Hello everyone. Finally after 11 years I am getting back into N-scale model railroading. I am sooo excited I can't sleep from all of the ideas going through my mind. I built my first layout when I was about 14 with the help of a friend of the same age. It turned out pretty good, for being built by 2 kids with no adult help at all. But then I got my License at 16 and a girlfriend, well you see where this is going:curse: . Anyway, part of the other reason was, even 10 years ago N-scale left allot to be desired, unless you didn't mind spending a small fortune on Kato power, plus money was an issue.
So now here I am at 27 years old, I got the bug again. Plus my 7 year old daughter has shown an interest in working with model railroads. And she is a daddy's girl. So I still had my original layout in tack, stored in my Mothers garage. So I dug it out and brought it to my house. I finally have a house with a good size 2 car garage with some extra space. The layout is a 4x6 double loop with a small, not so usable yard. It is almost completely bare, except ground cover, spent all the money on track. When I pulled it out of the garage with the help of the same friend who helped me build it, we looked at each other and said "what were we thinking?". I have drawn up a layout plan with Atlas RTS that I will post for opinions in a bit. It really isn't that bad of a layout,it is build for war(LOTS of Plaster of Paris) but it has a few screwy aspects to it. Some of the turns are way too tight as far as standards go. But nothing derails. I had it running tonight with one engine and 14 cars behind it, running at full speed for more then 25 laps (had to of been 100+ scale speed) and didn't have one derailment. It has 2 grades that lead to the second deck of a double deck tunnel, but after some recent calculations, the grades are approximately 4.2% and 3%. No wonder my engines never liked climbing them. The lower deck only has enough Clarence for standard rolling stock, you can't even get your hand in there. Derailments on the lower deck suck, and track cleaning is out of the question with out cleaning bar attached to a stick. We didn't think about those things when we built it. And the mountain is really tall and STEEP, I mean Downhill ski jump steep. And the so called yard is a mess, I just wanted a lot of turnouts, but they don't make much sense.
Now on to business. I have made an as close to scale drawing of the current layout with Atlas RTS. I found it easier to use than Xtrkcad, but still a pain the a** until you get the hang of it. I then made an add on version with an idea of what I want. I am looking for some opinions, and insight, and please don't hold back. Lay it on the line. I am also looking for some ideas, and please manipulate my drawing to give me some ideas. I am in no way attached to this add on idea, it was just an idea of what I am looking for.
Even though my current layout has some issues, I would like to retain as much of the main line as possible as you can see in the drawings. I plan on scrapping the entire yard and doing a few industrial spurs in the area. Keep that area simple. Or expand my container yard. I don't see anywhere that I can post the RTS files, but if you are interested in helping me and making some changes to it, I will e-mail the files to you. Also I am not set in stone of the placement of the expansion, I just figured it was a good spot. I have some flexibility in the placement of the layout in my garage, therefore the placement of the add on can move also. But I really want to make it an L or possibly even a U shape. The only other thing I would like to do, and not sure how to do it, is make the 2 sections separable if the need arises in the future. Nothing worse then having to chain saw your layout in half to move it.
Well if you made it this far thank you for reading my late night rambles. I can't sleep anyway, my mind is in constant track planning mode.
David Scott
P.S. I am already convinced to go DCC and have my Digitrax starter set picked out. So I don't need to worry about blocks and stuff, I think.
So now here I am at 27 years old, I got the bug again. Plus my 7 year old daughter has shown an interest in working with model railroads. And she is a daddy's girl. So I still had my original layout in tack, stored in my Mothers garage. So I dug it out and brought it to my house. I finally have a house with a good size 2 car garage with some extra space. The layout is a 4x6 double loop with a small, not so usable yard. It is almost completely bare, except ground cover, spent all the money on track. When I pulled it out of the garage with the help of the same friend who helped me build it, we looked at each other and said "what were we thinking?". I have drawn up a layout plan with Atlas RTS that I will post for opinions in a bit. It really isn't that bad of a layout,it is build for war(LOTS of Plaster of Paris) but it has a few screwy aspects to it. Some of the turns are way too tight as far as standards go. But nothing derails. I had it running tonight with one engine and 14 cars behind it, running at full speed for more then 25 laps (had to of been 100+ scale speed) and didn't have one derailment. It has 2 grades that lead to the second deck of a double deck tunnel, but after some recent calculations, the grades are approximately 4.2% and 3%. No wonder my engines never liked climbing them. The lower deck only has enough Clarence for standard rolling stock, you can't even get your hand in there. Derailments on the lower deck suck, and track cleaning is out of the question with out cleaning bar attached to a stick. We didn't think about those things when we built it. And the mountain is really tall and STEEP, I mean Downhill ski jump steep. And the so called yard is a mess, I just wanted a lot of turnouts, but they don't make much sense.
Now on to business. I have made an as close to scale drawing of the current layout with Atlas RTS. I found it easier to use than Xtrkcad, but still a pain the a** until you get the hang of it. I then made an add on version with an idea of what I want. I am looking for some opinions, and insight, and please don't hold back. Lay it on the line. I am also looking for some ideas, and please manipulate my drawing to give me some ideas. I am in no way attached to this add on idea, it was just an idea of what I am looking for.
Even though my current layout has some issues, I would like to retain as much of the main line as possible as you can see in the drawings. I plan on scrapping the entire yard and doing a few industrial spurs in the area. Keep that area simple. Or expand my container yard. I don't see anywhere that I can post the RTS files, but if you are interested in helping me and making some changes to it, I will e-mail the files to you. Also I am not set in stone of the placement of the expansion, I just figured it was a good spot. I have some flexibility in the placement of the layout in my garage, therefore the placement of the add on can move also. But I really want to make it an L or possibly even a U shape. The only other thing I would like to do, and not sure how to do it, is make the 2 sections separable if the need arises in the future. Nothing worse then having to chain saw your layout in half to move it.
Well if you made it this far thank you for reading my late night rambles. I can't sleep anyway, my mind is in constant track planning mode.
David Scott
P.S. I am already convinced to go DCC and have my Digitrax starter set picked out. So I don't need to worry about blocks and stuff, I think.
