New Attic Layout Track Plan

I have RRTrack. Starting on a plan for you. Double mainline. Outer 082, inner 072, with a 054 passing siding. This also provides you with innner-outer and outer-inner crossovers.

More tomorrow...

Jack;

One thing you should consider is headroom. Does the entire 15’x21’ space have the same height ceiling or is part of it under a slope??? This will become important when you consider how high your benchwork will be. It will also become a limiting factor if you plan on walking around the outside of the layout.

I need to apologize. It was late, and I was thinking RealTrax, not ScaleTrax. My version of RRTrack does not have ScaleTrax. FWIW, MTH has RealTrax trackplan packages. You may be best off trying to adapt one of those.

Sorry.

Have you considered RailModeler or RM Pro? I use the Pro version, it's great, even if it's somewhat less capable than some of the Windows pacakges, but it works well and isn't hard to learn. Plus they have a lot of O guage tracks for planning.

Just a note that there is a reasonable and low cost (free for more limited) Mac track planner that is nice enough.

Regarding the power plant, you might consider the power plant on one side of a mountain (or any scenic barrier) and the coal mine on the other side of the mountain with out-of-sight tracks connecting the two. That way when a train of empties arrives at the mine it is also being "created" at the power plant. Similarly when a train of loads arrives at the power plant it is also being "created" at the mine. This simple subterfuge creates a very realistic Operating scenario.

To answer a couple questions:

I have considered headroom and there is plenty of room with 15 feet.

I have RM Pro and I am working on a layout plan right now I was just hoping to gather some ideas

Also RM Pro doesn't have ScaleTrax which is a bummer.  I will probably use Atlas just to make a general idea.

I have Atlas Track on my RRTrack program. I can convert what I have so far. The best thing about getting away from RealTrax is the ability to easily to custom cuts. 

I plan on sticking to scaletrax for the final design, I am just using Atlas for a mock up if you will since atlas has similar options

Two thoughts for the layout:

First you get more square footage of layout if you do an around the walls vs island that  you can walk around.    And since your stairs come up in the middle sort of that works ideally.

Second, you mentioned you have head room for 15 ft wide.    If you do an around the walls layout, you don't need head room over the layout, only the aisles.     You could put layout under the slope of the roof until you had 18 inches or two feet about the layout based on what you want to see.    If you have not considered this, it might give more than 15 ft wide.

In addtion, Your wants are very ambitious.   You might want to prioritize them ala John Armstrong into gotta haves and nice to haves.     One thing I learned is that a double ended yard greatly reduces capacity and eats up a lot of space with the second ladder.    Can you live with a single ended yard, if it would give you space for something else?  

Yup, 43" high knee-walls made an around-the-walls track-plan a no-brainer for me.

Northeast corner:

Southeast corner:

Southwest corner:

Northwest corner: