Need some help with first Plan

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P

p95ccw

New Member
Hello,

I got bit by the bug and decided to make this my new hobby, I have been reading here for a bit and trying to learn what I can. I plan on going N scale and I have decided to do a "L" shaped table and I plan on going 3'*6'*5'. I am going to do a southern small town with heavy commercial applications. 1980-2000 time frame.

I would like to preform yard operations as well as picking up and dropping off freight from several commercial customers. I plan on having a few sparse residential locations but not a full blown town.

This is the plan I have so far. I have a few questions about this plan if some one could help me out. I plan on building this in stages starting with the main line to learn the basics and learn to run everything then adding the rest as I go. I will be running DCC and I would like to pull a lot of cars 15+.

Does this yard design have any limitations?

Will I have enough room to pull and load the large trains I would like to run?

Are the corners to sharp on the Main line? (I used 13.75 Radius in the plan)

Does anyone have any suggestions for an overall improvement to the plan?


Thanks,
 
Access

Are you building an L to put it in a corner of a room? If so I would be worried about access by the 5' mark. That is a long way to reach. But I like the layout a lot.

If we do another one I am interested in N-scale, so I will be interested to see what other feedback you get.
 
Yes that was one of my concerns but I am a tall guy with a good reach and I have enough room to leave access to the back side of that corner if I need to. Thanks for the reply!
 


I'm not an n scaler so I cant tell you about radiuses but the yard has limitations. You want large trains, 15+ cars, and your longest yard track is a little over 2 feet, yard tracks from 1 foot two 2 foot arent of much use building and taking apart trains 15+ cars. Also your track is way to close to the edge (and over is some places =) ) the first time your train derails onto the floor and into a million pieces it goes =).
 
Here is a possible alternative you can take what you want leave what ya dont, because you have to remeber its your layout.



layouthelp.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thank you very much for the great info and for the ideas I redrew the plan and this is what I have so far. Thanks again for the help!
 
I think you are making the same mistake a lot of beginner's make, thinking about the track before you think about everything else. What is the purpose of your railroad. Why does it do that it does? and what are you trying to accomplish.

Try checking out my beginner's guide clickable below. From there wander around the site and look at some of the n-scale plans in the contests. I think you might get some fresh ideas.
 
Try to get rid of the s-curves.
And I don't think every layout needs to have a loop. If you want it realistic, then at least hide some of the loop with a tunnel or something, because, think about what you are modeling. Does it have a loop? Not like that, at least.
 
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