First layout questions


izelforshezel

izelforshezel

Chugga Chugga CHOO CHOO!!
Hi, I am constucting my first layout. It is HO scale. I was wondering if anyone knew of an interesting track plan for a 4x10. I am not sure where I want my track and in what shape I want it in and I'm hoping after seeing some cool track plans I could become inspired. I was looking for something more interesting than a basic oval.
Also, what is the usual order that people use when constucting a layout (Example: First: laying down track, Second: Ground cover, Third: Add people, etc.)

Thank you very much for reading and your responses,
-Isaac (First-time Modeler)
 
Track plans will vary depending on what you want to do. I would say for that size you stick to a switching style track plan, or a oval with some switching inside.

The order I build layouts is as follows

make a Track plan
Build Benchwork
lay track,Test trackplan as you lay it (this is important not just for testing if the track work is good but also to see where you may be adding bridges and other stuff near your track)
Add any electrical stuff or reserve space for electrical stull that will be used later ( example, under table switch machines)
Add mountians and hill sides.
ground cover,Scenery and ballast etc....
Detail the layout.

Thats a basic example. you will find that as you are building diffrent parts of the layout you will be a little ahead or behind in other parts of the layout. Just try and think ahead for things that will be added both on and under your layout.

Trent
 
If you have the space, consider going a bit wider than 4 feet. I found that I couldn't create a 22 inch radius curve in 4 feet and this is necessary if you want to run longer cars like passenger trains. Going to 5 feet give you a lot more flexibility in your design.
 
I agree, you will be that much happier with 24" radius curves because it will make your longer cars, and larger locomotives of both types, steam or diesel, look a lot better. Also, the wider curves are somewhat more forgiving when it comes to variations, or disparities, in the rail heights from place to place, and your trains will perform better.

I believe Atlas has several track plans published on their website, and so does Kato.

Many of us prefer to design our own because the hobby is such a personal thing to most of us...we want it to bear our signature. If you fall into that camp, you really have little practical choice but to keep educating yourself about railroading and how to make a decent approximation in the small defined spaces where everything must be compressed. An excellent resource, now 50+ years after it was first published, is Track Planning for Realistic Operation by the late John Armstrong. A local hobby shop may have it, or contact Kalmbach Publishing, the publishers of Model Railroader Magazine. You can do this at the MR website. Anyone who has taken the time to read Armstrong's book twice will tell you the value of that nugget.
 
izelforshezel said:
Hi, I am constucting my first layout. It is HO scale. I was wondering if anyone knew of an interesting track plan for a 4x10. I am not sure where I want my track and in what shape I want it in and I'm hoping after seeing some cool track plans I could become inspired. I was looking for something more interesting than a basic oval.
Also, what is the usual order that people use when constucting a layout (Example: First: laying down track, Second: Ground cover, Third: Add people, etc.)

Thank you very much for reading and your responses,
-Isaac (First-time Modeler)
Click to expand...

Two suggestions:

1) Make a drawing of the entire room you plan to put your layout in. Measure all distances, mark off distances, doors, windows, furnaces, work tables and other things the layout will have to share it's space with.

This allows you (and others) to evaluate how to fit a layout into your available space.

2) Start a list of what you want to be able to *do* on your layout. What kind of locomotives and cars? Freight? Passenger? Long trains? Short trains? More than one train running at the same time? Urban warehouses? Harbor? Prairie? Mountains?

Do you want to just sit and watch the train run past, or would you like to sort cars in a yard and deliver cars to industries?

Do you want to model your trains arriving from "up the line" or "down the line" and departing "up the line" or "down the line"? If so, think about staging (a place where a train can wait until it is due "on stage" or after having left the stage).

What is your dream? Is there some specific railroad you want to model? Some specific era - Civil War trains? 1920s? 1950s? 1970s? Current times? Why? What is the attraction for you?

And so on and so forth - describe your goal - why you want to make a layout, what you hope to get from it.

And please - don't say "I don't want to make any choices - I just want a little of everything". Try to make a prioritized list of what is most important to you and what is more optional (nice to have if I can fit it in).

The conceptual design phase is far more important than trying to learn some specific software program to draw track plans.

After conceptual design comes structural design - finding places in your room for the main structural elements of your design - towns, yards, bridges etc.

Finally comes the detailed design phase, where you adjust the precise location of each track (to whatever level you feel you want/need - you can always make some changes as you are laying the tracks).

Smile,
Stein
 
First - what Stein said. Then if, like me, that raises more questions than answers right away, you might consider some sort of interim solution. I built six 2'x4' modules that I currently have connected together as a simple 4'x12' peninsula in the middle of my room. Then I set up a simple flat layout with the snap track I already had (only 18" curves) so that I could at least run something. Decided to expand it to a folded 8 with a 22" outer oval - definitely see the 'realism' effect of the larger radius curves (and I don't have any 'long' rolling stock). I also found a (relatively) local club with a permanent layout - I got a whole different perspective versus looking at track plans online.

I've been trying all sorts of different stuff using the free XtrackCad layout designer software. That (and some advice from a club member) has let me work out ways to optimize the space in the room. The space I get to work in is sort of a large alcove - a three-wall room where the fourth wall is an aisleway. I'm currently looking at an around-the-wall design with one turnaround in the middle of one long wall and the other at the end of a short peninsula that borders the aisleway (Think of an 'F' and an 'L' shoved together with the 'L' reversed). But ultimately I come back to what Stein said. If you are going to have a layout that is more than just track to run trains on, you need to come up with a vision for that miniature world you hope to create. So I'm getting by with trying lots of things in xtrackcad, a few different things on the temporary layout when I want to see it 'for real', and spending time at the club layout while I try to really answer the questions Stein puts forth so that I'm not ripping it all up in a year or two.

Peace,
Mike
 
psmithhamilton said:
If you have the space, consider going a bit wider than 4 feet. I found that I couldn't create a 22 inch radius curve in 4 feet and this is necessary if you want to run longer cars like passenger trains. Going to 5 feet give you a lot more flexibility in your design.
Click to expand...

This maybe a stupid question but I am in the same boat. I have squeezed 48" inches out of my wife in hopes that I could then extend my curve radius to 22" Why would you not be able to make a 22" inch radius or 44" in diameter turn in 48"s of space. I do realize this measurement is taken at center of track, but even with half the track and road bed on each side are you really extending the outer radius beyond 24" that would be two inches from center to outer edge. Seems it should fit, albeit tightly but it should fit and if not shrinking it a bit wouldn't kill the idea I wouldn't think.

Excpetions being very long cars and locos, and possibly estetics, why aren't curves in the 18 - 22 inch ranges practical for most 40-50 scale feet cars an locomotives? If there are serious ramifications to making 18" curves then I am up a doo doo creek without a paddle.
 
if you are running 40-50 foot cars then 18" radius curves are fine. I fell in lovr with the heavyweight passenger cars and they will not navigate an 18" curve. If all you are doing is a single loop then, yes, you can accommodate a 22" radius in 4 feet width. I had some additional space that I could use and by expanding my initial benchwork to 5' I could build in the stubs (turnouts etc of the expansion.
 
I currently have 18"R and 22"R ovals on my temporary layout (built only with atlas snap track so no easements). The 22"R oval end is about 45.25" outside diameter. So it will physically fit on a 48" wide surface (just not much of a safety margin if the train derails).
The technical issue with the tighter radius curves has to do with the couplers and the trucks. For trucks, the longer the distance from the front axle of a truck to the rear axle, the quicker it will bind in a tight radius curve and derail. And if the truck has more than two axles, that complicates things further. Couplers have a limited range of motion. Their pivot point is either on the truck or on the car body. If a coupler is body-mounted, the tighter the curve radius the further the pivot point pushes off-center when the car goes around the curve. Result can be either decoupling or derailing.
The freight set I have came with a 50' gondola. Couplers are body-mounted. It navigates the 18" curve without issue (it came in a rtr set that only had 18" curve track, so one would expect it to 'work'). Esthetically, it looks a lot better on the 22" curve. On the 18" curve, the middle of the car hangs .5" over the inside end of the rail ties. On a 22" curve the overhang is .3". The car itself is only 1.3" wide, so that .2" difference in overhang is visually huge (.2" HO translates to about 1.5' real world).

Something to consider - possibly an out-and-back or switching layout rather than a looping layout? Personally I feel a need to have a loop so that I can consider letting my grandkids operate the train without having to worry if they'll stop in time, and I have to admit I sometimes like just watching the train run.

Peace,
Mike
 
Thanks everyone for the great advice. After listening to all of you, I have downloaded the Track planning program from Atlas. It seems like it will help me alot (as soon as I learn it).

Stein, I like your idea and I will certainly make a prioritized list
Do you want to model your trains arriving from "up the line" or "down the line" and departing "up the line" or "down the line"? If so, think about staging (a place where a train can wait until it is due "on stage" or after having left the stage).
Click to expand...
I'm not quite sure what that means, sorry. Please explain :)


I did have another question. Alot of you are talking about different radius curves, as a newbie to model railroading I am a little confused. Are larger radius curves preferred by most modelers? Do they look more realistic? I do not intend to run large passenger cars however I am looking for realism.

Thank you all for your responses and your help, I am learning alot!
-Isaac
 
Longer cars require larger radii. turns. Same goes for engines. so long passenger cars can use large radii like 24 inches. The cars look better on the those tracks and they run better as well.
 
psmithhamilton said:
I had some additional space that I could use and by expanding my initial benchwork to 5' I could build in the stubs (turnouts etc of the expansion.
Click to expand...

If I had the room I would take it, dont get me wrong, but plenty of layouts have been made on a 4X8 sheet of plywood many with parrallel tracks on the curves. this would restrict curves to 22" and below.

I just get the feeling that many on here forget that many of us just don't have alot of room but we still want a layout. We have to make sacrifices. I curves might be a bit to tight or our grades a little to steep. But if it works then we can make do. We may not be able to run the cool passenger train we want to or pull as many cars as we want to. but sacrifices have to be made.

Just my two cents, however I for one Love the experience and expertise that come with the suggestions. I am learning alot and it has changed how I am thinking. I am learning and this will save time and money in costly mistakes down the road.

Just remeber make it bigger isn't always an answer for some of us.
 
gngsound said:
Something to consider - possibly an out-and-back or switching layout rather than a looping layout? Personally I feel a need to have a loop so that I can consider letting my grandkids operate the train without having to worry if they'll stop in time, and I have to admit I sometimes like just watching the train run.

Peace,
Mike
Click to expand...

Yes this is why I want something more than a switching layout. and I will have to sacrifice some estetics for this to happen. 80% of the time my layout will be a stwitching layout, but once in awhile I want to let them run.
 
izelforshezel said:
I'm not quite sure what that means, sorry. Please explain :)
Click to expand...

One way of making a model railroad layout seem bigger is to build it in such a way that what you see is just a small part of a big world - that trains will come from "elsewhere" and go to "elsewhere".

One way of simulating this is to have one or more tracks (staging) that are hidden (or at least a little out of the way), where a train can wait before making it's appearance on the main stage.

When the train is driven out from hidden staging you can pretend that it is just arriving from one or several other places "down that way" or "up that way".


izelforshezel said:
Alot of you are talking about different radius curves, as a newbie to model railroading I am a little confused. Are larger radius curves preferred by most modelers? Do they look more realistic? I do not intend to run large passenger cars however I am looking for realism.
Click to expand...

Larger curves look more realistic, and they work better - in terms of cars tracking well when going around the curve both when being pulled and when being pushed.

Rule of the thumb is that the minimum recommended curve radius is three times the length of the longest cars. If your cars are about 5.5" long (i.e 40 foot cars in 1:87 scale), minimum curve radius should be at least 16.5" radius.

If your cars are 60 foot cars (i.e. 1.5 times as long as 40-foot cars), minimum recommended curve radius is about 1.5 times 16.5" radius - or about 24-25" radius).

Those are the recommended minimums.

If you want cars to automatically couple using self centered couplers - like if you have a run-around track or an industry or a yard on a curve, recommended minimum radius is 5 times the length of the longest cars.

So a curved yard for 40' cars should be about 5 x 5.5" = 27.5" radius, a curved yard for 60' cars should be about 41" radius.

For an 89 foot double stack container cars, the H0 scale model is about 12" long - 3x is about 36" radius curves, 5x is 60" (5 foot) radius curves.

Those are the recommendations - you can get a car to go around a little sharper curves, by filing away stuff on the underside of the car, so the wheel trucks can swivel wider, replacing couplers with longer couplers, moving couplers from being body mounted to being truck mounted and various other tricks.

But 3x is a good ballpark figure for a curve where you won't need to couple and uncouple, 5x is a good ballpark figure for a curved yard.

Going N scale makes all these dimensions smaller - by a factor of 1.8 (i.e. 1:87/1:160). A 40-foot car is a little over 3" long in H0 scale, making curve radii down to just under 10" practical for sharp curves and curve radii of about 15" being wide curves.

Smile,
Stein
 
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I know there are a lot of different layouts out there, but I happened to find this site (http://www.layoutvision.com) today - his 'Tips and Ideas' page has some interesting stuff, like considering the overall footprint of a traditional 4x8 and making a larger layout that in theory doesn't consume any extra floorspace. The page with those alternatives also has a link to some 4x8 plans - the "Shortline" one looks like something I'd lean toward if I had to stay within a 4x8 surface.
 
gngsound said:
the "Shortline" one looks like something I'd lean toward if I had to stay within a 4x8 surface.
Click to expand...

Me too. But the OP said 4x10, not 4x8.

What I would like to see is a couple of photos, a plan showing the room and/or a fairly clear verbal description of the room. That will tell us whether a 4x10 is a good idea for that room, an okay idea for that room or a not so good idea for that room

As a rough rule of the thumb, a 4 x something rectangular layout will need minimum 2 foot wide aisles down each side of the layout. So a 4 x 10 needs at least 8 x 12 feet of available floor space.

(yeah, one can do various tricks to stove things away more when the layout is not in use, but the bigger the layout gets, the harder it is to roll away, winch up, put on it's side in a corner or whatever other schemes people come up with).

Smile,
Stein
 
View attachment 25633

This is the space I'm using. The Layout comes out of a little 6'x5' nook and into wider space. The tables are a 4'x8' connected to a 6'x2' forming a 4'x10' with a 2'x2' square of workbench/possible layout.

-Isaac :)
 
izelforshezel said:
View attachment 25633

This is the space I'm using. The Layout comes out of a little 6'x5' nook and into wider space. The tables are a 4'x8' connected to a 6'x2' forming a 4'x10' with a 2'x2' square of workbench/possible layout.

-Isaac :)
Click to expand...

Your arms can reach about 2 feet or so comfortably.

How are you planning to reach the stuff in the upper left part of the nook and along the upper wall - presumably not by reaching across 4-5 feet of table from your two foot aisle?

Mock it up with cardboard taped to the wall, and see if it makes sense :)

And draw the entire room, not just the part you are planning to use. Someone else might spot options you haven't considered by seeing the whole picture.

Smile,
Stein
 
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steinjr said:
Your arms can reach about 2 feet or so comfortably.

How are you planning to reach the stuff in the upper left part of the nook and along the upper wall - presumably not by reaching across 4-5 feet of table from your two foot aisle?

Mock it up with cardboard taped to the wall, and see if it makes sense :)

And draw the entire room, not just the part you are planning to use. Someone else might spot options you haven't considered by seeing the whole picture.

Smile,
Stein
Click to expand...

What Stein said.

You will not be able to reach anything along the long side of the layout.

Can you use any other part of the room?

Do you HAVE to use the 4x8 and 6x2 rectangular areas?

A two foot aisle is just not practical.

Do you want point to point or run continuously? A mix of both?

Will there be any grades? Do you want grades?

Hidden tracks?

Are yards important to you?

Lots of industries to serve or just minimal?

Do you want to run long trains or just switch?

Will you want or need staging yards?

Write down a list of what you want, or just have to have, things you don't want and what your limitations are.....we call them a list of 'givens and druthers'.

Instead of asking for a track plan we need a bit more info to help you decide.

-G-
 
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