Hi- first post here. Much to my wife's chagrin I'm taking one of the bays of our garage and building a 19x13 n scale layout. I haven't modeled since I was a kid and I am hoping not to repeat mistakes I made as a child. I'd love your feed back on the attached track plan. I'm modeling a fictions transition era SP subdivision. The sub goes from a yard thru a town into a valley then finally into the mountains where it runs near a logging road very loosely modeled on the Pickering lumber company. On the main line all turnouts are going to be hand laid minimum of #8. In the yard and on the logging road I get into #4s. Minimum radius on the main is 22.5" and on the logging I'm keeping it to min of 12". I foresee an elevation change of 6" from yard to mountain and I plan on dropping the bench level I the mountain area to give the illusion of more height. The logging railroad gains almost 9" with a 4 percent ruling grade. The main has a ruling grade of 3 percent. Control will be dcc. I'm running kato gs4 with their car set. I'll also run intermountain cab forward and other various diesels to simulate other passenger trains and mixed freight. I'm not too concerned with prototypical operation. I'm much more interested in running and playing. The narrow area without anything is Tbd industry with sidings. I'll do a farm and silo scene and in the area closer to the mountain area ill probably do a lumber mill which will be feed from a log flume coming off the logging scene. In the upper area I'm going to do a trestle ( it's the rectangle in the lower left) right after a tunnel. The turntable in the yard is walthers with other structures by them as well. Most of the scenery will come bit by bit after I get the mainline done. I'm going to use ME flex track then ME stock rail to lay the turnouts so it should match well. I'd love to get your feedback. Thanks for your help.
Tim, When you say walkable on 3 sides, which sides and how wide are the aisles? What is the depth of the various areas? A ruling grade of 3% will be trying especially if you have long trains and curves involved. Did you use software for the design? The yard tracks look very close together.
Paul- The yard is walkable on three sides. The top portion (top as in top of paper if you were to print the image) of the layout is against a wall as is the very right side of the layout. Otherwise I have a minimum of three feet of clearance around any other exposed edge of the layout. Overall the dimensions of the layout are 19 left to right and 13 top to bottom. I used autocad with NMRA minimum spacings. The yard might be too close truth be told. It's something I'll have to adjust. I'm downloading the plans from fast track or whatever the name of the company is that sells the kits to make your own turnouts is. I'll draft them up in cad and make adjustments. I have the room on that side of the layout to adjust as necessary. I used the measurements from Peco for the initial design of the turnouts though I am rethinking the use of the #4 in the yard. Especially since I want to stage larger locos and consists there.
Zephead- They made some of the nicest locos I have every laid my hands on. And the price point is exceptional for the quality. I won't divuldge what I had to pay for an Atlas Shay to model the logging portion. And the quality on those is notoriously bad. I realized a few years back that if I wanted to model the SP and I wanted a variety of quality locos to run that I need to patiently buy as soon as stuff was released and to stick it into storage. I have some 20 locos I have bought over the last 5 years as they hav become available. I have learned to be very patient. Same thing with me ACs from Intermountain. Buy them while you can because it might be 10 years before they come back around. Good luck with your layout. You have a plan to share?
