Ed Winterbury Posted September 28, 2017 Author Share Posted September 28, 2017 Anything that requires the physical boards or layout can't be done- my layout is in a holiday home. Sorry. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Chimer Posted September 28, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 28, 2017 I currently have 6 boards, two 4'x2' and four 6'x2'. I have spent the summer moving my very lightweight, 18mm MDF boards around, but to no avail. I have more or less given up on a workable layout. Any help? I work in 00 gauge and would like the opportunity to run an interesting service. A small branch with very little happening doesn't appeal. Thanks! What I meant by 'No, you can't see one of those diagrams' is: 'There isn't one up (yet). About the larger floorplan, I bought the flat new-build and the only floorplans I have are ones for the whole floor in the brochure. That's just how big it gets once I've cropped the photo, so the irrelevant bits aren't on there. Anything that requires the physical boards or layout can't be done- my layout is in a holiday home. Sorry. So presumably you spent the summer moving the boards about in the holiday home, not the flat the new layout is destined for, and now you're somewhere else and the boards / old layout (?) is/are not. Presumably not in the flat yet, or you could get out a tape measure and let us know accurately how big it is. And you can't/won't tell us whether or not a removable section across the window is a possible planning option. Perhaps we should dwell a pause until you, the boards, and the flat actually come together, and the domestic authority grants detailed planning permission? In a weird way, I'm enjoying the intellectual challenge this thread poses. Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 28, 2017 Author Share Posted September 28, 2017 The flat is the same thing as the holiday home. Where I am now is my normal home in Central London. There isn't proper internet in the holiday home and I can only go occasionally. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Johnster Posted September 28, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 28, 2017 Ok, but we could do with an overall baseboard shape and dimension to know what to fit the track plan into before we can progress much further. As I say, rough drawings with dimensions will be fine, doesn't have to be perfect. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Harlequin Posted September 28, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 28, 2017 The flat is the same thing as the holiday home. Where I am now is my normal home in Central London. There isn't proper internet in the holiday home and I can only go occasionally. Hi Ed, So, are you proposing to build this imaginary layout in the small kitchen of a holiday home/flat that you only visit occasionally? Is there really the room and the time to do this? (Especially if the kitchen must also accommodate a kitchen table for eating.) Remember that you'll need somewhere to store tools and somewhere to work on models away from the layout. And it seems like you need reliable internet access to make progress, so all-in-all this doesn't seem very realistic to me. Or will the layout be portable and travel with you to and from the flat? That might make it feasible. Phil Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Siberian Snooper Posted September 28, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 28, 2017 I have been to my club room this morning and taken a few pictures of our test track and a few pointers on very basic wood butchery, in the vain hope that you will be brave enough to actually put the baseboard together and we can then move forwards. These will be posted later when I can download the phone. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 28, 2017 Author Share Posted September 28, 2017 Yes, I know it is crazy, but my own normal home is even smaller and needs space for other things. What I will do is I will memorise the key points then go and do the work over the holidays/weekends. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 28, 2017 Author Share Posted September 28, 2017 Reliable internet is not required for the layout, WiFi is needed to use the forum we're on... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 28, 2017 Author Share Posted September 28, 2017 If I were to go ahead with a branch line, could I please have some help? The mainline is still a possibility. I hope my previous posts have solved several questions. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Chimer Posted September 28, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 28, 2017 There are two perfectly good branch line termini plans in the October Railway Modeller, which should still be around in Smiths or Sainsburys or your model shop. Aston Cote is the classic small branchline you told us you didn't want in post 1, Harlyn Pier offers rather more interesting operational possibilities and could be double-tracked quite easily (I know HP is in O gauge, but it scales to easily fit your space in OO). Do either of these float your boat at all? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 28, 2017 Author Share Posted September 28, 2017 Aston Cote is exactly what I don't want, as you quite rightly said. Harlyn Pier could work, but with so many modifications that it would be more or less a 'clean sheet' design. If there's an interesting prototype worth modelling, please let me know. I'm also thinking about a layout called Northwick, if you know the track plan, that would be great! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew P Posted September 28, 2017 Share Posted September 28, 2017 Why not try to help all who contributed by doing something like this, so people can see what area you have, even it it's done in pen, then photographed and put on here for us to see. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Siberian Snooper Posted September 28, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 28, 2017 Due to software updates, I have been unable to download the photos. However to help things along a bit, download and print the turnout templates from the Peco website, you will need several of each. Cut them out and lay them out on the floor/table to what you might think is a suitable track plan, a few bits of rolling stock will help with a sense of scale and when you think you're happy take a photo and paste it on here, so that we can chew it over and give you some advice. Use a straight edge of some sort to help line up distant templates. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejstubbs Posted September 28, 2017 Share Posted September 28, 2017 (edited) I'm also thinking about a layout called Northwick, if you know the track plan, that would be great! Northwick looks quite interesting. Have you seen the layout thread on RMWeb for it? There's a plan for it in post #7 - looks to be 22ft long without the fiddle yard, though I'm sure it could be judiciously modified if that was too long. The station throat in particular could be compressed somewhat, I think. It is quite "busy" - there's quite a lot of trackwork for what on the face of it appears to be a fairly straightforward station - and might be just a little too much for one person to take on singlehanded working only at weekends (assuming you get to your holiday flat that often). At least, I'd expect it to take a while before you could operate an interesting service on anything other than bare boards. Remember that what you see on that thread was built by a club, so quite a few hands will have contributed, and a fair few will be quite experienced. Achieving an equivalent level of scenic detail to what they've done, but working solo, would be quite a long-term project, I'd imagine. (I also note that the club decided that the original track layout had some drawbacks, and had to think about modifying it - see post #42, which IMO makes it look even busier, especially since it includes a double slip and a three-way point.) You could consider building something like that in phases eg having just the loco shed to begin with, then adding the more extensive depot later. Or simplify the track plan a bit, possibly at the expense of operational convenience, but without losing operational interest (in simple terms, the amount of 'stuff' you can justify having your engines doing on the layout before they have to disappear back to the fiddle yard). The bay platform and carriage siding are another example of the kind of thing that could possibly be held back to be added later - so long as you remember to leave room for them at the back of the layout. Note also the travails that the club had with their turntable. In post #4 they had to replace the operating mechanism, and by post #61 they had decided to replace the whole thing - which also involved extending the relevant baseboard section, and completely re-working the track layout for the depot. I think this is a good example of how these things can turn out to be a lot of work, and difficult to get right first time, per the warnings earlier in this thread. That's not to say don't have one, but it's best to be aware of what you might be letting yourself in for in terms of both time and cost, and be realistic about whether that investment is really justified in the overall context of what you're trying to achieve. I think this is actually a good example of what you can learn by reading other people's layout threads: getting a feeling for people's design ideas (without necessarily having to use their actual designs), seeing the good ideas they had, and they hurdles they found they had to overcome. As an example of another RMWebber's protracted design process involving multiple false starts and dead-ends, I'd suggest having a look at Danemouth's series of layout threads: Danemouth OO Danemouth Mk2 Danemouth Yet Again Danemouth Esplanade Danemouth Mk 4 I have to say, I admire his persistence! (And the fact that his Mk 4 design is uncannily similar to my own layout is neither here nor there. Convergent evolution is the name for that phenomenon, I think.) Another good one to have a read of might be halsey's RMW "Layout & Track Design" worked thread, which is pretty much a case study of how bouncing ideas back and forth with other RMWebbers helped someone to design and build - to the point where they had trains running how they wanted - an operationally effective layout that met their particular requirements for a model railway. I'd also have a look at some of Stubby47's layout and design threads, which always seem to contain interesting ideas about creating a back story for the layout and using that to shape the design, as well as particular design details. Edited September 28, 2017 by ejstubbs Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 29, 2017 Author Share Posted September 29, 2017 I realise many people have wonderful track plans, but I use a mac and everything like SCARM doesn't work. I will offer a sketch of the room if you want??? I might get it done this morning if I can. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Siberian Snooper Posted September 29, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 29, 2017 There are several positives from ejstubbs post about Danemouth, there was a lot of input from the OP from the begining and so far it has taken 4 attempts to find out what he wants operationally. As we have said in previous posts, don't expect to get it right first time, as until you give it a go you won't know exactly what it is you want. Also note that the turntable was dropped fairly early on, due to the space constraints. Further to my last post as you and the layout are mostly in different locations, nip down to your local DIY store and get a roll of lining paper and a roll of masking tape. Cut to lengths off the roll the length of the baseboards and put them together to give the width of the baseboards and stick them together with the masking tape. You can now use the Peco templates on the paper and mark or stick them on the them on the paper, once happy with that, you can roll it up and take it with you and transfer it directly to the baseboards. I will offer a sketch of the room if you want??? I might get it done this morning if I can. At last a little bit of action. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 29, 2017 Author Share Posted September 29, 2017 Siberian, no plan is needed as yet. If possible, I may need some help if things go wrong... Thanks anyway! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 29, 2017 Author Share Posted September 29, 2017 I give up... Siberian, could you please do it? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 29, 2017 Author Share Posted September 29, 2017 This is my rather crude floorplan. I know Siberian, helpful as ever, will be making a much more detailed plan. Thanks, Siberian! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejstubbs Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 I realise many people have wonderful track plans, but I use a mac and everything like SCARM doesn't work. XtrkCAD/XTrackCad runs natively on MacOS, and is free. That said, I find it difficult to use. In fact the last time I decided to give it a try (last week) I coldn't even work out how to place a turnout - it seemed to need me to set a configuration setting which I could not for the life of me work out how to do, despite much poring over online help and the like. OTOH, many RMWebbers seem to like it so it's probably just me. There's also an app in the Mac store called Railmodeller - available as a free download with limited functionality, and the paid Pro version (see http://www.railmodeller.com/express-edition-en.html for more info). I have tried it but it was a while back. As I recall it seemed OK, but not enough to wean me away from my favourite layout planning tool which is... ...AnyRail. I even paid for the full version. Yes, it's only available for Windows I run it on a Windows virtual machine running under VirtualBox (you need some way to install Windows in the virtual machine if you take this route - I used the VMWare P2V tool to create a Windows VM from a laptop running Windows). Other RMWebbers report running it successfully using WINE (not a solution I'm not fond of, TBH). Either of those techniques can reportedly also be used to run SCARM on a Mac. If the technical jargon baffles you, you probably don't want to go down this road... There is another, somewhat left-field option which is (theoretically) platform agnostic because its basically a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering: TRAX. All you need to run this is a web browser. I did have a wee play with it once. It seemed...OK. Well, it didn't crash, anyway. The page design is a bit "pre-school" IMO. One way or another you should be able to find something that will run on your Mac that you can use for designing layouts. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejstubbs Posted September 29, 2017 Share Posted September 29, 2017 Larger Floor Plans.png This is my rather crude floorplan. I know Siberian, helpful as ever, will be making a much more detailed plan. Thanks, Siberian! Hey, that looks good! An indication of the approximate scale would be helpful, eg the real life distance that the sides of the small squares represent. Which of the windows is the Juliet balcony? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Harlequin Posted September 29, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 29, 2017 (edited) XtrkCAD/XTrackCad runs natively on MacOS, and is free. That said, I find it difficult to use. In fact the last time I decided to give it a try (last week) I coldn't even work out how to place a turnout - it seemed to need me to set a configuration setting which I could not for the life of me work out how to do, despite much poring over online help and the like. OTOH, many RMWebbers seem to like it so it's probably just me. There's also an app in the Mac store called Railmodeller - available as a free download with limited functionality, and the paid Pro version (see http://www.railmodeller.com/express-edition-en.html for more info). I have tried it but it was a while back. As I recall it seemed OK, but not enough to wean me away from my favourite layout planning tool which is... ...AnyRail. I even paid for the full version. Yes, it's only available for Windows I run it on a Windows virtual machine running under VirtualBox (you need some way to install Windows in the virtual machine if you take this route - I used the VMWare P2V tool to create a Windows VM from a laptop running Windows). Other RMWebbers report running it successfully using WINE (not a solution I'm not fond of, TBH). Either of those techniques can reportedly also be used to run SCARM on a Mac. If the technical jargon baffles you, you probably don't want to go down this road... There is another, somewhat left-field option which is (theoretically) platform agnostic because its basically a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering: TRAX. All you need to run this is a web browser. I did have a wee play with it once. It seemed...OK. Well, it didn't crash, anyway. The page design is a bit "pre-school" IMO. One way or another you should be able to find something that will run on your Mac that you can use for designing layouts. FWIW: I use a standard drawing/illustration program like Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Designer, Xara Designer (Windows only but will run in a VM on Mac), etc. Set up a drawing scale, make templates for points and other things and start drawing and joining things together using the snap function of the app. This solution doesn't have the built-in knowledge of track layout that Scarm, AnyRail, etc. have but on the other hand you have more flexibility to draw exactly what you want and share the design in a cleaner way (IMHO). Edited September 29, 2017 by Harlequin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Siberian Snooper Posted September 29, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted September 29, 2017 OK photos downloaded and resized. First up a photo of our test track all built from salvaged or donated equipment, no expense spared. hence the layout is totally non prototypical. The layout folds up against the wall when not in use. What you are aiming for is the stiffening underneath. The stiffeners were randomly drilled with holes for cabling before the top was fitted, makes life easier. The very basic tools used for the job, you will need to add a mask when doing anything with the MDF. I would suggest that you put some sheeting down to catch the arisings before you start and have a damned good clear up afterwards. I would make sure that the room is also pet free. Get your two outside frame members laid out on the floor and lay the sheet on top, set one end flush and then mark the other end. The next shot shows the stiffener marked. Cut on the pencil mark. Use a similar method for the rungs of the ladder. Now to mark where the holes for the screws go. The rail marked The holes will be drilled between the pencil mark and the end, I do this by eye. The diameter of the hole is the same as the screw shank diameter. The head side of the hole needs to be countersunk either using a countsink rose or a drill a bit larger than the head diameter. All the materials used were for demonstration purposes ony and came out of the scrap box. Below is the link to the Peco templates page. http://www.peco-uk.com/page.asp?id=pointplans Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 29, 2017 Author Share Posted September 29, 2017 Thanks for the photos! I have looked at most of them, none of them working on my Mac. The window at the bottom is the Juliette. If there's any confusion please refer to the mini one on post number 20. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Winterbury Posted September 29, 2017 Author Share Posted September 29, 2017 I how I'm going to brace it- wooden batons/sticks glued to the bottom of the baseboard. Does this work? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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