00 Gauge Track Plans.

[Steve M]

For my first N gauge layout I ‘borrowed’ a trackplan from a photo in Railway modeller, switched a siding from one side to the other, which got me started.
After that I just let it grow.

Did pretty much the same with the OO layout except that it was the size and number of baseboards that grew.

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

To be quite honest I didn't do any initial planning. The layout I am slowly finishing is relatively small and occupies a space approx 5 feet by 5 feet in the centre of my modelling room - the walls contain fixed shelves with my other models on them so I can't actually utilize the walls to create a basic U shaped end to end which I had favoured.

This basic square format allows a continuous run but it isn't entirely around the edges. The back 1/3 of the layout is the fiddle yard area, with an outer track which allows continuous running. This will all eventually be hidden, while the running track instead of just being a standard rounded corner with straight sections layout, does a curve and then runs back to the rear by going in a diagonal line across the centre of the layout which allows for a station.

Two sidings exist. One on the outer bottom right which consists of three small track runs. A small central storage line and two flanking ones, the first to a small goods shed and the second to the coal merchants yard. The other siding is a single line which comes off the left side of the layout to enter a goods shed and lies along what is the back of the operating area. Eventually a back board there will hide the fiddle yard. Before the entry to the goods shed there is a short spur running off to a small engine shed and work shop area.

That shape has actually created a large area approx 4 feet square in which I am building a section of the town with small factories and housing etc. The layout implies but doesn't depict the idea that there are also residential and factory areas outside of the basic square. It is quite a different concept to a basic Hornby track mat set up.

Since I started it about five years ago the track plan and etc. has gone through 4 separate and distinct plans and proposals for the town space. That had to fit realistically within the constraints of the physical space I had to build the layout in. This final shape which now is committed to, only came into existence at this time last year when I finally bit the bullet and accepted that the previous plan (s) didn't allow a realistic depiction of a portion of a town with a railway running through it. That resulted in me relaying most of the track. Fortunately the structures I had already built could be relocated or modified without difficulty.

Admittedly it allows for small trains rather than large but large trains for realistic running do need large runs of track in straight lines for which I don't have the space. The largest I can accommodate in the fiddle yard are about 14 wagons plus locomotive plus brake van although the ones I prefer to run are maximums of seven wagons. Passenger services are auto trains or single rail motors. But the layout is primarily freight orientated anyway.

I concede that such space restraints are better used by doing a typical rural brand line terminus but frankly I really didn't want just a station in a sea of fields and a small village partially depicted. I wanted terrace housing and factories with shops etc. so that's what I set out to do. So far as a overall model the concept is working.

[F Flinstone]

I used a free piece of software called SCARM (paid version now available alongside the restricted free version) to draw both my layouts. R-

Same here very pleased with it, like all things CAD takes a bit of fiddling about, but it becomes second nature later on, I like the 3D option, after you have laid the track. Ff

[JohnSmithUK]

I used a free piece of software called SCARM (paid version now available alongside the restricted free version) to draw both my layouts. R-

Same here very pleased with it, like all things CAD takes a bit of fiddling about, but it becomes second nature later on, I like the 3D option, after you have laid the track. Ff

Another vote for SCARM, certainly allows you to play about and see what looks good as well operating the way you hope.