The 4X8 alternative

[Vail and Southwestern RR]

Oh, yeah, a 4X8 is the best choice for your space. Not.

This is literally a ten-minute sketch, so it addresses only one of many possibilities. It's always a good idea to try bridging the hood of the car in a garage design, I think. This option leaves you lots of room along the top wall for the impedimentia of modern life (bikes, lawn equipment, etc., etc.)

Again, this is just one of many alternatives. Hopefully food for thought.

Byron
Model RR Blog

I'm not thinking the driver wants to get out and walk all the way around the layout.  And I'm not sure I like the bridge the car thing, but it does help the space.  At first glance, I see an E, or perhaps an S.  I sure ain't seein' a 4x8!

 

[J Campbell]

Two questions. Can the car park on the side nearest the house? And is it okay to block the window with a backdrop?

Yes...on both counts.

However, be forewarned...the "car" is actually a lifted 4x4 Suburban.  She's about 4.5' tall at the hood and about 19 feet long, so I'm not too sure bridging her is going to be very attractive.

[Vail and Southwestern RR]

Two questions. Can the car park on the side nearest the house? And is it okay to block the window with a backdrop?

Yes...on both counts.

However, be forewarned...the "car" is actually a lifted 4x4 Suburban.

Trade for a Mini.  You can have a bigger layout!

 

[J Campbell]

Two questions. Can the car park on the side nearest the house? And is it okay to block the window with a backdrop?

Yes...on both counts.

However, be forewarned...the "car" is actually a lifted 4x4 Suburban.

Trade for a Mini.  You can have a bigger layout!

 

Negative.

[Vail and Southwestern RR]

Two questions. Can the car park on the side nearest the house? And is it okay to block the window with a backdrop?

Yes...on both counts.

However, be forewarned...the "car" is actually a lifted 4x4 Suburban.  She's about 4.5' tall at the hood and about 19 feet long, so I'm not too sure bridging her is going to be very attractive.

'Tis a beast.  And big enough to fight for its territiry.  So, we leave it alone.....

Has to live inside????  He said very quietly....

[dinwitty]

my thoughts  most of the layout proper would be on the window side leaving room on the house side for the car.

 

consider the concepts, a railroad is long and lean and narrow.  The 4x8 violates all that. If your looking for a quick setup in some other fashion, a 5x9 board is better. I like modules because I can work on small areas and finish them to a degree. Using any flatboard concept means you may be using a cookie cutter method for scenery and changing heights. Any layout your going to be doing special work thats other than a flatboard. The club I was in used L girder benchwork with special road supports, and not very much flatboard use except for yards. Keeping it simpleish means using a 4x8 and cutting it up into sections as stated and re-arranging them into something better. Not too tough, make a basic bechwork and lay the sections down, but like always make some kind of plan, and get  some form of modeling idea down.

 

[J Campbell]

'Tis a beast.  And big enough to fight for its territiry.  So, we leave it alone.....

Has to live inside????  He said very quietly....

Yeah.  I at least need to have the option.  My wife drives it.  Her comfort and safety mean more to me than layout size.

[Vail and Southwestern RR]

'Tis a beast.  And big enough to fight for its territiry.  So, we leave it alone.....

Has to live inside????  He said very quietly....

Yeah.  I at least need to have the option.  My wife drives it.  Her comfort and safety mean more to me than layout size.

Got it.  Mine lives outside.  Hers inside.  A familiar concept.

So, just so I don't mess up in my thinking. If one was to drawn a line down the center of the garage, leaving room for access to said vehicle, where would the line be?  Also, would it be fair for the vehicle to be outside while you 'play' with your trains.  I'm thinking about using that space for walk around access.

 

[J Campbell]

Alright...since we're gettin specific.

The dark line designates the boundarys I'm willing to live with.  I'm not nessesarily looking for size, just something more creative and realistic than a 4X8.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, you don't need to feel like you have to fill in the whole area, just make it fit within the boundarys. 

[Vail and Southwestern RR]

Hmmm, I was hoping for 10 feet.  Thinking cap on....

 

[J Campbell]

Well go on ahead and use 10 feet then.

[SpaceMouse]

This 10 x 20 shape allows a 5 foot walkway to the outside door and goes to the garage door.

It has continuous running and point to point. Either outside part of a 5-foot section could be staging. Both would be better because you could then ship in both directions and have more operations.  See my article on staging.

Grated it is the max you can get in this space and quite a bit more costly than a 4 x 8. You could scale it down easily. The aisle are all 30" as are all sceniced areas.  

(it looks like the left side table edge disappeared.)

EDIT: This could be compressed horizonitally down to 12.5 x 10 and still be a great layout.  

[Vail and Southwestern RR]

Chip has gone more or less in the direction I was headed.  I might have oriented things a little differently, but the scheme is the same.

 

[stebbycentral]

Since the subject is improving on a 4 X 8, here is a story (hopefully short) about my issues with the format and what I did about it.  To begin with, for years I was an apartment railroader and had an N-scale shelf layout built on top a set of free-standing book cases for portability.  The limitations did not bother me so much because I am more into the modeling aspect of the hobby, rather than operations.  When I finally bought my own home I kept the self layout in the basement on top of a set of built-in bookcases.  Useful in that the height of the shelves kept the inquisitive little fingers of my two toddlers far away from my delicate trains.

Eventually the kids grew to the point where I assumed they could both appreciate and respect the trains, so I got a sheet of 4 x 8 Homasote and began laying out a traditional round the table top layout.  Essentially a single loop of track folded on top of itself in an over/under arrangement.  I immediately discovered that I did not like the 4 X 8 for a number of reasons:

The 4 X 8 sat out in the middle of a very small rec-room, and made the room even smaller both from a visual and practical standpoint.  It was the proverbial elephant in the kitchen.

Anytime one brushed against it, which was almost inevitable due to tight clearances around the perimeter, there was a 4.75 Richter scale earthquake in the town of Kelzenburg.  Toppling train cars and dislodging buildings from their foundations.

Over time I saw that the structures on the outer corners of the layout suffered damage from passing elbows, not all of them my children's.  My feed store especially was in very poor shape with recurring damage to the delicate towers and piping between grain bins.

Finally after less than a year I decided to cut the layout in half, and pushed it up against a wall.  The good part of it was that by allocating an entire wall on one side of the rec room I was able to add a 3.5 ft stretcher to the middle and increase the overall length of the layout to 11.5 ft.    To improve access to the trains and structures, the center section is only a little over 2 ft in width.  I modified the basic design into a dogbone shape.  It also helped that I could bolt the layout to the wall, so no more earthquakes.  Thus we have what is illustrated below.  And we have our rec room back.

[J Campbell]

This 10 x 20 shape allows a 5 foot walkway to the outside door and goes to the garage door.

EDIT: This could be compressed horizonitally down to 12.5 x 10 and still be a great layout.  

I like it.  However, I may scale it down a bit.

[SpaceMouse]

This 10 x 20 shape allows a 5 foot walkway to the outside door and goes to the garage door.

EDIT: This could be compressed horizonitally down to 12.5 x 10 and still be a great layout.  

I like it.  However, I may scale it down a bit.

Here's a thought. When most people think of layouts they think of a lot of track. The turnouts are the expensive part. Why not build the larger benchwork and just run a single track, without turnouts or sidings along the entire layout. Then develop each section as you go. Scenery can be very cheap if you are creative so you don't need a Plywood Central as you grow. As you develop your property, you can tear down a section of scenery and put in industry, add a yard. or towns.    

 

[J Campbell]

It's not the cost I'm leery about, it's the size.  Real estate in my garage is pretty valuable right now.  Eventually, I'll move out of the garage and into an upstairs loft in the steel building I plan on putting up.

Just practice for now.

[SpaceMouse]

Cool. If you are indeed planning a move, I would limit your size as much as possible to get the most done you can on the layout. Plan as if this is a disposable layout and design your real layout for the final space.

I would also plan a variety of operational motifs, such as a small yard, industrial switching, etc. to see what you like/dislike about the hobby. Avoid attatching the turnouts and they will be reusable, but I personally would not worry about the track. Once it is ballasted I figure it is pretty much history.    

[Arjay1969]

It's not the cost I'm leery about, it's the size.  Real estate in my garage is pretty valuable right now.  Eventually, I'll move out of the garage and into an upstairs loft in the steel building I plan on putting up.

Just practice for now.

 

One suggestion...build it "semi-modular", i.e. build the benchwork as 4' or 6' sections that can be disconnected and moved if needed (think David Barrow's "domino" benchwork).  That way you can go ahead and build what you want now, and move it to its final location later.  iIt also gives you a bit of flexibility to add things onto the ends or in the middle of the layout in the process.

 

 

Robert Beaty

The Laughing Hippie 

[J Campbell]

Plan as if this is a disposable layout and design your real layout for the final space.

Yeah, that's pretty much the plan.

[JimRCGMO]

Joining the party late, I had (decades ago...) started the 4 X 8 layout that appeared in Boys' Life magazine (a Glenn Wagner-designed layout, I think), but never got it done. Now, after a few decades I'm getting back into MRR'ing (had lumber for one, but it got put into storage about 15 years ago due to a divorce). After talking with several people in the forums here at MR, I opted to cut my 4 X 8 sheet of plywood, and started out with this:

which is mostly done in terms of track, some elevation changes, etc. but still have to do scenicing. I also in the past few months started doodling around with layout design software in seeing what I could do with a 'second bedroom' design (think around 10' X 11'), and came up with this:

In the past couple of weeks, I've been doing some more designing and (though I don't have an image to post yet) have another design which replaces the engine terminal and yard with a (Tehachapi-type?) loop on the left side that climbs and loops back around itself, coming across  closer to midway (up and down midway), and leaves me space for more industry sidings off various spots along the track.

I plan on all of this being in sections about 4' long (maybe some will be 6' but no longer than that), so when I move to larger accomodations (like with a basement instead of my apartment) I will be able to get the layout out the door simply. (Notice I did not say easily...).

 

My ,

Jim in Cape Girardeau