Hello from VA

[mr_bananies]

Hello!

 

My family and I used to live in Japan and loved the trains. We've owned Japanese model trains for years but rarely use them and don't have a layout. I finally decided to fix that and start on a extremely small loop.

 

I have a vision for what I want but I'm having trouble figuring out what order to be doing things. Should I place roads before buildings? Because of my small space should I have my buildings picked out before I design everything?  When do I do ballast? So many questions on the order of construction.  I have the tracks placed the way I want them but I don't know where to go from there. Any advice?

[miyakoji]

Hi mr_bananies, welcome to the forum!

[cteno4]

Hello mr bananies,

 

glad you found us! Where shouts are you in virgina? We have a small Japanese train club here in the dc metro area. Members in Arlington and out past dullas as well. We have had club layouts we take to local cultural and train shows and are now mostly doing Ttrak for these events until we have a new layout ready.

 

going about a layout is really a pretty personal path. One thing you can do is first look at what other folks have done to see what you like and don’t like as well as see what their path was getting there. We have a layout planning and a layout building forum here you can look thru to get some ideas of what others have done and their thinking and process. Some like a lot of trains running and operation and storage and track rules and scenery and building are fit in later where there is room. Others want to model more of a scene and keep track plan simple for a lot of scenery room. Again it’s all in what YOU like!

 

https://jnsforum.com/community/forum/64-layout-planning/
https://jnsforum.com/community/forum/63-layout-building/

 

ive gotten a lot of folks to do write ups of their layouts on our club website to help folks see the spectrum of things possible to get a start

 

http://japanrailmodelers.org/pages/otherlayouts.html

 

also a great way to learn what you enjoy playing with your trains is to just set up a temporary layout to play with. Kato and Tomix track works great without having to attach it to anything. You can get a basic track set for some simple small track plan and then add more bits of track and points to evolve it how you like and just play until it feels right. Y can use cloth and/colored papers to play with what might Be roads, vegetation, etc. There are a load of free pdf files to print out buildings to play with to get an idea of the kind of buildings you might want where, then you can buy nicer buildings. Pm me if you want some 

 

some never end up nailing down their track plan and just do small scenery islands and such around buildings as they like to keep changing things. This is a great example

 

http://japanrailmodelers.org/pages/modelingjapan/tempoary.html

 

another route is modular layouts that are made from small like 1’x1’ modules you connect together. They are limited to more basic loops but you can add some interesting side elements. Nice thing is you can get together with others and do a larger set up for a show or event. Ttrak is the big one.

 

There are several track planning software packages out there to play with as well to mess with track plans as well. Kato’s site has some track plans and a lot of the getting started info.
 

https://www.unitrack-kato.com
 

also lots of good layout planning books out there to help get you the basics.

 

but just getting some track and getting out the trains is the first step! Scenery, ballasting, etc is all down stream stuff. 

pits a journey not a sprint!

 

cheers

 

jeff