Beginning a layout.

[Sascha]

For the last 2 weeks, I'm trying to get my layout together. I know I want to get 6 trains to run. My idea is that I want to run two of them, the Tokyo Metro 03 series, and the E231-500 series under the Baseplate in a 'underground' tunnel that runs around the edges of the baseplate with an entrance from the top of the baseplate, and 4 on the top of the baseplate. Two Shinkansen on a viaduct with access to the train yard on the ground level, and the N'EX and Dr Yellow on the ground level.My Baseplate is 8x3. Two thirds will be representing Tokyo with a small industrial area, and the other third will be Narita. I say representing, because I will never be able to make it look like parts of Tokyo (Akihabara, Asakusa) or Narita, but I'm ok with that.

The 'underground' part is 'easy' since its underground there will be no buildings in the way. I do plan to put a underground station somewhere along the road and lights and signals. My problem right now is the top of the baseboard. I know I want a Viaduct station in Tokyo, and a historic looking in Narita. The problem is that I can't decide if I should make a track layout first, or get buildings and work around them. One day I think I have a good track layout, just to get it destroyed by an idea for buildings settings,and vice versa.

What is y'alls take on this? Buildings first? Track first?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Sascha

[railsquid]

I'm definitely going track first; the buildings I can somehow fit in later, and the good thing about Japan is that randomly placed buildings still look prototypically correct.

 

Having said that, I did want to ensure I had space for a level crossing (actually my wife really wants one) so ended up planning around that a little. I also recently acquired a large (10 storey) office building which was too big for the central "urban" area on my layout, but placing it in the "wall corner" behind a curved elevated section of track worked well; I was planning to have some sidings there but the building works better and the sidings would have been hard to see. So if you can, spend some time experimenting with what works before deciding on a final layout.

[kvp]

I think the track layout should be first, since you want to run the trains. Then you can design in the various buildings you want. This lets you tweak the track layout before buying anything. Especially important are the trackside structures, like stations, crossings and other rail related buildings, since they are actually part of the track layout.

 

Other than that, your concept is interesting, since the e231s are rarely seen underground but the NEX does run underground on some portions of its route, like at Tokyo station.

[katoftw]

Wow that layout should huge as I imagine it in my mind.  Sounds like one awesome layout if you can get it done.

 

Can a shinkansen loop be done in a 8x3  (2440x915mm) layout?

 

edit// Yes it can fit.  I'll use Kato for example as unsure what track manufacturer you plan to use.  Say if you were aiming at 8 car shinkansen, then you would need 5x 248 + 2x 71 ends of station (so 6x248 track sections.  Plus say using 381/414 curves, so 414 outside radius + 30mm of trackbed and viaduct wall. So complete shinkansen loop would be 2346x858mm.  But that would take up most of the outside of your layout.

 

The Kato JP website as a subway layout example in its pages somewhere that goes from ground level to subway level in it:- http://www.katomodels.com/unitrackplan/plan_p3.shtml Down the bottom.

Edited September 21, 2014 by katoftw

[Sascha]

Thanks for all the tips.It gets me a new perspective on how to do things So I'm going with the track layout first as y'all suggested. The Shinkansen loop will be mostly at the outside of my layout because I want the Viaduct on top of the underground station so that they are connected through elevators and stairs.I do use Kato track.Thanks for the website katoftw, also gave me great suggestions.I am realistic, so I plan on a 1 1/2-2 year project, and I will keep y'all posted on my progress. Next purchase is another train, and then the train stations and tracks.I did not know that the e231s mostly run above ground. I thought I remembered that the Yamanote line was mostly underground. Must have been another one.But that shows me that I need to do better research.

Thanks again!!!

[cteno4]

Sascha,

 

Great to hear about your layout project!

 

Yeah I would say work on the track plan first with just the ideas of the features you want and then you can design the scenery and buildings to fit a lot easier than the other way around in the limited space you have. You can work the other way aroun dig you have gobs of space. 8x3 will be a tight fit for what you want but you can probably do it with a Japanese scene as rail and buildings and scenes can be quite crammed, hodgepodge, and crazy in real life! Lots of building kits out there to start with and also kitbash from or scratch build pretty easily to create what you need to fit in the space you end up with.

 

One thing with your subway, make sure you can get good access to the tracks. Usually best if the subway section can just detach and drop off the bottom of your top layout to work on. This will give you direct access to build, fix, improve, and clean the subway tracks, wiring, lights, scenes, and signaling. Getting access to these lines thru your upper baseboard means you have to take stiff off the top of the layout to get at it and working from side access can be very tedious. Everyone I've known who has done a subway area has some form of the drop out concept or later really wished they had!

 

Also might thing about a set of passing tracks in one of your stations to store a couple of extra Shinkansens rather than a ram down to ground and a storage yard. Yards are great but they will eat up a lot of your limited space along with the incline ramp.

 

Will be great to see the layout come together!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[railsquid]

Thanks for all the tips.It gets me a new perspective on how to do things So I'm going with the track layout first as y'all suggested. The Shinkansen loop will be mostly at the outside of my layout because I want the Viaduct on top of the underground station so that they are connected through elevators and stairs.I do use Kato track.Thanks for the website katoftw, also gave me great suggestions.I am realistic, so I plan on a 1 1/2-2 year project, and I will keep y'all posted on my progress. Next purchase is another train, and then the train stations and tracks.I did not know that the e231s mostly run above ground. I thought I remembered that the Yamanote line was mostly underground. Must have been another one.But that shows me that I need to do better research.

 

The only major JR commuter line to run underground (in the Kanto area) is the Yokosuka line between Shinagawa and Ryogoku via Tokyo Station (the Narita Express uses this tunnel too).

 

Do post photos if you can. I'm starting pretty much from scratch at the moment, and only have 1200mm x 900mm (6'x3') to play with so interested in comparing notes.

[Sascha]

Sascha,

 

Great to hear about your layout project!

 

Yeah I would say work on the track plan first with just the ideas of the features you want and then you can design the scenery and buildings to fit a lot easier than the other way around in the limited space you have. You can work the other way aroun dig you have gobs of space. 8x3 will be a tight fit for what you want but you can probably do it with a Japanese scene as rail and buildings and scenes can be quite crammed, hodgepodge, and crazy in real life! Lots of building kits out there to start with and also kitbash from or scratch build pretty easily to create what you need to fit in the space you end up with.

 

One thing with your subway, make sure you can get good access to the tracks. Usually best if the subway section can just detach and drop off the bottom of your top layout to work on. This will give you direct access to build, fix, improve, and clean the subway tracks, wiring, lights, scenes, and signaling. Getting access to these lines thru your upper baseboard means you have to take stiff off the top of the layout to get at it and working from side access can be very tedious. Everyone I've known who has done a subway area has some form of the drop out concept or later really wished they had!

 

Also might thing about a set of passing tracks in one of your stations to store a couple of extra Shinkansens rather than a ram down to ground and a storage yard. Yards are great but they will eat up a lot of your limited space along with the incline ramp.

 

Will be great to see the layout come together!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

One thing with your subway, make sure you can get good access to the tracks. Usually best if the subway section can just detach and drop off the bottom of your top layout to work on. How would I do this? Good idea with the Shinkansen. I will make it an independent working Track. I will change my train to the Tokyu 1000 series, since this is the one on the Hibya line that took me to Umejima Station where my place was.I will keep you updated railsquid, but like I said, it will be a slow process, since I want to enjoy it, and not rush into it, so I'm spending only $100 a month on materials.

[cteno4]

Sascha

 

Think of just making the subway loop on a board that is maybe smaller than your full layout, say 6x3. Then you can position it so it's visible on the front of the layout and maybe along one end, sort of a L shape. On the subway board you can make 2-3" high walls that would go up and contact to the underside of your layout board. Then you just seen some sort of clips or latches to hold the subway board to the underside of the layout board. This could be done with a lip along the back top edge of the back subway wall that would slip into a grooved piece of wood or metal Chanel stock mounted at the back side of the bottom of the layout board. This way you could just lift the subway board up and slip the back lip into the slot to hold it in place, then have a couple clips or bolts along the front to hold the front up and in place. Instead of a lip on the back it could just be a few dowel pins that slip into holes. I can sketch this up if that would help.

 

I saw one subway on a layout done on drawer slides so the whole subway layout pulled out like a big drawer from the bottom side of the layout. It was cool as the chap had sone the whole subway loop tunnel done up with a station (also visible from the side of the layout) and construction crew making a new section that I think was maybe visible some on the end of the layout as well. This might have been the subway as well that I remember seeing moving escalators. These were bands with people glued to them and you just saw the center section of the escalators with people moving up and down (not the top and bottom with the people looping into/out of the floor to return)

 

Nice thing about the drawer concept is its easy to open up to get at a derailed train or show off more of it. You can just release the drawer slide then to pull the whole subway drawer off if needed. The down side is that you can only show off the front and back area of the side of the layout. But if you put the drawer slides mounted horizontally on the top of the subway drawer instead of vertically on the sides (heavy duty 3 or 4 section slides are only about 1/2" thick and can work pretty well like this, I've done it) of the drawer you could have either or both ends visible from the side. End of the drawer would need to get inset to miss your corner leg though. The clip in design could avoid the by going all the way to the front and end of the top layout and just have a chunk cut out of the corner of the subway board to go around the corner top layout leg.

 

The beauty of having the subway board detach from the bottom of the layout board is that you have complete access to work it it at any time and also get the subway out of the way when you are doing things under the layout board like wiring.

 

You could also cut the center out of the subway board to lighten it and also give access to the center area of the bottom of the layout board when the subway. Or keep it there and model an underground shopping arcade and cutaway of other subterranean aspects of your above ground scene if you wanted to go crazy. Or as a neat storage spot even.

 

Cheers,

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

Can you do that if the go from ground level to sub level?  I understand is it is a full sub level, but 50/50 gonna work without major mods?

[kvp]

 

Can you do that if the go from ground level to sub level? I understand is it is a full sub level, but 50/50 gonna work without major mods?

In that case, i would build the drawer version, but make the back L shaped part with the ramp fixed and add an access hole and cover only above that. If the tracks between the two sections are parallel, then it's possible to disconnect the front part by pulling out the drawer and reconnect by pushing it back. If this can't be used, then the ramp should be a lift out section, connected without joiners (held by gravity) and fed with dedicated cables, so it can be lifted up before pulling out the whole drawer. Both are simple to make.

 

One remark about the cables: If you want to make an underground section, it's best to route every cable to a dedicated electonics box on both levels and connect both levels and the control box with one multiwire cable each, so most of the work can be done sitting in a chair. Also make sure, tehat every piece of electronics or wiring is removable with a screwdriver or by plug in connectors, since it's nearly impossible to solder anything upside down.

[Sascha]

Thanks guys, thats a lot of new options and ideas I will have to think about.puhhhh.