Will my 11'x22' plan work?

You have some areas that will be difficult to reach.

I know, but it's a trade off for track space. I plan on following the popup ideas used by Ingeniero No 1. I hope he doesn't mind.

Larvic can you post this as a bitmap off rr track? My iPad can not view either can others who maynot have your track software. 

George

Here, I hope, is a bitmap image of the layout.

How wide is the aisle??? It seems too narrow to me. Other than that, it looks like a good plan.

Thanks. The aisle will be 2 feet wide - I'm not a large person so I can "fit".  I don't anticipate people going into the aisle - except the little ones who want a birds eye view sometimes.

Looks good, plenty of levels andswitching. You are ok with duck unders rather than a dog bone or peninsulatype walk around layouts.

George

I like your basic plan but I agree with Loco Ike and FEC fan that the aisle space will become a problem. To be able to do switching and building trains, you have to be able to reach the track. While trains running over the red line over the yard area would be fascinating to watch, the red track makes the yard tracks and switches almost impossible to reach to be able to "operate". The red line over the narrow aisle beside the turntable is a real head cracker. In my experience with kids and trains, kids prefer hands on viewpoints to bird's eye viewpoints. In addition they are always crowding together to see and do what the other fellow is doing. For kids (and adult guests, too), aisle space is far more important than track space. It would easier for your grandkids to appreciate your railroad if you open up the aisle to provide access to the yard and turntable. A wider aisle will shorten your grandkids reach to switch cars in the yard and industrial area and make railroad operation much easier. To widen the aisle convert the area marked "industrial area" in the lower left from bench work to aisle space (take out two spur tracks). Then push edge of the bench work beside the engine terminal yard toward the top of the plan as far as you can. The aisle should widen to about 4 feet. The red line could be either eliminated or converted to a return loop so that you can operate trains in an "out-and-back" pattern. I tried to attach (but am not sure I succeeded) a very rough revision of your track plan that opens your aisle into an operating ares and suggests a red line return loop. An alternate path for the remaining parts of the red line can serve as an extended passing track for the outer green line so that you can park a long train there while you run a second train on the green loop and switch a third train on the blue line.

OK, 2 things I'd look at.

Move the Industrial area a bit toward the Main line to widen the Aisle to 2.5' or maybe 3'. Time marches on, we get bigger. And the point made about the kids crowding together is accurate.

More Important as it will cause trouble:

Re-arrange the curves and straights going to the turntable, you want the engine lined up straight going in there. Curve right at the switch and then as much straight as possible to the turntable, change the curve as needed to line up. (the entry looks crooked now)

Thanks you all for your comments and suggestions.

Tinflyer, unfortunately your changes did not come through.

I guess I was trying to make sure I could use O-81 curves for my main line, but I think I can use O-72 just as well.  Widening the aisle makes sense and I will. Considering the layout size, I really do not need three levels as long as I can have multiple trains running. I am not sure I am clear about how to make the red level into an "out and back" pattern but I'll come up with something. Running on two levels rather than three levels makes planning and construction easier.

I am thinking about moving the turntable to the other side of the layout close to where the industrial section is now.

Again thanks for the input.

I think it is a good plan overall, but I think you should remove the entire red line as it will, as others of stated, complicate access. If you took it out, you could widen the aisle towards the "town area" 12-18" without losing much town space and have more room for scenery. A two foot aisle is really only useful for light duty access  (not for operating from). The red line crossing of it, complicates it even more and I can almost guarantee you will get tired of ducking under or removing the red-line liftout everytime you walk over to the turntable. Three feet is a minimum aisle width and more is better where you can get it especially at any focus points where folks will tend to gather.

Peter

Thanks all of you for your helpful suggestions. I am in the process of drawing up an improved layout and realized no one has mentioned the crossover/duckunder (green and blue track) at the front of  the layout. I am guessing I should eliminate the track while increasing the aisle width to three feet - making access easier for viewers, right?

Good question. Following the previous suggestions, the red line track no longer exists, and I am trying to have no crossovers/duckunders on the outside lines at all, keeping all the track on either side of the aisle.