Plans for a railway room?

[pendlerail]

Ok, so due to reshuffling of the house to accomodate Grandchildren staying over,

I now have a railway room aprox. 7' 6" square. The door opens into the room, but the doorway is an approximately 6" long "Corridor" at one Corner or the Room

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I                        I

I                        I

I                        I

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sort of arrangement.

 

So what would you do with this space?

The wall at the bottom is over stairs and I am not sure of the thickness or load baring capabilities.

and there is a "Shelf" again over the stairwell about 2' above floor height.

I model Blue/Sectorisation,

I have a large collection of Locos, a few mostly engineers wagons,

some units and a few coaches.

I would like some form of depot, somewhere to shunt and a circuit of track to run in engines/ run long trains. possibly a separate loop.

Any suggestions?

Thanks Phil

[pendlerail]

 

As a 1st Idea, 4' sector plate on Left with Loco/programming tracks Hidden, Headshunt for a Yard/ carriage siding/ anything I fancy, Round to a Depot and Access to engineers sidings/wagon works, and a station Run round facilities for sidings/ Short Loco set/failed DMU.

 

any comments?

Phil

[mdvle]

Place sector plate on shelving unit with wheels, store sector plate in middle of room when not in use / entering or leaving room.  When operating wheel sector plate into doorway.

[pendlerail]

Thanks. Interesting idea will look into that

[mdvle]

Now that I have a bit more time, the idea of the wheels and doorway is to move the inherently utilitarian, and hence boring, part of the railway into what is otherwise going to be wasted space - the space to get in through the door into the room.

 

This in turn allows you to dedicate more of the permanent shelving to the main part of the layout.

 

Depending on the hallway space outside your room - amount of space, ability/need for others to move around while you operate your layout - you may also be able to extend your fiddle yard a bit with some storage on a fold down shelf that could extend through the doorway and outside of the room.

[pendlerail]

Thanks. Really good Idea. But not sure I have the carpentry skills to get a reliable connection between a mobile traverser and a fixed layout.

In fact I have never built a traverser before. So that will be a challenge!

Thanks again Phil

[pendlerail]

 

Latest Plan,

Yard on Left with a small stabling point fed from a fueling point,

with platform on right hand side.

 

any comments?

 

Thanks Phil

[DCB]

It is not a lot of space.  My old railway room was about  10X 11 or so with an awkward door so I put the layout at 60" above the floor and had a continuous run with an angled board across the doorway.  It was originally end to end but I got tired of not being able to leave trains running, or running in, while I did some maintenance or built something.   My door opened fully and I could easily duck under the lift out, it was less than 1" deep below the track bed as the strength member was beside the track not below it.  90" X 90" should give a reasonable set of sidings and a through line.   Thinking laterally I should have put a vertical traverser on my layout to lower trains from a level top level to the hidden sidings instead of having gradients on the top, 

You could have a vertical traverser/ lift 4" wide 6ft long with a 3rd radius curve on one side and corner.   I will draw a doodle but have a family funeral later so better get some kip.

Edited January 17, 2019 by DavidCBroad

[pendlerail]

Thanks nice Ideas, there is a plan for a higher double track loop for running in and running longer trains. I would ideally like some form of roundy with sidings and station, but am reluctant to go below 2' radius, the door opens the other way to yours, not a huge problem, It has even been suggested that I remove the door altogether 

other Ideas I have had is a low level FY with gradients up and down to a Loop, but not having room for some Helices, it is a tough one getting space to Fiddle in the fiddle yard! 

My stock is mainly locos and departmental wagons as my last layout was an inglenook based on a CE yard with a small station,

 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/63573-deacon-nook-the-end/

 

So I was thinking of just having a Large depot layout. However I have some long trains to run as I am a member of Preston Model Railway club an sometimes go out with Alderford, Euxton Junction, and very rarely Great Endon. none of which have threads on here unfortunately.

 

So the roundy bit does interest me.

I am not a great carpenter by any stretch of the imagination, and am worried about building a flat traverser never mind a vertical one!!

I look forward to any further suggestions

Phil

[Harlequin]

Is this how the room is laid out?

 

 

Each square is 305*305mm (1ft*1ft). I guessed the corridor is 3ft wide and guessed the window position.

 

Edit: The cross-hatched bit is where the slope of the stairwell ceiling intrudes into the room and has been boxed in, right?

Edited January 17, 2019 by Harlequin

[pendlerail]

Close but the area the doorway is in is only about 6" so the door opens to around the end of the raised area.

Phil

[Harlequin]

Ah! Because you described it as a "corridor" I thought it was 6 feet long, not 6 inches. Oops! 

Edited January 17, 2019 by Harlequin

[mdvle]

It has even been suggested that I remove the door altogether

Depending on age of grandchildren you may want the ability to lock them out, which removing the door would eliminate.

 

It can also be nice to have a door to "shut away the mess", particularly if you have visitors over he may have reason to be in the hall outside your new layout room.

[Harlequin]

OK so here's a little sketch in a room of the correct size (ahem).

[Click to enlarge]

 

It shows one way that a roundy-round could be made to fit using minimum 2ft radius curves and it even has a sweeping large radius curve in the scenic area. The track alignment is deliberately skewed away from the walls to help the layout visually break out of the box(room).

 

(It might be better to go for smaller radii in the off-scene areas to help things fit.)

 

The scenic breaks are angled towards to the viewer so that you can see the whole scene without having to look around a corner.

 

Obviously stations, depots and whatever would need to be added.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Harlequin

[Nearholmer]

If you need a workbench in there as well, try putting the layout quite high, maybe 1.5m from floor, with the bench at 0.75m from floor.

 

I did the same in a room almost identical, and had a circuit much as Harlequin has drawn, and a couple of short sidings, using LGB (yes G scale) track, their standard small radius being 0.6m. Using very small 'industrial' type locos and wagons it worked fine.

 

But ........ it did feel a bit oppressive, having a layout looming above when working at the bench/desk, and lighting below the layout was an absolute necessity.

[Harlequin]

I pushed my idea a little bit further by laying out a fiddle yard (sorry, it's a compulsion):

[Click to enlarge]

• 3 sidings face anticlockwise, one clockwise and there's a long passing/storage loop.
• The points are Peco Streamline small radius (red) and curved (green).
• The points on the lifting section help make best use of the limited space and shouldn't be a big problem.
• There is a ~20in (510mm) radius curve in the passing loop.

Edited January 21, 2019 by Harlequin

[pendlerail]

Thank You looks good. Will have a better look when I get near my computer.

[pendlerail]

Depending on age of grandchildren you may want the ability to lock them out, which removing the door would eliminate.

 

 

It can also be nice to have a door to "shut away the mess", particularly if you have visitors over he may have reason to be in the hall outside your new layout room.

Yes those thoughts also occurred to me! So was something I am reluctant to do.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Looks likely that there is another door on the landing adjacent to the door into the layout room. But if not, how about hingeing the door to swing outwards from the room?

 

Partition over staircase likely to be studwork. Plenty strong enough to support the weight of a layout so long as you screw into the uprights.

 

As so often in a limited space, you may be able to do a lot more by having two levels (not connected to each other except scenically).

[pendlerail]

 

So messing around with the above Idea has lead me to this.

More messing may give me more FY sidings,

with a planned low level Preserved Railway as I have a few small steam engines.

the single line branch started as a turnback siding, and developed.

What do you think?

 

[Harlequin]

Is that double track all round now? If it is, the spacing looks very inconsistent and the crossover on the right hand side is a bit odd.

[pendlerail]

Yes, I thought that, but it was just the way Anyrail sorted it, 

Have since decided to go with operational interest and go with end to end with sidings and depot.

I think the roundy roundy would get dull very quickly,

Latest plan to follow

Phil

[pendlerail]

 

as above decided that roundy would not give me and interesting enough operation, current plan as above,

Yard headshunt, depot and CE sidings next to station,

Phil

[Chimer]

If that's a conventional multi-track traverser bottom left, don't forget the traverser track nearest nearest to the operating well needs to be able to be pushed across to meet the incoming track that's furthest from the well - which as you've drawn it means the traverser track furthest from the well is then likely to be in the next room ….. 

[pendlerail]

the "yard" near the FY is only expected to have limited access to the traverser this is expected and planned for, I will just use it for shunting.

so not really worried about that, thanks for the advice,

Phil