New basement, mmm...

Randy

Nice basement. What part of

Nice basement. What part of the country are you in Jim?

It looks dry, is insulated,

It looks dry, is insulated, and is 100 percent train room. Sounds like a great place. In looking at your initial comments you might be able to go to a larger radius if you wanted to, after all you do have lots of space. I would suggest trying for an extravagantly large radius and working down till you get your layout to fit your space as the bigger the radius the better things look and operate. It might be surprising what will fit with the larger curves in that huge new layout space, and I don't think I ever heard anyone complain they wished they had used tighter curves on their layout. If I recall your preferred line climbs though the mountains out west and sweeping curves going up grades will be very impressive to operate trains over if you still have that interest.

I'm now west of Manassas

I'm now west of Manassas Virginia about 30 miles (northern Virginia west of Washington DC).

I put the dehumidifier down and at its lowest setting (35%) it wouldn't come on.  It appears to be a dry basement - house built in 05.  The guy who installed the Radon system said it will also aid it in staying dry as it sucks the air from under the basement and vents it out.

I'm definitely a proponent of the "larger radius the better" way of thinking.  I'm thinking 32 as a minimum but will try to definitely design in bigger.  Once the dust settles a little more and I can "old school" properly make a scale drawing of the basement walls/boundaries and other features, then I can begin to rough in a track plan with isle widths and major elements such as curves, turn-backs, yard etc.  On my last layout I squeezed as much as I could in the 10x18' room and kept radii at 32-inches and had way more storage/staging space than I had a right to have!  =P (11 tracks ranging from as much as little as 13' and as much as 22' - but a 20 car train didn't have a lot of room to stretch it's legs.  I am planning on a couple of visible decks to fit in as much operation as possible and staging under a main yard.

Design

One way to start is to sketch out what a benchwork footprint might look like and then overlay the track plan on that.

Or 

Start with a schematic of what you want on the layout and then start folding it around the room.

15x27 + 12x12 = 549 Sq ft, divide that by 4 and you get about 130-140 ft of run.  Since you are talking about a helix that implies two levels, so a total of about 250-280 ft of run (not including the helix.)  For a 20 ft long train that gives you 12-14 train lengths.  3 train lengths for a yard, that leaves 9-11 train lengths for the layout.  At one train length between sidings that's about 4 sidings, or 2 train lengths bewteen sidings thats about 3 sidings.

Oh, man!!

How you make me miss my 1,700 square foot basement in my previous home in Georgia!  I'm really looking forward to following your build!  Congratulations!

Great looking space

It's been insulated too!!!

We have been in our house for a month and the list seems to just keep on growing on stuff that needs to be done​ Been hanging shelves, moving stuff and carting boxes and some days I just say enough and it becomes a train day. I did make it pretty clear to my wife and mother in law that I was taking train time every day and they have been pretty good about it. Stuff keeps getting done around the house so they are happy.

Really hope you can make progress on the train space as well as the rest of the house. Keeps the dreams flowing.

Jack

Awesome

I look forward to seeing what you do in the space.  

How you make me miss my 1,700

Out of this high cost of living area,  this is about the best we could find and was affordable, and it's the most I've had to work with.  Sure it would be nice to have an aircraft hanger but I'll take it.

BTW, when I add up the total space in this basement, including the 6x16 space thats part of the train area, the bathroom and the utility room, it's about 1,000 sq ft.  I'd estimate the train area to be 730 sq ft.  (27.5 x 15 + 12 x 12 + 6 x 16 which is in between the two and 8x10 for the area between the middle of the train area and the utility room).  Some of that will of course be walk way or isle space.

Wife has work to do on the main floor that is high priority so expect it will be Feb/March before I get to outlets and drywall.  Oh well, Rome wasn't built in a day or month.

we might be neighbors!

We're building a new house in Gainesville (won't be finished until February). 

Great Space

Looks like a great layout space! I am jealous, no basements here in Southeast Texas. If there were, they would be indoor swimming pools! I have to build an outbuilding for layout space. So, can you post a floor plan drawing of the basement space? Be sure to keep us posted on the layout planning.

Marty, I was just off of

Marty,

I was just off of Liberia Ave in Manassas before moving.  Gainsville is out of my price range so I'm out between Warrenton and Culpeper - quite a commute to work but worth it to get out the area we were in.  My wife works in Haymarket just up the road from Gainsville.  We've regularly been through there.

Cheers, Jim

Congratulations Jim!

That space looks absolutely ideal. A beautiful blank canvas. Much looking forward to your new journey.

Wow, nice looking train space.

  That should be plenty even on a single deck.  My latest  layout is about 440 sq.ft. and it still seems like a lot of space to turn into a finished railroad, sometimes I wish I'd gone with even  less square footage. I guess I could have started building TOMA style and then fill it up section by section if the desire was still there......DaveB 

Dave, I've visualized the

Dave,

I've visualized the basic layout configuration and plan on two levels with staging below the main yard but I haven't flesh it out yet.  We are still getting boxes unpacked, kitchen cabinets haven't even been cleaned an lined yet - house was empty for a year so needs going through.  So what with getting some things sorted I'll have some time for the next couple of months to work on layout design and hopefully in Feb or March get wall outlets installed and then I can start putting in drywall on the area I plan on building in first..  Main section first and then expand to others later.

In one of my past model

In one of my past model railroad lives, I had a tri-level layout for about 11 years. Learned the following about multi-level layouts:

* IF linear run is priority, a multi level will fill the bill.

* IF scenic grandeur is a priority on one's "Givens n' Druthers" list, a multi-level puts the squeeze on scenes and makes that difficult to achieve.

Visual contrasts:

* Multi-level induces a "diorama box" viewing atmosphere. (Not necessarily a bad thing, just a tendency of the concept.)

* Single level can induce a more expansive "open spaces" viewing atmosphere.

My next layout I'm preparing to begin will feature Colorado scenery. I have chosen to go with a single level approach so my scenes will not be confined by overhead or lower level constraints.

The above is not offered to be a negative, but thought I would share personal observations of some elements you may not have considered.

Best of luck with your new start!

Our old house

was in the Yorkshire section of Manassas - just off Centreville Road. 

Currently we're living in a temporary apartment until the new house is completed. 

Will have to get together when we both get settled. 

Marty, Sounds like a plan. My

Marty,

Sounds like a plan.

My wife and I looked in the Yorkshire area off of Centreville Road (28) when we were looking to buy in Manassas back in 2013, among a few other areas.  Woodbridge had some homes in our price range but had a very odd layouts like kitchen on a different floor than the living room - never saw any homes like that in any other place or state I have lived.

After we settled in our townhouse, wives commute was up 28 past Yorkshire to Herndon until she changed jobs.  She is from England and never had a drivers license so I taught her how to drive and then with that commute, 28 pretty busy she leveled up her driving skills pretty fast.  The worst part was through the area where 66 and Rt 29 cross.  Very nutty.  We looked at building a house in Bealton/Remington area where Ryan home is building in a couple areas (Mintbrook and Remington Landing) but found a bank owned home where the basement was already framed which was a head start toward finished and overall more affordable for us.

Basement

Nice pallet to work with for a layout.  I know it's not the fun part, but I highly recommend finishing it off before you start bench work.  

 I know it's not the fun

Don, that's the idea and why it will be some months before layout construction begins. 

Wow!

Perfectly sized space, and great environment to work in.  I anxiously await your build reports!

Great Space but

Great space but I hate drywalling! Consider hiring out the drywalling and mudding unless you are good at it.

In our old house I dry walled and did the mudding in the basement, took me months! Then one day I was in a house under construction and watched the guys doing the finishing, took them maybe 15 minutes to do an area that it took me a month to do, plus they did a better job of it! After that I vowed to contract out any future drywalling work!

Contracting out the drywalling

Second That...Think about..

Think about cutting 4 recessed light holes in a 4 x 12 piece of ceiling drywall, and getting them in the exact right spots!  My basement ceiling (1800 square foot) is 8 ft 4 inches high, and the whole thing was done using 12 foot drywall (fewer joints, and the drywall guys lay it horizontally).  Well worth the money.  One bit of advice..pick a drywall contractor who uses less, not more, mud if you can see his work in progress somewhere.