Small Layouts/Diorama's With Hidden Staging!
- Thread starter SundayNiagara
- Start date
Mark - One idea I've always found intriguing for this kind of problem is to use what Iain Rice, in his book "Small, Smart and Practical Track Plans", calls a cassette. You'd have to see his book for details on the construction, but it is basically a train-length of straight track that you can connect /disconnect to your layout or staging area. Run a train onto it from your layout and then move it (and the train) to your staging area and run the train onto the staging area, or vice versa. The staging area can be hidden, located across the room, or whatever.
I found a place called "Layout Depot", but everything is via download and I would like to see first.
Mark
Mark
Screwy Squirrel will probably respond, but if you don't hear from him soon, maybe PM him or search through his posts in this forum. There is a small "N" layout web page he refers to. I can't recall the name of it. You can just look through some of the posts, use the search feature, or go to "members" then "advanced search" and enter squirrel in "username contains", then when the list of squirrels comes up, there's a button to search for all his posts.
Found it: http://www.the-gauge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=75645#post75645
"Mikes small track plans"
Found it: http://www.the-gauge.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=75645#post75645
"Mikes small track plans"
In lieu of web sites I'll bet a number of folks here would be interested in drawing up a sample plan if they knew what dimensions you needed and what type of railroad scene you were looking for.
Ralph
Ralph
This might help Starter's Kid. It forms the basis for my layout, though I enlarged it somewhat. You can see it .here. And I agree with billk that cassette staging is the way to go, on the starter's kid one, you could put one in where the loading bay is. There's also an article on cassette staging in the april '03 Model Railroader.
and here I am 
how small is 'Small'?
In addition to Mike's small track plans, there's the Micro-plans of Carl Arendt. He specializes in *TINY* layouts, like this one inside a shoebox. Its a real railway. you pick up a boxcar from the ship and deliver it to the factory:
here's the simple trackplan
Carl's page is http://www.carendt.com
how small is 'Small'?
In addition to Mike's small track plans, there's the Micro-plans of Carl Arendt. He specializes in *TINY* layouts, like this one inside a shoebox. Its a real railway. you pick up a boxcar from the ship and deliver it to the factory:
here's the simple trackplan
Carl's page is http://www.carendt.com