Interesting. My last layout was on one wall, and came in at 33 square feet. Had a blast for about five years. The new layout, v7.0 is going to come in at about 110 square feet. 12x12 room with 30" depth all around. That seems gigantic to me, having always worked with HCD sized builds.
Well, by MRR's criteria, my layout is small. It is -- outside: 9' X 14'. The pit is 4' X 7'. Crazy!! I wonder what they consider large - ? Bare plywood: With some scenery: Thanks, Wolf
My smaller layout is a wall layout in N scale. It is 1x12 shelving on all four walls and across the doorway. Maybe 40 feet of track on each of two circles and a couple of sidings, more turnouts in place to add more siding. Definitely small by the MR definition. There is an HO version going together as well, still in planning but probably 120 square feet. Rick H.
Have a 2x4 foot and a 36x80 HCD, both N Scale. And G Scale outside! Not sure about the footage there though!
Both of mine were N scale 2' x 4'. Both at the same time and along with an electronics work bench and 5 computers it took up halk my large living room. But I lost those in 2005. Now I'm moving to HO.
As a kid my first off the floor actual layout surface was a piece of scavenged plywood that was 7' 6" x 3' 4"; just short of ideal for most Atlas track plans. My dad framed with with 2x4's. The thing weighed a ton. I built a lot of different layouts on it. I could never make up my mind and as I recall I never really ran any trains because I was always building. In N scale I've had several small layouts since then. Sadly I have no photos of any of these from back in the 70's. I always assumed small layout was best defined by all the old, how to, and track plan books: Ho scale 4x8, or 32 sq. ft. or less, N scale 2x4, or 8 sq. ft. or less.
Life-Like produced most of the train baseboards in the USA and did it for many years. My Treble-O-Lectric layout in my avatar, I got for Christmas in 1963, was from Montgomery Ward but made by Life-Like. It was made of expanded styrene beads. A larger picture of it can be seen on my site on the "Main Treble-O-Lectric Page" Laying track on it was easy, just using regular straight pins. Doug
"Being able to actually run trains" seems to be the forgotten and unwritten rule. Everyone should have somewhere to run trains even if it's just a place holder test track oval on a plank. It's amazing how many people won;t bother to build an oval tester that can be set up and run in a heartbeat. I'm in the process of planning a pretty big HO layout; Big by my standards, but it will end up as about 32 sq. ft. on shelves. The first thing I am going to do is put some easy track on an old door, yes you can fit HO scale ovals on door panels, and make sure everything runs well.
I am on the brink of building an HO 2'x 8' X 2'x 8' L shape shelf switching layout. What will be unusual is that the 2 wings which meet in the corner at their 2' widths will each taper from 2' to 6". At both those small ends will be added 6"x 24", small staging sections. I have a thread over in "Layout Design" about this. I use Atlas flex and switches. But I think I'll use section track on the curves this time as I'm seeing coagulated city industrial spurs with sharp radii and sectional works better for this... M
Agreed! Within my new trackplan is a portion that contains an oval and I want to get this up and running first. I'll be able to enjoy running something when I want, which will hopefully instill some confidence and keep me inspired as I build out the rest of the railroad.
