Planning: OO Gauge Heritage Line (The S.H.H.R)

[redline41190]

Ooh. Nice. Mine are made with budget in mind, hence I often scratch build. Can make waggons for about a third of the price of a 00 gauge wagon. Use drawing pins and paperclips to make central buffer/couplings. Using centre buffers allows the trains to negotiate sharp curves.

I tried to scratch build using some old American HO stuff. It didn't come out well, so I stick to kits and whatnot

[glencairn]

As much as the figure 8 would be cool to have the changes in elevation, I think I'm just going to stick with the oval. The layout will be in a corner space and to have a section of layout that is completely unreachable is kind of hard to have when something could go wrong.

Hi Redline41190. My wife, Lady G, is disabled and if anything falls on the floor she uses what we call a 'grabber'. Basically it is a long arm with a lever that once pressed picks up the item. My Grandchildren 'borrow' it when they are in my train room. It actually works. One may be a solution for you perhaps.

Glencairn

[redline41190]

As much as the figure 8 would be cool to have the changes in elevation, I think I'm just going to stick with the oval. The layout will be in a corner space and to have a section of layout that is completely unreachable is kind of hard to have when something could go wrong.

Hi Redline41190. My wife, Lady G, is disabled and if anything falls on the floor she uses what we call a 'grabber'. Basically it is a long arm with a lever that once pressed picks up the item. My Grandchildren 'borrow' it when they are in my train room. It actually works. One may be a solution for you perhaps.

Glencairn

Hadn't thought of that one... hmm something to think about.


May go ahead and purchase/browse through the BRM layout planner guide, it seemed to have some neat ideas.

[redline41190]

Well I went ahead and went through some more layout planner ideas...


I promise this is the last one


But using the same 4x8 space I came up with this



I could sit in the middle of this and watch the trains go round

Once again I lose the provision of the back-scene to switch out locos and whatnot without anyone seeing. BUT this makes great use of available space. One side is Ross-on-Wye station, the other side is scenic, I could try to factor in a bridge that crosses the river wye (on the line to Fawley) and a perhaps a tunnel (on the line to Grange Court) though that may be asking a bit much. There would be scenic breaks though so as to "divide" the two sections.

the baseboards are only 1ft wide, providing much more space than I thought it would actually be. Most likely would consist of four 4x1 sections two 2x1 sections and the triangle for the yard. Which leaves one 4x1 section left from a 4x8 sheet of plywood.

[redline41190]

20 days later I've gone through about 15 different revisions of what I want to do. I made end to ends, fiddle yard layouts, bigger, smaller etc. In the end I saw a layout on youtube that I really liked, I sort of played upon it (I think I added 1ft to the length) its a 4x7 baseboard, as to not interfere with my window in my room



Engine shed area, single running main line, secondary half loop/entrance to shed area, exhibition area (on the station side). Plenty of room for a small bunch of buildings and a road over pass in the top right corner.

Not too big, not too small. Should be fine considering it will be my first REAL layout.

[Emettman]

Redline, I couldn't see at first glance whether you are going to be using DCC...

If not it's going to be useful to have the ability to isolate the outer oval in three sections and the inner loop in two so as to be able to use parts of these to hold trains, or just locos, while shuffling sidings and changing over trains.

If operating with one controller, these only need to be on/off switches, but if two controllers are used (and the layout could use two) then dpdt centre off switches would increase the ability to handle trains considerable on the same trackplan.

Chris

[redline41190]

Redline, I couldn't see at first glance whether you are going to be using DCC...

If not it's going to be useful to have the ability to isolate the outer oval in three sections and the inner loop in two so as to be able to use parts of these to hold trains, or just locos, while shuffling sidings and changing over trains.

If operating with one controller, these only need to be on/off switches, but if two controllers are used (and the layout could use two) then dpdt centre off switches would increase the ability to handle trains considerable on the same trackplan.

Chris

I am planning on running DCC, but will probably have to run it in normal DC with two controllers in the beginning. Block sections would be: outer loop, inner passing loop, upper siding in the yard, engine shed road 1, road 2, lower sidings together.