Layout Design Help Wanted

[Sir Madog]

Due to some bad health issues last year, I was not able to pursue my new layout project.

 

Having improved, I want to give it a new go this year, but I need to revise my initial plans as to space and budget. What I am aiming at is a small layout, not more than 2´6" by 66", with a single line, a small passenger station, in a more rural setting. I also like to have continuous running, some, but only little switching operation, but a "breathtaking" scenery. Era is supposed to be the transition era between steam and electric traction, so that´ll be the late 1950´s to early 1960´s.

 

My web search did not unearth any idea I could start out with - maybe I am looking for something too unusual.

 

I certainly welcome any help or idea!

[Bernard]

Ulrich - Glad to hear that you health is improving!

Take a look at some of these track plans as to get an idea of what you might want to build:

http://www.cke1st.com/m_train2.htm

 

I also know that Kato has some track plans as well but most of them will be too large for the area you have:

http://www.katousa.com/track-plans/n-plans.html

 

You can always modify any track plan to fit your needs.

There are a couple of additional questions you have to ask yourself, what type of track do you plan to use, what is the maximum & minimum radius you want to have on the layout? Do you want to have a small yard on the layout? These are just a few questions, but planning is one of the fun aspects of the hobby. 

[bill937ca]

I liked the track plan you had before. Why not something much smaller in the same basic shape with say Mt Fuji in the background?  There are Odakyu trains and JR Series 371 that run on a JR branch at this location. I have no idea of what ran here in earlier times, though.

 

 

 

 

Glad to hear you are feeling better.  

[cteno4]

Madog,

 

well there are a few conflicts here, your space is small, so you will need to think smaller track plans that are more of an oval (or maybe  a little wiggle to it) for a rural scene. all that being said i have seen some stunning small layouts, it just means you need to think inside/outside of a smaller box!

 

you could do an up an over and hide part of one track to mix things up some and hide some of the track. this could give you two tracks going through your station then. i think doing an over and under and adding some vertical dimensions to the layout to add more interesting features in both scenery and track plan. it is a challenge in a small space to not get too steep of grades though and you should try and mock it up with the grades you plan to see if the trains you want to run will function well enough on them. i have seen small layouts that do 3 levels of grades as well, can get tough for some equipment to run on though.

 

also make sure on your minimum track radius for your steam engines will work on as well before finalizing your track plan. 30" deep means you will be using some tighter radius curves. with a smaller layout you will want to run smaller trains. large and long trains will just make the layout look smaller, you want the opposite effect. luckily freight cars of this period in japan are small! longer cars will just accentuate the smaller layout and tighter turns, so if you can choose shorter stock it will help this. also hiding the tightest curves or only having parts of them visible will help as well and by covering some of your tracks you get more real estate to do scenery and this is always needed in a small layout as track ends up taking up a lot of the room on the layout, leaving less for scenery.

 

breathtaking scenery may be tough on this small of a layout as you cant do anything grand so you will need to focus more on quality scenery that really gives a great impact along with lots of small scenes that take shape as you focus in on the layout. its more of thinking small and detailed than big and impressive. you will need to do some scene compression, but this can work to your advantage if you do it in the right places/angles.

 

kato has a bunch of track plans to start thinking about ideas for smaller track plans and there are a few kambach books out there with lots of smaller track plan ideas

 

http://www.katousa.com/track-plans/n-plans.html

 

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=model+railroad+track+plans&x=0&y=0

 

small track plans

 

http://www.thortrains.net/nscale/nminis1.html

 

rural layouts as well

 

http://ddwngauge.homestead.com/Page3.html

 

there was one stunning rural layout around your size, but i cant find the link or downloaded pictures, ill keep looking.

 

hers some ideas to think small, well smaller than you need, but still how to make the best bang for the buck in a smaller layout

 

http://www.carendt.us/scrapbook/page51/index.html

 

http://www.carendt.us/microplans/

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Lawrence]

Not wishing to overload you with ideas Ulrich, but here is another on for you to look at 

 

http://www.freetrackplans.com/Track-Plan-Index.php

[Sir Madog]

Just a brief thank you, folks, for your input.

 

Most of the resources mentioned are quite familiar to me, so at least I know now that I have not missed out anything.

[Sir Madog]

After some more research in the web, I found a Z scale layout, which I adapted to N scale and added a few features. It is basically a figure 8 loop, with a helix at each end to gain height, a passing siding and a spur leading to a coal trestle. Gradient on the helix is 2.5 %, so that should work out. Not much of a challenge in terms of operation, but with a spectacular look to it.

 

Well here it is:

 

 

A very basic layout, but that´s OK with me.

[Martijn Meerts]

There might not be a lot of track and only basic operation, but with some good scenery it can look really spectacular. Especially the diagonal bridge that crosses both track and a river before heading into the mountain should be really nice to look at.

 

Also, since you already have a helix, you could expand on that, and make on of them go to a hidden yard before coming back up, that way you can store some more trains and have them easily available. And if you decided to go DCC at some point, you could even automate the hidden yard.

[Sir Madog]

Martijn,

 

what a great idea! If I add just a few centimeters to the width of the layout (it need to be rolled through the room´s door), I can connect the two helices and a 2 track hidden staging yard.

 

Btw, minimum radius is 250 mm or just about 10".

[cteno4]

Madog,

 

nice little layout, gives you both some wild and town, river is a great element to allow this fast of a split in a small area as well, good choice of scenery effect!

 

Martijn is spot on that this diagonal bridge will really be a nice center piece and should get a lot of attention in your detailing as that is where the eye will go first on the layout. its a really nice perspective as well to watch the trains go through with one end town and the other more natural and the river in between!

 

are you thinking of having the town section lift off to get access to your storage loop? that is a storage loop correct, not a helix. Also on the rural side as well. Reason being is hidden tracks (especially storage one) like that tend to be a problem with trains getting stuck and so having easy access is really important. getting access from the side is tough even when the track is near the opening.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Sir Madog]

No, no storage loops, but a true helix at each side.

 

Here is a 3-D view:

 

 

Both top scenery sections will be made as lift-outs for easy access!

[cteno4]

Ok, wow that will give you a nice dramatic high bridge then and a good river cut on the left bank for a nice small cliff face potentially (these can be great detail pieces)

 

yes lift off sections would probably be wise to get access to the helixes. only major issue with this is making your lift off parts sturdy in their under structure (extruded foam board is good for this with maybe a very thin plywood base) and then hiding the seam between the pop off module and layout base. you could cut large holes in the base at the inside of the helixes, but getting access would be really tough from underneath the layout!

 

if you could pull the siding turnout back some you might fit in an additional turn out to have two small spurs at the factory if you want more switching opportunities. or think about putting the portal on the side of tetsu-do road (or possibly the other side with a road bridge over the tracks) and running a siding back down to the corner where the billboard is. this will make hirogawa a steep street, but there are those odd little streets with steep grades like that. this would give you a bit more switching and its best to do this up front. take a look at some of the micro switching puzzle layouts and there may be a small configuration you could shoe horn in this corner to give you a little fiddly to play with.

 

the double helix config is nice as the trains will be out of site a lot then pop out for a nice bit than disappear for a while! The figure 8 also makes it so you can run to have both of the visible sections with the train coming at you at an angle which is usually the nicest view. this forced perspective also makes shorter trains look longer, they will look shorter when you get full side views and you dont really get that much on this layout from the front and center view. good job again!

 

might also think about if you could put turnouts on the left hand bottom loop going off straight off to the end to the left. this way you could think about doing a second small layout module this one could then connect to later. if this sounds like something you might be interested in its worth engineering it into the layout now and putting the turnouts in while building this layout rather than tearing into it later -- especially with the helix there.

 

good to see you have something to sink your teeth into! have fun!

 

cheers

 

jeff