Deciding on a Space

[dmidkiff]

I don't post much on here, but hopefully this thread will change that.

My wife and I recently bought a new home we plan to be in for many years to come.  With the basement being unfinished, I get to choose where my new layout room will go, but would like to hear some thoughts from others that have build decent sized layouts in the basement.  I currently have two locations staked out, one being under the kitchen and one being under the living room.  I prefer the thought of being under the living room with no water pipes or other utilities above.  Both spaces have approximately the same square footage, but are shaped differently.  This room is going to be finished before starting a new layout; I have a small layout from the previous house that will occupy the space while I collect materials and plan out the new railroad.

My goal is to have a double deck layout with a continous loop, with staging between helices, for watching trains and letting those without much experience operate.  Additionally, I hope to get two branchlines in, one on the upper level and one below it on the lower level.  The upper level branch would go to an industrial switching area, while the lower branch would go to a copper mine.  The layout will be loosely based on the Arizona & California Railroad and the copper branch will be based on the Copper Basin Railway.  I need to do a little research on how a shortline uses a yard, but the idea here is that the interchange is off layout.

Here are the spaces with appropriate dimensions that have already taken allowance for a typical stud wall.  There are also some early attempts at a general track plan, currently showing Atlas #5 and curved switches.  I will be laying my own switches, so the geometry can be more forgiving.






Here is a link to a collection of photos of the current, small layout in the old house.
http://www.trainlife.com/albums/view/7478

Doug

[Baronjutter]

Tunnel through the furnace room and use both, it's the only way.

[Bsklarski]

Tunnel through the furnace room and use both, it's the only way.

+1

[ednadolski]

currently showing Atlas #5 and curved switches.  I will be laying my own switches, so the geometry can be more forgiving.

I would highly recommend avoiding short turnouts wherever possible.   Longer will always look and operate better.

Ed

[MichaelWinicki]

I like the space.

I would hesitate making it any bigger.

Until someone attempts a layout of this magnitude they don't realize the time, money and resources a larger layout takes. 

Not big on helixes– they take up a lot of space and the time it take trains to traverse them doesn't improve the operating experience.

[packers#1]

I like your small layout, nicely focused trackplan with a cool industrial area. I'm guessing the industrial branch will run in the same vein?

If it were me, I would ditch the helix and run a nolix (basically a long run with a decent grade) for my copper mine branch, with the industrial branch splitting off from the mainline on the other end of the layout from the yard. That way, you have a nice long mainline but no helices, the industrial switching area that has to be reached via the mainline, and the nolix run for the copper mine branch

[Philip H]

So I'll be the first contrarian - you have told us what kind of layout you want physically, but not what sir of railroad you want to model. I think that's backward, especially if your spaces are unfinished. The more time you out into the strategic work, the easier it will be to design the structure.

[dmidkiff]

Ed - Totally agree on the switch size, I just used the Atlas ones because I had them as a block in AutoCAD.  I think the Atlas ones are long for how tight the frog angle is, hopefully I will be able to put switch points closer together on the tangent but still have a shallow angle at the frog.  Off topic, you're in the north Denver area, are you not?  I'm down in Parker, there is a small group of us down here that round robin between each others layouts.

Mike - It will be one space or the other, I want to keep this thing manageable like you said, plus I prefer painting and weathering locos and rolling stock over layout building.  I do want a place to put pieces on the rails and run them though.  This layout will be for 4-6 people to operate when it's done.

Philip - As to the size, I'm not quite sure how to answer, but the thought is that the mainline runs between two interchange points and is a bridge railroad.  It would see a few trains a day, some unit trains with no stops and a couple mixed freights that need to be broken up and cars taken onto the branch.  I think I modeled the main yard to large, but that goes back to my initial post, I'm not sure how much a shortline uses a yard.

I like the idea of a nolix, but I could not figure out how to get enough lineal feet of run to make a decent deck separation, plus where would staging go?  I was thinking about 12-15 inches between decks.  The copper branch will just be a couple of stub ended tracks to put ore cars in.  This train would run back and forth all session and only switch a block of cars at the mine each time.  The industrial branch will be in the same vein as the current layout, just hopefully longer.

Thanks for the replies.

Doug

[Philip H]

Doug,
If you haven't done so, wander over toModel Railroad Hobbyist and read Jim Mcnab's blog on his Iowa Interstate Grimes line. While HO I think it will answer a lot of questions about how to do credible modem shoreline operations.

[dmidkiff]

Thanks, Philip.  I will check out his information.  I've seen the pictures of his layout, very well done.

Doug