I was flipping through channels on the TV the other day and saw a UP challenger pulling yellow passenger cars along with the UP Auxiliary Water Tank Car. Then I remembered that I had bought an N-Scale UP Water Tank car with the flag along with a complete set of passenger cars right before I got sick last November spending 2 months in the hospital and I never even got to run them. Actually I totally forgot all about them because the whole ordeal was so stressful. So now I’m just thinking and playing around with some ideas, but I’m not sure if the family will go for it because we are pretty crowed. My daughters are also in the middle of decorating the house for Halloween and the train might interfere with their plans. Anyway I was thinking about buying a case of 30” Bachmann N-scale EZ Track and run a narrow shelf around my 16x16 family room, but I have a 30” doorway, a 5 ft open entryway and an 8 ft open entry way that opens into a 8x8 ft breakfast room. My wife uses the breakfast room for her sewing and filling cabinets so that will not be a problem except that it’s also an entryway to the kitchen. I don’t know how to get across the open entryways unless I build a helix to go up over them which takes way too much space, but then a loop back would also take up a lot of space and N-scale would be too small to see running above the doorways. I know someone that runs O-Scale right on the floor using FasTrack which he just pulls apart during large family get-togethers, but I’m sure N-scale would not survive that.
Well, first off, I feel your pain.. About a year ago I had to demolish a 6 years in the making 35' long HO layout in my apartment due to being forced to vacate (No fault eviction/ I received a large relocation fee) after some 20 years in same place. Off the top of my head, if it interests you, you can join a MRR club. Lots of guys have no home layout and join clubs for this reason. But, for me, member of a club or not, I still have to have a home layout if I can. Next, you don't have to have a layout encompassing the 4 walls of a room. Trains do not need to go round in complete loops (Circling the room) to enjoy the layout. You can build a point to point switching layout on perhaps a 90 Deg. L shape benchwork (utilizing one corner of room). You construct it with staging tracks at one or both ends where you manually (0-5-0) lift the cars off and onto layout. This way you can go through your entire roster of cars and engines. (It's too involved explaining 'hidden' or on-layout staging here. There are a myriad of 'how to' articles on this subject in this forum and books/mags on this subject if you don't already know about it..Also, you do not need grades. It can be a flat industrial RR area you're modeling. Having no grades is actually more prototypical of industry areas along the line.. If you must traverse a doorway, check out the myriad of 'how to's on lift out or hinged sections on this subject.. Eventually you'll settle on something. Think outside the box. There are many ways to fit in a MRR to limited space...M
Hi Johnny - Mark's comments are excellent. I will add that some of the nicest layouts I've ever seen are small switching layouts on a narrow shelf. In N-scale, you can get a lot of operating and plenty of detail on a layout that is 12" or 18" deep and 4-5 feet long. Look what Lance Mindheim has done in HO scale and consider something similar in N-scale. A bit larger would be a hollow core door (30" x 80"), which in N-scale would allow for continuous running. - Jeff
I like what MarkinLA said because I was only thinking of the obstacles and not so much about the solution. I did think of a return loop on each end, but didn't think it through. I only knew that I didn't want to have too small of a loop for a long train however I do have a Walters turntable still in the box unopened. I guess I could figure something to turn the loco around on the turntable and use a run-round to go to the back of the train, but I have an observation car and a Aux water tank car to deal with. That’s going to take some thought. Anyway my family has vetoed the idea of having it in the family room because they say it will interfere with their TV viewing. So now I’m looking at the master bedroom which will shorten the track length some and there might be some issues on my wife’s side of the bed. She already said no months ago when I had to tear my layout down so the room could be a bedroom so I’m going to have to sell her on an idea.
One of the members of my local club has a small unitrack layout that fits in the corner of a room (almost the same proportions as a HCD layout just a bit bigger). It really showed me how much switching your can fit in and continuous run at the same time. Even managed a small yard. Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
Well I was lying in bed thinking about how I could run track around the walls and was getting a little excited about how long it would be until I started measuring. One wall of the bedroom is pretty much all door way, but I have vaulted ceilings which would allow me to run track at 8’ all the way across and would be visible while lying in bed. I was disappointed when I started measuring and realized that I would have a 35% grade and there isn’t any room for a helix. The lowest elevation would have to be 61” above the floor to get past my headboard and I don’t know that I would like that so much.
I might be stuck with a diorama hanging on the wall just so I can see some of my trains. I have everything in storage right now and I wish it were easy to get to my N-scale Challenger and Passenger Car set so I can get a total length measurement with all the cars in a consist. Depending on the size, I’m also thinking of making a shadow box with shelves for each passenger train set I have which is about 6 or 7 if I remember correctly.
Johnny, I am still sensing you are not savvying the idea of a point to point RR. Just for argument's sake let's make believe you have a 12' wall as the longest available area. Let's say you have a depth of 24". So we have a 2' x 12' bench area..I'm assuming you are going N scale. Even if HO you can depict a secondary line diverging off an imaginary main line. You can do many different track configurations which jut off this (which is level [no hills] )and is running through the scene from say, near front left corner to right rear corner. This main is not the heavy-rail main line but the one that has jutted off it to serve the industrial, agricultural/ logging/coal/oil scene in middle of benchwork.. And for some drama you can have one spur go up and over in an S fashion to say, a mine at a higher altitude, say. Why make a stagnant diorama when you can run engine (s) to work the scene ? There is nothing unrealistic about running in reverse if that is what you are basing your fears on. Many branch lines do and did run in reverse back to home or other businesses if the whole RR is only, say, 10 Miles. And there still is allot of scenicing (hills, roads, general store, gas station, tavern, homes, etal.) to make it come alive. You'll thus have a working switching layout. And again, you can add say 6" wide, out of scene extension (s) at ends as hands-on staging tracks ( for swapping out cars and or engines).. Gabeesh ? ....M
Hi Mark, Well I just don’t feel comfortable running my 4-6-6-4 Challenger backwards for that long of a distance on N-Scale track at that height unless I had guard rails and 2 ft dia turns seems kind of narrow for my steamer to run in reverse. I could set up my Kato Amtrak Super Chief to run back and forth, but I’d still be worried about derailments in reverse. I did run it for a test run on a 3ft wide layout, but I never tried it with cars. I may pull the layout below out of storage and set it up on top of my dresser, but I was really looking forward to running long trains which is something I have never done before.
Well, it looks like you now have a working layout.. So I don't understand why you asked for help with a track plan to begin with (and why Christopher Walken video is there). You eventually might find that certain types of locos look good or don't look good on your particular RR's real estate. I'd love a Challenger too (actually my favorite mallet is a Y6b). But I guess you bought the challenger prior to finding your allotted layout area. But it's your RR. So let'm roll.....M
I now you are capable of building pretty much anything you want. Try a swing out bridge to cross over in front of the open door. That is if the door swings out of the way.
I have 4 working layouts 3 N-scale and 1 O-scale. I just don't have a place to put them and right now they are stacked up in storage. I was just thinking I could run a track around the room without any landscaping just so I can watch them. I don't think of that as a layout. Anyway I gave up on that idea and bought some wood to build a 6ft wide display case instead just for my N-Scale trains. Depending on how it looks, I may add a couple of shelves above the the case for a couple of my O-Scale trains.
