Designing Your Model Railroad

You might say your model railroad system is the heart of the layout. How you install your tracks, crossing, uncouples and switches will determines what your trains will be able to do and entertain you.

There are endless things that you can have your rails do; such as pass over bridges, lead into a siding, tunnel through mountains, branch into an alternate route, go straight ahead, curve, freight yard or circle through an earth cut, or thread through a maze of switches at a terminal.

When planning your model railroad, you are only limited by the space you have. You can have your trains go where you want. It’s all up to how you organize things because you can have your train do everything a real one would do even in a small space.

Now the layout, this is something personal. No one can tell you how to do this, because it’s your model. The only thing someone can show you is: what are your limitations for the space you have, and teach you the option you have.

Remember, never put aside your ideas even if you can find them in any layout book. Before you finish designing your layout, you are more then likely to change and modify your layout a few times, because you will find new things more interesting than your old ideas. You’ll probably get more interested in one part of you railway and see that you will have to change your old layout. You might consider running multiple trains, scheduling times, switching operations, and you’ll have to plan your model accordingly, you might even add an extension or even another table, to give you more options.

Building basic:
If you are looking at a train set that contains at least twelve curves, one circle track, that is has a S gauge of 40” in diameter, you will need to have a space of at least 40” by 40”. How you set up your space is up to you, on plywood, on a table or on the floor of a free space it’s all up to you. You also have to look at some set as straight tracks will let you make an oval shape meaning only that it’s a prolonged circle. However, if your set has 2 sections of straight track and you put them in circle in opposite ends, then you will have an oval of 40” by 50”. If you add 2 more straight section (4) making a longer oval, you will have a track of 40” by 60”. If you are looking for something bigger; you can have the set of 6 straight sections and twelve curves. This will make the biggest oval. For this, you will need a space of 4’ by 6 feet.

Beyond the Basics:
If you are looking for something more real, then a simple oval or circle is not what you are looking for, face it, it doesn’t really imitate what a real train would do. Real trains are not supposed to go in circle; they are made to go from one point to another.

To help you with that, let you imagination run. You can take a simple model railway layout and modify it to make it more realistic, but you need to be realistic with the space and budget you have. Most important have fun with it; look around, in books and internet is a great way of getting ideas.