We are in the stages of planning my layout for when I get to California, and we now, at least, have an area to plan into. The layout will be in a 20' x 23' area, plans should be 23' high, 20' across with an entry at the bottom of the right side wall (know what I mean?)....no door, just an opening in the benchwork. There are NO windows to consider, no drains, pipes or columns. Its a perfectly open 20x23. What I want to build is as follows : - farming community layout with associated industries...slaughter house, sale yards, grain storage, etc. - because its farming, its gonna be relatively flat or undulating - HO Scale, single level with hidden storage yards along the wall the entry is in. Do NOT worry about reach to the hidden staging... I can get to it from the other side of that wall (its a half wall) - Loooong continuous running on one line at least, or 2 seperate continuous runs - At least 2 areas where significant amounts of switching could occur. - Any grades should have the 'high track' sitting above the hidden storage (high enough for my fat finners to get in) - May NOT be DCC, but probably will be eventually. - NO reversing loops!!! The reason for the hidden storage is, the half wall it will be sitting on has my wifes craft room on the other side of it. That will also be my train workshop. The baseboard will be fairly high...48-50 inches, and her workbench will actually be UNDER that side of the layout (so our 40 x 20 room is overlapped to give a 20x23 and a 20x20)..hence, access to the hidden storage from that side. Any ideas / plans you can throw at me would be greatly appreciated.
FYI.... The room will start as 40 x 20 and the half wall can, and will be, built according to requirements, so that entry gap doesnt really HAVE to be at one end....For example, it could be 2' from the end and we can use the craft room side of that 2' for shelving.... so a staging yard or something could butt up to the wall in that corner. This is a pretty open planning opportunity. NOTHING is built yet, but the size is a 'known quantity'. You can come up short on the 23'...I'll just build the wall where ever it has to go! Get those creative juices flowing Oh yeah....this is steam - deisel transitional era..... and totally freelance. I'll be running my S3 and SW8 switchers, but my rolling stock is predominantly 30s-50s era (40' boxcars and stock cars) [ 09. September 2004, 21:29: Message edited by: disisme ]
OK... I started actually drawing some benchwork for this room, and with a 30" 'around the walls' bench, theres an awful lot of room in the middle that I simply dunno what to do with.... Obviously it needs a peninsula of some sort (or 2!), but inspiration departed on the 6:05 from central station and left me floundering. I actually thought a little more this morning, looking at that vast amount of space, and wondered if it would be feasible to model, not just one big scene, but 4 or 5 totally seperate, unrelated scenic areas in a room that size? City scape, Farmland, logging, heavy industry, coal...... Can any of you wizzes who are in the know on aisle width etc give me some inspiration on what a good benchwork layout would be like in 23' x 20'??? (ignore the scenic areas....just ideas on where my peninsula's should be with associated aisle widths.)
