Thoughts/Critique on O Gauge Plan

Hi all. First off, the story behind my (hopefully) upcoming layout. I had a 6'X9' HO layout at my old house; it was far from fancy and was my first attempt at MRR. My wife and I moved to a much larger house and I finally had a room in my basement for a "real" layout. I continued to acquire HO stuff but never got around to starting a layout.

Recently, my grandfather dismantled his O gauge layout which I now have. His layout was not prototypical or set in any era. He just bought stuff he liked as he found it. I have everything from 1920's steam engines to modern diesel engines and everything in between, including rolling stock, many structures, etc... He had a lot of stuff packed onto his semi-small layout so I also have quite a bit of track and probably 15-20 remote switches. It was all O31. Thus, I have been trying to design based on what I have, rather than spend a bunch of money. I would love to go to O72 but I have all of the stuff to build in O31.

I don't have a pinpointed vision. The only thing I really want is to be able to put the layout back together. 1) So my grandfather can use his knowledge to help me with it since I have zero experience with O gauge and 2) so he can enjoy it some more while he still can.

The room is 19' by 10'. My thoughts for this layout were that I want to be able to run 2 trains roundy-round independently, thus the separate looping sections on the left/top and right/bottom. I don't want point-to-point (I know some are fans of that). I also want to be able to reverse direction, thus the sort of odd crossing/loop in the center. Thought I'd stick something in the center of that loop???? The far right side I'm thinking would be some sort of city/town area with a couple businesses to service (those spurs on not set definitively) and the bottom passing siding would be a passenger station. I arranged the yard on the left side so it could be worked while the right side is running.

My grandfather seems to think it is doable. What do y'all think? Any thoughts are appreciated. Thanks for reading/looking.

 

If you were to run a long train over the 90 Deg. crossing and around short loop to cross again, would you collide with yourself? I'm not all that conversant with Lionel train lengths; you may be fine. Just food for thought. You're a good Grandson -- it makes me smile to think of you and your Grandfather joining together to construct a new empire.

 

The 2 right side switches of that loop are what allow a train to run alone on that side (left) of the layout. I didn't expect to run anything around the loop. It IS weird looking, you're right

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If you remove the diamond crossing altogether and remove either one of the tracks and its 2 switches which cross it, you still have a reverse loop..Then take the diamond crossing and install it in the upper area of N/S track right after the curve in upper far right, one E/W track going right to the right side edge of the board. On the inner side of the diamond add a LH curve to a RH switch into that first vertical (N/W) yard track. Thus you can depict an interchange to and from an imaginary neighboring RR. Otherwise your RR does not make connections to other RRs (as the 1:1 scale does) in order to ship cars to/from your RR to the outside world..IE You're cut off from shipping anywhere. You then can 0-5-0 cars on the interchange track (when no one's looking !) so that newly arrived cars are ready for being switched to/from industries on your RR .This activity adds a lot of proto activity to a MRR. Finally: Since you state you want to run 2 trains independently, can we assume you have gapped the rails in correct places in order to accomplish this ? And, due to this you have 2 transformers, one for each train ? If not, both engines are going to stop and go at the same time... With 2 rail model trains running DCC (digital command control) this problem is gone. All trains run independent of the other, due to each engine having a digital address...Sorry if I'm insulting you; you already being aware of all this... My personal thought is for you with your granddad to get submerged in HO, DCC/sound, and put the 3 rail in storage or on shelves in the train room. You also could sell the O collection and buy HO stuff with it.. And IF you did, I recommend using an NCE PowerCab for control, or perhaps Digitrax ...With the same given pace you now have, an HO RR will be twice the scale milage of an O RR, and near 4 times the Scale milage with an N scale RR..All the best, Mark

 

Thanks for the reply, Mark. Going to HO is not an option, as it would defeat the purpose of rebuilding what my grandfather has known all his life. Also, he already had the o gauge version on DCC on his layout, so we don't need multiple transformers. We do, however, have to isolate some sections, as you stated. Grandpa mentioned that

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Are you interested in operating the trains or running and displaying them? Right now I think you want more of a display to show trains running around. You could use the yard tracks to store other trains you aren’t running. I think your track plan is perfect for this scenario. If you want to be more operations oriented like assembling trains and switching at industries, you may want some other non-yard tracks, but I don’t think that is what you are going for. I say stick with what you have.