It doesn't have to be OR, it can be AND. Atlas and Kato will mate right up. Depending on what you use for roadbed under the Atlas track, you may have to shim one or the other to get the heights to match up exactly, but you can definitely use the two together. That would give you the ease of laying the track with the Kato, especially in the curves, but you're current investment in Atlas flex would not be wasted and you could do the gently flowing curves you were talking about. The Atlas switch controller will not work with the Kato turnouts, but the are several circutis on the web that would give you the same functionality.
Hmmm, Kato AND Flextrack? Interesting idea. I recently saw some track at my 'local' model railroad store which was interesting; it is flex track but the ties are brown and the rails are weathered. I don't recall who makes it. The store is a good hour drive from my home. On my next trip into town I'll investigate it closer. I did try the layout with Kato Unitrack on my software; I was all good until I got to the turnout on the curved section of the smallest loop. It just won't work... Kato turnouts are 19" radius and don't match up to any of their curved tracks. My bar is 36" wide at that point - so at least that section is likely to be flex track. I really like the idea of combining the tracks. I use code 80 track, I hope that is what is compatible. I am not going for realism/detail as much as just fun. The less operating hassles the better. I did notice that with the Kato unitrack I can get a 15" radius. My bar cabinet is just under 31" wide - meaning I'll have around 3/8 to 1/2 inch clearance between the walls and the track. I don't know if that is enough. I'd like to have the ability to run some of the bigger trains (4-8-8-4 Big Boy would be sa-weet!) but if I don't have the clearance, then I will have to go with flex track or go to the Kato 13 3/4 radius turns - which means the interior loop would be even tighter. Of course I am trying to keep this as simple as possible. That's why I liked the Atlas lighted switch controls. If there is an easy way to do the same with Kato switches I'm game. I'm leaning more and more that way anyhow just because I don't like the switch motors mounted on the sides of switches from other vendors. I plan to put cork bed under the flex track and use ballast. I've read mixed reviews about how the Kato unitrack looks once ballast has been applied. That would be my only worry: that there would be a clear and obvious indication where the flextrack ends and the unitrack begins...
Remember you can mix different radius of Kato unitrack to get different size curves. Here is an example: http://www.fiferhobby.com/html/kato_unitrack_curves.html All of these curves are greater than 15 inch a radius, but the same concept applies to smaller curves. Just remember that six 30 degree sections make up a 1/2 circle, so by adding a couple 13 3/4 inch radius sections you can alter the points where the curve ends, while still maintaining the 15° radius through most of the curve. Where you add these smaller radius sections changes the shape of the curve as well. Truthfully, the best way I've found is simply to buy some unitrack and assemble it in different configurations until I find the one that works best.
I had considered mixing curves, but I would still be at risk of the minimum radius on some of the larger engines - even at 15" I'm pushing it. I also can't figure a solution to the turnout in a curve. No matter what track combination I tried I could not get a half-circle with a turn out in it.
You can not get a 15" radius turnback curve in a 31" space. The radius is to the center of the track, so the actual overall width of the curve is right at 31", plus you'll need a little for clearance. Since your space has those extensions on the ends, you could go with a dogbone shape where the curves continue beyond 180 degrees and then curve back out for the straightaway. Doing that you could squeeze in a 15" radius curve, but there would be no room for the turnout on trhe lower left corner. I played around with XTrackCAD some just to see what I could come up with. These plans have a few small gaps that could be solved using the smallest Unitrack pieces and the adjustable pieces or by using flextrack in some areas. One thing I did with all of these is use all #6 turnouts except for the small yard. Although many people use the #4's without any problems, I find the #6's more reliable. Here are some ideas to look at: With the first plan I swapped the double crosssover and the nearest turnout. The other way around caused some reverse curves coming off the turnback curve and through the crossover as well as going through the crossover and the divergent leg of the turnout. On the upper level I was able to get the turnout at the top of the curve by giving it a bit of a dog bone shape at the top and using 13.75 in. curves(which is the same size curve as the outside curves on the bottom level). There is a slight mis-alignment at the closure of the loop, but probably not too much to be taken care of with the slight play between pieces of track. With the second plan I got the turnout at the top of the upper level without the dogbone shape, but I could only get a #4 in there. One advantage to this version is I did get a perfect closure of the upper loop. With the third plan, I moved the top turnout on the upper loop over to the start of the turnback curve. This alternate location allowed me to use a #6, not have the dogbone shape, and get a perfect closure of the loop. Additionally, with this arragement you could have the double crossover and turnout in your original order, but with additional straight sections to alleviate the reverse curves. One more thing I did with this plan is added 'easements' to the curves on the bottom level. These aren't true easements, they are just a wider curved piece starting the curve, but it does give a similar effect as an easement. I think the trains look much better going through the curves if you do this, and it will make it less likely you will have any running problems, especially if you have to go with curves that are tighter than you want. All three plans I showed have these 'easements' on the upper level. The bad thing about using these easements is you can not maintain the standard double track spacing after going through a turnback curve(actually, you can if you use a dogbone shape). I drew all of these using nothing but standard Unitrack pieces.
You sure you want to do in in n scale? 1:32 and you could have it on top of the bar, and could use it to serve drinks!
Like the half inch foam, thinking a nice scenery would add to the effect, even if elementary and not detailed. I could see some of those animation or lighted scenes, like the welding flicker light coming out of a small industry, just to give visitors something to discover. If needed for vertical clearance, I would jettison the grades. Flat track is more reliable (and Kato more reliable still) for a layout that requires glass removal for re-railing. I would even be sure to add a few MT uncoupling ramps for a bit of operation. It looks like the most comfortable model railroading environment I know of!
CSX Robert - Holy smokes! Thanks for taking the time for that. It took me well over an hour to eek out my first plan - and that was with flex track! Those look quite awesome - and I am humbled you figured out a way to do a turnout in a curve, but extending the run around also has me intrigued. I had considered a snake-twist where that switch is. Not so sure now. What software are you running? What radius turns are on the outside loop? With flextrack I might not get a 15" radius, but I bet I could get close enough that I could run a 4-8-8-4 on the outside loop without any problem... (I've wanted one of those since I was twelve years old!) Would this Kato layout have a chance at that? I am going to Sarasota next Tuesday and can check out the train store again. They had some pre-weathered flex track that I want to learn more about. I'll let you know what I find. I am leaning more and more towards unitrak. My flex track hasn't given me too much trouble though. Videobruce - you may be interested to know I built on this whole addition, bar and all (about 2000 sf) , and it costs me about $450 / month more than I paid before thanks to my refi from 6.25% to 4%. I have a decent enough income I can buy trains without too much wringing of my hands, but I 'm still a ways from the 1%. Warren Buffett and Bill Gates won't be joining me for homebrew in the mancave anytime soon. (though they are always welcome)
I'm using XTrackCad(It's a free download). I had just finished designing a staging yard for my layout so I was kind of "in the mode" and figured I would see what I could come up with. On the bottom loop the outside curve is 13 3/4" and the inside curve is 12 3/8". I doubt the Big Boy would have any trouble with either of those. I have a Challenger and tested it on some 11" curves and it did fine. I have heard of others running both Challengers and Big Boys on curves as tight as 9 3/4". I'd like to again point out my use of the wider curve sections going into and out of the curves to simulate easements. Especially with smaller curves, I think this makes a big difference in how the layout will look and run - in fact, I think a train looks better going into a 13 3/4" curve with a 19" easment piece than it does going from straight immediately into a 15" curve. That pre-weathered flex-track is almost certainly Micro Engineering code 55 track, the code 55 meaning that the rail is 55/1000" high; whereas Unitrack is code 80, or 80/1000" high. It is very good looking track, but it can not easily be intermixed with the Unitrack or the Atlas code 80. By the way, for some reason I assumed that your Atlas flex is code 80. Atlas also makes code 55, and if that is what you have then it would not easily intermix with the Unitrack.
Wow, thanks for the heads up for XTrackCad. Great program and it does work for the Mac also! RailModeler and Empire express are great, but $39 a pop is a little steep. I'm just figuring once you get the hang of the program, you design the layout and that's it. Gino
XtrackCAD is one of the ones I tried. I found it to be OK, but with a steep learning curve and very poor direction/resources - particularly concerning elevations. Elevations was why I ditched it. My atlas track is code 80; I figured code 80 may not look as good, but it also would be less likely to give problems with derails,etc. Bummer that the other track is code 55... I'll still check it out Tuesday. The 13 3/4 radius on the plans has me a little concerned because Athearn recommends 15" I have been able to run a GS-4 on 9 /34 Radius turns without any trouble though... Would you be able to message me the track list form those plans?
I just found some Kato Unitrack which I forgot I had. It came with the California Zephyr set I bought. I snapped the sections together and put it under the counter right next to my flextrack. The joiners are much more apparent than I would prefer. Is there an easy way to hide/camouflage them? I am leaning back towards flex track but with Kato turnouts. Laying flex track is a little bit of a pain, but not that bad - and I think that looking at those joints would drive me batty over time... I think I'm giving up on the Micro engineering track - the turnouts look to be a biotch...
OK so I looked a little closer at my Kato track. The Uniconnectors for some reason are not painted to match the ties, even though they are molded to. I went in and painted them to match the ties and they blend in much nicer. I could probably live with them just like that but at some point in the future I may ballast them and/or weather tham (the black 'nubbs' that reinforce the rails near the connectors still stand out in my eyes a bit more than I'd prefer) So it would see that I am about to make a large investment in KATO Unitrack. Not sure what I'll do with all of my flex track... Meanwhile - I'd still love those track lists if you got them CSX-Robert. I also notice that those plans all have some gaps in the track. Some appear rather large... Just how forgiving can I expect unitrack to be?
Unitrack is somewhat forgiving, but you don't want to get it out of alignment too much where you have obvious kinks in it. The larger the layout, the more out of alignment you can go because it will be spread out over more pieces. Two things that can help a lot with filling in the gaps are the 20091 Unitrack Straight Short Track Assortment and the 20050 Unitrack 3" - 4-1/4" Expansion Track. The track assortment has a variety of short pieces of Unitrack that you can mix and match to fill in some odd length gaps. The expansion track is a piece that can actually adjust from 3" to 4-1/4" to fill in gaps that you can't fill using the available lengths of track.
