Well, my search for the layout book that had the dogbone based layout I wanted has turned up nothing. I'm sure once I get everything set up I'll find it, but I can't count on that, so I have to move forward. My space is 10'-12' in length. Width, I could probably get as much as 5', but one of the loops would have to be in a corner then, so that may not work out. I would have apce to put a fiddle yard out to one side. It's a garage, so as long as you can get out of the car. I plan to mount this high, near eyelevel. It will be a pain to work on, but it will look great. Then I can have my workspace underneath. Anyone have a design Idea I could start with?
Ugh, that's not nerely enough information. This will be a freelanced Pacific northwest layout, I plan to get the look and feel of the P&W/W&P in Beaverton and Hillsboro with a few nods to the line to Astoria and some other things that tickle my fancy. If you read my backstory to my railroad, this will be a small cog in a big machine. I plan for at least 2, maybe 3 online industries and commuter passenger train and a small yard. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced I should try to go closer to 4' then 5'. I know I'm reducing my maximum radius to 22", maybe 24" if I cheat out to say 4'6" but looking at the space, I think 5' or more would be too much. Also, I plan to hid as much of the curviture as I can either in mountains or behind buildings. draw the eye away. This will be a trick to keep it accessible, but if I use open benchwork, I might be able to access from underneath. Finally, despite the above theme, I'm going to pretend this is a very small section of busy singletrack mainline so I can justify the occasional doublstack run through. In the YoHoverse, not only does my Central Pacific own and operate the Milwaukee road, but they also are rebuilding the NWP and are shipping priority containers to both Humbolt bay and seatac. Exactly where this line is in that transportation network may never be decided, or it might, or I might decide they opened a container terminal in Astoria. The CHUNK memorial Container terminal. (movie reference) Also, the Nuclear Powerplant along the Columbia west of St. Helens? It's magically coal now. I know some of that won't look realistic on this size pike, the Containers will be old SF style short trains. The coal? To heck with you people, I'll run what I want!!!! Anyway, I would appreciate any help.
I spent the weekend browsing track plan books at Reeds and Valuecraft, It turns out, and I've felt this way for years that what I want, in no way relates to what most layout designers design. I ended up purchasing Basic Model Railroad Track Plans. It's basically a collection of some of the contest railroads from NMRA conventions. The plan that caught my eye wit the Chippewa Central. I also liked the Valley Forge Central, because it was designed to allow for mainline running in a 4x8. Unfortunatly, a 4x8 would be the least usefull design I could have. While going over the Chippewa Central and deciding what to remove, I kept flipping to the back where Jim Kelly's article on the Wildcat Central beckoned. NO, I told myself, there just isn't space. And then, She who must be obeyed looked over my shoulder. " I like that one, you should do that." Whoa, I love my wife. Anyway, my space, if I want to keep it from overhanging the car AND maintain useful storage is about 6'x10' The Wildcat is 10x12. around the walls hmm, so one set of sides is being cut in half. No concerns. 2 of the sides will be floating in the middle of the room, so I can pack more stuff in them, ALso, in the plan, Jim has 3 staging tracks behind Wildcat wy. they take up a good foot of realestate, If I simply make them beneath grade and have them run underneath, I get the same effect with a foot less space. Beyond that, I'll make up for the crunched sides by making the layout a little deeper. I just found a thread in the archive dealing with converting this to N http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/archive/index.php/t-68978.html The lack of switching is the biggest drawback here. The depth I'm going to add will allow for an additional industry or 2 which is really all I need. My focus is really in scenery and watching trains run. ANyone have any thoughts? Incidentally, I'm going to be pushing 60" on the height of the bench work in order to accommodate storage and tools/workbench. The book points out that the viewing angle will mean the tight radius curves won't be as noticeable. That's convient.
YoHo: From the title of the thread, I assumed you were in HO, but you linked to a thread about doing the plan in N-scale. Which scale will you be in? Tell a little more about the space you'll be building in--or sketch a floor plan... 1. Do you need to have aisle space for operating when the cars are in the garage, or will they be out of the garage any time you choose to run trains? If they are to be out, then you could gain layout space over the hoods of the parked cars...that might even be accessable from 2 sides if the cars are not in the garage. 2. Do you have a way of posting the layout plan that you like...and, if so, could you highlight the parts of the layout you really like and indicate where you'd like to make some modifications to address your personal preferences, such as the additional industries? 3. Do you anticipate designing a coal loads in/empties out scenario, with movement between a modeled mine and/or power plant, or just from staging to staging? 4. What sort of industries would you like to add...would they be big enough or have enough traffic that they would have their own engine(s) and would be a separate job from other mainline trains, or do you plan to switch the industries with roadswitchers? Intermodal facility? 5. Continuous running provisions? 6. Surround staging? Stub-ended staging? double-ended staging? FWIW: The upper level of my layout is 65" and the lower is at 48". I built dozens of benches to step up on 12" high and 1'x3' 1'x4'. The step-ups make the functional height of the upper level equal to 53".
My layout is a dogbone I designed with help from a few friends, here is a plan For more information you can go to my website although it hasnt been updated in a while Railroad 2000
Refresh our memories, what layout is the wildcat. Is the wildcat the N Scale around the walls layout? As to too small a layout. I have a doorpanel and plan to run it like a big city terminal with lots of trains on the mainline and long storage spurs everywhere. But it's the advantage of being in N scale when you can run ten+ car trains on a layout only 2.5x6.5 feet. My MINIMUM RADIUS is 12.5" so I can run anything on my layout. My only advice to you with your HO layout is to try and go larger than the standard 18 inch radius curve if you can. BTW I like the term YOHOverse. That's funny.
ppuinn It will be HO, in the thread I linked to, they're taking the HO plan and turning it into an Nscale plan. That link also shows the layout design. I'll try to get a copy of it online tonight. Right now, there's a car semipermanently in the garage, so it will be inconvenient to extend out over it. Definitely want continuous running, Online industries, currently I'm expecting a Grain elevator, Cement plant, Television manufacturer plant and possibly a brewery. beyond that I'm not sure, there will be a lot of run through traffic. There's a coal fired power plant to the west of the planned layout and I might be able to justify coal heading to a shipping port, though I don't know that any coal is shipped out of the western ports. Unit Grain trains will be regulars too. I'll post more as I think of it.
It was an HO around the walls plan in MR a few years back. 2 track mainline with a three track staging yard and a little bit of switching off a spur with a runaround in front of the staging. Western US motif (UP in the illustrations). I liked the plan and was seriouly considering buidling it in HO or N but I wanted everything to be on shelf brackets and I didn't have a room where I could use the whole perimeter for a "central pit" layout. For me, the drawbacks were not enough staging, possibly not enough switching and I didn't like the staging tracks location - I think the entrances to staging would have been too obvious. But the author / designer said up front that it was a "run 'em" layout and it was designed to go together pretty quickly. And it is still one of my favorites, all things considered.
I't got a Wyoming look to it which is cool, but I'm going to go for a more cascades or even Wilamette valley look. As shown it could also work for the blue mountains and with some different coloration as the BNSF main. Really it's simple and versatile. I didn't like the staging cause felt it took up space and was hard to access. I'm making a lumber run today. I'm terrible in that I don't like to make trackplans. I prefer to get a basic idea and then from that, freeform where the spurs might be. Also, I don't remember if I said it above, but this will probably be singletrack rather then double. It'll make it more interesting. Really though, it will need at least one long siding, so it will likely appear like doubletrack.
Don't overlook staging. It comes in handy for keeping a fleet of trains ready to roll on your layout. If you can, I would advise putting some kind of mid S curve on one of your straight sections to keep the layout from having too much track that runs parallel to the edge of the layout.
Oh, there will be staging, but it will be under the grade to conserve space for scenery. From my railfanning, I've found very few sections of truely straight track, so I plan to have it snake back and forth rather a lot.
