I know Scott Perry,

Have you emailed Scott Perry for his opinion?  I have had some great emails with Scott as I have been building another one of his layout designs.

Having a wye is a great way to turn around engines if there is no turn table.  Having a large yard to run out of would expand the layout for more operation.  There are others on here that will jump in, but you will need to add more tracks to your design for a more informed opinion.  You have a great start.

One of the things you can do at this point is to get a wide roll of brown wrapping paper from a craft store.  If you can, use the paper to determine the widths of your bench work as you have it drawn out, by laying the paper on the floor cut to match your bench work.  Walk around it.  Get a feel for the space.  Do your changes work?  Do you need to make additional changes.  Make sure you have plenty of space for walking around the layout.  Some of your operating friends may need more room than you to follow a train.  This will help you determine your wood requirements or shelving requirements before you cut anything to fit.

There are programs available that will let you printout your track designed to scale size.  You align it all together to get the flow of the layout.  You can glue this down to the work surface of the bench work and lay your right a way on top of the print outs.  No need to remove the print outs.  If something doesn't look right it will be easy to make a change at the computer.

I hope this helps.

Den

Operating the HoG

Scott Perry started the North County Interchange Operating Group within the Piedmont Division (that is, Atlanta) of the NMRA, and the NCIOG helped build the HoG for Steve Berkheimer.  Both Scott and Steve have since moved out West for their jobs.  I joined the group several years ago, and actually got to work on the HoG, and to operate on it.  The limitations I found when operating are mainly that it's wonderful from outside the layout, but you need to almost crawl under the benchwork to operate from inside.  So any expansion inside the circle would be awkward to get to.  However, if you were to lengthen any pair of sides, you could keep the operators on the outside.  And there were several locations where we thought it would be reasonable and easy to extend another line off onto another section of benchwork.

Before Steve moved, we modified the HoG using Bob Wheeler's dowel locating system for ease of re-assembly after transporting.  The HoG itself was raffled off about a year and a half ago at the Piedmont Division's annual train show.  Interestingly, the winner was a 12-year-old boy who had been brought to the show by a model railroading neighbor!  We had used my wife's pickup to move the layout from Steve's house to Trainmaster (our favorite LHS) where it was on display prior to the show, then to the show, and from the show to the winner's father's garage, about 50 miles or so north of Atlanta.  Another member and I set up the layout in its new home in about an hour and a half, and trains were running before we left.

So for a permanent setup in a basement, the layout as designed provides lots of operation.  Expanded, it would provide lots more opportunity for short line ops.  Even without adding any more tracks, expanding the run would add interest, and extending the layout off one of the stations (the Georgia Central interchange at Vidalia would probably work out best) would add LOTS of interest.  The plan would need to be modified to extend the Southern RR (now NS) line at the other end of Vidalia (which is Americus or Leslie)  Just orient the layout (it's square, after all!) so the selected interchange points into the area you want to expand into.  Lengthening the sides so if fits around the walls, though, means you MUST have a duck under or crawl under to operate from inside the square, which would mean any extension outside the square would be hard to get to from inside.

Let us know how it works out!

Paul

Heart of Georgia

I built Scott Perry's Heart of Georgia in HO scale. It is the only layout I built using Kato Unitrack system. Most of my layouts my track has been hand laid. The Unitrack system is awesome and it is incredibly indestructible. The only set back that it does not look realistic. But if you ballast it it does not look bad at all.

But any way, the Heart of Georgia layout was an excellent layout. My layout was built on a 10 x 12 bedroom. If you like the combination of switching and continuous run, you can't beat that layout. A very simple simple layout with a lot of operation capabilities. It has been one of my favorite layouts that I have built.

Mike

I have always admired the HOG but think that if it could be squeezed out a little bit that it would help with ascetics of operation (if there is such a thing) ie caboose in one town, the train in another and the motive power in a third town kind of thing. 

As for the wye you could always do a scissors wye and have the best of both worlds - the wye without all of the used space.  http://maritime.dns.ca/mgerrits/trains/Wye,%20ME.html

Steve