Doodles and Armstrong

Track Planning for realistic Operations is one of the best books Ive seen for planning. John Armstrong gave great ideas for fitting dreams into the space.

I made a drawing of my space on graph paper, then made LOTS of copies. I then used them to make doodles on ideas of how and what might fit. I kept them all in a notebook, letting me review and refine the ideas. I did this over several months while I was building the house that covered the basement. I ended up finding a idea that worked after numerous "doodles".

Others might jump in with a few ideas, but until then, try some doodles, dont lock yourself into a position where it must be a certain way, now is the time for open thinking and let the dreams flow.

Its a fun time, if it becomes a headache, take a break, leave it alone for a few days then come back and review your ideas.

Published track plans are a nice option too, they can be rearranged or expanded. Even take a part of one and combine it with a part of another.....

The kicker is the light in the middle...

and it is a rental house.  Well sounds to me as if the first requirement would be that your layout design has to be able to be packed up for a future move with as little damage as possible.  That means shelf or free standing modules. Did you design for that?

Now, as to the light, which as I understand this whole thing is in the garage?  You never did say what You planned for under the light. Did you plan a peninsula for this area? Whatever goes under the light needs to be portable. It should stand on wheel casters.  It should be able to disconnected from the shelving part of the layout to be rolled out of the way for access to the light. You need to do your bus wires with quick disconnect plugs like used in NTrak. You could use dowel pins and C- clamps for alignment and keeping it in place.

Just some ideas.  Give it another shot and see what you come up with.  Maybe you need to come up with your list of restrictions as you design. One piece of advice, plan for a move and keep in mind that not all garages are the same size. Also, you might end up without a garage at the next location.

One of the advertisers in MRH is Fifer Hobby.  Go to his website.  In his own garage he has fit a nice layout into half of a two car garage.  He built it to allow for the garage door and it is enclosed into its own room in the garage. You might get some ideas from his layout.

Den

 P.S. I hate the predictive text on the Kindle HD!

What kind of light?

Just a typical screw in bulb type socket? If so there used to be an adapter made that would screw in and provide you a two pronged plug. Then you could plug in one of those clamp type reflectors and put the light somewhere else. Just a thought on a quick and dirty solution.  Other than that I have to go with Den. Can you make the part that interferes with the light movable in some way?

Michael

I didn't really think about

I didn't really think about the light until I'd drawn several sketches. The built portion of the layout is most definitely along the walls/sectional and that's the way the rest of the layout will be too. Making sections using L-girder is something I've never tried, but I think I will. The straight lines of the shelf I already have is very restrictive of both track and scenery. I will just make sure that the layout doesn't go under the light so that I can get to it.

Design and build to move

Ed,

My current layout project is an HO scale sectional switching operation inspired by the B&O Wheeling Freight Terminal in Wheeling, WV. I outlined some of my construction ideas on my blog. I am currently living in a rental as well and the hobby space occupies a spare 10x16 bedroom.

I recommend keeping your design simple to ease building and later disassembly and moving. Big model railroad dreams often do not mesh well with sectional layouts that need to move every few years. I would not recommend using L girder construction for your benchwork sections.

I am just finishing up the staging yard. I am making this compatible with Free-mo modular standards, which also makes it pretty easy to tack onto the end of any future layout for a quick staging area. Three 2x4 modules comprise the staging yard.

I used the battery to test the track. No leads are soldered at this time, but I was able to run the loco from one end to the other with just a 9 volt battery. I have just cut the rails at each benchwork section have begun to add feeder wires.

I am designing and building this layout project with operations in mind. I will paint the track but I don't think I will ballast at this time. Only two structures were served by the prototype. Background buildings may only be images laminated to foam core, eventually.

Keeping this project simple and working towards operating are the primary goals.

Eric