The basement itself is L shaped because the garage is halfway tucked into the front of the house and they obviously can't excavate under that. So that left me an area about 30' by 27' to work with along the outside walls. Before construction began on the first layout, i had to finish adding the drywall to the framing, add new electrical outlets, paint the ceiling black (huge improvement and great way to hide the ductwork), add carpet, and finally the baseboard. It took me about 6 weeks to get all of that completed. I was waiting on training with the airline I was working at, so had plenty of time on my hands. I was going to post some photos of that process, but apparently they are on a different hard drive that I don't have with me on the road.
The original layout was just a double mainline that went in a full ciurcle around the basement. There were a couple of industries, and a fairly large yard along the longest wall. It was great for watching trains, but there were a few problem areas that started to annoy me:
1.) There were two duckunders. Even though the layout height was 54", it was still a pain to enter the main layout area and it was even more so to get back to the utility area. I had more than a few instances where I stood up to fast and either whacked my head or scrapped my back. Foam covering the edges helped, but not enough...
2.) While I had a yard capable of holding roughly 75 freight cars, it was a pain to constantly change out trains if I wanted the variety I was looking for. I had a storage solution under the layout as trains were removed and placed back into the yard (mostly the unit trains), but it was getting old after awhile. I wanted a place to store full trains.
3.) Running long trains (up to 50 cars) just wasn't possible without the front end chasing the tail. At 35 scale mph, it only took about 5 minutes to get around the entire layout and I could only really run 2 trains at a time. Three if you wanted to build and break down trains in the yard.
The new solution:
1.) No more duckunders...
2.) I now have 10 staging tracks on the lower level.
3.) Multi-deck operations (one staging, and two main levels): I can run up to 5-6 trains (I'm not that good yet) and at 35 scale mph, it takes roughly 23 minutes to complete a full circuit.
- The staging level is 24" above the floor, the second level is 42" and the third level is between 56" and 60" depending on where you are.
- The width ages from 24" to 70" (upper level turn around/grain facility above helix #1).
- All of staging and the main level along the walls is constructed with box girders and 7/16" plywood.
- The main level extension away from the primary wall is box girder with 2" pink foam.
- The upper level is all 2" foam on top of 9" heavy duty shelf brackets bolted to each stud every 16". It is surprisingly strong, but lightweight.
- Both helix are constructed out of plywood with 32" inside and 35" outside radius.
- Track is Peco Code 83
- Minimum radius is 36" on the visible portions (staging runs from 38" down to 26" at the most inside curve.
- Old layout deconstruction started around August 1st of 2023.
- New Layout construction started around October 1st.
- "Golden Spike" on the mainline occurred mid to late December 2023.
- Minimum width between the helix and level 2 is a comfortable 36"
Rough sketch of the benchwork (I need to work on a layout diagram at some point):
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]
Photo's of the old layout coming down:
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]
This wall became my new Aviation themed display area and freight car storage. It also eliminated a duckunder and allowed direct access to the utilities in the back.
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]
[ Guests cannot view attachments ]
Next up, construction phase.
Cheers,
Brian
