I have a weird shaped room that I built out in a portion of my attic. I am building a narrow gauge N scale layout. This is kind of a preliminary track plan. I will probably tweak it as I go along. I want to keep the curves at about 12" r. The staging yard is actually on a door that is hanging out from the loft rail over the family room down stairs. It is removable for those times when I tidy up the place for company and all. I plan on only running one or two trains at a time, mostly point to point. I am not sure I want to do the hidden return loop as that is just asking for trouble in a hard to get to location. Any thoughts would be welcome.
Hey Russ, My initial reaction to the hidden return loop matches yours, "just asking for trouble", but there are options. Depending on bench height you could have 'crawl under' access, but if your back and knees are like mine that is more distasteful than going without the loop. I would personally go with a 'lift off mountain' to gain access, but it's still a 3' reach to the corner; beyound my reach. I really dig the idea of removeable staging. The single track conection really simplifies that. Plus is gives a good loop for break ins {recieves design bonus points}. I've never worked with Nn3, but it seems 12"r should be generous. I think this is a good choice to portray the Animas Canyon. How much elevation change do you plan on including? I can only imagine how many pine trees you're gonna need to fill that space, that alone will be daunting task.
I am kind of limited in the amount of elevation change. On the wall directly under "Durango" is an access door to the part of the attic with the furnace and AC for the house. I have to leave room for replacement of such components as AC coil assemblies etc. Also the ceiling slopes down starting from about five feet out from both the top and bottom wall on the drawing. I have curved the backdrop up and it becomes part of the ceiling along those two walls so there is really not room to go up much. I will have to rely on the scenery to give an illusion of grade by using mountains and hills to divide the layout up into mini scenes. I will still have to have part of the hidden loop to be able to switch the smelter lead and have a place to stage trains coming from Dolores on the Rio Grande Southern and to have departing trains disappear to for any operating sessions. So once I have made access from underneath for that, it would not take much more to extend it on around. I guess I will finally decide when I get around to building that part. If I put in built in book shelves under the layout on the wall on the right it sure would make things tough.
Russell, I really like the plan, have been admiring it for a couple days. I like the tracks following the contours of the hills/river. Can't wait to see you finish it! My only concern is rather minor, and that's the 3 foot depth of the layout. Mine is 3x10 against the wall. It gets a little difficult to reach that area back there, whether it's to put down scenery or re-rail cars. However, you don't have much track back there, so maybe it's okay. Just my $.02. Keep us posted! Jim
The depth would be great for scenery. I'd love to see what you do in that regard. But I must agree with your doubts for maintaining the hidden area. Or any place that is much more than a 24" reach. Could be a problem there. Boxcab E50
I plan on building it kind of modular so I can work on each section out in the open and then slide it into place when all the scenery is finished. I wanted to build something with lots of scenery and just a little track. Not shown in the drawing is a six inch trough between the benchwork and the backdrop. I have installed fluorescent lighting with blue filters to shine up from below the "horizon" against the backdrop. The hills, mountains and trees will end at the light trough and hopefully the fluorescents will drowned out and shadows cast by the spot lights hidden behind a valence above the front edge of the layout.
That's a nice layout plan Russell, and should keep you busy for many years. I think 12" radius is plenty generous. I spent a couple weeks ago watching Nn3 trains run on a One Track layout at the GATS, and they had whole loops that were 12", meaning 6" radius, ant the trains turned around just fine. I have sweeping 9" and 10" radius turns on my ZBT modules, and they seem to run everything just fine. -Robert
The staging yard seems a bit complex unless you also intend to use it as a reverse loop. I expect you have considered just a 6" x 6' shelf.
Nn3, being a scale where you have to build most of your own engines, requires a good test loop to break them in. Also when the "San Juan" takes off for Chama, it needs a place to go.
