Russ Bellinis said:
I can see where you wouldn't want to attack a house that you might be selling in a few years. Is that closet as awkward to use as it looks? The drawing you made with the "wye" into the middle of the yard won't work very well. Whichever side of the doorway the transition into the wye from the mainline is on, the part of the layout in the closet behind it is impossible to reach without getting down on hands and knees to crawl under. How about removing the closet door, and opening up the door way so that it is almost full width of the closet. That would give better access. If or when you need to move, you could remove the railroad, and install either a pair of sliding doors or a long bifold accordian type door in the closet to close off the wider openning. It would sem to me that would be a win win situation. You would have a better model railroad, and when you sell the house, the new owner gets a much more user friendly closet in that room.
By the end of the second sentence I was already thinking everything else you wrote.
Great
Minds
Think
Alike.
Yes, the doors are ANNOYING. They both swing into eachother. You can't open them both at the same time. In fact I think they've damaged eachother already. The least that
should have been done would be to move the closet door past the end of where the bedroom door swings to. But unfortunately I think I've given all I can to this house - we replaced the crumbled driveway with a brand new wider slab and the rotten deck with a twice as large paver patio. But I'll ask the boss lady what she thinks - never hurts to think about it.
Taking both doors off the hinges is no problem at all. Honestly I'd probably do that even if I weren't putting trains in there. So no issues with that.
As far as the usability of the space without house deconstruction, the example with wye that I created is using 24" radius turns. I've found that 18" radius seems to work rather well with On30, and of course with smaller HO stock of which both are on the table for discussion. N scale, totally. So that means the 4' runs each direction could be another 6" longer, roughly another car. It could be good for reversing a train (slowly ...) and storing things 'off-site' wthout having to remove them from the rails. I can't imagine adding scenery to that space even with the wall removed.
Ah, just realized that a smaller radius could actually provide a reversing loop
in the closet doorway. Check this out.
Of course, that makes it REALLY hard to get in there. Not just bending / ducking, but actually scootching across the floor for a good four feet. Not fun, but not out of the question. The whole area would be landscaped in 'plywood desert', I believe
Good thoughts - more to think about.