Dave
My thoughts on this are that an around the walls layout with staging underneath would be the best use of the space. You could do 2 levels but you would have to commit space for a helix. Also, determine how much space you want for an aisle before you plan track or benchwork.
People designed and built wonderful layouts long before track planning software took over the sketching up of track plans. Always remember, CAD systems don´t do the design, they are just a help putting a plan on paper.
John Armstrong´s method of using squares for the process will help you to draw up a plan which minimizes the risksof things not fitting the way you want. John Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operation by Kalmbach Publishing will give you a good introduction. I think the book is sold out, but you may find it in your library or "The Bay".
Go to www.carendt.com
scroll thru the scrapbook pages and the layout design gallery. Lots of excellent info on small shelf layouts.
Have fun with your trains
In HO you put a 2' wide shelf on the north and east walls, and a four foot wide blob on the south wall. That give you a two foot wide isle. You carve out the 4' wide blob with a 2' wide hole so that you can get in there and do some work on the layout. For operations, you do not go in there. The south side of the south wall is a tunnel and staging area.
Your mines are on the north side, and on the inside of the north segment of the southy table (floow?) you build a shipping terminal to disguise the fact taht a hole is there at all.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Scale will be HO, N is to small for my eyesite anymore. I love Lionel, but to noisey in a small room like that. I tried a small 3 rail layout in there a couple years ago with a PRR theme, but the noise would give you a massive headache. I have a small selection of motive power already, all Athearn blue box but one. I have 2 SD45's in black Clinchfield colors, and ABBA set of F7s that will become CRR black units eventualy and a lone brass NW2 to paint up. I do have a couple coal hoppers but will need to pickup several more obviously. The club I belong to is geared completly to operation, as are most of the members layouts and interchange among the layouts is done on a regular basis. So I would be getting into the "interchange circle" once the layout is operational. Roar has the right idea, but flip the south wall with the north wall for the wider table top. I probably wouldnt go 4 foot deep but close to 3. I could set the coal mine into one of the corners. I will try and play with some of the xcad stuff in the coming weeks. The whole idea got rekindled after I came home from club last night. We were cleaning out unused motive power from the roundhouse/engine tracks. Way back in the roundhouse was my pair of CRR SD45's that I had totaly forgotten about when I moved to PA in 2000. According to a member, he hasnt seen them move since I moved away. I just recently rejoined the club and didnt realize they were still there. I am in the process of getting the pair running again. Got one done, starting the second unit shortly. They would try to run last night, but needed torn down and cleaned after sitting for almost 15 years. Mike
Mike,
Just one thing....hopefully Your handy, but it's not that hard. Think of replacing Your closet door, with a bi-fold door, opens in the middle and slides to the right or left and only 5 inches sticks into the room, rather than the whole door.
Take Care!
Frank
two examples of simple but well thought out layouts
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Those are nice layouts. Wish I could do an island into the middle of the room. A bifold door is a thought for the closet. The door into the room is probably best changed to where it opens outwards instead of inwards. We hardly use the closet and I have thought about just removing the door and putting my workshop in there. There is room, just have to make a custom countertop to fit in there and some shallow shelves on the lower part of the wall to hold stuff. Then we can still use the upper rod to hold cloths. The inside of the closet is as large width wide as my current desk I work at. Mike
I had an almost identical space while I was in college, for believe it or not a similar scheme. It was inspired by the Clinchfield series in MR back in the 70s, so I built basically a coal branch that connected to the main somewhere along the way. My space was 8x10 so just slightly bigger than yours. I built a twice a around layout in that space which allowed a loads in/empties out operation. Essentially connected a mine (Moss mine from the Clinchfield was the inspiration) to the interchange (instead of power plant like on the layout) with the connecting tracks hidden. This provided operation of two trains with large diesels. In addition, I added a coal loader, lumber yard, feed store, and pulpwood loader to provide work for a local.
This was in HO using 2 foot shelves around the walls with a central open area. and a duck under for entrance. Today, it would probably be higher and use a "roll under" entrance. A typical day on the layout called for the empty train to arrive from staging (load/empties connection), travel around the layout, and reach the mine where it sort of "disappeared" behind the mine buildings. While it was "working" the mine, the local would come from staging to work the other industries. Then sometime during the day, the loads would "appear" from the mine and the local would have to clear for the coal drag back to the junction (staging). After finishing it's work, the local too would head back toward the rest of the world.
It did call for willing suspension of disbelief since tracks passed through the same scene twice, but I had a lot of fun with that little layout. If I can sketch it up, I'll post a rough track plan.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/100327969@N03/15508559079/
(I'm trying to edit to post a pic, but for some reason, I can't)
jim
The Apr 14 issue of MR had an article on turning a 4x8 plan "inside out" and making it an around the room. You can also look at different scale layout plans and modify them.
One that I was looking at was the one shown in the article, "Lime Ridge & Hercules and Portland & Western." As designed it is a two railroad layout, but with some modification I am looking at a twice around. It uses elevation change to break up the twice through a scene concept.
I plan a 2' wide shelf (maybe wider on one side), a crossover in a simple field scene on the tip up that will be at the enterance. The elevation change will break up the twice around look on one side, while I think it will be buildings and trees in a small town to break up the other side.
Good luck,
Richard
Jim, I like that plan alot. We actualy simulate the Moss mine on our club layout as well as a loads out emptys in set up. The mine backs up to a power plant in Johnson City TN on our layout. That is one of two mines, the other one, the #24 mine ships its unit trains to Erwin yard. Power is serviced and the train is turned and sent to Clinchport to be emptied by a real rotary dumper. I will post up some pics in a seperate thread. I am going to print out that plan Jim, and see if I can do up something similar. Mike
Glad you could read it; I wasn't sure since I couldn't post the image. I did throw that together pretty quick so the spacing and proportions aren't quite right. Hope you can make something useful from it.
Ok, you run benchwork carrying track around all four walls of the room. You build liftout or swing out sections to cross the doorways. That's straight forward. Now, can you squeeze a penisula into the middle? Kinda tight. Going across the 9 foot side, you have a 1 foot bench with track, a 2 foot aisle, a 3 foot penisula, another 2 foot aisle, and another 1 foot bench with track. Tight. Very tight.
A 3 foot penisula means 18 inch radius curve at the tip of the penisula to loop around and back. That works for shays pulling ore cars or log buggies, or two bay hoppers and GP38's, or Pacifics or Mikados. It's not gonna take big steam.
Track plan boils down to a singletrack main line running clean around the room with passing sidings. And spurs to serve mines and industry. I'd tend to design the industry first and then snake a track in to service it. I'd put in as many passing sidings as I could fit, you can always store ready to run trains on them. And a yard, for shuffling cars and for holding ready-to-run trains. I think I would omit engine servicing facilities.
I would not do a double deck layout unless I was feeling very sure of my carpentry and track laying skills. It just takes one derailment inside a hard to reach into helix to halt operations for hours.
I designed my layout with just squared paper, pencils, architec's scale and compass. And erasers. No CAD. Keep your curves as broad as you can, especially if you want to run passenger service. I'd try for 24 inch radius on the main line. Try not to run your main straight along the edge of the table. The strong straight lines of the track and the table edge reinforce each other and make it super obvious that the world ends at table edge. Let the main wander back and forth a bit and with some scenery it looks more like the track is following the terrain rather than the table edge.
Foamboard, 2 inch, makes good table top and scenery. It cuts with a steak knife. Just remember that foamboard won't hold fasteners. Everything, road bed, track, wiring, switchmachines has to glued in place. I put 3/8 inch plywood under my foamboard just to give me somewhere to sink a screw. Backdrop is MUCH easier to paint BEFORE the benchwork goes in.
Good Luck. Have Fun.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
My room is a little larger (about 11' by 11'), but I have a HO shelf layout that is a shortline connecting with the Clinchfield. You mention the closet door. I took off the closet doors and extended the layout into the space that had been the closet. That is now the location of the sawmill complex and the hidden connection to the Clinchfield. Most of the shelf layout is 2' deep.
I decided that I didn't want to burrow through the wall leading into the closet, but provided for the eye to "flow" past the wall outcropping by wrapping a building around the edge. I took a B.T.S. logging co. office building kit and bashed it into fitting that space.... provided as an idea to perhaps allow you to better adapt to your space.
Bill
I dont plan to attempt an island in the middle, rather stick with 22" curves around the room. While the old blue box SD45's will handle the 18" curves, pulling coal around them might be interesting. I also need room to walk in there and get to the file cabinet. I think the one around the room plan will work and achive what I desire. I am sure I will tweek the plan a bit once I start laying track. Need to get the benchwork up next. Might use hollow core doors for some of it. Mike
You don't have to have a turnback loop in a peninsula to take advantage of some space in the center of the room. You can have a yard, a large industry, a switching district, or a staging cassette; all can be less than 2 feet wide. A staging cassette can be on legs and rollers, like a movabe kitchen island, or built to be stored out of the way when you want more room to work on the layout.
- Douglas
This is true. I am also, even with my eyesite, being tempted to go to N scale. My love of the romantic age of passenger train travel and Kato's excellent selection of streamliners isnt helping me! I am extreamly fond of thier CB&Q E5 set. Sure wish someone would do the E5 in HO scale, other than older brass that is hard to find. I dont have the room for a decent passenger station in HO, but in N, I could do it. Just not sure how my eyes would deal with it. I am at the point of needed bi focals now at 41yrs old. Mike
Mike - I am 58 years old and the proud "owner" of bi-focals for over 15 years now. I am just starting a new N scale layout, after venturing into On30 for a little while. The bigger the scale is, the more detail you have to consider, making the bigger scales as difficult to handle as N scale.
Sir Madog...bigger scales as difficult to handle as N scale.
Until you need to install a decoder in a "non-DCC ready" locomotive.
And if you want sound...