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Good Morning : Middletown , NJ here with a 29 X 10 basement waiting for the next empire. Fraught with designs. cannot do around the walls/ room. . , possible folded dogbone , who knows.
Looking for track planners . professional and amateurs. or anyone in the area who might want to look see....kibitz?
tried searching for a possible list or other searches..lots of ideas and approaches..
Thanks for the reply...
I have some software, but a learning curve there....
I am , looking for someone somewhat professional or experienced hobbyists(have spoken to a couple of planners, very nice guys, but budget breakers. ).
I have some ideas.. essentially 1950's transition, Coal to port... pop was a B & O yardmaster ad hoc trainmaster at times , NYC/NJ B&O yards.. car floats. coal for ConEd etc have a bunch of articulated's... would like long coal drags etc .
If around-the-room style layout is not possible, then the next best is a floating island that you can walk around.
With a room 10 feet wide, I would consider a 5-foot wide table, with a 3-foot aisle on the main side, and a 2-foot aisle on the back side. (Check fire codes, if necessary, if either aisle is an egress route).
Keeping the table width to 5 feet means the most you would ever have to reach is 30 inches from the edges. Most adults can easily reach 30" without having to brace yourself to keep from falling into your scenery.
Most people who float a layout like this will put up a scenic divider, so you can have completely separate scenes on opposite sides of the divider.
You say you want lang coal drags. A 5-foot wide by 12-foot, or, given your space, up to about 20-foor long, would make for really great opportunities for very scenic and meandering mainlines.
Have you tried the software route?
You can basically draw your space available and play with the layout easily.
I am space limited too so used "XTrack cad" which is totally free and not bad. I also used "scarm" as it gives 3D rendering but the free version is limited on track peices and other functionality so you have to do it in "dioramas" unless you want to buy it. For what it is I would say it was fairly pricy unless you really need it.
Both can download all the track data for many scales/gauges and brands to see how it fits and knits so to speak.
I purchased Anyrail.... like other CAD programs theres a heck of a learning curve.... if there was someone nearby who could tutor me . that would be great.but obviously that may not be practical....
I have had other layouts , worked off published plans , but the room configuration here haven't found any ..some close calls ,, ,but trying to avoid a another duck under , 30+ years as a paramedic in NYC, my back,..., what's left of it, is not looking froward to ducking under again thanks!
Walt
I used AnyRail for a bit, but ended up using PowerPoint and AnyRail. I use mostly flex track. I made template structures for switches and bridges and rerailers. I made an X-Y grid in PowerPoint, with fiducial markers and scaled it to the actual layout board size. Then, just laid out the trackage with the same fiducial markers on the foam board, and adjusted the track spacing and curvatures to fit. I used Woodland Scenics wedges for elevation- worked great!
Here is the initial layout: you can see the hybrid of AnyRail and PowerPoint. Also, when all was done- I had to adjust tracks on the foam board when finishing the layout.
