TrainboyH16-44
Failfan
This is a cross-post to trains.com, but I hope you don't mind!
Here's the gist of my situation: (Scroll to the next paragraph if you don't care) My dad built me an HO layout when I was 5 that I've outgrown at this point. It's got 24" curves and I can't count the number of times myself or a friend (Think Thaddeus Thudpucker here) has stringlined a train of boxcars into Redrock Canyon. The 50s style spaghetti bowl that my current MRR is has just too much packed in, and leaves not enough scenically for me to do anything with, much less prototypically - so I decided that I wanted to build my own layout in the next room, and dismantle the old one. I came up with a beautiful 3-deck half-cutaway-mushroom design with an absolutely beautiful yard for the 14x25' space (turns out I'm really quite good at designing layouts) and was almost done the mainline when it hit me - I was still living in my parent's house, and so was likely to move out before the scenery was even complete! I also realized how hard it is to pack truly breathtaking and overwhelming scenery in an HO scale layout along with a good mainline run and a finite space. A 14-18" shelf can get a lot of scenery, but hardly anything as truly overwhelming as the landscape I live in. N scale, of course, became incredibly appealing, but as I have a 30-locomotive strong HO roster that I've been building up with much affection for 10 years,. a straight switch would be deadly. I decided to make use of a small space at the end of the room with a small, simple layout that would help me transition into N scale modeling for the future. I decided to make use of a 6x14' space at the end of the room, and design just a loop with a few features.
Tech questions:
1: I was planning to use a 30" minimum radius for the HO layout to allow for large locos (especially steamers) Is 18" a good minimum radius in N to give wide curves without limiting the use of space horribly, or would, say, 15" be a better compromise?
2: Switches. I've been looking at the Atlas code 55 line, and though I was planning to use #6s in yards and spurs and #8s for the mainline in the HO layout, I notice their line only has #5s and #7s - To keep space down, is it operationally harmful to make the yard ladder out of #5 turnouts? Should I consider Peco turnouts?
3: Track spacing - Are 1.25" centres acceptable for yard trackage?
Any other tips would be very helpful, of course.
Thanks in advance!
Here's the gist of my situation: (Scroll to the next paragraph if you don't care) My dad built me an HO layout when I was 5 that I've outgrown at this point. It's got 24" curves and I can't count the number of times myself or a friend (Think Thaddeus Thudpucker here) has stringlined a train of boxcars into Redrock Canyon. The 50s style spaghetti bowl that my current MRR is has just too much packed in, and leaves not enough scenically for me to do anything with, much less prototypically - so I decided that I wanted to build my own layout in the next room, and dismantle the old one. I came up with a beautiful 3-deck half-cutaway-mushroom design with an absolutely beautiful yard for the 14x25' space (turns out I'm really quite good at designing layouts) and was almost done the mainline when it hit me - I was still living in my parent's house, and so was likely to move out before the scenery was even complete! I also realized how hard it is to pack truly breathtaking and overwhelming scenery in an HO scale layout along with a good mainline run and a finite space. A 14-18" shelf can get a lot of scenery, but hardly anything as truly overwhelming as the landscape I live in. N scale, of course, became incredibly appealing, but as I have a 30-locomotive strong HO roster that I've been building up with much affection for 10 years,. a straight switch would be deadly. I decided to make use of a small space at the end of the room with a small, simple layout that would help me transition into N scale modeling for the future. I decided to make use of a 6x14' space at the end of the room, and design just a loop with a few features.
Tech questions:
1: I was planning to use a 30" minimum radius for the HO layout to allow for large locos (especially steamers) Is 18" a good minimum radius in N to give wide curves without limiting the use of space horribly, or would, say, 15" be a better compromise?
2: Switches. I've been looking at the Atlas code 55 line, and though I was planning to use #6s in yards and spurs and #8s for the mainline in the HO layout, I notice their line only has #5s and #7s - To keep space down, is it operationally harmful to make the yard ladder out of #5 turnouts? Should I consider Peco turnouts?
3: Track spacing - Are 1.25" centres acceptable for yard trackage?
Any other tips would be very helpful, of course.
Thanks in advance!
