Deciding On A Track Plan

Choosing the right track plan was way trickier than I thought. After couple of weeks of studying various Web pages and 101 Trackplans books, I settled on the classic Scenic & Relaxed plan from Atlas as the basis for my plan. I was inspired by this variation I found on the Net since it had some features that I liked, including an expanded yard along the bottom (reproduced below without permission, sorry!). I ended up making some further modifications to it in the end, including dropping the hidden tracks on the right hand side to make more room for the big curves.

I was also inspired by this video of a Scenic and Relaxed implementation:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5Eio0IYdCA]

Here were my criteria for my track plan of choice:

• It needed to fit on my 36x80 inch HCD door
• Optimally, I wanted the plan to be expandable if I ever wanted to add another door to the layout (more on this idea later)
• I wanted to have a bridge so the track would go over itself at some point. I knew this would delight my junior engineer immensely
• I wanted a small yard for storing rolling stock and doing some switching
• I wanted three or so industries, since I anticipated having some switching action available would soon be needed once mere watching the trains go around loses its luster
• Optimally, the track should be able to support two or even three trains running simultaneously to provide fun for me and both of my sons at the same time
• The track needed to provide continuous operation without operating any turnouts. I thought this would have been too difficult for junior engineers operating the track on their own. Sadly, this criterion excluded a lot of fun track plans that had loops at the ends of the mainline, as coming back from the loop would have required to switch a turnout to avoid a train-stopping short circuit (which, as I learned studying train layouts, would happen if you run into a turnout the wrong way - I did not know that!).

I knew building grade would be a bit of a challenge for a first-time layout builder, but decided I wanted to give it a try. I decided to stick to 2% grade though. I feared having a completely flat layout would be a disappointment for Max, and would require me to soon start work on a new layout with hillier terrain. Besides, Woodland Scenics risers and inclines seemed to make laying track on a grade pretty effortless.

As for running multiple trains, I first entertained a track plan that was essentially a double oval, but decided I wanted a longer main line run, and would enable two trains by having some passing sidings instead. And I decided one of my trains would be a small switcher operating mainly on the yard, thus not clogging the main line.

The hardest thing was actually making up my mind and committing to a track plan. I had gone back and forth between several plans for days, and planned many of them out using AnyRail until I finally decided that I needed to freeze my plans and live with my choice. It did help that the plan I was looking at seemed to satisfy all my requirements.

As for the ability to expand the layout at a later time, I first thought that would be an absolute must. However, after reading the musings of more experienced railroaders, I decided that I would probably learn so much from my first layout that if I ever wanted a bigger layout, I would be better off starting from scratch. Also, it occurred to me that you would want to design a large, perhaps L-shaped plan quite differently from a 3x6' plan, and merely extending one would look in satisfying in the end. So no extending was planned.