I ran across this image while doing track plan searches yesterday. As a kid in the 70's this was my dream layout. I still ponder building it in N scale as it would fit on a door panel with just a tiny bit of adjustment. I also am considering it as a 55n3 layout plan by using extra tight curves. Not that this subject hasn't come up before, but what plan just stays with you no-matter what!
I don't have one, but I can see why that plan has stuck with you. I've not seen it before, but I like it too.
Turtle Creek would be amazing as an inner city industrial layout. DO IT! and in N you can make it 2.5 x 4.5 feet, so you can add streets around the edges and some street running.
I take advantage from this thread to propose an unusual track plan from the 60s. It is a 5' by 5' Rivarossi track plan (they also built it for exhibitions) and is called "il plastico delle curve" (The curves layout). The picture shows well the plan and the structure. More details here (in italian) http://www.rivarossi-memory.it/Plastici/P_Delle_Curve/Riva_Plastico_Delle_Curve.htm The nice thing of this layout is that even if it is from the 60s when in Europe model trins were only going aound in circles, it has a remakable capability for operations, especially if you replace the loco shed at the lower right with any industry or yard. Here the track plan from the original catalogue I am building it in Z scale with my smallest kid.
I remember this plan! I was going through all of my model RR magazines, just a few weeks ago and saw it again.
Boxcab, Yeah, it's an interesting idea for a plan with lots of switching. You get a basic yard with all the design essentials: Drill track, make up track, storage, engine and caboose track. One passing siding that serves as both staging and a run around. Even an interchange, and that one spur which I think would serve as an engine pocket on my layout.
Mine Sweeper, I would build it so that arriving passenger trains have to have cars added or removed. It would be all passenger car switching. Oh man, that IS a very do-able little layout for all my euro trains.
Geeky, please note that the station tracks are not very long, they will hold a loco plus no more than two of the standard 26meters carriages. The ones you see in the picture are actually shorter than the one you have by 2/3 inches. Better use railcars or older cars like these (ROCO makes them) or the 4 wheelers; this way you can fix three that would make up for a nice branch line local.
On cuold alter it slightly and make the sidings longer. Most of my cars are the old toy ones from the 70's.
One plan that always seemed interesting for a small layout is one I saw long ago in a Model Railroader book of plans........ the Jefferson, Memphis & Northern.
I built that one in N when we were planning to move. I moved it four times and it became the start of my first bigger Carlina Northern. When I was recently forced to leave N, I gave serious thought to just building it again in HO. I settled on a modified version of it. I also built a version of the M&I for neighbor kid soon after I saw it in a track plan book. Both classics, but probably the most built one is the Carolina Central. Marty said in an interview that the J,M&N was inspired by the CC. Don
Really interesting stuff here. I've just started working on my first layout, but I came across the Atlas introductory book that has a series of snap-track plans. I was looking through it and some of them seemed quite interesting. Then I did some mental calculations for what it would cost to build these with used brass track glued down to a scrap piece of insulation foam and furnished with 2nd hand buildings. It'd be a shockingly cheap project that would cost more time than money. I've shelved that idea for now, but when I find them extra-cheap I am now picking up Bachman Steel EZ track (especially switches) and squirreling them away for a potential future portable layout.
I still drool over a couple of those Atlas plans. The little 4x6 with two sidings and 3 spurs. OMG, I want! Also, modelers get brand obsessed. If you want some really nice switches, look for Old Lambert ones. I bought a grip of them including a couple 3 way switches for about 30 bucks not long ago. It was a total steal. Keeping it cheap is the way to go. I have been posting some of my "Crap HO Scale Toy Train" conversions over in the narrow gauge section. It's funny, even a sloppily built wood model like my gondola, or my expanded switcher, looks like fine hand crafted scratch building. Just don't get too close to it. http://www.trainboard.com/highball/...ow-gauge-whats-on-your-workbench.68159/page-8
Personally, I like a couple of old plans by Bill Baron, both of which appeared in Model Railroader- The Buckley and Onarca (Nice scenery even though it is designed for operation only in the clockwise direction. A horrendous grade at the right end of the layout would make anything else nearly impossible.) and the Pigeon Creek and Thawville, which offers fairly decent scenic possibilities and good local freight operation with a long mainline run for a small layout.
OK,here ya go, Geeky. Took me a little digging, but I did find them both. I found the Buckley and Onarca in the introduction to a Kalmbach track plan book. If I was to build this today, I would set it in Michigan's upper peninsula and rework the front right corner to include a wooden ore dock and an old time wooden great lakes freighter. If anyone thinks this sounds like a smaller version of the late Irv Schultz's St. Clair Northern, you'd be absolutely right. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiojcXHnYffAhUMMawKHbe1DBkQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fkalmbachhobbystore.com%2F-%2Fmedia%2Ffiles%2Fbooks%2Fmodel-trains%2F12443spread.pdf&psig=AOvVaw0JVRyTSH9xpn5MA3s5ec5B&ust=1544048965533677 I found the Pigeon Creek and Thawville plan in this gentleman's blog (Interesting- I recommend reading all the posts). He has enlarged the plan to 5'X10' and built it as an On30 layout. There was also a 2'X8' extension with the original plan that included a yard and engine facility. If I were to build this today, I would use the more understated scenery suggested in the original article. (Yes, I would even sneak in the coal mine. 100+ years ago, there were quite a few of them in this part of Michigan.) The extension would dip its toes into Lake Huron (Yup, I'm still a Michigan boy) with a waterfront scene again featuring a small wooden freighter like this one built just a few miles from where I used to work: https://www.sylvanscalemodels.com/kits/HO-1115.htm Oh, and BTW the link to the trackplan is here: http://armchairmodeling.blogspot.com/2012/08/lo1a-layout-track-plan-for-5x10.html Excuse me. These things still make my imagination run just a little wild.
