@ Jim

Hi Jim,

Your space looks great!  Plans will fall together.  One thing I found that I lucked into was enough room for a second level.  I used it to “run and railfan.”  I climb a 1.2% grade around most of the layout room to get to the second level.  It requires multiple locomotive lashups for trains over 12 cars.  

Good luck and enjoy your project!

Nick

Jim, I would work with the

Jim, I would work with the space your showing in this image rather than adding a a duck under or lift out at the bottom of a stair case. 

Thanks for the

Thanks for the feedback.

Neil, the more I look at the early rough in draft - the more I'm thinking it will be better than expanding it in the plan (top to bottom) to get wider walkways and bench - and techinically a slighly longer run.

Of course the yard and sidings are not drafted in yet - this plan only shows key elements like where the turnbacks go, curves with radius, yard area.  The upper right side is where the yard can turn exit and go thru a helix down to the hidden directly below the yard.  Teardrop turn backs can be added for a point to point operation as well - it should fit all in that space.

The benchwork gets rather narrow at the left side of the yard (18-inches) and on the top of the plan along the walkway - also 18-inches.  Pinch points 24-inches and widen to 30 or more inches.  For people, not tons of room but to fit in a reasonably long run this seemed to one obvious configuration.

The area off-plan to the right (seen in the basement photo's) is 12x12 and I could expand into it later on - maybe for a branch line, or to extend the mainline beyond the helix.

I have thought about double decking but not sure about it right now.  The yard will be double decked with staging below.  I may be able to (ala Rob Spangler) fit in some lower deck scenes like he did with layout.

Jim quick question in order

Jim quick question in order to understand the edges of the available space.

On the upper left corner where the stairs-up is. Is there more space after the stairs-up or the staircase is against the upper edge of the basement? I am trying to understand the alternative plan you mentioned. As long as you have adequate access for troubleshooting and maintainance, i do not see an issue for "loosing" the train behind the stairs for a bit.

If the stairs are at the edge and you cannot go around the walls on the whole perimeter, then your plan looks very nice in resulting in a very long mainline run. I think that I would have ended up with something VERY similar if i tried to design a plan for such a space.

Yannis,The wall on the left

Yannis,

The wall on the left side is about 11' from memory and if you follow that up to the top, it steps to the left another 1 foot.  On the plan, above the hashed walkway area, there is a stud wall - you can see it in the top basement photo which is in-line and behind the maroon colored metal support pole.  On the right side of the pole you can see the stairs.  To the left, all the way back in the lit area, is that 1 foot step back at the bottom of the stairs.

In the 2nd basement photo, it is take from the other end facing the opposite direction.

Hope that helps get a sense of the boundaries, which are penciled in on the scale drawing.

From personal experiance, the

From personal experiance, the 18" walkways are way to narrow. I had a 20" one and hated it. That version of the layout didn't last long. 

Steps...

Have you thought about spinning the stairs 90 degrees so they come down more into the middle of the room? 

Randy

Ain't gonna lie...

I would LOVE a space like that to work in!

I live in an apartment... and space is limited.. my layout is small, but, thanks to folks here, and the encouragement of my fellow modelers, I have a layout. I wish it was bigger, and had a "roundy round", but it isn't, but it still makes me happy.

You are one lucky guy to have all of that potential, and I won't lie by saying I'm not the least bit jealous!

Operator congestion points

Excluding the hidden staging yard, I'd avoid the temptation to double deck this RR as you have a good space to work with.  That being said, the design is nicely done.  However a few things to think about as it might influence some tweaks:

• How many operators will it take to run the RR?
• Assuming a yard at the bottom of the plan, you might want to try and find a few more inches of aisle width along the yard.  People tend to congregate along yards.
• If the plan is for the operator to follow the train (I think that is always a good idea), he/she will have a long back track path to pick the train up again on the inside portion of the RR.  If train speeds are slow its not too much of a big deal, but its something to think about.  I've got a like problem on the my RR, but train speeds are low (< 15 mph) so there is plenty of time for the operator to move the 16 ft or so of aisle length to catch up to the train.
• If possible avoiding long straight benchwork edges, that is making the RR footprint 'organically' flow, makes people think the RR is even larger than it is.  So some tweaks on the benchwork design moight be worth looking at for 'effect.' 

Jim, the track that is

Jim, the track that is running parallel to the staircase. Is that track going up to a 2nd level or going down to staging? If down which I think it is then you have plently of run to stack the inside loop directly on top. That gives you 12" deep bench work and a 24" walkway.

Were is the intended yard? I am thinking along the bottom wall? For this size railroad, how big of a yard are you intending? If I was working withthis space I would try for nothing smaller than a 30" walkway with a bare min. chole point of 24" and make sure no choke points in a yard area. 

Sceney costs a lot of money and IMO the less you gotta put down the better. You have designed this with nice 36" curves, what is your longest car you will be running? 

If your able to cantilever the bechwork off the wall a 30" walkway will not seam too bad, Gotta remeber the feet and belly

Tim, there are no 18"

Tim, there are no 18" walkways on my plan.  There are a couple of sections of benchwork that do narrow to 18".

My wife would say, you are having a laugh, but I know you are serious.  If money were no object, I'd consider it, but it is limited - remember this is a fixer upper and all availalbe funds are going to get basic things done on the house and we've already spent most of the slush fund on 6 new applicances, new water heater, new radon system, new whole house filtration/water softener system and still have some major projects to complete on the main floor.  And .. I still have to finish the basement and I'll be doing a lot of the work myself to keep costs at a minimum.

Rick, while double decking is tempting, I feel it would be a bit too crowded and complex to double deck the whole thing.  But that said, I might do something like Rob Spangler and have a limited area on a lower deck that can be operated from a rolling chair - like a branch line with an industry.  Think Raft River on wp8thsub for added operational interest.  https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/raft-river-a-town-on-the-8th-sub-12204655

- As for operators, I don't know many people in my new location, but it's good to at least plan for that possibility.  Yes, the thought about the yard area needing more people space was on my mind when designing this layout.  You'll notice in the plan everything is pretty tightly fitted with very little room for tweaking - maybe little tweeking.  The alternate track plan - not put on paper so far, would allow more walkway space and wider bench by expanding the same basic design up into the walkway space parallel to the stairs and forcing a lift out at the bottom of the stairs at the upper right.  As always, there is a trade off with limited space.

- Following the train: the layout, as it is designed in the early draft here, allows the operator to follow the train out of the yard and all the way until it goes down under to the staging yard near the bottom of the stairs at the upper left corner.  Now if I were to go to plan B, which stretches the entire plan vertically, there would be no walk way along the top and then the tracks arrangement would have to be altered it would not be on the opposite side of a view block - you wouldn't be able to follow the train around the perimeter the same way, but it would work.  The track would have to cross the mainline at the top as it is traveling from the lobe to toward the left and around and under to staging.  I'll probably have to draw up an alternate plan so I can post it and chew on it.  Nothing is going to get built for some months - electrical and drywall needs to go in first - and drop ceiling.  I'm hoping to get started on all that in April, or May.

- The benchwork edges can be tweaked a little but there are not solid long legs of straight now - ala David Barrow CM&SF - but minor alterations might be possible.

Neil, the track paralle to the stairs at the top is dropping down grade from right to left and dives under the top level on the left wall to staging under the main yard.  I believe I can keep the grade fairly modest and achieve a decent separation.  On my last 10x18' layout, I used a nolix design to get trains up to the top level, but grade was 2.9% - rather steep.  With the distance should be a fairly gentle grade.

Walkways are mostly 30" wide with some 40" spots.  There are two 24" pinch points on the top and bottom of the 32" radius turn back lobe - I want to maintain 32 inch minimum radius.  I have a lot of 89' TOFC flat cars, 86' auto box cars, auto racks and passenger cars.

This is planned to be a single track mainline with a couple of passing sidings around 18-20' long.

I may need to redraw the numbers so they are legible in scans and images, but the narrowest benchwork is 18" (at the top left and the bottom left).

The yard is indeed long the bottom and I want it to be failry large - include a TOFC area.  Most of it is 24" wide - proabably with legs due to weight - but will have legs inset.  The walkway along most of the yard is 30".

It sounds like I have already addressed most of the major concerns with the track plan as it is sketched.  Not my first rodeo but am try ing to squeeze in as much as I comfortbly can.

As i said, i like the track

As i said, i like the track plan  A LOT (g-shaped=lots of mainline run).

I don't know if it is possible to go around the walls ie for the tracks to follow the upper side of the drawing (where the word "furnace" is) follow through to meet the tracks on the right-side wall. I hope i am making sense with this. You would need a lift-gate somewhere for this though.

Thanks Yannis,To extend the

Thanks Yannis, i originally thought it would just be C shaped but found I could squeeze in the G shape and get more running - which I really wanted after the smaller 10x18' layout I built in a townhome.  It's a little cramped but not extremely and still generous enough to have some decent larger curves and maintain minimum 32".

To extend the layout to the wall at the top would require a liftout gate for sure.

It is tempting but there are some access things along that wall which limit how far that could go before more liftout gates would be needed.  I think most layouts try to limit to one liftout gate i most cases.

Along the top of the plan there is

1) the entrance to the basement (upper left),
2) at the middle to where Furnace is marked, that is inside a 14x14' utility room dioorway where I have shelves, work space etc. and plan to install a utility sink to do messy stuff like plaster.  There is also a bathroom "rough in" with a door near the same entrance as the utility room.

3) At the top right the basement continues into a 12x12' room whith a walk-out stairway up to the side/back yard.

So basically along the entire top of the layout a walkway from the stairs all the way to the utility room, bathroom and far room is a "good idea" and designed into the plan in this version.

To run the layout to the top wall would be for a limited distance only to allow access to be maintained to the utility room, bathroom and far end of the basement.  To get there that way - the lift gate would have to be raised, then walk down the left side walkway, along the yard and back up to the right and out.  Those walkways in that scenario would be wider than in this plan - that would be facilitated by expanding everything up to the top wall.

I'm still liking this first version but have plenty of time to consider revisions.

In this case...

Ok now that i figured out the setup of the basement, i agree with you that going around the walls is not efficient. So to re-cap... great plan in the making, looking forward to seeing its progress!

Are you planning for freight-ops only or some passenger action as well?

The plan is for DRGW trains

D&RGW

Do you have any specific Rio Grande locations or scenes you want to model? That would greatly help in deciding the track plan. Looks like plenty of space for a nice layout with sufficient room for scenery and operator access. I'd start by deciding on the layout design elements I'd want then figure out a preliminary track plan that connects them in some appropiate form. Last step would be mocking up the benchwork full size and tweaking the design to maximize it's in person comfort and appeal......DaveB

Isles

Jim, if it were me, I would strive to make the widest walkways possible. I operate on a friend's layout occasionally, and while his large radius curves are great for my big steam locomotives, the narrow walkway between the turn back peninsula and the side wall bench work, is a problem area for even one operator with more than a 28 inch waistline. People space is important for comfortable operating, all the plans I have drawn for my next layout have a minimum of 32 inches wide walkways, and most at 36 to 40 inches wide, within a 16 to 17 foot wide space.

Moe, most walkways on my

Moe, most walkways on my track plan are only 2 inches less than your minimum.  I can't really fit in much more than that.

Here I've revised the plan from the first early draft - it should be more clear and most of the numbers legible now.  I've sketched in two 21 foot passing sidings and a rough in of the main yard.

Nice Design

I really like the design,  and upon a closer look at this new picture, the most you could gain in Isle space around the Peninsula would be maybe 2 more inches by shrinking the outer bench work. It  looks good to me. Jim

Looks like you could model

Looks like you could model Soliders Summit. With a track plan like that. Or even Castle gate.

Always like the SP/DRGW in the mid 80/eary 90's

Phil

I'm fairly satisfied with how

Can the Zephyr make a return trip?

Jim,

Perhaps you have already considered:

Do you want to have the Zephyr be able to travel in both directions on the mainline? I don't see from your drawings how a boattail observation can be turned without 0-5-0 action. I suppose that tracks in the main yard and in the staging yard (you mentioned operation on the lower level) can allow a diesel consist with two A units to run around a train to change direction, but single-ended locos and the observation need reversing track. 

DrJolS

Right hand area for reverse loop and helix

I haven't filled in the right hand lobe yet but it can accomodate a reverse loop and that is among features I am planning to include.

Aisles and Mock up

The 24" and 30" by your yard will be the major bottle neck.  

If you plan to double deck it I would definitely mock up a 30" aisle with two levels on BOTH sides to see how you like the fit and to check benchwork heights.  I attached slottted shelf brackets to the wall and I would suggest putting a couple "studs" up to do the same on the other side.  If nothing else put the shelf brakets on the wall and a stack of boxes or tubs 24-30 inches away from the shelves at least as high as the upper level  Puts some shelves on the brackets and some cars and buildings on the shelves.  Test reach and view.  With such narrow aisles, can you see into the bottom shelf?

I did this in my basement on a previous layout and decided against going to two levels because I had nominal 36 aisles.

I would also suggest trying to minimize stuff on or sticking out of the fascia.  A throttle holder on the benchwork narrows the aisle 2".  So do switch controls.  Signage on the fascia becomes harder to read the closer you have to stand to the fascia.  

Not saying it won't work, just suggesting some things you might consider before construction so you can have a chance to mitigate them.