Some suggestions

Crusty - I am at a similar point, although I have decided what I want basically and may change it when I get well into laying it out. I am also in N scale. I will also be using modules similar in size. Here is my suggestion: Look at what M.C. Fujiwara has been able to do in N scale. He has a wide variety of scenes and is using modules between 12" and 24" wide. Here are links to some of his posts that may help you to see how much terrain and scenery can be accomplished in small space in N scale. I suggest you look at all four of the posts (and others, if you want to go further).

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/shoofly-freemon-module-2x6-12189639

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/freemon-staging-yard-16x10-12190172

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/summer-shunting-shelf-project-12188422

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/mt-coffin-columbia-river-n-scale-year-two-12189090

I hope these are helpful to you - they have given me much food for thought.

Keep it narrow

I've built a couple of N scale modules. I think I prefer narrow. When building a home layout, I'd go even narrower with a lot of backdrop style buildings. I think just as important as figuring your layout width is figuring the width of the aisle ways, I made the mistake on my first layout of thinking I could live with a 28" aisle. Very tight.

Alaskan Steamship is 16" wide. It could be narrower if I was only modeling one side of the tracks.

O'Brien is 24" wide. It has a lot of open space and I really had to work to get the scenery filled in. In fact, I still need to fill some of the foreground scenery. The main reason I went so large was to use the large warehouse building kits I had.

Thanks

Thanks for the inputs. And now I have some reading to do.

As far as Isles go, on the donut, they would be 30" wide isles. On the point to point, they would be 36". Does 6" really make that much of a difference? I'm sure it probably does.

I'll sit around and do up some more drawings using 12" wide modules and see how that comes out. Who knows, I may shorten down the center of the W and make it a full loop by connecting the two outer ends.

A suggestion if you are so inclined...

Crusty my friend,

Have you thought about getting a roll of that brown wrapping paper that is 30 to 36 inches wide so that you can approximate you bench work?  What I mean here is to draw out the proposed bench work surfaces on the brown paper.  Cut it out and then lay it on the floor of the space you have designated for this layout.  You can make adjustments by cutting out paper or adding paper.  This will allow you to walk around the layout to get a feel for what you have in mind.  You will find that rounding off corners will give you some more space and eliminate bump/snag areas.

I model in N-scale too.  Using the paper is what I did to determine how much I could get into an 11'x11' room and still have space to walk around the layout.  I happen to have a gut that must be taken into consideration for my aisle widths.  Once I got that figured out I was able to adjust my track plan to fit.

Once you have the paper adjusted to the room then you could draw out your track plan to full scale on the brown paper to see what fits and what doesn't fit. You can see what curves are too tight and which ones could be made larger.  You could draw in the location of your bridges and cuts too.  You can mark out where the towns and yards will go.  Just make it a full scale drawing.

Now you might rip it all up and start again several times until you find the right bench work configuration, but the paper is a whole lot cheaper than wood. When you are satisfied with what you have drawn up you now have a full size template to determine where joints will be.  Now you can build your bench work to the template and save yourself on some wood expense.  You can also get creative with your bench work design.

I hope this helps.

Den

Make It Visual

Den is right on. A 1:1 scale paper print makes it so easy to visualize your space and track arrangement. I used computer and ink jet but brown paper and pencil will work just as well.

Hadn't thought of that

I haven't thought of using the brown paper to lay it out. What I have been doing though is at least trying to draw it out in scale using some grid paper I have. It gives me something to do while I am on travel sitting in a hotel room. I'm almost thru my second pad of grid paper.

I've basically just drawn out the track centerline and the basic outline of buildings and such. But it's hard to really tell the size by looking at a scale drawing. I have drawn out a section of my yard area to full size just to fighre out my switches and get the right angles and such to see how it would fit. Winds up with a 2" backdrop building, yard tracks and one main line thru track, I can fit it all in a 12" area having 2" from the edge of teh track to the edge of the module.

Alan, what program did you use to draw out your layout to full scale?

XTrkCAD

XTrkCAD

Thanks

Thanks, I'll take a lok at it.

Excellent photo reference.

Yep, I agree fully. I got

Yep, I agree fully. I got the program Alan linked and am learning it now. I've got a couple of basic outlines but not sure how I could post them. Alan, any ideas? If so, then I can post the three outlines I have and you guys can beat me up on them.  

Isle Width

36" is three feet, almost a meter. That's easy enough to visualize. 30" is the width of a standard doorway in your house. If you are going to be the only one running trains, 30" isles will probably work. If you plan to have others run at the same time, think about both of you going through a doorway at the same time.

RE:

Am not that far along yet but that is the plan.

In XTrkCAD output your drawing to BMP. Post on MRH like any other picture. Alternately, you could place your XTrkCAD .xtc file in a ZIP file and attach it to a new topic post. .xtc is not one of the allowable file formats for attachment hence the need to put it in a ZIP file. On a windows machine right click on the file, send to compressed folder.

Thanks

Thanks Alan. I'll work on getting some grid lines set up on them so it will be easier to see the distance and then I'll start a new post and put them in there. Seems like the more I think about it, the more I'm leaning to 1' wide bench work. The only part is, I need a little wider than 1' in some areas so that I can put in my turntables and roundhouse.

Test

Ok let's see if this works. Got it. Layout is 10' X 16'. Grid is 1' Sq. Circles are my turntables.

Youngin's Only

Duckunder to enter? Hard on the back after a while.

It's modular.

I'm making it Modular as it's in my garage and I'll need to take it down at times for other projects. So I can easily install a flip up or remove a module to get in and out.

By the by, I started a new thread that has all three layouts in it.