...of how I should do my layout.
I've been in O gauge now for a few years, and a couple of years ago I built my 1st layout. Due to space constraints, it's small and rolls under a twin sized bed. Somewhere I posted photos of it on the forum, but here is the track plan.
It's nice for the short train I had at the time. It's FasTrack on 1/2 plywood. The single spur has a passenger station, the double spur has one side a factory and the other the bin to catch logs from my Lionel dump car.
Well, this summer I bought my 1st house, now I finally have some room to play in. There is an addition to the back of the house that I have claimed as the train room. It's about 13'x19' with no windows. The requirements for this room I have to fit the layout in are be able to put lots of shelving on the walls for all the railroad memorabilia I have as well as my wife's nick-nacs and our extra books. I also need to be able to put a desk with our family computer on it in the room. As for the layout, I want to be able to run at least two trains at once, have a passenger station, a grain silo, a warehouse, a small oil industry, and a yard. A double main would be nice, but not necessary. All my current rolling stock is semi scale, so O31 min is okay. I like to watch the trains go around mostly, but also enjoy some switching operations. This would be a conventional layout.
Here is the room in SCARM (file below). The desk is marked as such and close to the wall we want it on. The top black box is the back door (swings in and hinges on the left), and the only way into the back yard. Our washer and dryer are in a shed back there, and I have two boys that want to be able to play back there too. The right black bar is the archway into the rest of the house via the dinning room. The red/brown L in the lower right corner is brickwork that goes floor to ceiling. I think one time they had a stove there.
At first, I was planning on only using two sides, again with FasTrack since I like it and have a bunch.
The track is O36 min. Then my wife made the mistake of saying she wouldn't mind it going around the room when I was lamenting the deepness of the one side. So I designed one that takes up most of the room.
Now it's min O48, but has all the same elements. I could now think about getting the MTH Triplex I like after the layout was finished and be able to run it. But now I have to have two lift outs, but I can still do switching operations even if the lift outs are removed. But there is no way to turn anything around without picking it up. Then Lionel announced the Vision Big Boy. The BB is my most favorite locomotive of all time. I have the K-line BB already, but to have a scale one with the works, I have to have. But O72 curves would really limit what I could do because of how close the back door is to the corner. At this time I also noticed how great Atlas track looks and got some to try out. It's so quiet too, so now I've changed my mind to Atlas. So I redid it yet again. This time with O54 min, with a wye and bigger yard in the middle, and two levels, 12" apart.Here's the bottom followed by the top.
The bottom has the yard with a lead. Top has a spur for loading hoppers with coal, lower left of the yard is the oil industry spurs, that or the bottom yard leg and the spurs for caboose and repair in place storage. The passenger station and town would be similar to the layout in v2. The top has a loop of O72 to run the BB on, and a siding to store it on if I run something else up there. The silo would go on the bottom. Now I have a spur also to drop stock cars. So the bottom would be more urban and the top rural. But adding up the price has given me sticker shock. I know it'll come down as many places sell track below MSRP, but it still seems daunting as it'll be several years in the making due to a limited train budget.
Included in my roster is a GG1 and an EP-5. I've always thought it'd be fun to have the over head wires for them too, for looks, not to power them. That'd be a lot of work on this layout. Then last night the thought hit me, as a way to get a layout going that isn't a big outlay at once, and that could allow me to do things a bit differently. I know I can get almost 4 4x8 sheets in the room along the two walls without any openings. So my thought is to make it almost modular, doing up one 4x8 sheet at a time. Then I could have them as different areas. One I could run over head wires on, and the GG1 and EP-5 would call that home. I'd plan ahead so that there is track that connects each module and so there is an outer long loop. Each section would also be somewhat self contained. I'd still have at least one track that goes all around the edge of the room. For the BB, I'd also have to do a 2nd around the room loop, but now it can be higher as it won't be connected to the lower anymore, unless I can figure out if any of my locomotives can handle a 6-8% grade (v3 had a close to 5% grade, but since I have the FasTrack over under and know I have a couple of locomotives that can do it with 5-8 cars I was okay with it.).
So, sorry for the long post, but now to the question. Has anyone ever done a sectional home layout like this? Do others think I should go with any of the layouts I already designed? Does anyone have a new design from my SCARM room file? As I come up with the sections, I'll post them if that helps with seeing what my idea is. The only thing with the section at a time idea is that I'm back to O36 min to fit on a 4x8 sheet since I want continuous running. That's a problem with the Atlas track spacing as if I have my K-Line BB on the inside and my son's HHP-8 Amfleet on the outside, they will be hitting. How do some of you guys plan for things like this anyway?
