Planning my layout thoughts please!

[ranger10178]

Hi guys and gals,

 

I've put together some kind of layout plan which will be on a board around 2100mm × 1100mm.

 

It's not going to be too complex as I've never made a layout before (despite having collected model trains for the last 10 years or so)

 

I've not really got a particular setting (indeed even country [though will have a Japanese epmhasis] - as I want to run all my stock!) for the layout, other than being a smallish town with a freight depot. The freight depot sidings should all be able to hold 4-5 Koki's. The station's platforms will all take a 4 coach KiHa58.

 

Does anyone know if Koki's and DD51's / EF64/5 etc will go round a Kato 216mm (R216-45) curve with ease?

[bill937ca]

The minimum general radius is R282 for Kato Unitrack. You might get away with R249, but anything less than R249 you are running the chance of finding  rolling stock that can't handle the tight radius. It would also be hard on couplers.

[ranger10178]

11 minutes ago, bill937ca said:

The minimum general radius is R282 for Kato Unitrack. You might get away with R249, but anything less than R249 you are running the chance of finding  rolling stock that can't handle the tight radius. It would also be hard on couplers.

Hmm, I've got a circle of R249 and most of my stock seems to run okay on it - well British stock at least. Thank you for clarifying that the R216's will be hopeless though!

 

I will have to re-design the inner half circle to be R249's (Which it was initially anyway!)

 

I suppose my Station Area Road plates will have to go back in the box for the moment! - I think I might be better off painting a road on - it will take up less space for sure.

 

I'll probably also have to do away with the level crossing.

 

I wish I had more space haha.

[ranger10178]

Having done some testing, Koki wagons and DD51's are fine on R249 curves. As such I've done a few tweaks to the design as follows.

 

I've partially test built the layout, but I need some bits and bobs that are in storage to do the rest...

Edited April 10, 2020 by ranger10178
Typo

[Morcs]

On 4/9/2020 at 12:19 AM, ranger10178 said:

Does anyone know if Koki's and DD51's / EF64/5 etc will go round a Kato 216mm (R216-45) curve with ease?

 

Tomix DE10, EF65, DD13, ED75, ED79 will all run great on 216 (150 and 183 also)

Then you can also use any 2 axle freight cars and have no issues. I have a tonne of the little KOMU1 container cars and if you have enough of them they look great.

[ranger10178]

On 4/11/2020 at 1:21 AM, Morcs said:

 

Tomix DE10, EF65, DD13, ED75, ED79 will all run great on 216 (150 and 183 also)

Then you can also use any 2 axle freight cars and have no issues. I have a tonne of the little KOMU1 container cars and if you have enough of them they look great.

Thank you for this! This will help plan for future expansion! - I've already changed the curves to be R249's.

 

I plan on using KoKi 10x wagons to build up my container wagon 'rakes'. I already have a pair of KoKi 110's with some of the 'unusual' 15ft containers. I have 4 x Koki 104's and 4 x Koki 106/7's on order with a range of 12ft containers to fit.

 

In the meantime, In terms of layout progress - I've made very little. I've been looking for a supplier of a 2440mm x 1220mm x 12mm piece of MDF to form the baseboard of my layout. However B&Q and Homebase aren't stocking these at the moment due to the Covid-19 crisis. However enquiries are ongoing with a timber merchant based in Fareham (Around 40 miles away) as to whether they could deliver one when they next do a delivery to my area.

 

I have been building up some cardstock containers which will sit within my container yard (Not to be used on wagons) as well as building a couple of card buildings as part of my town scene. (This has more been to keep myself busy whilst I'm 'shielding').

[Das Steinkopf]

I like your track plan as it is far less ambitious than the beast that I am in the process of planning/building, mine is based on the Tokaido Honsen inspired by Hozumi and the freight depot at Nishi Gifu, the one alteration I will have is a flyover on the up line starting just after the station that will run into the freight depot which is situated just off the down line, I will be running rakes of 12 KoKi's in length.

 

One word of advice if I was you I would avoid using MDF for the baseboard, it tends to swell and warp when it gets wet, Marine Ply of 4mm or 6mm in thickness fitted to a frame is far better to work with.

 

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Das Steinkopf

[ranger10178]

1 hour ago, Das Steinkopf said:

I like your track plan as it is far less ambitious than the beast that I am in the process of planning/building, mine is based on the Tokaido Honsen inspired by Hozumi and the freight depot at Nishi Gifu, the one alteration I will have is a flyover on the up line starting just after the station that will run into the freight depot which is situated just off the down line, I will be running rakes of 12 KoKi's in length.

 

One word of advice if I was you I would avoid using MDF for the baseboard, it tends to swell and warp when it gets wet, Marine Ply of 4mm or 6mm in thickness fitted to a frame is far better to work with.

 

 

I don't want to make things too complicated - hence the lack of ambition haha! 

 

The freight depot at Nishi Gifu looks like quite a good place to model - it's not overly large or complicated, yet provides two main unloading lines, as well as having other sidings and a small loco shed!

 

I'm planning to use MDF as it's a great deal cheaper than marine plywood. - £25 for a sheet as opposed to around £65. I have plenty of timber to use as a frame to hopefully keep it from warping.

[Martijn Meerts]

If you're going to use MDF,  make sure to prime and paint the top of it. Otherwise if you're glueing down ballast / ground cover using the common watered down PVA glue method, you'll be starting over in no time. MDF hates water (or loves it, depending on how you look at it 🙂) and can easily swell to twice its thickness.

[katoftw]

Dont use mdf. I did once. Never again.

[disturbman]

Additionally, isn’t MDF pretty toxic?

[Sheffie]

Are you comparing the prices of 12mm MDF with 12mm plywood?

I only ask because for my first layout I used 6mm plywood and it was more than strong enough. 

[ranger10178]

2 hours ago, Sheffie said:

Are you comparing the prices of 12mm MDF with 12mm plywood?

I only ask because for my first layout I used 6mm plywood and it was more than strong enough. 

That's interesting! Yes I was looking at 12mm Plywood. My experience with plywood is rough edges, flakey, and very flexible. The rough edges are easy enough to deal with, and the flexibility can be countered with a timber support structure.

 

I'll look into 'normal' hardwood Plywood as an alternative, however the availability of plywood is likely to be the same as MDF. It appears a fairly local timber merchant offers a 2440x1220x5.5 sheet for around £20 - which would be possible. I will also need to consider the logistics of getting the board here - as most of the places I've looked don't seem to be doing online orders / deliveries at the moment, and I'm unable to collect (Car size, as well as self isolating)... I'll try calling them tomorrow, to see if they can do something over the phone.

[Sheffie]

I should probably clarify. My layout used 1/4" plywood (close to 5.5mm) which wasn't high grade, just regular 3-ply. I had some issues with splintering at the edges, which I countered by carefully sanding it, always moving towards the edge of the board / along the grain. On top of the plywood I put a layer of corrugated cardboard, double walled, so another ~6mm thickness. (My first iteration used two of these, but it was more than I needed, and when I had reason to rebuild it I skipped the second layer.) The reason for cardboard was (1) it allowed a layer for easy channels to carry wires (2) I had some leeway for fastening things down with pins (3) good bonding with the glue I was using for ballast (4) I could contrast track-level terrain with items that were lower, like the surface of a pond (a sheet of aluminium foil laid directly on the plywood).

 

Caveat: this layout lasted less than a year, so i cannot vouch for its water resistance. Probably in England you're looking at higher humidity either seasonally or all year round. Over here the winters are dry and in summer we run air conditioning, so there's never much humidity in the air. That said, the plywood would make a decent base board with or without cardboard on top.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Sheffie

[JR-Rail]

This is indeed my dilemma too, given the current situation it has allowed my mind to return to a great idea of starting a layout,

 - and probably expanding on it rather too much! But for obvious reasons I can't seem to get hold of any materials.

So I'm finding myself researching areas of inspiration and retailers based in Japan for train supplies.

[JR-Rail]

On 4/10/2020 at 4:51 PM, ranger10178 said:

Having done some testing, Koki wagons and DD51's are fine on R249 curves. As such I've done a few tweaks to the design as follows.

 

I've partially test built the layout, but I need some bits and bobs that are in storage to do the rest...

 

Which software have you been using?

I've started with anyrail 6 as it has a unitrack catalogue, but so far o my using the free version which is limited to 50 pieces of track

[ranger10178]

Just now, JR-Rail said:

 

Which software have you been using?

I've started with anyrail 6 as it has a unitrack catalogue, but so far o my using the free version which is limited to 50 pieces of track

I use Anyrail - I paid for a licence a year or two ago when I was looking at planning a 00 gauge layout. I find it really handy as it has the Unitrack catalogue as well as having the Tomix track if I decide to start using that for any bits in the future! (Tomix generally has a wider range of track - it has double slips etc)

[JR-Rail]

2 minutes ago, ranger10178 said:

I use Anyrail - I paid for a licence a year or two ago when I was looking at planning a 00 gauge layout. I find it really handy as it has the Unitrack catalogue as well as having the Tomix track if I decide to start using that for any bits in the future! (Tomix generally has a wider range of track - it has double slips etc)

Ah great I think it will be definitely worth the investment then, financially things don't seem too bad for me going forward as my Dad and myself have agreed this to be a joint project, meaning we split the cost on everything.

Unfortunately due to Covid-19 we can't see each other, and as the loft space conversion is at his house it will be just planning and building stock up for now

[katoftw]

My MDF started to sag after after a few months. 9mm ply with 300x300 bracing did not.

[inobu]

If this is your first layout make modules. That way you can learn from one module to the next.

Modules along the wall uses less space.

 

The most important aspect of the build is tools or access to them.

 

https://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/item/ST4792

 

 

I keep posting pink foam is the way to go.....

 

Use pink foam its lighter than plywood. 2" or 50mm is best.

 

This layout is maybe 18kilos

 

I'm in the process of building the timesaver again. Fortunately I bought 20 1x3

before everything got crazy. It too is pink foam with wood frame.

 

 

 

 The pink foam allows you to dig below track level giving depth. If you

look to the left you can see the gully

I use it on all my builds.

 

This is an O Scale layout with pink foam. Even the brick wall is foam....

 

 

Inobu

 

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by inobu

[Morcs]

MDF over 6mm is fine if you've got a decent frame under it and paint it. I paint all mine using left over paint from my bathroom (designed for wet areas), still go easy on the PVA/water solution to be safe. 

 

I've found brushing a coat of PVA ever so slightly watered down onto the underside of the top wood helps with warping too.

 

MDF dust is toxic when cutting it, so wear a dust mask.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Morcs

[ranger10178]

Today on Bodge it and Scarper, we have T-Trax modules x 2...

 

I found a smallish piece of 6mm MDF in the garage, which was big enough to create two 308mm x 300mm T-Trax modules. I decided it was worth a go, with some other scrap bits of wood, I've poorly built a couple of T-Trax modules. (Albeit the tops need fixing to the frames).

 

I also need to plane the frame of one slightly to ensure the baseboard sits flat. I had already done this with one.

 

I'll create a new thread for this project.

[ranger10178]

I've built my baseboard! All in all it's 2050mm x 1220mm. I've used some pretty thin plywood, but it seems to do the trick pretty well, as I've added a fairly substantial frame to keep it from warping. 

 

For the moment I've decided that the baseboard is going to be more of a place to have temporary layouts, as opposed to anything set in stone as this will allow me to use the baseboard for wargaming (ie setting up my armies and admiring them 😂) as well as model railways!

 

In the second photo you can quite clearly see the Ikea drawers that I'm using as 'legs'. These seem to do a good enough job of supporting the baseboard.

[cteno4]

Nice ranger! We use 5mm ply all the time and as long as you have a good support grid it works fine. Usually try to keep any open area under 25cm x 35cm.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Tonytramman]

nice layout, is that a Network South East bin under your layout?!