This is ugly.... The wife has a little town made up of pretty little HO scale buildings with people, dogs, police on bikes, all that nice eye candy stuff, and she wants a train to go with it.... Now, obviously, it has to be HO, but the really tricky part is, its gotta be SMALL. This thing will probably be on display for one month per year, then get filed away again until hext xmas. This means, also, that it should be light and capable of being stored easily. What I'm thinking is 6'x3', maximum, and to make room for her town only run a single mainline loop with a siding (2 trains, one stationary and the other circling). To try and reduce the ovoerall dimensioons, and to protect the track while its being stored, I envisage a 2x4 framework layout with 12mm chipboard only where the track lies, and the rest polystyrene foam (supported by the framework of course). Because of the number of buildings, the mainline is going to have to disappear into a tunnel at some stage (probably for half the track length) and some of her buildings will have to be 'on the hill'. To cut overall height, The mainline will descend into the 2x4 framework 2" then come back up. Understand what I mean? Anyway, what I wouold like is some suggestions from you wizards on what the layout would require in regards to turn radii, length of track for 2" descent and ascent (at 4%...very short train) and how it should be laid out to hide as much of that descent / ascent as possible on a layoout that will be viewed from all directions (going on top of my 8x4 pool table <SOB> ) Any help in building a layout for these massive HO trains would be appreciated.
I think that the minimum workable size for HO is 6x4 to allow for the buildings and scenery. However.... with 18" radius sections, you can make a circle that requires about 40"x40". If you really want to, you can use 15" radius to make a circle that requires only ~36"x36". You must run very short trains consisting of short cars on that tight a circle... As for construction, 1x4 is probably fine - no need for 2x4 - and the foam will make it light. If you want extra strength, you can laminate 1/4" plywood to the foam. Good luck with this project! Andrew
Maybe you could go about this a different way... Build a layout SO nice, that you and your wife will not want to store it away! Rich
noooo, I dont want a layout with huge trains on it like HO .... n scale for the real layout I was looking at 15" curves, but even though my trains will be short (4 cars max), they are all box cars etc, so nothing I would classify as short. The train wont be going fast, but it will be running for extended periods. I was thinking 4" thick, and with a 2" stepdown where its in the tunnel to keep the hill a litle more manageable. I think rigidity should be ok, even if I laminated some 3mm MDF across the bottom (also stops the foam being damaged when I store it). When it gets stored, the buildings will be removed, so its just the landscape itself that needs to be protected. I am thinking a 6mm MDF 'top' that can be screwed into the 12mm MDF frame, jsut to keep dust off it, then hoist it into the roof of my shed (as long as my N Scale layout isnt already up there!)
I"ll snoop and if I find something, I'll edit it in here. But one suggestion I would make is this: consider using Kato Unitrack. I'm not a big fan of the stuff, except in some cases. But in your case, I would use it. The Kato Unitrack is great stuff for a layout that is moved a lot; the track can stand abuse. For track plans: http://www.atlasrr.com/products/fanlayout/hoflintro.html http://www.thortrains.net/ http://www.carendt.com/microplans/index.html [ 24. September 2003, 20:06: Message edited by: rsn48 ]
YAhoo, there IS a god.... I used a little reverse psychology on the wife and talked to her about this layout. When I started drawing track lines on the breakfast bar (was gonna do a bookshelf layout there <snicker>) she decided my original suggestion of using that 80" door lying in my shed wasnt such a bad one after all. At least now I'll have enough room to actually DO something with the track and scenery (besides derail trains on every curve)!
