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I finaly got around to measuring the room. The mesurements are
158 inches on the north south and 135 on the east west. The door to the room is on the east end of the room mesurements from the north wall to door is 74 inches and from the south wall is 58 inches the door itself is 25 inches wide. There is a water valve on the west side of the room that is from 44 to 52 inches from the north wall the one valve is 17 inches from the wall so I will have to build around it.
My plan is to have a Yard along the south wall.
The Main for the entire basement will be three tracks. A single Upper main that will be raised by a hill and bridges. In room 1 it will conseal where the track from the staging will come out in room 1. Staging track will come out into the yard as apart of the two track lower main. and will join the two track main in the southwest corner of room 1. I was thinking of having the raised single main move out to the middle of the table on the west side of the room and if I win those Deck Girder bridges or get those plastic ones the upper main will cross the lower mains on the north west corner and then cross back over by the southwest side but far enough from the wall for a track to break off the main and go into the yard. I was thinking of haveing that become the loop around the room back over to the other side and rejoin the main on the other side,
The Yard will be a Ten track or better yard but will be a secondary yard as the main yard will be in the larger room 3
Of Course the plan was for the layout to be a u shape in this room following the north, west and south sides of the room.
At the north east end of the yard will be my three bay roundhouse which I already have built... Will be putting a larger yard and full roundhouse in room 3 as well.
At the west end of the yard will be the fuel depot and coaling and water towers followed by the diesel shop. This all can follow the curve around the west side of the room
In the northeast side of the room I was planning on having a Powerplant with the loop around like they do at powerplants where they off load the coal.
I was wondering if anyone could help me on the design of this room as I am just starting out?
Also this yard in this room will be an intermodal yard. I already have one Kalmar Container lift truck. I may also stick that walthers modern warehouse in this yard on the north side and it will have a road running to it from the east where trucks can enter. the road will pass the roundhouse and cross the rooms mainline loop. Each room will have its own loop but one side will be the second track to the lower main line.
Here is what I come up with. The thinnest lines are the track. Somewhat thicker are roads and the thickest are the edge of the tables. This is the basic layout that I am thinking of for this room. Be aware that this is not a scale drawing but just a crude idea of what I was thinking of doing.
On the east end of the yard we could eather rejoin the main or put track enders at each end of the rail and just not have an exit to that end of the yard which would leave more space in the yard for more rolling stock. BTW each line repersents a seperat track and on the north side the outer most line is the raised line. It will in rooms two and Three come down to level so that I can switch on and off of it, That way the entire layout will be connected. Programming tracks will be one bay in the roundhouse and one bay in the Diesel shop. Also under the Raised main will be the Track that will come from the Staging yard that will be under the layout in room Three. It will join the outer main on the lower main in the room and a crossover switch will allow trains to enter the main and yard in this room.
Don, the first issue is how are you planning to access the layout. Your maximum reach is about 30" and it appears that most of the layout is deeper than taht. I can't tell if some of those square areas represent pop-ups or not but you'll need some, particularly in the roudhouse and yard area. With a yard that large, you'll also need a few crossover tracks to avoid your switchers getting stuck behind cuts of cars. I don't know if you've thought of this but it looks like you have a reverse loop at the power plant so the will need either some extra wiring or an automatic reverser for DCC.
Since the door opening coming into the layout room is only 25", that means about half your aisleway space will also be around 25". That's really narrow and will make it very difficult for even you to work in the area let alone wanting to have another operator. If you can bring the benchwork in about 6" on each side, that will make it much more comfortable to work on the layout, not to mention lessening the chance of knocking one of your prize locomotives to the floor.
I will just eliminate the reverse loop at the powerplant. didnt really think of that was just a hairbrained idea.
I dont think I will be making that as deep as it looks but its just a crude drawing. It may only be that wide near the enterance due to the loop around as I wanted to run a wide enough turn however I may only run 22 inch turns instead of 30 inch. That should bring the width down alittle.
As far as the yard I will add some crossovers where ever needed. Also I plan to run a bumper around the edge to keep anything from falling off the layout. it may be in the form of a canal or something. As far as popups I will have a few to access parts of the yard and other areas. as I do know I will need to reach a few places.
The area to the west of the powerplant will be one and it will be the loop around were Coal is unloaded for the plant.
I may connect the sub to the yard instead of the Main at the south west corner. I may just use it for Geeps and Switchers and have sharper turns on it.
I will have it connected to the main on the northwest corner though The roundhouse and diesel shop will be at the one end of the yard. The south wall will be buildings.
The sub will be warehouses and such.
Then again I may not have the sub hooked to the main at all. I also left out some switches that will connect the two lower main lines so I can switch trains from the outer to the inner so they may enter the yard. There will be a crossover on the north side just past the powerplant and one closer to the yard.
So, did you decide to have a point to point layout and do away with the continuous running loop at the power plant? It's personal preference, of course, but I like to be able to sit back and watch the go round and round sometimes.
I may have a loop in another room But I kinda like seeing the point to point. Besides when the entire layout is done it will be one large loop I may not have a powerplant there just dont know. But after watching a few videos on Youtube of the rail across America I kinda rethought my plan. The point to point is more prototypical and one can use the space in the room better as I did in the second plan. Room three may have a loop as it is the largest room but then again it may make it really hard to reach the back of the layout. I really dont like the idea of popups to get to places as it would mean crawling around under the tables. The reason for having tables in the first place is so you dont have to crawl on the floor.
Here is a corrected view of what it may be
Don, it's going to be really hard to reach parts of your proposed layout regardless of it's point to point. With an average reach of 30" and most of the layout against the wall, you're still going to need popups to get to the south wall yard and roundhouse, the north wall section by the door, and most of the layout on the wall with the water pipe. Maybe I'm just not seeing this right but I don't uderstan how not having a loop equals no need fo popups.
Well the layout mesurements are not there yet. I doubt that the layout along the wall with the exception of the two corners will be more then 30 inches, Keep in mind that this is only a Crude drawing and not a scale mockup. Besides I have a step ladder that can extend reach if needed which I dont plan on needing to reach that far. I will build from the outside in.
Don, I could visualize this better with some actual measurements of the benchwork. However, anything deeper than 30" or so is going to be a problem. It's not just building the layout. That's actually the easy part, since you can start at the deepest part and work your way out. The problems come when the layout is in operation. Simple things like cleaning the tracks in the back become a major chore as you try to get that job done without knocking over the scenery in front. Re-railing cars is also another pain. You'll be surprised on how many times you want to change a detail here and there and how difficult limited access makes this. I suggest you start measuring out exactly how wide you think the benchwork will be and start looking for alternative access points for anything over 30".
