Sankei Valley (HO, 1/80, 16.5mm)

[John P Boogerd]

I am about to start building my first HO layout that I will name Sankei Valley after the building kits many of us use on our projects.  I know there is a Z-scale layout by the same name in Continental Modeller last month and that's where I got the idea for this name.  I also got some great ideas from that article.  I have never built a layout before - I did have a Lionel store display layout when I was a kid and I have snapped together some track on the floor for a few hours.  This will be a learning experience to be sure.

 

In the 10x12ft room that I have been allotted by a higher authority in the house, I will build my layout in two sections.  I plan a 4x8ft table that will represent an urban area with a small area of older shops and cafes and another with some more modern buildings.  On the other side of the room, I plan a 4x6.75ft table that will represent a rural area.  These will be connected by a 1x1.5ft piece that will represent water like a river with bridges.  There will hopefully be a double-track line around the circumference of both tables and across the river connecting them for express trains, an Enoden line from the rural to the urban area for the Modemo and Tramway Enoshima railcars that I have, a small tram line in the old town area, and if I can figure a way to do it a single point-to-point line for my Endo class 110 railcars.  I know that's a lot but I will do a little at a time and see how much of that I can fit in. 

 

 

[bikkuri bahn]

You're lucky having a whole room available.  Have you thought of having an around-the-walls layout rather than two flat tables?  4x8 and 4x6 layouts are tremendous wasters of space and when placed in a small room restrict access.  If you really need a 4x8 in there, how about placing it diagonally, and using it as a peninsula, with a mainline running around the room? An advantage of an around-the-walls layout vs. a table is you can have broader curves (if possible min. 24" radius with easements) and most of your views of trains will be on the inside of the curves, where car overhang is less noticeable.

[marknewton]

John, I agree with bikkuri bahn, if you have a 10x12 room to play with you'd be far better off doing an around-the-walls/shelf layout. Even on a shelf only 12" wide you can have quite a lot of railway. The other advantage of a shelf-style layout is that if it's mounted high enough, there's ample room underneath for storage and workbenches. Higher mounting also gived you a more realistic view of your trains, too!  :)

 

These two photos show what can be achieved on a shelf layout in HO scale. This layout is featured here:

 

http://e231green.way-nifty.com/rail/2008/08/post_c65a.html

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

Edited December 9, 2013 by marknewton

[Densha]

Oh god that looks amazing! I'm lucky I don't have money for H0 trains but this looks very cool! Makes clear that even for this scale you don't need much space at all.

[marknewton]

Jimmy, I'm not sure why you think that moving accessories can't be used on a shelf layout, and I don't understand what you mean by "you only can do a portion of a diorama". Can you expand on these comments?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[bikkuri bahn]

Perhaps JImmy was talking about the greater depth of a table layout, which allows more room for dramatic scenery, at least in N scale.  I think it has alot to do with your tastes and approach to scenery- I prefer for the focus to be on the individual trains and the immediate right of way and railway infrastructure, while others like to model mountains, gorges, and changes of grade, where the railway is one feature, but perhaps not the only one. Another way of explaining it is this: I prefer the model railways done of midwestern U.S. prototypes rather than western U.S. ones- a trackside detail-oriented layout of a single track mainline "bridge carrier" like Nickel Plate or Wabash is going to catch my interest, while the model of the UP through Cajon Pass or SP/SF through Tehachapi is not.

[John P Boogerd]

The way this room is laid out, with an entry door, a service door to the furnace room and a closet all on one end, a shelf layout is not really practical.  I did look at that a few months ago and I even had a carpenter in to see if we could do that.  It would not be practical here and a higher authority in the house would be vehemently opposed.  Even so, there would be something like the shelf layout on the far wall and the two side walls.  The trains would only transition through a tighter radius loop at one end of each 4x8 sheet.  I think it will work for me this way.

 

Mark, by the way, your layout is gorgeous - thanks for the pictures.  Are you running some N scale down below, too?

[marknewton]

John, if you're willing to post a drawing of the room showing dimensions and the location of the doors and layout tables, I'd like to sketch out some ideas for you.

 

The layout I posted pictures of isn't mine, I should have made that more clear. Sorry! 

 

(I'd be very happy if it was mine, though!   :) )

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

Edited December 13, 2013 by marknewton

[Nick_Burman]

Another way of explaining it is this: I prefer the model railways done of midwestern U.S. prototypes rather than western U.S. ones- a trackside detail-oriented layout of a single track mainline "bridge carrier" like Nickel Plate or Wabash is going to catch my interest, while the model of the UP through Cajon Pass or SP/SF through Tehachapi is not.

 

Or the more urbanized sections of the Western carriers, in areas like the LA Basin, San Joaquin Valley, SF Bay area, etc... years ago MR did a suggestion for a layout (which made into one of their books) based on AT&SF's Perris Branch. For the price of a tradeoff (no streamliners, passenger diesels, big steam) you got a small room-sized layout with the characteristics you described, and packed with operations to boot.

 

 

Cheers NB

Edited December 13, 2013 by Nick_Burman

[Mudkip Orange]

Every shelf layout you are eventually going to run into one of two things, either (i) it's 6'8" off the floor to clear the door or (ii) it has a lift-out section.

 

I ain't never buildin' a lift-out section.

 

So you end up with big ol' dogboney goodness.

[kvp]

So you end up with big ol' dogboney goodness.

 

Or the fourth option, a point to point layout. With modern (and not so modern) japanese emu-s and dmu-s this would be very prototypical and the terminals at the ends can be built with minimal space. It can even be done with locomotive hauled trains, but turning them would involve quite a bit of switching. (either pulling down the train with a switcher, moving the loco out, pushing it back, then reattaching the loco, or pushing it out to a yard, running around and pushing it back, or having runaround tracks in the terminal itself, or switching the locomotive out to a different one, this needs 3 mainline locomotives) Adding tender steam locomotives to this also adds the need for a small turntable. It can be done on a shelf, but operating it would be very complex.