Layout options.

You might want to look at purchasing a couple books authored by Lance Mindheim. These soft bound books provide information in an area you are interested in. The first would be How "To Design A Small Switching Layout" and the second one I would suggest is "8 Realistic Track Plans for A Spare Room. Both are very easy to read and understand. I have read each one many times and they have been a great help. There are three others I would add to the group. I am sure you can find them on Amazon or such.

Wayne

Continous run?

A layout with turn back curves will require some minimum radius so your room width becomes important when deciding the scale, the era, and track plan. If you have some dimensions of available layout space to post you will probably get many suggestions for a layout to fit the space....DaveB

Do you have the use of the whole room?

 For continuous run, I would advise against an island railroad in favor of building something around the walls on a shelf. Something like the Heart of Georgia plan here... http://hogrr.blogspot.com/

Point to point with industri and yards on either end...

Don't foregt to consider a fairly high shelf layout around some walls.  You will get a longer run and after all,  point to point is prototypical..Shelves 12" to 18" allow a lot of secery...and the center of the room allows other activities. Or go all the way around the room with a liftout at the entrance for continous runnnig.   

room dimension

The size of the room I could use is roughly 11ft by 12ft

Good reading...

I recommend reading this article, https://www.layoutvision.com/why-waste-the-space-on-a-4x8An island railroad is going to restrict your curve radius and limit what equipment you can run, something to keep in mind when considering era modeled.

thanks ya'll

Thanks for the link Michael. Nice layout you have too.

The size of the room I could

The size of the room I could use is roughly 11ft by 12ft

Assuming there is one door opening in, and only one person will be operating, that means one side has to have an aisle about 30" wide and the other three sides 24" wide  That gives you a space about 7x 7.5  ft to put a layout, you could probably cheat and put a 4x8 sheet of plywood in there and just have emergency access on one side.  Using the full 7 ft of width is problematic since you can't reach in that far.  Plus getting a 4x8 sheet of plywood in one piece into a room is difficult.

If you made it a "donut" shaped layout, you could leave a wider aisle along 2 sides, 3 ft, and then have a layout 8 ft by 9 ft.  making the sections 2 ft wide you could have a 4x5 ft hole in the center to operate the layout from.  That would give you a bigger layout, better viewing access and more operating possibilities.  Plus it could be made in smaller sections, brought up to the room and bolted together, much easier to get into an smaller room.

 It does require a little more carpentry skill, but nothing too terrible.  If you raise the layout up to 48-50" above the floor, there is room for book cases and workbenches under the layout.

Example

Here are some pictures of my son's layout.  It fits in a spare bedroom.  It is built as a double decker, with the upper level for LEGO trains and the bottom level for HO trains.

Here are some pics of the HO level to give you an idea of what can fit in something like I proposed.  The layout has 6 long staging tracks, a double track loop main, a small switching yard, a few industries and a large engine terminal to store and display engines.  Because its a double decker and my son isnt' that tall the HO deck is at desk height, about 32" above the floor and he operates it from a chair.  If it had been single deck I would have put it about 40-48" high.  It is a straight, old school, DC toggle block control system.  One stationary power pack and one tethered DC throttle.

There is a 30" wide opening with liftouts across it for access.

Thanks Dave for giving me

Thanks Dave for giving me some visual ideas with that room mock up you did, that was very nice of you. 

Around the room?

If you can put a shelf on the walls all the way around the room you would get the longest run and the longest possible straight sections. It would require a lift out section a tthe door unless you are limber and don't mind ducking under to enter. Make the shelves wide enough to run the track twice around the walls for an even longer run....DaveB