Help with new "Roundy" layout

[meaculpa]

I am looking for some idea's to help kick start my new layout.  I currently have a 8 x 4 layout based on a Hornby plan with Peco Setrack which I would like reuse if possible.  

 

I now can use the whole room and am looking to have four boards with an access well in the middle.  I have started (with Rail Modeller on Mac) with three large ovals of 2nd, 3rd and 4th radius to give good runs for longer trains.  I accept that the access well below will probably need to be larger in order to reach the corners and back of each board.

 

I just know where to go next!  I know the purists will not be happy, but would want to have as much track, including sidings, turntable and stations as I can reasonably fit with good access to all points of the layout.  I would consider a second layer over parts of the layout but would want to keep it simple as my moulding and modelling skills would be stretched, and I would prefer to achieve this with straight ply "box"  construction rather than a complex scenery based approach.

 

I run mainly Blue BR diesel and some post sector with some Southern steam as a preserved railway!  

 

It will be used with my six year old son hence "the trains go by approach" and I would appreciate any suggestions or idea's to expand on the basic idea I have and hope you will understand the compromise between train set and layout.

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Andrew

 

 

[jon_1066]

What size is your room?  It's difficult to share ideas without that info.

[PatB]

If you want track, trains and operation you can't go past CJ Freezer for inspiration.  His plan books like 60 Plans for Small Railways, Plans for Larger Layouts and, simply, Track Plans, along with his regular "Plan of the Month" when he was editor of Railway Modeller, have encouraged generations to cram as much as possible into the available space and have great fun doing it.  In my opinion he was at his zenith in the late 60s/early 70s and editions of his books from around this time are well worth tracking down via Ebay, Amazon, the S/H stall at your local model railway exhibition etc..

 

Somewhere around, I have an RM from about 1971 containing his plan for a triple track oval with climbing branch in 7' x 5' called "Think Big (Even in a Small Space)".  It could easily be adapted to any larger space you have available, allows a preservation branch, lets you have main line trains circulating and, as with most of CJF's plans, retains a properly railwaylike air in spite of sometimes savage compression.

[Crewlisle]

A similar question was posed by cromptonnut on 25 Mar 2013 in 'Decisions, Decisions.....'  in this section.  I gave him food for thought with a track plan, description and details of gradients of my 00 gauge exhibition layout 'Crewlisle' with 3 interconnected levels and OLE in a space of 8.5 ft x 7.5 ft.  My comments were numbers 8, 10 and 14.