I have been playing around with some track plans ever since I decided to switch from N to HO. It's not much HO you can fit in a 9x15 room, but I think I finally came up with something I think I like. I would have preferred continuous running, but ended up with a "1 1/2 around the room - out and back" design instead. I think that's the best I can do in the space available. What I would like to have is a some switching, so I am thinking that the left and bottom area (yard and 'B' area) will be some city scene. And the right and 'A' area will be mountain, with the return loop running on a long trestle and 'A' being something that needs a little bit of switching in a mountain (coal or sawmill). The yard area will be something like CoalTrain's yard (I got a lot of inspiration from his track plan, thanks CoalTrain), and hope fully somehow I can fit some switching in there too. I am planning on running steam, maybe early diesel, but mainly steam and with maybe 6-8 40' cars. I know I probably need a turntable, or a way to turn the locomotive around at the end of area 'A', but I haven't figured that out yet. All track will be hand laid C55 track, turnouts are drawn as #5, but they will be build to fit, preferred minimum radius is 22", and track height will be around 50". I the 2 1/2 year I spend working on my N layout, I ran trains for probably not much more than 1/2 hour, so running train is not as important to me as working on the layout, and the reason for me to switch to HO is because of better detailed steams, and better details in general, so I am hoping/planning to slowly super detail the next layout. Another thing is 'moveability'. Eventually we will be moving, maybe not this year or next year, but definitely before I'm anywhere near complete with this one, so I think I will be able to move or at least re-use pieces of it, so that is something I will have to keep in mind when building the bench work. So what do you think?, did I miss something obvious?. Oh ya, the 3 track staging is accessible from the stairs, and I have a way to access the turnouts leading to the staging. [ 10. March 2004, 23:56: Message edited by: jkristia ]
Maybe I'm missing something, but I see a lot of track on the right that doesn't connect to a lot of track on the left....and an apparent turntable that doesn't connect to anything. Am I just confused??
Sorry about that. On the right, A connects to A and the track is under the yard. I connected some track to the turntable, but am still not sure about this, probably won't be until the track is down Area A and B needs to be developed. the backdrop is shown with light blue color. Expected height of 'lower level' is 48" and 'upper level' is 51"
Ya know, as soon as Mr Murphy (yeah, the guy the law was named after) sees this layout and those stairs, he's gonna put an 'auto derail' kink in the top right corner.... No matter how genter your curves are :>) Dunno if you have access to that corner, but you might want to consider it. Something like a drop-down floor that goes over the stair well so you can move in ther eif you have to.
Good advise Disesme, and I already have a fold down hatch I can stand on. I have spend many hours there when I did the scenery and track laying on the old layout, so it is working and easy to access.
