Small layout planning (and maybe building?)

[IST]

I have read JNSforum along time ago and have a small Unitram basic oval layout, but in the past few days I was thinking about to plan and build a small Japanese layout for trains. My key points were:

- although I would like a huge layout with dozens of tracks, platforms and stations (who wouldn't like?) I have to forget this as I have not enough room, time and money, not to mention my modelling experience

- so I will start a small layout with the maximum size of 180*65 cm as we have an IKEA tv stand which I can use for modelling purpose

- I would like to have an oval track as I like to see my trains are running continuously

- the layout will be on one level, no elevations, no bridges, no track above track solutions

- as I have already have a lot of Kato tracks, it will be made from Unitrack, so geometry has to based on this

- I am planning passenger train services, so I need at least one station with 2 tracks and it would be good if I can have an engine shed as well

- maximum length of trains will be 2 or 3 cars

- diesel or electrical line, I don't know yet, maybe electrical would be better than my Portrams wouldn't look silly on the layout.

- DC or DCC? I don't know yet. I have some good runner British locos with decoder and I quite like my Hornby Elite controller, I have some bad experience with DCC as well, not to mention that I like using Kato controllers.

 

So after these points, I downloaded and installed the trial version of Anyrail and started to plan a layout. You can see the result on the picture below. Yes, I know there are a small gap in the plan, but I had no idea how to correct it, so I just hope that I can join my tracks at that point. The minimum radius was 216 mm, I hope this is enough for such a small layout.

 

Do you have any comments about this plan? What would you do differently? Maybe are there any advice?

[westfalen]

There should be enough play in the tracks to bring that gap together, other wise not a bad plan for a branchline or private railway. You obviously realise the limitations of 216mm radius, keep the shinkansens and big mainline stuff for elsewhere, just be careful to provide extra clearance between the track and structures, poles  etc, on curves. You've used wider radius where there are reverse curves which is good.

 

Wire the layout as if you were going to run DC then running DCC will be as easy as swapping the Kato controller for the Hornby DCC one, you could have them wired permanently to the layout via a DPDT toggle switch but it's just as easy to plug them into the layout with RCA (or plugs of your choice) and just plug in the one you want, that's how I have my T-TRAK layout set up at the moment.

[The_Ghan]

IST,

 

Great little layout.  Being a Tomix man I can't help with the track joining issue, but I do have the following general advice:

 

1. Try to increase the radii of the bends.  216mm is as tight as a fish's arsehole.  You could possibly flip the other sidings to the inside of the loop to do this.  If you cant go up to the next radii because of space I suggest you do so just for the first and last segments in each bend to provide some kind of transition between straight and R216.

 

2. The S bend at the top of the layout really needs a short straight between the reversing curves.  Westfalen usually beats me to this piece of advice, but it is important to give the bogies some space to rest before turning in the opposite direction otherwise the cars and couplings suffer from extended offset and look funny as they make the change.

 

3.  This layout would look pretty sexy if you're doing something like Hakone Tozan.  I'd consider elevating the whole layout and letting the scenery fall away underneath it in several places.

 

4.  I love DCC ... I'm a Digitrax man and can see straight away that this is an economical layout from a component point of view.  Let me know if you want more advice there.

 

5.  This layout is small enough to control with the free version of TrainController, but I think it is time limited to three months or something ... still, it is something I plan to do and would jump at on this layout.

 

I hope my advice is helpful.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[Sir Madog]

Kato Unitrack has an adjustable piece of track, which allows you to fill the gap, by adjusting the track length next to the right hand switch. You should in any case avoid a bend o a kink in that curve.

 

I´d also like to chime in with that 216 mm radius - that´s dang tight! You won´t be able to run any of the newer and wonderful steamers Kato now makes. 650 mm depth allow for 249 mm, better 282 mm. This will put the track close to the edge, but will allow you to run just about anything other than the Shinkansens.

[Densha]

Personally I would do it like in the first attachment.

If the straight part between reversing curves as The_Ghan mentioned are needed, then I would do the 2nd one, I'm not sure if a 29mm straight track is enough though. Note that the curve at the very right has a radius of 282mm and the left from bottom left to top right 282-249-249-282-348-... to get it better aligned. I left out the second track at the bottom left because there is not very much space left. Alternatively you could look at the third one, but I don't really like the empty part at the bottom left, but there will probably come scenery on that place.

[Sir Madog]

A little bit more elaborate, but also a little bit more fun:

 

[IST]

Thanks for the replies, hints and tips. I was waiting for the weekend, as I would like to take some photo about the place, the plan and the tracks. I have just made it, so I will share those photos with you. Some comments about the pictures:

 

01_tv_stand: Here is the TV stand which would be great for a small layout. You can see on the right side there are double doors. The left door usually is in closed position, but sometimes we need to open it. This is the reason why I should keep the width of the planned layout.

 

02_print: I printed out my original plan in 1:1 from Anyrail on A4 papers and put to the furniture. As you can see, I remembered badly to the length of the TV stand, so 180 cm became a little bit big, but I can manage it with my wife. 

 

03_with_tracks: I positioned my currently available tracks to the plan, which helped me imagine how it would look like.

 

04_216vs249: As you mentioned formerly, it would be better if I can change the minimum radius from 216 to 249 mm. As I have some 249 mm tracks as well, I can show you what will be the difference. There is no problem with it in this side of the layout.

[IST]

05_with249radius: As The_Ghan mentioned before, I placed small straight tracks to the S curve, but I used 249 mm curves, not the planned 381 mm, as I have no such a track at this moment. You can see the difference compared to the original plan, it would be too much curve for my taste, so I won't use these tracks here.

 

06_reason_of_the_2_tracks: The reason of the 2 tracks in the left corner was the engine shed. I quite like how it looks like, so I would like to keep it. But maybe because of the used narrow radius in the curves, I have to forget is. 

 

07_with216radius: I made a picture with a train on the 216mm radius. It runs freely, but the cars almost reach each other, and doesn't looks good. I don't plan to run this type of trains in the future, I just thought I will show you how these would look like.

 

08_with249radius: I changed the tracks on the left side to 249 mm radius tracks. If I put the engine shed to the very edge of the planned layout, the other end of the curve does not reach the wall, I have few millimeters. So it can work.

[IST]

09_on249tracks: I made another photo with train, the tracks are 249 mm. It looks better, doesn't it?

 

10_with_buildings: On a weekday night I searched info about some buildings in my catalogs and on the net, so I printed out the basement of some buildings to see how many buildings do I have to buy for this small town layout. A lot of course. 

Watching this picture I do not really like the two tracks on the upper right corner. I planned a small station there, but that looks bad as the curve lays just behind the two tracks. But I would like to have another station where I can send one or two train instead of running in circles the same 1 or 2 trains.

[cteno4]

Ist

 

Looking good!

 

One suggestion if you are planning w/o the structures there is to hack out some walls to pop your planning into 3d for visualization. Same goes for hills, wad up news paper and tape it down with masking tape, great to get your shape down. You can even make a cardboard tunnel then the newspaper hill over it to see it with a train running thru it. Curt and I did this with the JRM mountain and in a couple hours of fiddling got the shape we wanted and the entrances, then made some crude paper templates to cut out the rough contours out of foam, then curt shaped them from there.

 

Also take a look at what the chaps did with changable structures and scenery in this thread

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/index.php/topic,6294.0.html

 

If you are planning a small tunnel you might think of making it convertible into a cut. Being able to change things out some might spice things up in the long run for you.

 

Keep it coming its fun to watch it take shape!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[Densha]

Personally I wouldn't place a station in the upper right corner because two stations so close to each other in that way look kinda odd. You could place the engine shed in that case on those tracks, but maybe doing it like in the no.4 plan down here would be better, in this case the engine shed and station are quite close, but it's not too close to the curve.

Another is the no.5, then it could be used as some kind of station.

Completely alternatively is the no.6 and 7 plan, then you have wide curves (282mm) everywhere and the engine shed has it's own place too.

 

I don't know in which era and place you would like to place the layout in, but there do exist some little 1-track engine sheds like the following three:

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10069594

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10069595

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10075763

You could place them on a 1-track siding of the station.

In that case you could think of something as the no.5 plan because the upper track could be used as a station or extra siding too in that case.

 

In any case, it looks pretty large to me and it looks like you can make a pretty nice layout in that space.

[The_Ghan]

IST,

 

I think you've got it pretty much sorted now.  Looks good.  I'd still keep R249 as your minimum radius.  Good luck.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[IST]

Densha, thanks for the effort to make some plans to me!

 

The_Ghan, you are right, after trying it in the real life I realized that R216 is too small for trains.

[Densha]

After some thinking I realized that no.5 is too boring, especially in the upper side. It's too much straight. Personally I prefer the very last one I made, because there's much room to make a town in the right and there can be made a hill with tunnel on the left side.

 

Do you actually plan on using an island platform or two side platforms at the main station?

[IST]

New year, new hopes, new idea, new planning, but the same old guy here who does nothing. :-) Sounds familiar to anyone?

 

So I was thinking a smaller, maybe simplier layout with the idea of a small town on the countryside. I do not want to build it as a copy of the real world, so I do not concentrate on any area or any railway companies, it would be great if it looks like a japanese layout.

 

I saw a layout few weeks ago in a catalogue or in a book, and did a similar one in AnyRail. Nothing special: a small oval layout with a very little 'branch' line to the town with two platforms at the end (this changed since the planning, I will show you photos later). On the left side there will be a forest where the two tracks 'disappear', on the right side maybe a small mountain, perhaps a shrine or temple on it. The town will be inner of the oval, mostly on the right side. On the far ride side there will be a track to a possible train yard, I would make here a retaining wall to hide most part of this track. In the close right there will be a track for a possible extension, or just store a train on it.

 

And the plan:

[IST]

I forgot to mention:

The bigger radius on the left side is 282 mm, the smaller one is 249 mm. It is planned to use maximum two cars trains.

[KenS]

If you don't connect the inner track on the left to the other tracks on the back, you could have the inner track climb a small hill to the village.  Just enough to hide the track running around the back side of the oval. That would provide some sense of the non-level terrain of Japan, while letting you run through trains across the front and a branch up to the village.

[IST]

If you don't connect the inner track on the left to the other tracks on the back, you could have the inner track climb a small hill to the village.

 

Hmmm, good idea, I will make some test with this configuration. Thanks!