8' x 8' ideas sought

[Campaman]

Due to complications with a leaking roof on my 16 x 8 shed its now gone to the tip and will be replaced with two 8 x 8 plastic sheds, one for the DIY stuff and the other for the railway, no more leaking roofs and no wood treatment required.

 

I am looking for ideas for a plan for the space.

 

Desirable, wants & ideas:

 

00 gauge

Continuous double track run with through station

Possible rising single track branch

Lift up flap over entry doors, no duck under.

I also build plastic kits so era may be the build up to D-Day

Possible fiddle yard under the branch

 

I guess the interior space will be around 7'10" square allowing for the wall thickness etc.

 

Cheers

Andy

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by Campaman

[Aire Head]

I'd recommend checking out both my thread 

 

 

And also

 

 

Both of us are working with a similar space to you and with similar desired and ideas.

 

Hope it helps

[mdvle]

2 hours ago, Campaman said:

Due to complications with a leaking roof on my 16 x 8 shed its now gone to the tip and will be replaced with two 8 x 8 plastic sheds, one for the DIY stuff and the other for the railway, no more leaking roofs and no wood treatment required.

 

I am looking for ideas for a plan for the space.

 

Desirable, wants & ideas:

 

00 gauge

Continuous double track run with through station

Possible rising single track branch

Lift up flap over entry doors, no duck under.

I also build plastic kits so era may be the build up to D-Day

Possible fiddle yard under the branch

 

I guess the interior space will be around 7'10" square allowing for the wall thickness etc.

 

Cheers

Andy

 

 

By all means start to look around at ideas, but until you have the shed ready (in place, insulated, interior finished) and can actually measure what space you have, where the door is exactly, etc. don't spend too much time get into detailed design.

 

But when you have accurate measurements then, passenger / goods / both?  What sort of length of trains are you hoping for?  Countryside, city, industrial?

Edited February 19, 2020 by mdvle

[DCB]

Oh man that's tragic. Losing a 16 X 8   My garage roof leaked like a sieve and the chip board panels disintegrated.  I hate that board and couldn't afford proper tongue and groove  so I replaced the chipboard with tongue and groove sold as claddding and felted it.  Wise words of impending doom followed but 15 years on its still there and still in very good condition though the  felt has been changed twice  It also looks great from underneath..   

Assuming it OO you will have a job to squeeze all that in and modern locos are not good hill climbers.   As always a look at CJ Freezers 60 Plans for small railways etc and scale up one of his smaller plans is a good start.

Where is the door? It makes a difference.  Also I'm guessing the layout will be free standing and not screwed to the shed like it would to a wooden shed.

That lift flap is going to have to be well engineered to span the gap between two wobbly baseboards. Not rocket science but the catches will have to stop the baseboards moving apart.   Have fun  Any chance of sticking a helix in the other shed?  Or in a separate little enclosure (or round the garden) Make it a whole lot easier to get FY Terminus and thru sta int 8X8

[PatB]

As suggested by David, a good start may be to look at all the (many) designs CJF did for  8' x 6' shed, and stretch them a bit. 60 Plans has several, as does Track Plans, many of which fit, or could easily be made to fit your wishlist.  There's a folded dogbone, with branch, in Track Plans, that I've always liked, and which packs a phenomenal length of run into the shed, although that one would be difficult to do without a duck-under.  Plenty of other options though. 

[Campaman]

I do have one CJF book, PSL 60 plans I think its called.

 

The problem with the old shed roof was that the erectors had glued as well as screwed the boards on so there was no way I could get them off to re-board it.

 

My old baseboards which I have kept most of the timber from were of free standing L Girder construction and were not wobbly at all, the lift up worked fine so I think I should be able to replicate that OK, as the shed is purely for a layout then I could possibly have a fixed duck under as I will have the other shed for DIY with easy access, the old 16 x 8 had to work as both so the layout was a folded double dog bone with lift up.

 

Off to read the two threads above.

 

Thanks

[TheSignalEngineer]

I'm working in a space 8'8" x 8'4".  I did some preliminary designs to see what would fit. This is a sample

[Campaman]

That's a nice start, I am not a fill it with track person as scenery and buildings are more of my interest than operating, watching trains go by rather than lots of shunting.

 

I like the private siding idea as that gives me an excuse for scratch building the industry buildings.

[Robert Stokes]

To be brutally frank, I think your wish list in 00 gauge in that space is unrealistic. It is more suited to N gauge. If you want to stick with 00 gauge, I think you must at least drop the idea of a second station above the fiddle yard; the necessary gradient would just be too severe.

 

You want double track but are you going to be able to store and run trains long enough to justify it? Assuming that the passing station has a goods yard, the point-work needed at the end of the station will take up a lot of room. If you want realism, then I would go for a single track loop which doubles through the station. On the other side it would have storage loops under a removable hill.

 

At a show a few years ago I saw such a model built into an 8 by 6 shed. Two sides of the shed were cut away so that lots of visitors could see into it at the same time. It was very atmospheric and despite its small size looked really good.

 

Robert

[Campaman]

I wasn't thinking of above a fiddle yard, merely that the branch line could climb slightly to add more height interest, to be honest I am not even sure I actually need a fiddle yard, I do not have a lot of stock and don't plane on purchasing more, my interest in the hobby is buildings and scenery rather than spending on stock.

 

Example below, made from plain white card and paper, scribed and painted with watercolours.

 

 

[Harlequin]

Are you committed to buying two 8*8 sheds? A single 16*8 replacement for the original shed would be a much more flexible and more usable space.

 

Timber sheds can be made reliably water-tight and so that they don't need treatment...

 

[chuffinghell]

2 hours ago, Campaman said:

I wasn't thinking of above a fiddle yard, merely that the branch line could climb slightly to add more height interest, to be honest I am not even sure I actually need a fiddle yard, I do not have a lot of stock and don't plane on purchasing more, my interest in the hobby is buildings and scenery rather than spending on stock.

 

Example below, made from plain white card and paper, scribed and painted with watercolours.

 

 

 

Very nice indeed! 

 

How did you make the dog shape smoke coming out of the chimney? 

[mdvle]

2 hours ago, Campaman said:

to be honest I am not even sure I actually need a fiddle yard, I do not have a lot of stock and don't plane on purchasing more, my interest in the hobby is buildings and scenery rather than spending on stock.

 

Interestingly enough, though from an American perspective, a well known US modeler made a blog post this week on his realization that despite conventional wisdom he really didn't need a staging yard.

 

http://centralvermontrailway.blogspot.com/2020/02/one-step-back-three-steps-forward.html

[chuffinghell]

9 hours ago, Campaman said:

That's a nice start, I am not a fill it with track person....

Less is more!

 

9 hours ago, Campaman said:

I like the private siding idea as that gives me an excuse for scratch building the industry buildings.

If the photo of your building above is anything to go by I’m looking forward to seeing more

[Joseph_Pestell]

On 19/02/2020 at 15:25, DavidCBroad said:

Oh man that's tragic. Losing a 16 X 8   My garage roof leaked like a sieve and the chip board panels disintegrated.  I hate that board and couldn't afford proper tongue and groove  so I replaced the chipboard with tongue and groove sold as claddding and felted it.  Wise words of impending doom followed but 15 years on its still there and still in very good condition though the  felt has been changed twice  It also looks great from underneath..   

Assuming it OO you will have a job to squeeze all that in and modern locos are not good hill climbers.   As always a look at CJ Freezers 60 Plans for small railways etc and scale up one of his smaller plans is a good start.

Where is the door? It makes a difference.  Also I'm guessing the layout will be free standing and not screwed to the shed like it would to a wooden shed.

That lift flap is going to have to be well engineered to span the gap between two wobbly baseboards. Not rocket science but the catches will have to stop the baseboards moving apart.   Have fun  Any chance of sticking a helix in the other shed?  Or in a separate little enclosure (or round the garden) Make it a whole lot easier to get FY Terminus and thru sta int 8X8

 

OSB or ply are both better for roofing than chipboard.

 

The title of this thread drew me because today I found a sheet of chipboard 8' x 8'. That was something new to me. Rather difficult to handle, fortunately I had a friend to help me move it before it crushed me. But I shall cut it up tomorrow with the rip saw so as to repurpose it.

[Campaman]

The old shed has gone, new started today. Appears the inside dimensions will be very close to the 8 X 8 as the  outside is more than 8 X 8. Will advise more once the first one is up

 

 

[DCB]

13 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

Interestingly enough, though from an American perspective, a well known US modeler made a blog post this week on his realization that despite conventional wisdom he really didn't need a staging yard.

 

http://centralvermontrailway.blogspot.com/2020/02/one-step-back-three-steps-forward.html

 

The American was just starting to rip out his three road staging yard and add a station on what looks like an awful lot bigger than 8X8 layout rather than writing from experience.. See pic before someone takes it down as breach of copyright.  Its quite alien to the UK way of designing and indeed operating railways.  The idea that you follow the train around the layout, shunting at intermediate sidings and towns just does not relate to being in an 8X8 shed.

 My experience is much 21st century RTR just won't tolerate much handling without being seriously degraded by losing details like handrails, buffer heads, fall plates, vacuum pipes, ventillators etc.   I like to put locos and stock on the track and leave it there as long as possible. Years at a time for some stock and store the surplus in hidden sidings even if it needs three locos to get the trains up the hill and out into the daylight.  I also like to flll 100% of the layout top surface with track or scenery to me an open non hidden fiddle yard ruins the illusion that what we are watching is real.

[Zomboid]

It's a different mentality, but one which could translate to 8x8 if small locos and short trains are the order of the day. That doesn't seem to be what the OP is looking for though.

 

However, Halsey's thread on here is a great example of a 2 track roundy in a relatively small space with no staging/ FY. All the action takes place on scene, and there is no need to do any unrealistic operations. Like every other layout ever built there's some compromises there, but personally I'm a big fan of the plan that he's now building.

[Campaman]

On 20/02/2020 at 13:49, Harlequin said:

Are you committed to buying two 8*8 sheds? A single 16*8 replacement for the original shed would be a much more flexible and more usable space.

 

Timber sheds can be made reliably water-tight and so that they don't need treatment...

 

Unfortunately, yes. The old wooden shed was only 6 years old, seemed good quality, was professionally erected, and re-felted, but it still failed, and the roofboards were sterling osb, once bitten etc.

[Chimer]

My first thought for this sort of space is always to put tight hidden curves in two diagonally opposite corners and link them by a gentler curve through the main scenic area which uses two adjacent sides.  Crude simplistic example (top right of diagram), if you use radius 3 90 degree curves hidden in the corners, the ruling radius for a 90 degree curve joining them is 6 feet.  Obviously as soon as you try to put points in the simplicity goes away …….  If you extend the hidden curves by another double curve (bottom left), the visible turn comes down to 45 degrees and the ruling radius goes up to 9 feet, at the cost of less distance  between the tunnel portals, and the need for a manhole in the corner (unless the door happens to be there).  Food for thought maybe?

 

.

[Joseph_Pestell]

Those curves are within the possibilities of curving Peco points as Graham Nicholas has done with Grantham and Hills of the North. Or, if going for the nominal 6' radius using the already curved Peco points (nominal 5' radius).

[Campaman]

Turnouts (points) are not a problem as if off the shelf are not suitable I can just build my own, no problem with that (using Templot).

 

Been off the grid for the last couple of days so been browsing PSL Model Railway Trackplans by CJF and another book with more realistic plans in I am thinking that I could live with the continuous run only being single track.

 

Halseys thread is very interesting as to what can be done, but possibly a bit too busy for me.

 

Chimers idea is interesting, the doors (double) of the shed are in the middle of the wall, but as the shed is purely for hobby use I suppose a duck under is not totally out of the question, as I will have the second shed for general DIY and storage.

[halsey]

Just got to this as I've been away - are you sure plastic sheds wont give you a condensation issue???

How are you going to insulate/heat them - sorry if I've missed that already...………….

I'll now watch with interest………….

[Jeff Smith]

You could make the layout just below eye-level.  This would make the duck-under easier and give you space underneath for storage and a work bench.

[halsey]

On ‎23‎/‎02‎/‎2020 at 13:44, Joseph_Pestell said:

Those curves are within the possibilities of curving Peco points as Graham Nicholas has done with Grantham and Hills of the North. Or, if going for the nominal 6' radius using the already curved Peco points (nominal 5' radius).

Curved points in use on my layout - historically not a fan BUT they are working very well so my lack of faith was misplaced.

Do look at my "bring it all to the front" wiring/conduit solution if access is an issue for you as this was possibly constructionally the greatest success of my layout revisions