Do you have any idea of the era, local, and/or prototype you want to replicate? There are numerous sources of both current and past maps that show tracks in just about any area of the country, so you could take the actual prototype arrangement and adjust it to fit your space.
If you can find small plans the interest you, you could combine a coupel of smaller shelf layouts into your around the room plan.
You can look at published plans and find one that looks good to you. Smaller ones you can add on to fill your space. Larger ones can be reduced, but that may take a little more knowledge so you do';t delete something critical to the operations.
John Armstrong's book Track Planning for Realistic Operation is THE book on layout design. There have been others but John covered it the best. Tony Koester's Realistic Model Railroad Design can give you some ideas, but for knowning what will fit and how it fits and how it all works, the Armstrong book is still the best.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Rrinker has the right idea. Several years ago Alan Keller interviewed Paul Dolkos in a video about Paul's layout, and Paul's choice of prototype came up in the conversation. Paul said something to the effect that you have to put your stake in the ground and claim a piece of territory as your own. Your railroad needs some kind of identity, and that is determined by the choice of location, era, specific railroad(s), types of industries, etc. Your railroad should look and feel like something real.
So think about your favorite railroad experiences, whether real or imagined experiences. The type of railroad that appeals to you will manifest itself in those experiences. You may want to examine maps of a favorite railroad location. Those maps can be the beginning of your layout plan.
Tom
have you considered simple point-to-point layouts
and here's a layout from 1939 that was describe as well thought-out
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Are you saying you've already built your benchwork? I hope not, because that's a huge mistake tobuild before you know what the layout looks like.
I would go look for inspiration. You don't have to design from scratch. Buy a couple of books, look through the layout plan database here on the MR site, search the internet. You don't need to use a canned plan either. You can combine parts of multiple plans that look good to you. You can also incorporate a favorite part of a prototype track somewhere. If you have deep pockets, there are evdn companies that will design one for you.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
I think the most exciting part of the hobby is layout design. It allows you to dream, then check your dreams, then draw something and dream some more.
I think you do have to start with a basic inspiration. 9x11' is a nice space, even in HO. You you can have two nice sized towns/ stations/ yards.
Apart from from what has been mentioned here, I would suggest reading Byron Henderson's entire Layout Vision website. That's what I did as I started building. I am now designing Version 4 of my layout, counting a 8x4 skillbuilder as version 1.
My goals were:
1. passenger and freight, modern era but freight operates like the 50s with a lot of LCL and car drop offs.
2. a division point yard, acts as staging and interchange with an off-layout road.
3. A branch line to a small town, farming scenes.
4. Can't be multi- decked, I will never finish it.
5. Fully detected and signaled.
What is your inspiration?
NP.
I plan on modeling current error in the New England Area. Looking at the Providence and Worcester shortline Railroad. I did build by open grid benchwork already to fit the space I have and avoid the doorway.
I have laid out some temporary table tops on the bench work and have been just laying down track to get a sense of what I want, but I have had a times what I deem to much track and other times too little and just trying to find the right balance of what I want my railroad to be.
My goals are
1. Passenger Service
2. Freight Service
3. A couple of towns
4. A bridge or two. A lot of them in NE go over roadways
5. A small yard, plus an engine facility
Not sure if that is too much for a 9x11 area. Because its an around the walls area I was also thinking of a 2x4 section that could be put in the middle to add different types of scenes at different times of the year.
Current era means you will have longer contsiner cars and 85' coaches. So minimum radius of 30" is advised, althiigh 24" will work in a pinch (lookos odd though). Good thing is you could have trains which don't need engine turning facilities, as they would have cab cars. A key would be to simulate "off-layout" activity via the yard and also use it for "staging" ...
Two towns and a small yard/service facility is totally doable in 9x11' - I like the peninsula idea too. It could house a large industry or a branch line.
Do you want to draw us a location of the room door and existing bench work?
Honestly, even 30 inch radius looks odd with 89' freight cars. It takes really broad curves to look decent, but you should get fairly reliable operation with 30 inch curves in HO. I am going with 32 inch.
I like taking 11x17" graph paper and drawing out the walls of the room to scale on it and then making photo copies and using that to visualize and draw out potential track plans based on the available space and minimum curve radii, which basically determain what can fit in a given space.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
gzygadloI have a 9 x11 layout area where it’s around the walls most of its 18” wide around 3 of the walls and a 36” wide area on the remaining wall.
Just FYI, most folks find that they can't reach beyond 30" over a scenicked layout.
"Benchwork first" can be kind of limiting in terms of layout design, but since it's built, you might help folks help you by posting a drawing of the current benchwork showing the room entrance, etc.
Your list of nice-to-haves might be a little ambitious for that space in HO, especially for the modern era. You don’t mention staging, but many folks would feel that would be an important addition. Here are some examples of layouts in similar spaces to give a suggestion of what will fit.
HO around-the-room in an 8’ X 10’ space, 24” radius.
HO around-the-room in a 10’ X 11’ 6” space, 24” radius, staging below on steep grades.
The example below is not a perfect fit, since it assumes open aisles on two sides. It’s just a rough concept (and not drawn to scale), but the pertinent part to your situation is how staging along the wall builds a better “doughnut” in HO or N.
Best of luck with your layout.
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
riogrande5761 I like taking 11x17" graph paper and drawing out the walls of the room to scale on it and then making photo copies and using that to visualize and draw out potential track plans based on the available space and minimum curve radii, which basically determain what can fit in a given space.
Agreed. This is a great step, especially earlier on when you're roughing out a sketch. As you'll see I added a graph paper element to my digital drawings. And I drew out the 1' squares on my train table to help match the design to the actual construction (in addition to the detailed meaurements from the end of the table, etc.)
As the main design elements come together, I like to move to the computer (just my preference). I didn't use dedicated train software; many common programs work just fine for my simple layout (Word, PowerPoint, etc. or their free counterparts) but I prefer Publisher (or the free Open Office Draw) for a number of reasons. My project is not the best example since it's so basic (4x8) and didn't require lots of track/turnout/yard configurations.
I create a document using 1"=1' scale. I started using circles with my minimum radius as I knew that was my main limiting factor.
I then found it useful to insert a layer 1" squares under the layout (digital graph paper) for visual cues. This was done by inserting a "table" and formatting the columns and rows to all be 1".
Once the track was pretty certain, I was able to place buildings, roads, rivers, etc. and make sure there was room for parking, turning, etc. I even tried to figure out streetlight spacing. For example, I realized to accomodate the trucks turning into the "barrel factory" loading bays and the street I had to move my figure 8 intersection toward the middle of the table.
Never thought of designing first and building the benchwork later. Because nothing has been put down I could undo and then redo my benchwork. I used all screws so I could easily undo it. If I did that then I could undo the 36" goof.
Most of my freight cars are 40' and 50'. My passenger cars are mostly 85' with a few 60'. I do have one or two 89' trailer cars.
I don't see a button to upload and it won't let me past in my picture.
I did decide to re-do my bench work and where is was just open grid I pulled it all down. As I look at the room I have two obstacles. It has two door entrances that are in the middle of two of the walls so there is no room to do a full circle return so it looks like it will be two liftouts or something similar.
Back to the drawing board.
Yes, if you design and build benchwork first, you put a "straight jacket" on your track plans and design. It's the cart before the horse.
You have to designe where you track is going to go first so that it fits the room and space available. While you do that, you have to consider minimum curve radii, and where major design elements, such as yards, sidings, etc. are going to go, and where you are going to stand or have access too (aisle ways), etc.
Then once all that is fleshed out, you designe the benchwork to fit under the track plan built.
In my case, I kind of cheated, but I had a simple around the room track plan in my head, so I did build my benchwork without having fully fleshed out my track plan - but again, it was simple enough that I could fill in the details later. That said, I did put it down on graph paper and had, at least, the major elements in mind.
gzygadloMy goals are 1. Passenger Service2. Freight Service3. A couple of towns4. A bridge or two. A lot of them in NE go over roadways5. A small yard, plus an engine facility Not sure if that is too much for a 9x11 area.
1. Passenger Service2. Freight Service3. A couple of towns4. A bridge or two. A lot of them in NE go over roadways5. A small yard, plus an engine facility
Not sure if that is too much for a 9x11 area.
Yes, that is a whole lot to squeeze into a 9x11 especially since I think a 1/2 way decent passenger terminal is going to take a whole 11' side of that space. Have you considered 2 levels?
I want the industries to be included in the town area. I have no idea how to build it with 2 levels so I really never considered it.
Somebody mentioned modern stuff needing bigger curves, but the Providence & Worcester that the OP is thinking of has a lot of older equipment, even a couple of GP-40's, IIRC. That may not be such a limiting factor. On the other hand, in the prototype area, only Metro North, MBTA, and Amtrak haul passengers.
All depends on what you want to run - you can certainly have a modern era layout that doesn't run 89 foot well cars and auto racks.
If you want to build a modern era branch line, fictional or otherwise - think about what keeps it open, what makes it worthwhile for the railroad to be there. Is it a seaport with a big intermodal terminal, or is it a handful of industries that receive various raw materials and ship out boxcar loads of finished goods? By giving your line a reason to exist, some of the other design considerations will fall into place.
To fill a 9x11 space, there are not a lot of options for a footprint, so building the benchwork first is really not a problem, IMO. 30 inch deep shelves all the way around gives you gives you a 4 x 6 operating pit. Cramming a more complex footprint into the space would likely reduce the radii, compromising your ability to run passenger cars effectively.
My layout is larger, but I refrain from running long cars. I model contemporary frieght service and can find industries that support running shorter cars. Freight cars are limited to 60 footers, but most are 50 footers or shorter, and the minimum radius is 28 inches, but most curves are broader. I don't run passsenger cars.
I would suggest keeping the curves as broad as possible. If you want a tunnel, put it in a corner so you can make the radius narrower in there to save a few inches.
- Douglas
I'm one of those "professionals" that design layouts for others. I'm not soliciting business, I have enough on my plate right now.
One thing that I have the client do is fill out a trackplanning form. This gives the scale, area available, locations of doors, windows etc. Also on there is equipment wants/already have. Type of scenery, level of operations; this runs from a little switching to a layout that is primarily switching, what type of rules will be used, TT/TO, Schedules, Track Warrents. What type of system will be used to determine car movements, switch lists, car cards, computer generated etc.
I also have the client write down any ideas he may have prior to the delivery of a layout plan.
To design a layout I take the ideas from the form and come up with a basic plan. I also have many track plan books and computer refernces that I can and do capture ideas from. I will cherry pick things from a layout and plant them on the client's plan if those "plan cherrys" fit what the client wants.
The key to the whole process, for me, are the written down points on that form, and any other ideas the client comes up with. After all, it is his layout, and what he wants, is more important than my own ideas for his plan. I want the client to feel like this is his design and not mine.
Carey
Keep it between the Rails
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