Sounds like what I did.

Hi Greg,

It’s good to hear that you have a place to experiment and play.  It would be good to have a sketch of the proposed area.  The nolix idea made great sense to me for good visual run.  I probably won’t scenic a lot of the grade but still have the fun of watching a longer train.  We both agree that a 1.5 percent grade is good.  Single locomotive and 10 to 20 cars with supervision works well for me on the hill.  I had to learn consisting GP38s and GP40s or a pair of SD70ACes to run unsupervised.  Curve radius is more generous than the minimums so it should be good for longer locomotives.  The depth of the surfaces should be easy and fun to work with.  Wider isn’t ever easier in my mind.  My yard is 36” deep and at times the back tracks are a pita....  Good thing it’s summer and they are for a fuel oil distributor!  Splitting the basement the long way does give a nice long run too.

Good luck!  Sounds like you’re on the right track!

P. S. Was in the motorhome in Hillsboro night before last.  I expect to see a running layout in the spring when we return......

Nick

That is a nice space to work

That is a nice space to work with.  I'm working with a much smaller space with an actual layout size of about 12.5 x  33 feet and squeezing in as much as possible with staging under a main yard and a helix at one side.

http://atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/3737/jims-layout-progress?page=3

The above link has a basic draft if you scroll down as an example of what I am planning.

Due to the space limitations, my yard will only be 24 inches wide and some scenes on the opposite end will be only 9 inches deep.  Minimum radius is 32" mainline.  All compromises to fit in the longest run possible in the space available.  I'll be making use of building flats due to the narrow yard area for switching of industries - won't be very many actual buildings, a few.

Key assumption

 That's a key blob eliminator. My girlfriend and I just moved into what we hope will be our "pine box." It's got a 50x25 basement with a supporting open stud wall in the middle. But the entry to the space is from the exterior side wall near the corner, so blobs are almost inevitable if I want to hug the walls.  

Since I'm already plenty busy with the layout at work (!), I can take my time to ponder the possibilities. I've been doing a lot of the kind of thinking that gregc describes. That's some fun right there. 

Jeff Allen

50x25 basement with a

When we were house hunting, my wife and I looked at a house with at fairly large open rectangular basement with a center stud wall.  I believe the stairs came down in the middle and the only obstruction along the perimeter was a walkout door on the back wall to the back yard.  It would have been a nice open basement for designing a layout, but a major red flag was the stud wall at one point had badly bowed studs, as if it was buckling under the weight of the upper two floors.  We weren't enamored with the layout of the rest of the house either, or a high maintenance in-ground pool in the back, so we passed in favor of a house with a basement already framed in which was bank owned and gave us a lower mortgage.

lower mortgage counts for a lot!

 A very compelling feature!

Jeff Allen

staircases

again, imagining ....

even if a staircase came down along side an outside wall, it might be possible to route a track at different levels between the treads.

the idea is to avoid the need loop and wide areas for track.

instead of a 4x8' layout, Byron Henderson advocates using the space required surrounding the 4x8 sheet for a layout and using the space of the 4x8 or less as aisle for an around the room layout

if most of a 120' around the basement run were just 4" wide, total layout area would be just 40 sq ft, comparable to a 4x8' and highlighting how much space is wasted on a sheet.    Sidings might require 6".   

it seems to me that making these types of compromises, using long narrow spaces make it possible to have long track lengths (120' == 2 scale miles)  that can be doubled or triples with multiple decks

     50'x25' size

        141' run

         30" rad

          6" offset

         15" deck sep

      1.50%  grade

         55' flat run

         15  station car capacity

          8' station lenght

          6  stations

How wide would this benchwork be?

If it's not wide enough, the track would parallel the aisle/edge and make for a very tiring (yawn...) run.

I would make the track curve and snake around just to break the straight monotony. Yes, I know railroads prefer straight as arrow, but there should be some aesthetics in modelling, for the sake of humans, and not just for profit.

what's your purpose?

you may need to do that to avoid obstacles such as piping

But if you're just trying to scratch out a layout in a cluttered basement, you may be willing to sacrifice aesthetics, even uncluttered aisles.   The result can be a lengthy layout where TT&TO can be meaningful.   See Tony Koester's layout

I think it was Operating a Model Railroad (1942) that described an O-gauge layout on the floor of a basement where operators stepped over tracks to operate.   They weren't concerned with saesthetics