Mike's Small Trackplans Page

Nomad

Active Member
Hey, CB. The layout plans for doors? I built the sixth one down in ho. Ended up being 6x12 feet. Great track plans.

Loren
 

Biased turkey

Active Member
Yes Cannonball, I linked to that site 1 hour ago ( without having seen your post ) to check a "Timesaver" switching layout.
That website is on top on the list of my " layouts" bookmark folder.
The 2nd on the list is Micro/Small Layouts for Model Railroads for Micro/Small layouts . Unfortunately there is just a few N scale layouts but it's a good place to pick layout ideas.
 

Cannonball

More Trains Than Brains

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
WOW, those are some pretty neat layout ideas. I think I like designing my own tho, just makes it a lil more fun for me :mrgreen:
 

Travellar

New Member
While I could appriciate the novelty, Doing a layout in a shoebox would completely miss the point of my current ambition. I've got an 11x5 foot layout in N-scale, because I wanted to send quarter-mile long freight trains thundering across the countryside!
 

Cannonball

More Trains Than Brains
While I could appriciate the novelty, Doing a layout in a shoebox would completely miss the point of my current ambition. I've got an 11x5 foot layout in N-scale, because I wanted to send quarter-mile long freight trains thundering across the countryside!

My wife would beat me to a pulp and divorce me if I tried to put a 5x11 layout in our living room. I was lucky to get away with a 4x8 table for the O gauge stuff. :(

Edit: Welcome to the Gauge, Travellar! :wave:
 

Biased turkey

Active Member
Don't forget Travellar and Cannonball that most of those tiny-micro layouts are from Japanand Europe where space is at a premium.
Right now I'm starring at 23" by 11" piece of shelf leftover when we had our kitchen renovated. That piece of shelf is just screaming at me : "Inglenook siding switching puzzle".
 

Travellar

New Member
ah, but if you had 55 square feet plus walkaround room, wouldn't the voice of reason insist on using such space?
 

waredbear

New Member
Best Plan Ever

I have to admit...the layout under "my take on other people's layouts" showing the John Armstrong's Granite Gorge & Northern...has got to be one of the best layouts I've ever seen...for a small track. :mrgreen: I took it and did it in XTrkCad...of course mine isn't as pretty...but it works. You can run two separate trains on two different figure 8's and not worry about them. You can also expand the eights with a few switches thrown here and there. I added the extra 1.5' on the end to make it a 4x8 N layout and added two yards with another loop around plus I tied the yards in at the bottom. Another GREAT thing about this layout is that there are no reversing loops. I know all you experts and ole hands at this might be laughing at me right now. sign1 but that is fine. I'm new to this great hobby so I am learning something new almost everyday. I plan on putting my HO on hold for awhile and I'm going to build this layout...after I do my HO/N coffee table system.

In His Service, :-D
Reid
 

waredbear

New Member
What Do You Think

Okay...this is what I have so far. This is the plan from Mike's page that I like...

493320.gif


And this is how I modified the track. First I added 1.5' to the right side of the track to add the two yards. I like this because I can work one yard while a train comes into the second one. I also changed the direction of the spir in the top left hand corner. I'm also adding a third layer at the botton center. The original track has two layers and the the yellow/green dotted track crossing the two tracks. I don't like that. I want to add more character to the layout by having a third layer. The only problem is this creates a 4.5% down grade. The elevations of the double green lines and the double pink lines on both sides of the river are at 0% elevation and the green line and pink line crossing the river are at 2.0 inches. The yellow/green dotted line is at 4". Any ideas on how to decrease the grade? My only thought is to swap the 2" and 4" tracks but I don't think that would look as good. The dark area on the left is a mountain. There will be a divider wall between the mountain and the yards.

So here is my remake of the above track...

493319.jpg


Please give my your ideas...

Thanks
Reid
 

Cannonball

More Trains Than Brains
If you want to keep it at 8', you may have to take out one yard and lengthen the rest of the layout to decrease your grades. If you are willing to go to 9' or 10', you can widen the whole thing and keep both yards.
 
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