Pre planning for urban layout

[BTrain]

Hello all,

 

As I mentioned in my introduction post, I am interested in building a modern era Japanese layout consisting of a Shinkansen line, commuter trains, trams and if there is room, maybe some freight trains.

 

I love the densely packed action of the big cities in Japan and I'd like that to be the focal point of my layout. I want tall buildings, lights, cool signs, bridges and trains weaving throughout.  I'd also like to have a harbor or some sort of water scene. If space permits, I want a rural village and perhaps a mountain so I can have tunnels. 

 

I have space along two walls to do a 12 foot by 6 foot L shaped layout. My preference is for it to be 30 inches deep but could go to 36 inches at the ends if I need more space for bigger curves to accommodate the Shinkansen. Some of you suggested that I avoid a 36 inch deep setup and after testing, I agree. I do have long arms but I can see how with buildings and track, it could be difficult reaching things on the layout. I hope to build it modular and light in case I need to move it.

 

After looking through this site, youtube and google, I'm pretty overwhelmed with the amount of information out there. I am a bit intimidated with track planning and track planning software.  I'd appreciate some help getting started with a track plan that would work in an L shaped wall mounted design. I don't have room to be able to walk around it. I also am not sure about Kato track. Should I go with that or use flex track. Does it make sense to use flex track in hidden areas to save money? Also is there a rule of thumb as to what is the minimum radius Kato track that can be used with Shinkansen trains?

 

Ok as you can see, I am such a novice with lots of questions. Thanks in advance for your help and guidence.

 

[bill937ca]

Here`s a thread on a largely urban layout.

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/6636-tennoji/

 

Track plan

 

http://www.train-tram.be/model/tennoji2/index.htm

 

Tram lines terminate at JR stations in Okayama, Hiroshima and Toyohashi.  Nagasaki trams pass by the JR station.

[KenS]

A couple of thoughts.

 

1. Building a "sectional" layout that can be broken down for moves is a good idea (I did mine that way). But don't assume that means it needs to follow any module standards or that each section has to be the same size.  Unless you also want to use some/all of it as part of a club modular layout, all sectional means is that each part needs to be structurally capable of standing alone for transport (and you need some way to disconnect wires and track at the edge; that's something you can borrow from module standards). Module standards have a lot of useful material you can use for a sectional layout, but they can be very constraining if you try to follow the track placement or module size rules.

 

2. If you want trains "in a city" that's a focal part of the layout, restrain the impulse to pack in lots of track.  I put in three double track loops on my layout: shinkansen, commuter, and subway.  And while that works in some ways, track tends to dominate the scene: rather than looking like it's "in" the city, I have buildings "around" track that's the focal point.  I'm not sure I'd do it differently if I started over, but there are aspects I don't like. Perhaps a single line, with a spur off to a port railway near an urban area at one end, and a more rural area at the other end would fit your requirements?

 

3. Minimum radius for Kato Shinkansen, if you aren't using viaduct or single-track bridges, is surprisingly tight. The instructions for both my 500 Series and E5 say R315 (12.4"). But a Shinkansen on minimum radius, even if it works flawlessly, will look "wrong".  I'd suggest getting some Unitrack in different radii and experimenting to see what looks right. The bridges/viaduct with close sides complicate things as they can bind.  And it's a good idea to put a length of straight track longer than a car (meaning 186mm) between a curve and a bridge, although you can get away without that at larger radii.  Again, if working with Unitrack, get some track segments and experiment with arrangements. Even if it's only enough for two cars, you can see what it looks like and if it will bind.

 

4. With a 12x6 L and no more than 30" deep, it would be difficult (but not impossible) to make a loop. You'll lose of lot of real-estate to return loops at each end or an oval.  If you're willing to work with a point-to-point design running between two end terminals, that's probably going to give you a better feel of trains in a city (as opposed to a city surrounded by trains).  Although you could hide one or both return curves under/behind scenery if you really want a loop, but you'll lose several feet of end-to-end length to those curves.

 

5. Consider using insulation foam carved to provide a non-flat landscape (even if the track is flat, you can have it on cuts and fills, and that will look more realistic than flat track on flat landscape. Even Tokyo, which is relatively flat, has a lot of small hills and track that goes from fill to cut and back in fairly short order. Hills are also very nice for raising the back of the layout up and hiding the transition to the backdrop.

 

6. Plan for a backdrop, and don't run track or open land right up against it.  Have a zone of buildings or landscape (trees/hills) to hide the transition from horizontal to vertical.  That's an important lesson I forgot in a couple of places, and I've regretted it ever since.

 

[Martijn Meerts]

The first thing you need to consider, is how many cars do you want in your shinkansen? That really will define much of how the layout will end up and how much space you have for a harbour/urban scene.

 

Another thing to consider is whether you want to just continuously run trains, or also have 1 or more stations for them to stop at. If you want a station, you'll probably want more than just a stop in a double track mainline, so you'll loose some more space there for turnouts etc.

 

As for the track, you can also have a look at Tomix Finetrack, which has a little more variety than Unitrack (and in my opinion looks better). The advantage of sectional track like Unitrack and Finetrack is that you can do a lot of track planning with the actual track. If you go with flextrack you need to either plan ahead using a track planning software, or have a good idea of what you want the final layout to look like, and just place track based on that. Flextrack is cheaper and you can build much more interesting track plans (train station in a slight curve etc.), but it is quite a bit more difficult to work with.

 

All standard (modern) Kato shinkansen have a minimum radius of 315, the Tomix ones have a minimum of 317 (they'll work on 315 as well, it's just that Kato has a 315mm radius curve, whereas the Tomix variant is 317mm). MicroAce shinkansen are able to run on 315mm as well. Most shinkansen will also run on 280mm radius curves. Some of the mini-shinkansen have a minimum radius of 280mm. Generally though, always use the biggest radius you can, because especially the shinkansen look silly on tight curves :)

 

 

Like Ken said, you also need to determine if the focal point will be the city itself, or the trains. For example, the layout I'm planning will have a city section as well, but rather than the cityscape, the trains are the main focal point, so I'm building a large station of around 10-12 tracks which can hold 16-car shinkansen. There will be lots and lots of buildings and little details in the surrounding city as well of course. Another section will have the Sankei kits based on Studio Ghibli movies, with the Spirited Away bathhouse kit as the main focal point. In that section there will be very little (visible) track.

[Densha]

Just a brainwave: what about making the city in front of the layout and in the back a bit rural/nature/mountains area? That way I hope the "loop around the city" effect will lessen and you could maybe somehow incorporate some rural village.

30 inch is even less than 80 cm, that's not much at all. You can't go for larger radii than 348mm in that case, and then it's even up against the wall and with very tight curves. The problem with point-to-point layouts is that you can't do constant running.

[bill937ca]

You may find 30 inches too tight for a double track viaduct curve and you may have to curve out before you can curve back in.

[CaptOblivious]

You might also consider finding a way to hide the curve in the middle—a mountain at the edge (or even in the middle) of a city would not be out of place, and would give you a chance to do some country-side scenes—trees, temples, that sort of thing.

[Mudkip Orange]

A 6x12 of fully urban scenery is a huge, huge untertaking and it will in all likelihood take you several years to complete.

 

So.

 

I'd do a 30"x72" that has the potential to be extended out another 9.5 feet once the initial set has been done. http://www.quinntopia.com/ did this, starting with a single HCD, now it's magnified into some huge thing.

 

You could conceivably have four levels. L1 is freight, trenched below grade. L2 is street level/trams. L3 is commuter/suburban/intercity and L4 is Shinkansen. One thing to consider, is a lot of the "freight bypass" lines in Japan have been cannibalized somewhat for passenger services. So you might put platforms down there as well.

[Kabutoni]

'Urban' is only how you define it. Where I live now, I've noticed, the high-rises are only two blocks away from fields. It's pretty crazy IMO, but you have old-style corrugated steel 2-floor buildings hugging modern 10-floor mansions/apartment buildings and shopping centres, right next to a small patch of land where cabbages and daikon are grown. However, the place I live now is on the border of the Tokyo urban area (45 min. or so from Shinjuku), so it might not be quite the best example of a dense urban situation.

 

If you want to go for the full-scale urban layout, I think the trains might just be lost in the surroundings, which would be a shame. The best would be to make an urbans station centre around the station (where Shinkansen and maybe one or two local/commuter lines meet), where the surroundings quickly move to a 'Jutaku' (domicile area) with small fields and parking spaces in between the houses.

 

Have a look at my blog for some pictures I took in my neighborhood for some simple examples. If you'd like (or anyone else for that matter), I can take a lot more pictures of the surroundings for reference!

[Bernard]

There are a lot of good points being made especially area assessiblity. My layout is 16'x12' and is in the shape of an "E". When I designed it I made sure I could reach into all areas of the layout the only way to do this was to have it in the middle of the room. It's a "walk around" layout. I learned from my 1st layout about "reach" it was too large and inorder to work on it at times I had to stand on a chair and lean over the layout (boy did my back hurt after a while :(  )

 

One suggestion I'd like to add is... have a "train yard". It's a great way to store and display your trains....the only downside is your other half will see how many trains you actually have :)

[cteno4]

One suggestion I'd like to add is... have a "train yard". It's a great way to store and display your trains....the only downside is your other half will see how many trains you actually have :)

Bernard,

 

its "hidden" train yard! dont let the secret get out or we are all sunk!

 

jeff

[BTrain]

Hey guys, thanks for all the great input. I've been thinking a lot about accessibility and allowing for sufficient curve radius to accommodate the Shinkansen trains. It seems that I'm going to have to allow for at least 3 feet of space at the ends for the return loops. I don't think I have the space to have a floating layout with access on all sides so I will have to make the center sections closer to 2 feet deep which I think I can reach the back of without much trouble.

[BTrain]

Just a brainwave: what about making the city in front of the layout and in the back a bit rural/nature/mountains area? That way I hope the "loop around the city" effect will lessen and you could maybe somehow incorporate some rural village.

30 inch is even less than 80 cm, that's not much at all. You can't go for larger radii than 348mm in that case, and then it's even up against the wall and with very tight curves. The problem with point-to-point layouts is that you can't do constant running.

 

I have been thinking of going in this direction. I like the idea of mountains in the background with Shinkansen trains at that level. The city could have a short tram line going through it. Then like Mudkip Orange suggested, have a lower level for freight trains.

 

[Densha]

How many lines are you intending to make now? I count a Shinkansen, tram line, and an ordinary 1067mm line? You don't need a dedicated freight line, freight can simply run on the network for commuters/suburbans/expresses. Personally I would do that and make a small branch line and yard or something around those lines.

[BTrain]

How many lines are you intending to make now? I count a Shinkansen, tram line, and an ordinary 1067mm line? You don't need a dedicated freight line, freight can simply run on the network for commuters/suburbans/expresses. Personally I would do that and make a small branch line and yard or something around those lines.

Yeah, I forgot to mention wanting a commuter / suburban line. Sharing it with the freight service is a good idea.

 

I downloaded the demo version of AnyRail to my PC. I'll start working on a track plan.

[Densha]

You didn't forget, you mentioned it in your first post. :)

You can run almost all trains on the main network (in Japan it's on 1067mm gauge). For Shinkansen only double track is most of the times prototypical though on the Akita and Yamagata Shinkansen even single line rural track is prototypical. For trams you can also do double or single track depending on what you want or if you want to model a specific area. It may be nice doing the tram line single track that if already the main line and Shinkansen line is double track. I realize this is very much like that layout I linked you to in the introduction topic.

 

I am still using the demo version of Anyrail, I don't need much track parts for a small layout but for large ones you do. Just see if it works for you and you can always decide what to do later. For some sketches it may be easier to just use pen and paper.

[cteno4]

Btrain,

 

also check out xtrakcad. its pretty powerful and totally free. bit of a learning curve, but not horrible and if you take notes for yourself its easy to get going again if you put it away for a few weeks (its one of those programs if you use weekly you stay good at but taking a break is frustrating trying to remember some odd things)

 

take a look at curt's layout plan. http://japanrailmodelers.org/pages/modelingjapan/curtlayout.html

 

while more square than you are proposing it has the idea of a large city. he cheated like densha mentioned by doing a single track out thru the rural end (for shinkansen or freight, only one main line out thru there). back in the suburban and city end its two track so more prototypical thru the main station. the second loop is a smaller loop between the city and the suburb. lots of passing/storage tracks to store extra trains so even with only two main loops, he can easily keep swapping out different trains and with dcc he can have two trains comfortably running on the long loop and they dont appear to be following each other. its a cheat running the shinkansens and freight out that loop, but having just a single track out thru the rural end gives it a really mellow feel and allows the radius to be max w/o making a super deep end there. 

 

the fine scale layout design and track plan was done by custom model railroads, a very good layout company and they did a wonderful job of balancing curt's desires for a lot of scenery (ie not just a huge spaghetti bowl of track), some nice running, and having the rural, suburb and city scenes that were not all jammed on top of each other. it really is an impressive layout visually. its also given him a lot of space to go in and do a lot of super detailing as time goes on (what he really loves to do) as well as run the layout easily with a few trains (ie does not have to get into a lot of super complex operations of point to point or complex loop back Ys etc).

 

ive spent a lot of time fiddling with the track plans in the past for my future basement layout. requirements there were for having a similar rural, suburb, city and second town/small city with double shinkansen loop thru all them (back line hidden along the back in parts) as well as 1 or 2 track loops for freight and local/express. it was tough getting it all in there w/o the layout getting deep for the turn arounds, especially for the shinkansen lines. it starts to get into a spaghetti bowl of track fast.

 

one thing i was certainly going to do was build it in chunks like 3' x 6-8' so that i could come apart if we ever moved. i then thought of if i have some corners or ends where things had to be deeper (like over 3') and hard to reach into to do major work, i could have the layout pieces on wheels so that i could break them apart to do big work. this would require a really hearty mating mechanism for the modules and adjustable legs to get heights just right and locked when mated, but not so hard to do. we have had great luck with our club layout modules at 1m x 0.5m. so something i keep thinking about. i do like the idea of being able to pull out one module to work on in the center of a work area and get all the way around it easily. just something to munch on.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Mudkip Orange]

Second Xtrakcad. I use it.

[Lawrence]

SCARM is another free track planner  http://www.scarm.info/index_en.html

[Guest ___]

I still prefer xtrakcad. PS: Spam is gone. Hell fo a lot easier to delete it from a PC than the iPhone

[BTrain]

Hello,

 

I know it's been awhile since I've posted. I've been taking all of the suggestions that were given under advisement, continuing my research as well as kicking around a few plan ideas.

 

When I first posted, I was thinking of using an 12 foot by 6 foot L shaped portion along two walls in a my office which is in my basement. If I use this room, I have to keep the layout along the walls as it's the main entry / exit we use in the house. We get a lot of traffic and I can't have a layout floating in the middle of the room. Give these constraints; I feel that a large layout will be in the way. Hence my desire to keep it no wider that 30 inches in this room. The problem is that that 30 inches won't allow me to run most Shinkansen trains.

 

I started looking around my house for other space and found a storage room that's 12 feet 6 inches by 5 feet 3 inches. I cleared it out and it seems just big enough for a layout if I get creative. Given the fact that the room is so narrow, I still can't have much of a wide layout but here is my best idea so far:

 

The main layout will be 12 foot 6 inches by 3 feet (or less in some places). This is where local trains and trams will run. It will also have room for a City, suburban area 3 stations as well as a country / town.

 

Then I'll have an outer loop for Shinkansen trains that will be on an upper level and will follow the whole 12 foot 6 by 5 foot 3 inches. To accomplish this, I'll have to build in a duck under or lift out section where the door is. Doing this will allow me enough radius for shinkinsen trains. This plan allows for about a 2 foot aisle way within the layout once you duck under and enter the room.

 

This layout plan allows for all the things I wanted. Shinkansen, commuter, freight trains and trams. City, Suburban and a country town. Given all this, I do have some concerns:

- Reach will be a factor. The ends of the layout will be 3 feet wide. I'm 6'1" with long arms but I expect it to be a pain from time to time.

- I'm a little worried that this layout can be a little crowded with  all the track and buildings I have planned.

- I don't like the idea of a duck under. I'm pretty handy and hope to be able to build a lift out or hinged section for the door (need ideas on how to do that).

- Will the 2 foot aisle be enough room?

 

Final note: The plan was done with the trial version of AnyRail. I was limited to 50 track sections so I had to improvise with the shape tool to make up extra track sectionsJ.   I wanted to try xtrakcad but couldn’t get a working copy to run on my Mac or PC.

 

Anyway, thanks again for you help and suggestions.

 

 

 

http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums/y494/elaminb/BTrain/bTrainLayout-Freight-CommuterLayer_zps2d848b69.jpg

 

http://i1277.photobucket.com/albums/y494/elaminb/BTrain/bTrainLayout-ShinkansenLayer_zps45eddafb.jpg

 

 

Edited September 4, 2013 by BTrain

[BTrain]

Sorry guys, I think I had the wrong links in my previous post. I'm still trying to get the hang of posting pictures here.

[KenS]

If you use the More Reply Options button when posting, there's a "browse" followed by a "add" (or something, I can't remember the second button), which will place the image as a thumbnail at the bottom of your post.  Those are limited/reduced to 1200 pixels in the widest dimension, but that's usually a good size.

 

What's the issue with Shinkansen in 30", just appearance?  Many shinkansen models will handle fairly tight curves (315mm, or about 26" dia, which should fit in 30"). They may not look good, but if you hide the curve (tunnel, or just behind buildings where it's not obvious) that isn't necessarily a problem.  Of course you should test your train on a table-top first to be sure it doesn't have issues.

[BTrain]

Hi KenS

 

I agree with you. I have a couple Shinkansen trains that run on 315mm curves. I was just trying to go for as large a radius curve as I could to allow me to run any train without issues. What do you think of my track plan? I'd appreciate any suggestions.

[KenS]

I like the track plan except for one thing: in the elevated station (at least I presume its elevated) next to the river, you split one track to the platforms, but don't have a platform on the other track.  I'd have put an island platform between the tracks (with curves to swing the track wide of the island) so trains could stop on both tracks.

 

The other thing that looks a bit odd are the wavy curves in the Shinkansen line that runs along the wall on the door side of the room. Shinkansen lines generally try to stay ruler straight.  I have a section of my express line that's about 12' long that's straight with a bridge and a small grade to break it up, and it looks pretty cool when a train goes charging along it at speed. But that said, if they're fairly gentle curves and the scenery makes them make sense, Shinkansen on curves look cool too.