Glob-Ally

I was also away at the start of this. But if you are reconsidering the location and - especially - the style of the shed, you could also take the opportunity to reconsider the location of the door. If it were me I’d be keen to have it on the middle of the short side - leaving you the two long walls uninterrupted.

Apologies @Mysticpuzzle I have been travelling for work. Would the parts list still be useful? If so I should be able to sort it for you when I get back home tomorrow. But appreciate things have moved on somewhat since then!

That’s a fair challenge - and you may well be right! To also be fair to myself though, I did say in my earlier post that I recognise this is top end of ambition. But I wanted to test if it was possible to include all the things requested in the OP plus the “play value” dimension that The Johnster recognised and the OP seemed to welcome. I think perhaps more than anything what my scheme shows is that the answer to that is it is possible but it does create something more complex and so it requires real consideration about feasibility and trade-offs. I certainly shan’t be offended if the OP decides it’s too much to bite off anyway! Two other quick thoughts: 1 - it’s undoubtedly complex in terms of baseboards and portability which is a biggie. But I’m not sure it’s hugely complex in other dimensions. It’s almost all set track, so tracklaying wont be especially challenging. And whilst I freely admit to being hopeless with electrics, I think it should be relatively easy to wire up for DC with four feeds (outer loop and shed, inner loop and platform 3, goods yard, branch) and some IRJs? 2 - playing devil’s advocate, if you do much less than this is it worth going around the edge of the room at all? Any form of round the room layout is going to be encountering the challenges of lifting flap(s) and board shape to get around the jutting out section, plus of where to store the boards. If it becomes simply a double track circuit with a station on either side does it add much to go round the walls compared to what you’d get from an 8x4 resting on some trestles with a scenic divider down the middle?

Hi @Mysticpuzzle here’s a suggestion to (try to) meet your criteria. I am a regular lurker here but not a regular contributor as there are others who know far more than me about the ins and outs of railways (model and real!). But your situation particularly resonated with me as it sounded similar to what I tried to achieve myself in a first (now discontinued thanks to a house move) layout with my little boys and will hope to do again once we have a more permanent place again. I endorse basically everything @The Johnster said and if I had to sum it up I would say maximise play value in a way that doesn’t feel entirely toy-like. This design aims to do that. I’ve tried to fit as many of your requests in as possible and aim for the upper end of ambition. It could be scaled down if this felt unmanageable, or built in stages as money/time permit. But I wanted to see what was do-able. The basic idea is a double-track roundy roundy which goes through a main station (on the left hand side) and disappears in to tunnels that lead to some hidden sidings behind a back-scene (on the right), and then a branch line which runs from the main station to a small terminus in front of the hidden sidings. Also included is space for some industries and shunting. Mainline passenger trains can obviously either stop at the station (it should fit your 4-car Eurostar if it’s the same one I have) or go through non-stop. But you also have options in both directions for added interest. On the clockwise (outer) line if you have a loco-hauled train you can have a loco change by the train stopping in platform 1, then the old loco decoupling and going to the shed in the corner to be replaced by another. Meanwhile, on the anti-clockwise (inner) line you can have a slow train pull in to platform 3 and be overtaken by an express service on platform 2. Platform 3 is also used for branch line passenger services which can either terminate there and reverse or join the mainline and go to the hidden sidings. In terms of mainline goods services, they would pull off the main line in to the goods loop marked (G). A shunter parked in the headshunt (H) could then sort the wagons between three industries – the tracks marked A, B and C and/or prepare a short freight train to run from the goods loop down the branch to industry siding D next to the branch line terminus. This should give lots of interest (although probably also some frustration – shunting over set-track points and sharp curves is rarely entirely smooth) and you could look to build the industries with your boy from kits (Metcalfe are popular) as a joint activity. In terms of your wish-list I think this ticks all the boxes (and indeed there’s a triple-level crossing rather than just a double ;) other than the turntable which I just couldn’t fit. I think the layout could at a stretch sustain 6 trains (3 mainline passenger, 1 mainline goods, 1 branchline passenger, 1 branchline goods) plus a shunter. The layout is built almost entirely with set-track, although there are a few bits of flexi to handle a couple of awkward corners and long-straights in the hidden sidings (more economical than lots of pieces of set-track). There’s nothing less than R2, and there are lots of R3 curves, which I should imagine you’re swimming in if you bought several trainsets! This can doubtless be improved by the expert minds on here but your feedback on what you like/don’t like will help shape that. So I hope this is useful for that if nothing else!

Has anyone tried connecting up to tillig bedding track yet? Is it possible and what is the height difference to overcome? I’m likely to need to build a layout that can be dismantled and moved around for storage and am wondering whether bedding track might be good to use at the end of each board, making it easier to disconnect and reconnect multiple times without the complexities of copper clad sleepers and worrying about rail alignments. But I don’t want to use bedding track for the whole layout so would need to be able to connect the bedding track to peco away from the board ends.

As someone potentially interested in a venture in to TT120 as a way to get properly in to the hobby (after several failed attempts tinkering around the edges in OO and N), I was very struck attending the big Doncaster show at the weekend with my trains-mad son that there was absolutely no evidence of TT120’s existence to the thousands there. I’m sure some of the exhibitors had Peco track on sale but there was no sign of advertising for, let alone a demonstration of, Hornby’s product. I get that Hornby’s marketing pitch isn’t to people already established in the hobby, but it seemed like there were a lot of families like mine at Doncaster. People who went as something interesting to do locally on a cold Sunday with kids who like trains. People who will only go to that one exhibition this year. And who probably look at the (excellent) layouts there and think they could never do it, so don’t buy anything. Is that not the perfect demographic to be selling this manageably-sized complete-system train set to? The fact that my not-in-the-slightest-bit-interested wife was probably more likely to see an ad for TT120 in the Sunday paper she was sat at home reading feels very odd I have to say. Meanwhile I will be back to reading the excellent posts on here and watching YouTube videos whilst deciding whether to take the plunge…

Dear all, thank you again for the combination of sage advice and creative thinking last year when I started planning this. Things have since moved forward apace - we are now in the apartment, the tables are bought and assembled and have been covered in 4mm cork. And over Christmas I laid some 1:1 scale track out and started experimenting. Inevitably though there are a few changes! The biggest one was that in setting up the room my wife decided (on the spot when the furniture delivery guy brought the sofa bed while I was at work) that it would be better if we flipped the room and put the railway and sofa bed along the opposite walls to those originally planned. The room is rectangular so the space available is identical but it now means the Phase 2 branch line will go off to the top right of diagram instead of top left. No big deal I thought... until I stopped to think about it. Actually it IS a big deal. Although I'm far from wedded to prototype I do want to have left hand running and trains entering from the top right means they will now circuit the inner loop first and then the outer loop. That in turn changes lots of other calculations. It was clear a simple flip of the plan wouldn't work and some tweaking would be needed. Secondly, I was happy to discover having laid out some actual track on the actual tables that I can actually reach further than I thought - at least if its simply a case of giving things a prod because they've stalled or flipping a point lever. So less of the back of the board is off limits for pointwork. Finally, I have decided that during Phase One I will stick to DC rather than going to DCC. When I sat down and thought about it in the cold light of day I reminded myself that part of the point of this is to check that I do actually enjoy this hobby! Investing extra cash up front felt not really in the spirit of this, and although I could have gone for one of the cheaper end DCC systems I thought if I'm going to make the investment of buying a system it would be better to get one that will last - and when you then add in getting two controllers so the boy can join in and a reversing loop module to fit the clever designs you all helped me with before... it ain't cheap. So I've put my foot down with myself and decided to stick with DC for the time being. (I've promised myself that if I make good progress on Phase 1 in the next 18 months, a DCC system can go on the 2022 birthday list to kickstart Phase 2!) As a result I'll be working off variants of the plan without the reversing loop. And so here is the revised edition I've come up with, based on these three changes plus all your helpful feedback before. As before, trains will enter from the siding at the back. They'll now immediately cross the crossover and run as many circuits as I feel like anti-clockwise on the inner loop. After that: - Passenger trains will terminate in the station, the loco will run off to the shed, and another loco will leave the shed and loop round on to the other end of the train. It will then pull it out over the right hand curved points to the outer loop, do as many circuits as required and then exit off the branch. Obviously for DMU trains they can simply reverse without the loco change. - Goods trains will operate on an American-style drop-off/pick-up basis, reversing in to sidings. They'll first handle the fuel by the diesel depot, then the three sidings towards the bottom left. Once those are complete the loco will detach and head for the shed, and another loco will come from shed to the other end of the train (no brake vans as I'm looking at 80s/90s era, but we'll have to temporarily pretend the inner loop is actually a lie-by siding as there isn't room for a separate one). It'll take the train across the left hand curved points on to the outer loop before shunting the siding in the very bottom right and the other two towards the bottom right (bringing to a halt passenger traffic on the inner loop while it does as an interesting operational twist). Then it will depart off-scene up the branch. That is obviously all quite involved, compared to a train simply coming on-scene, lapping, taking the reverse loop, lapping in the opposite direction and then departing. But I said at the outset I actively want the operations to be interesting and challenging, and now they will be. The design deliberately builds in 8 locations for storing goods wagons as my tentative plans for Phase 2 include an Inglenook Shunting Puzzle goods yard and so having somewhere for the wagons to then go will add to this (and finding and building suitable industry kits will be good practice). But of course, when the boy is a bit bigger and ready to play trains, we can simply set all the points for the two loops and race trains around them in and out of the tunnels. So I think it works. But before I order the remaining track required, I'd love a final sense-check that I haven't missed something obvious! One specific question I had was about the wiring and the (Hornby/Peco set-track) diamond crossing at the bottom of the plan. I presume these are insulated so that the crossing tracks don't touch, and therefore the two sidings would continue to be operable from the controller for the outer loop despite the route in crossing the inner loop?

Another one coming to this late... can I ask what glue you used to attach the cork to the linnmon tables? Other threads on this forum talk about best glues to go with the cork but the linnmon surface is much more shiny and smooth than ply or chipboard. Thanks.

Hi Henry, I’m also a relative newbie (you can see my own thread a page or so further down this board) and so other people are far better qualified than me to comment on your space. But your thread title jumped out at me! Mainly because I can empathise! That’s exactly how I felt a couple of months back. In case it helps the way I broke through feeling overwhelmed was to focus less on the list of features I wanted on my layout and more about how I wanted it to operate. I’ve then been able to work backwards from this in planning. In your posts I don’t think I’ve seen anything about what you think on this front. Will it just be you operating or with others? Do you want to set things rolling and then sit back and watch? Or be actively involved in driving/signalling/shunting? Does it matter to you if something doesn’t look prototypical? Do you mind seeing the same train repeatedly or do you want things to move on and off scene? Do you want a sense of trains going places? Even how long at a time do you want to operate for in one go will be relevant to how small a gap you’re willing to squeeze in to! Based on my own experience I think if you’re able to add a bit on these questions you’ll be better able to get the most out of the fantastic expertise on this forum. I hope that helps some. Good luck!

Thank you all for another round of fantastic comments. @Chimer I think that could work, yes. The reason I hesitate is that what you describe is basically what I'm hoping to do at the end of the branch line when I build that in Phase 2! So I don't necessarily want to do the same operations twice. But this may be what I come back to if the reversing loop proves impractical. @DavidCBroad I had a go today at putting your idea on moving the branchline point in to anyrail. Unfortunately it meant that the branch line curve went off the back of the board (unless I dropped it to 1st radius which I'm not willing to do given the stock I want to run). To avoid that I'd have to move the ovals towards the front to the point where I would have to remove the front platform and even then it would be tight. So nice thinking but unfortunately it only succeeds in transferring the problem of being close to the baseboard edge from the short sides to the long sides! @OhOhthanks for the suggestions. You have indeed correctly identified where phase 2 is planned for! Your suggestion definitely eases the pressure at the edges of the board, but as you say having the rear crossover in the unreachable zone doesn't really work. I'm also reluctant to lose the start of the branch line (even in phase 1 I like the idea of having it as an off-stage spot for changing trains over) but I recognise this may prove necessary if putting the branch line point on the curve proves just too tight. I have been trying to figure out if there's a way to have a curved point going from 3rd to 4th radius instead of 2nd to 3rd to start the branchline but can't see a combination of track that makes the geometry work. Set-track curved points are too tight and streamline points too gentle. Any bright ideas welcome!

Wow thank you all for such quick and thoughtful responses! It’s nice to know I’m not barking up completely the wrong tree! (3 months ago I’m sure I would have been - other threads on this forum have really helped in that regard) To pick up a few of the individual points first: @ITG I haven’t finally decided yet but I’m leaning towards DCC, fairly strongly so should I decide to go with the reversing loop option (btw do you or others know with a DCC reversing loop module do you still have to stop the loco on the reversing section or can you drive it straight through non-stop?) Functionality wise I prefer DCC. The argument for DC would be on cost grounds - this is supposed to be a practise getting-back-into-the-hobby-layout so making a big long-term investment like a decent DCC system feels a touch counter-intuitive. @Keith Addenbrooke yes you are right that the shaded area is the unreachable part. On reflection I think you’re right about avoiding a siding there - an automatic uncoupler failing there would be every bit as frustrating as derailing on some points! @DavidCBroad good idea on the lip - should be easy enough to attach to the side and make part of the scenery - a low wall marking the railway boundary for example. I’ve also been conscious of the branch line point being a pain but don’t feel I’m up to custom track yet! I think next time I’m in AnyRail I might experiment with moving the entire curved point crossover 22.5deg further in to the bend so that the branch point also moves round to where you have it marked while being able to remain 2nd radius. That might work. @all-of-you thanks for thoughts on the two options. The fact it somewhat divided opinion indicates to me that neither is a crazy thought which is good! Looking ahead to phase 2 I really am keen for a way for trains to do out and back (with a few loops in the middle to space it out) from the branch. I am kind of envisaging me operating the branch and my boy driving the ovals then when he’s ready for a different train he sends me one up the branch and I prepare and send him a new one down. So as things stand that makes me like the reversing loop for the reasons David sets out. However I think I would change that view if either (a) it was just going to be a derailing nightmare; or (b) a plausible setup can be come up with for running the loco around goods trains (as I’ll be mainly modern era brake vans not essential) that doesn’t involve parking it in the station like it’s a passenger train! If anyone has experience of (a) or a clever idea for (b) I’m all ears! And thanks again for the comments so far! Ally

In phase one I'm going to stick to set track and (given the thickness of the tables) it'll be largely hand of god point operation (although I may add some surface mounted motors in more difficult to reach spots). Skills I want to work on including soldering and wiring up a bus, ballasting and some town and countryside scenery. But I accept its going to look fairly train-setty. Then in phase 2 I intend to venture in to flexi-track, gradients, and point motors mounted under the board (/shelf). I've had a crack at plotting out what this first phase might look like. I've come up with two similar versions (see attachments). Both are built around a double-track roundy-round (2nd and 3rd radius) with a track branching off round the back behind the backscene that will in the short-term be a place for changing over stock but once phase two is in place will become the start of the line up to the terminus which will be to the left. A chunk of both curves is marked as hidden track. The idea is that on the right hand side this will be a removable hillside countryside scene (to practise working with scatters, trees etc) with the track tunnelling underneath. And on the left hand side the idea will be to have a removable town scene, with a station building above the tracks creating the fiction that the platforms continue in to the tunnel and trains are longer than they appear. By making both removable there's a bit more width for if (when) the boy wants to start putting toys on to wagons and sending them round the layout - something I had never considered until reading other similar threads on here, so thanks! When in use, the Phase 1 tables will sit up against a wall. Main operating access will be from one of the long sides (the bottom in the attached pictures) with full access also possible from the two short sides left and right. Based on my reach (which I measured as 85cm at the height the layout will be) this will leave a 35x30cm area in the middle at the back not reachable without unplugging and moving the tables. I therefore want to avoid derailing and stalling in this area where at all possible, so I'm aiming to avoid pointwork in these areas, and ideally use straight track. I'd also like to minimise the number of tracks crossing the join between the two tables (black line in the pictures) To support operational interest my idea is to go a bit American and add some rail-served lineside industries (these are the random sidings you see other than the parallel pair with the Y-point which will be a shed/fuelling point). My thought is a mixed freight train can come on-scene, swap wagons at several industries, and then depart again. The phase 2 terminus will then one day include an Inglenook-esque shunting puzzle that can be the start and end point for those trains. Passenger services will be a bit more straightforward, entering, doing several loops and then departing. The key difference between the two is obviously that one includes a reversing loop and one doesn't. This is the primary area where I would like advice. I really like the theory. Train comes in from the branch, does several laps on the outer circuit, when ready it crosses over to the inner track and then immediately goes round the reversing loop, does several laps of the inner loop, and then when ready crosses the connection and goes back off down the branch. Juggling two trains on the layout at once should be an interesting challenge! But: the loop is second radius - it has to be to fit. Is that R2 S-bend going to become a complete derailing nightmare (with modern era models manufactured in the last 10 years) that will be more hassle than its worth? I know it'll look odd (I may try to semi hide it with an over-bridge or something) but more than that is it just not going to work? The second option cuts out that problem by being a more standard double track loop. The challenge here comes in how to get trains to reverse from the clockwise outer-loop to the anti-clockwise inner. For passenger trains I think this is feasible by (after a few laps) "terminating" in the station and the engine (if its not a DMU) running round to the other end of the train. But for goods trains, its not so easy. To do the same would involve stopping them in the station platform (weird!) unless another way can be found that looks less odd. On the plus side this version creates more scope for lineside industries and there are no curves in the "red zone." So I'm torn between the two, whilst equally conscious both can probably be improved on. Comments and advice very welcome! I know this sort of layout is not everyone's cup of tea but suspend disbelief and roll with me for a bit

Hi all, long time reader first time poster. In some ways my story is a familiar newbie one. Had a trainset as a kid, grandfather built me a baseboard, but parents weren't interested and my practical skills were essentially zero so it never got beyond doing a few boring loops and eventually I gave up. The difference between my dream of something vast circling the room at high speed and the reality of something stuttering round a small loop was just too great. Fast forward 25 years, I now have a little toddler of my own who is doing the stereotypical little boy thing of loving any toy involving a vehicle (cars, planes, trains...) and the idea of modelling started to come back to mind. When my wife proved surprisingly encouraging after I floated the idea with her, I decided it was time to dive in. But in many ways its a strange time. For the next 3-4 years we are going to be living in a high rise apartment in Asia (a long way from any model shops!), after which we'll move back to the UK and (hopefully) buy our forever home, necessitating something being completely dismantled. Trying to make virtue out of necessity, the plan therefore is to use these next few years to build a small-ish layout almost as a proof-of-concept. See if I enjoy it, see if the boy enjoys it, build up my skills and if all goes well then when we get the permanent home I can try to lay claim to a garage or a loft for the bigger layout I used to dream of. The things it definitely needs to have are: (1) OO gauge. Considered N for a long time given space will be limited but going OO means new (for me) things like soldering should be a bit less fiddly, plus the boy should have the dexterity to be able to start handling things in a year or two, whereas with N I doubt he'd be able to do that at all in the lifetime of this layout. (2) needs to have a double track roundy round so the boy can race trains as he gets a bit bigger; (3) needs to have operational interest for me - a sense of trains going places for a reason matters a lot to me, even if some disbelief has to be suspended to achieve it; (4) needs to enable me to try out different aspects of modelling - kit building, town scenery, countryside scenery, wiring, flexi-track, point motors etc - but do it over time so that I'm building up piece by piece. It would also ideally include a shunting puzzle element. My wife has no interest in trains, but enjoys puzzles and board games so I'm hoping I can suck her in that way. It does not need to include a fiddle yard - I'm starting from scratch so there's not going to be masses of stock. Nor does it need to be hugely prototypical, my benchmark is that if someone who doesn't know about railways but travels by train in the UK saw it, they'd think it looked like the way a real railway would run (so left-hand running, trying to hide sharp curves where possible etc). I'll probably primarily run stock from the late 80s/early 90s because its what I associate with, but there will doubtless be exceptions (indeed I'm sure its only a matter of time before Thomas & Friends have to start putting in some appearances to keep the peace). But I'm trying to plan around the idea of a max train length of a class 47 with 3x MkII coaches. After intensive negotiations (the wife became less keen when she discovered how much space model railways can take up!) the plan is to build this layout in our spare room in two phases. Based on an idea from these forums, phase one will be using two IKEA Linnmon tables topped with cork to build a portable layout (total dimensions 200cm x 120cm) that can be dismantled and stored in another room when we have guests. Part two will use IKEA shelves to build a (fixed) 280cm x 30cm extension to a terminus station above my desk. By falling back on IKEA I'm conscious I'm already missing the first opportunity to build up some skills - woodworking - but there's a premium on getting some trains running relatively quickly, and I'm loathe to pay for another set of tools for a one-off build when I have others sat back in the UK. To be honest IKEA is so cheap in this part of the world that for a one-off build I reckon its cheaper this way. So that's the brief. In the next post, where I've got to so far on Phase One.