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I'm really not that great at designing layouts. I need help or tips on how to design one. I am always drawing layouts, but I never really like them after a little while of looking them over. I am 15 starting on my first major layout, so I want a really nice one. I have quite a bit of space to work with too since I am working with N scale. 138"x70" (It is a corner of a room.) I'm thinking about doing an "L" shaped layout with mountains on one end, a river separating the mountains and a small town, and then a yard/industrial area on the other end. Any help would be great!
I also want it to be focused on grain. I model KCS and I have mostly grain cars. My main train has 2 SD70ace's and 24 southern belle hopper cars.
Avery
Do a search on this site & Google using a few of the parameters you've listed. There's a gazillion plans already out there. Suggest you don't actually model mountains if you're modeling Kansas as there aren't any there. At most you might be able to see the Rockies over the horizon in western Kansas. LOL Save that space for more model railroading. If you're doing grain should have more than one rural grain elevator & a large grain storage place. Plus there are many other farm related industries there. So do some more research on what you want to model. That can be as much fun as actually modeling! Check into the Kansas Historical Society http://www.kshs.org/
Very little of the Kansas City Southern is in Kansas. Most track south of Kansas City is in Missouri rather than Kansas. I think most over all trackage would be in Louisiana, or maybe Texas. But as the prior poster noted, KCS sort of skirts the Ozark mountains to the east so I don't know of any "mountains" that would work for what you are thinking. Not even any that would look "in the distance". There is a tunnel called the Jennson near Heavner Oklahoma. There are three "tunnels" near Vicksburg that puts the railroad under some urban area roads and directly out across the Mississippi. There are also some real tunnels on the KCS de Mexico, south of the border.
Avery,
If you google 'n-scale track plans,' and click the image link, you will see a lot of different track plans that others have designed. You might also check out some of the different track planning books that are available, from Atlas, or Kalmback, or by the author John Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong wrote a number of books on the subject of trackplanning before his death, which can be very practical and helpful. You might also consider looking at track plans from other scales, as sometimes simply by changing the scale a design with 'tight curves,' in one scale, might not be so tight in another scale. Good luck!
