New benchwork. Good or bad?!

The file can only be opened if you have scarm. Please post a photo.

Here's a photo of the SCARM drawing.

Well you'll probably have trouble accessing the middle of your "L" leg so either an access hole is needed or only static scenery should be located there...even then if you ever needed to clean it or fix a flopped over scenery item it could pose a problem. Elsewhere your physical ability to reach into the layout needs to be considered. Dont forget about ability to clean track, fix derailments, etc. The access isle all the way around is a plus but are you tall or slender enough to reach into the middle of the benchwork assuming you have items on the perimeter you dont want to damage? Will your second level interfere with accessing things as well?  Have fun with your build!

This has some great possibilities. I like the lower right corner where you could have an interesting descent from a mountain as it curves to the left. My suggestion would be to look through back editions of OGR for concepts and track plans that you find interesting. Also, give some consideration to a backdrop and paint the walls a sky color.

Jay

Like anything with a layout, it really comes down to what you are looking for in terms of look and feel. For example, if you plan on running scale equipment that requires min 72" curves, the 72" wide portion of the table would limit you to O64 curves and smaller. It also depends on what, as they see, your needs and wants are. Since you want multiple trains to be operating, how do you envision that? Do you want a double tracked mainline? Do you want to have trains in different scenes, like a city area and then trains operating "in the country?". Will you be running conventional block wiring/conventional or command control? With command control you have a lot more flexibility, you can have multiple trains running

Agree with others, looking at layout designs is a great idea. If you subscribe to CTT, they have an online layout db that allows you to specify the square footage and they give you suggestions that you could modify to use in your own case (it was valuable for my own design, even though I didn't use any of their plans). Ogr has books of layout ideas, and there are also online web sites with 3 rail designs that may help.

Another possibility is to work with someone to design the layout for you if you don't feel like you are getting what you want with your own attempts. Since you have scarm, the beauty of it is you can play around at will until it 'looks right'. That is what I ended up doing with my layout, played with the program until it looked good to me. If you have a load of track already, it also can be satisfying to build the table and then see how it plays out (I didn't, was going with a totally different track system so didn't have that option.

Agree with others, if you go with a table design like this you will need to have access panels,in practical reality your reach is about 2 feet,you don't want to be leaning across 4 feet of layout to get to something in the center.

Here's what Atlas O-72 would look like. The yellow space is the area where things are over 30" from the edges and may be difficult to reach depending on your size.

Thank you all, for the tips and comments.

I will likely add an extra foot to the 6' side of the table, as my father in law has gifted me an old nice New York Hudson that requires O72 curves. Id still like to keep the shape so the 8' side will probably stay as is.

Dave, thank you for putting together the file above. Two questions that come to mind in trying to use this design and also in using SCARM:

1. It seems adding the opposite of an easement (negative easement?) to the curves make the layout more space efficient. Even if so, will a train requiring O72 curves derail when entering a curve less than O72 even if coming from a, say O60 curve? Sorry for what may be a very basic question... see picture for reference.

2. By using this design, I am finding it very hard for the Fastrack pieces in SCARM to perfectly connect and close the circuit. Questions is, what is the tolerance in distance that I can "force" the track pieces to connect. Is half an inch too much of a gap?

Again, thank you all for the help!

E

I have found with Scarm my fastrack layout doesn't line up perfectly.  Even putting my layout in Scarm as I have the track on the layout today doesn't match up and has gaps, yet it works on my layout with no issues.  There is some tolerance and I think a half inch is fine.

SCARM and other software tools have tolerance settings for how close tracks need to be in order to connect “in the software”. However, even if they don’t connect, that doesn’t mean they won’t connect during the actual build. That’s why a lot of users just get close in the software and don’t bother trying to make everything connect. The only real reason to connect everything in SCARM is to able to run the simulation. And if everything connects in the software, then it should connect during the build. The exceptions there are cut tracks and flex track because there are too many variables during the build.

Because all brands have different properties, it’s impossible to define a set of tolerance settings that work for all. Even engines have different tolerances, so while one might have no problems with “fudged” connections, another might balk. Many engines are marked as needing O-72 curves, especially switches, but they will often run fine through tighter curves. The only way to know if a given engine will operate through an O-60 easement with a specific brand of track is to set up a test. Even then there might still be problems depending on how well tracks are laid throughout the layout.

@Emaus posted:

It seems adding the opposite of an easement (negative easement?) to the curves make the layout more space efficient. Even if so, will a train requiring O72 curves derail when entering a curve less than O72 even if coming from a, say O60 curve?

It's tempting to think only about the locomotive's ability to negotiate the proposed route, and whether it will derail, but the initial evidence of a problem may show up with the car immediately behind the locomotive.  That's what can derail first because of narrow coupler swing and the angle that the engine is diverging from true tangent as they go through.

Even if you can get by with running your engine along a path that has a changing radius in it, you also need to see if the cars will stay on the track, especially the one that's immediately behind it.

Mike