N scale track plan - suggestions welcome


M

mschreuder

Member
I'm finally getting around to actually building a model railroad after being an armchair railroader for nearly 30 years. I've gotten the space along the back wall of my basement office and even constructed the basic benchwork.

Givens and Druthers:

- N scale, modern era (1980-ish to present).
- Run-down urban or industrial park, primarily industrial switching
- Strictly freight, no passenger operation planned at this point
- Midwest location - flat with no hills
- Main line for continuous running when I just want to watch trains run
- Main line only visible in one direction (no visible return loops)
- Hidden staging tracks for main line
- In the future will want to play with computer controlled mainline/staging to automatically generate main line traffic
- Initial benchwork already built - "L" shaped benchtop layout roughly 18" wide, 5' long on one leg, 9' long on the other leg, 48" track height.
- Will start out with just a DC supply and one or two engines, but anticipate moving to DCC very quickly

My thoughts are to develop a master plan, and then start building in stages. For example, construct the mainline and a few industrial sidings, move on to the yard and other sidings, lastly add the staging loop tracks.

I have been very inspired by the work of Lance Mindheim and his modeling of Miami industrial railroads as seen at: http://www.lancemindheim.com/


I have attached jpg images of my track plan as it currently stands and would be most grateful for any critiques or suggestions. Thanks!
 
Looks like a great plan to me. The only comment I have is that you have no crossover tracks in your yard or staging area. Adding those will make it a lot easier to handle trains without your engines getting behind cuts of cars.
 
I really like it!

At first glance it looks like a large shelf switching layout then I see where the track loops around and is mostly hidden running between the backdrop buildings!

A agree that if you put in a few "diamonds" it would give the feeling of an interchange and the impression that there is a lot more railroad in the area...
 
I like the idea of a crossover in the yard so an engine can pull straight in without being trapped - never even gave that a thought! I think that the uppermost two tracks in the yard would be the place to put it. Not sure if the crossover track in the staging would be that big of a deal since all of the tracks are double-ended.

I also like the idea of a couple of diamond crossings / fake interchange just to make it look like there is more going on - just need to figure out where to squeeze it in.

Thanks for the ideas!

By the way - I developed the track plan on xTrkCad - what a great program (and free!) I printed the layout at 1:1 scale last night just to lay it out and better visualize what it will look like. This will also be a tremendous help when I actually start laying rail to determine where the holes need to go in the drywall for the pass-throughs to the staging yard - I want to keep the holes as small as possible. Ideally I would like to keep the holes the size of a standard duplex outlet so I can just put in a dummy box and blank cover if the layout ever moves somewhere else.
 
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