# Please review my O-Scale layout design...



## willhi895 (Feb 11, 2012)

I’d be really appreciative if you guys could look at my track design and give me your thoughts.

Being my first post I'm not sure about image limits or what but here is a link to my images and if that doesn't work maybe I can post them in the thread.

http://s1271.photobucket.com/albums/jj622/willhi895/OScale Train Track Layout Design/

My son (8yo) and I are expanding our simple loop to a larger size in an upstairs game room. We plan to do this in stages but I want to get the layout and table right. I know little or nothing about doing a larger layout but have read a couple of books. I’ve never used switches before and it sounds like there’s a learning curve to that. I'm currently leaning towards Gargraves track and Ross switches.

I’m really kind of scared about creating a design with so many switches and then finding out you can’t run them the way you thought.

Now, let me just say that we are not going for a super realistic railroad at first and one of the criteria, given by my son, is that I had have a large water area and lots of room for his Lego boats and houses and Lincoln Log houses. We’re just looking for the fun factor at this point. However we do expect to use realistic ground coverings, trees, and water. I think slowly, over time, we will work on making parts of it more and more realistic looking. My son also wants lots of places to uncouple cars and pick up cars and drop off cars etc..

Since we currently only have a 19th Century 4-4-0 and all 19th Century cars, we plan to start in the 19th Century and move up through the years as we purchase more trains. Also, our railroad is an imaginary Florida railway but we plan to focus on Florida East Coast Railway and add in a few of the other railways that operate in Florida if we have trouble finding engines or cars that we want with FEC markings.

Right now I’m thinking we will not have any grades, but rather the ocean water and harbor will be dropped down from ground level. Is that a good idea?

We would like to recreate one of the bridges that used to run to Key West over that water so I thought dropping it down might look good and save me a lot of trouble. We’ll probably end up with an amazingly realistic bridge and water and have a Lego cargo ship parked at our harbor. 

I haven’t thought at all about wiring or control yet but any and all comments are welcome, even if you hate this proposed design.

-William

PS: We live in Texas not Florida but my son loves Florida and I tend to agree it’s pretty awesome.


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## videobruce (Jun 15, 2011)

I would forget about that double x-over, if for no other reason cost. Same goes for that 90 crossing and 2nd wye. Work work storage trackage in somewhere.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

First, welcome to the site.

What is the overall size?

It looks like a interesting plan, I like the double crossover, Ross Or Gargraves makes them.
The 90 crossing is just for a siding. But it runs to a farm? 
I never saw a siding go to a farm but it is YOUR RR.

What are you going to use to make the Key bridge out of?
Are you going to make it?

I like the dock ideal. No reason why you can't drop the water down.
Make the dock from Lego's? 
Heck make all the buildings and structures from Lego's?
Bridge too.:thumbsup:


My main question would be the how much room do you have?
It is easier to plan all the available space you have from the get go as one always seems to add on to their RR.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I love the double crossover, it's something you don't see everyday. Too bad they don't make them in Fastrack!


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## manchesterjim (Dec 30, 2011)

*Some thoughts on the layout*

I could be wrong...(and if you ask my wife or brother, I frequently am), but it looks like you may have some reversing loops going on there, specifically with the top-left corner.  (Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong folks).

Are you going to use DC, or DCC?

I'm not sure but it looks like the squares represent 1 foot distance? If so that's going to make the reach to the window-wall pretty long. Is it possible to shift it "down" in the room and give yourself a couple of feet between the edge of the table and the wall?

Just my two cents....feel free to ignore all or part as you see fit! :laugh::laugh:

And good luck with whatever you end up building....this is a great forum and we're glad to see you here.

Jim


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

manchesterjim said:


> I could be wrong...(and if you ask my wife or brother, I frequently am), but it looks like you may have some reversing loops going on there, specifically with the top-left corner.  (Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong folks).
> 
> Are you going to use DC, or DCC?
> 
> ...


 It is O gauge Man______, no problem with reversing loops in O. AC power.


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## manchesterjim (Dec 30, 2011)

big ed said:


> It is O gauge Man______, no problem with reversing loops in O. AC power.


And THIS is why I don't often comment on design! hwell: Goes to show you that I know absolutely nothing of O-guage!


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

manchesterjim said:


> And THIS is why I don't often comment on design! hwell: Goes to show you that I know absolutely nothing of O-guage!



That is OK.


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## seabilliau (Dec 12, 2011)

My advice would be to break this plan up into smaller pieces. This is really ambitious and I would hate for you just to have a couple large sheets of plywood in your basement instead of a layout. My father did the same thing when I was eight, bu tin HO, and we ended up with some track down, but nothing else. Starting off in small pieces to chew will make it easier to focus on the tasks at hand rather than constantly viewing large empty space. Think of it as breaking up a 1000 page book into chapters. It just makes it easier on you and your son. I say this with experience.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

It seems you're trying to use almost every radius of track available, any reason you keep varying the curves?


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## willhi895 (Feb 11, 2012)

Thanks for the welcome and all the comments. Let me answer a few questions.



big ed said:


> What is the overall size?


The overall size is 11' x 11'. Sorry I should have made that clear.

I couldn't block some bookshelves on the right and I also need to keep the left open a little to change an AC air filter. The table were planning is not very tall. We're thinking it will be 24" tall. It is replacing one that is smaller and 20" tall. 24" seems to be a good height that would allow my son and his friends to reach things and see over the layout. But anyway, given I needed a little space on each side I thought we can use this to squeeze around the table to work on things rather than having a lot of cut-out space in the middle.

I went ahead and uploaded some pictures of the table we are replacing to photobucket. I built that when my son was three and had Thomas the train stuff and he's gotten a lot of use out it. I never could figure a way to get a large layout on it though. Sorry for the mess, we were experimenting with sound deadening for Fastrak.



big ed said:


> It looks like a interesting plan, I like the double crossover, Ross Or Gargraves makes them.


Yeah, the entire plan sort of depends on that double crossover. I couldn't find room to do a crossover with #6 or #8 turnouts any other way. I've heard a lot of comments on forums that you should use at least #6 turnouts for crossovers so that's what I was thinking.



big ed said:


> The 90 crossing is just for a siding. But it runs to a farm?
> I never saw a siding go to a farm but it is YOUR RR..


 Yeah, about that.... Well I liked the 90 crossing just to add a little to the possibility that there could be a train wreak if you don't pay attention to what you're doing. I guess I also thought that it might add a little to having to manage and move your trains around when you want to pick up something at the farm. However, if that raises some red flags with you all I could re-think that.



big ed said:


> What are you going to use to make the Key bridge out of?
> Are you going to make it?


There seems to be two main kinds of bridges that went to Key West. One looked like a lot of girder bridges with their sides removed on top of concrete pillars(as seen here), another was a long series of concrete arches(as seen here). I sort of like the concrete arches but my son likes the girder version so I guess we'll have to work that out. I was thinking about building it out of wood, something like at this link, and covering/painting it to look like concrete.



big ed said:


> I like the dock ideal. No reason why you can't drop the water down.


My reasoning there was that anything could come from the dock so any car type (say auto carrier or something) that we don't have a industry for could be used at the dock. I know my son will fall in love with certain cars and we'll need a way to work them in. Also, it gave a little purpose to having a lot of water.



big ed said:


> It is easier to plan all the available space you have from the get go as one always seems to add on to their RR.


Yeah, I just wanted to plan the big picture before we get started. I can't afford to do the entire layout very fast. I hope I can get the middle loop and outer loop done with the double crossover and then add the rest in stages as time goes on.

One thing I really wanted to get was the ability to pass one train over another but with the reversing loop and all I just couldn't find the space to ramp up a long grade.


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## willhi895 (Feb 11, 2012)

videobruce said:


> I would forget about that double x-over, if for no other reason cost.


No joke about the cost. That double cross-over cost more than either of my son's two dirt bikes (purchased used), about what 15 half hour private baseball lessons would cost, and on and on. You're allways robbing Peter to pay Paul with kids.

It is a big space saver though. Do you have any problems with it mechanically? Like I said, never used switches so hopefully they will work like I expect them to.


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## willhi895 (Feb 11, 2012)

I did it again, sorry, the old table is 9'x8' just so you know and so it is a good bit smaller than the one we're planning, The cutout is the same 2' width and the table also has some trap doors that kids can open and crawl through to get to the middle if they don't want to walk around.


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## willhi895 (Feb 11, 2012)

manchesterjim said:


> I'm not sure but it looks like the squares represent 1 foot distance? If so that's going to make the reach to the window-wall pretty long.


Yeah, I see your point. Thanks for the welcome and taking the time to comment.



manchesterjim said:


> Is it possible to shift it "down" in the room and give yourself a couple of feet between the edge of the table and the wall?


I guess that depends on how upset I want make my wife. Yeah, there is no wall at the opposite end. Maybe I could also make the farm on a hatch that drops down but that wouldn't be supper easy to get to.

Perhaps what I could do is to make the surfacing and ground cover in the areas I marked Undetermined #2 and Undetermined #3 something that can be walked on so you could just climb on the table and work on whatever you need to. Hummm...


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## willhi895 (Feb 11, 2012)

seabilliau said:


> My advice would be to break this plan up into smaller pieces. This is really ambitious and I would hate for you just to have a couple large sheets of plywood in your basement instead of a layout. My father did the same thing when I was eight, bu tin HO, and we ended up with some track down, but nothing else. Starting off in small pieces to chew will make it easier to focus on the tasks at hand rather than constantly viewing large empty space..


Thanks seabill. Makes a lot of sense. I think if I was doing it by myself I would start at the back and work forward but my son really wants that realistic water ever since he saw it at a local train shop.

We will probably have to start there but I think, given your advice, what I can do is to let my son pick one of those areas I labeled and we'll work on that until it's done and then let him pick another one. Perhaps that is the best way to approach it. Maybe set a timetable for each section so we don't loose focus.


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## willhi895 (Feb 11, 2012)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> It seems you're trying to use almost every radius of track available, any reason you keep varying the curves?


Love that name gunrunnerjohn. All I can say is that I tried to use the largest curves I could and that's how it fit together. I didn't want to go below 42" since it seems like a number of engines require that. I also tried to keep the main passenger outside loop and middle loop at 54" since it looked like a few more trains required those. Wish I had the room for the entire thing to be 72 or greater.

At one time I had the reversing loop at 42" but it seemed a little less graceful if you imagined a train coming through the inside S of the loop near the orange trees and opening it up to 54" allow more to fit in the center.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I've just never seen a layout with quite that variety of track sizes, but I guess there's no real law against it.


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## willhi895 (Feb 11, 2012)

:laugh: I guess not. 

I put a few more images up (here). One with the reversing loop at 42" and the other two are rotations in an attempt reduce the space between the operator and the back wall.

I don't know, I can see some benefit to the one labeled "Rotate #2" but I sort of like having the Key West bridge out front and it looks like a long way to crawl under the table (for me anyway; my son would mind a bit). Maybe I'll just have to move the table out from the wall. I guess I could put the entire thing on rollers and roll it forward a couple of feet when we're using it. Hey, that might really work!


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## mr_x_ite_ment (Jun 22, 2009)

William, it looks like you are putting a lot of good thought into this. You are getting some good advice! I like the idea of a cut-out...mostly so you can get to the middle if you have to. Putting it on rollers, like you said, would be a good idea too! I look forward to watching this interesting plan take shape!

Chad


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