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+--- Thread: Island layouts (/showthread.php?tid=1717)
Island layouts - MountainMan - 09-09-2009
The prevailing trend is to layouts along the walls of rooms, which seems limiting and appears wasteful of space. Does anyone have any experience with the opposite type, free-standing multi-form layouts that avoid the walls? I m not referring to the classic 4 x 8 beginner's layout, nor am I referring to the very sophisticated "mushroom" layouts.
In my case, I'm trying to use a room with way too many openings in walls to make an along-the-wall traditional layout easy.
Re: Island layouts - steinjr - 09-09-2009
MountainMan Wrote:The prevailing trend is to layouts along the walls of rooms, which seems limiting and appears wasteful of space. Does anyone have any experience with the opposite type, free-standing multi-form layouts that avoid the walls? I m not referring to the classic 4 x 8 beginner's layout, nor am I referring to the very sophisticated "mushroom" layouts.
In my case, I'm trying to use a room with way too many openings in walls to make an along-the-wall traditional layout easy.
A free standing layout is obviously a good idea if you have a lot of openings in the walls, openings that need to stay accessible.
But I don't get where you make the leap from that to the claim that shelf or mushroom layouts in general are more limiting and more "wasteful of space" ? I would say that the opposite would be the case - that long narrow scenes where you are not looking at the whole layout at the same time helps enhance the railroad look and feel. After all - railroad rights of ways tend to be hundreds or thousands of miles long and a few hundred (or less) feet wide.
Smile,
Stein
Re: Island layouts - nachoman - 09-09-2009
steinjr Wrote:A free standing layout is obviously a good idea if you have a lot of openings in the walls, openings that need to stay accessible.
But I don't get where you make the leap from that to the claim that shelf or mushroom layouts in general are more limiting and more "wasteful of space" ? I would say that the opposite would be the case - that long narrow scenes where you are not looking at the whole layout at the same time helps enhance the railroad look and feel. After all - railroad rights of ways tend to be hundreds or thousands of miles long and a few hundred (or less) feet wide.
Smile,
Stein
Depends on what you mean by "space". I think an around the walls layout creates more mainline "space" (longer), but sacrifices scenery depth.
Re: Island layouts - viperman - 09-09-2009
I tend to think the opposite, that island layouts are more wasteful of space. Along the walls leave the rest of the room open for whatever else you may use it, where as an island takes up precious floor space
Re: Island layouts - Charlie B - 09-09-2009
I'm in the process of designing a new layout and a new room for it. I have decided that the Island layout will be better for my use. I am thinking about ease of access to all sides with a 3 foot asile around the entire perimeter. The building I was planning would only have a door on either end and high windows on the south side, Now I'm thinking along the lines of finding a 14x70 mobile home and gutting it. You can get a pretty nice one around here for practically nothing, and that would allow a pretty big island layout. I'm thinking 7 foot wide x 60 long with a backdrop down the center. I may be dreaming here, but I have the room so why not?
Charlie
Re: Island layouts - MountainMan - 09-09-2009
steinjr Wrote:MountainMan Wrote:The prevailing trend is to layouts along the walls of rooms, which seems limiting and appears wasteful of space. Does anyone have any experience with the opposite type, free-standing multi-form layouts that avoid the walls? I m not referring to the classic 4 x 8 beginner's layout, nor am I referring to the very sophisticated "mushroom" layouts.
In my case, I'm trying to use a room with way too many openings in walls to make an along-the-wall traditional layout easy.
A free standing layout is obviously a good idea if you have a lot of openings in the walls, openings that need to stay accessible.
But I don't get where you make the leap from that to the claim that shelf or mushroom layouts in general are more limiting and more "wasteful of space" ? I would say that the opposite would be the case - that long narrow scenes where you are not looking at the whole layout at the same time helps enhance the railroad look and feel. After all - railroad rights of ways tend to be hundreds or thousands of miles long and a few hundred (or less) feet wide.
Smile,
Stein
I don't recall saying that either of those were "wasteful of space". I did say that I felt that along-the-wall layouts were, in my opinion, because they depend upon using only a narrow strip along the walls, often substituting distance for realism. What I said was that I wasn't referring to either 4 x 8's or mushrooms when asking about island layouts. The traditional 4 x 8 isn't what I am looking for, and the mushroom is too complex and sophisticated for my current abilities.
Re: Island layouts - nachoman - 09-09-2009
I think the closest I can think of to what you are describing (if I understand you correctly) is a weird octagon layout featured in Model Railroader back in the early 1990s. It was N scale, based on conrail, and had a big mountain in the center. I thought it was quite creative. I have seen several others that are up against only one wall but otherwise protrude into the room, basically just one penninsula (sometimes an irregularly shaped penninsula).
Many, many people will tell you the shelf layout is the way to go. But I think that layout style has drawbacks for rooms that have many windows and doors. The shelf works best in a basement. Personally, I refuse to block any door or window, even a closet door (claustrophobia speaking). I also think that shelves are too narrow to represent mountainous scenery. Sure, you can get that feel a little bit in the corners or on any penninsulas, but along a 24" wide shelf, it is pretty difficult to create the illusion of an extensive mountian range. Sure, there are some talented backdrop painters, but a backdrop is still a 2-d backdrop.
I am curious what you come up with here.
Re: Island layouts - MasonJar - 09-09-2009
How much room do you have?
At HOTrak, we set up in a darts hall. We do not go around the walls, since the vast majority of the modules are operated from the "outside" - that is, the operators walk around the perimeter of the set-up, not inside it.
For some ideas, see <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.hotrak.ca">www.hotrak.ca</a><!-- w -->. Past layouts are there in pdf form. They range form the huge (January "rally" set-ups, with 10+ miles of track) to compact (Railfair, where we are limited to a standard exhibit booth).
Hope that gives you some ideas.
Andrew
Re: Island layouts - MountainMan - 09-09-2009
nachoman Wrote:I think the closest I can think of to what you are describing (if I understand you correctly) is a weird octagon layout featured in Model Railroader back in the early 1990s. It was N scale, based on conrail, and had a big mountain in the center. I thought it was quite creative. I have seen several others that are up against only one wall but otherwise protrude into the room, basically just one penninsula (sometimes an irregularly shaped penninsula).
Many, many people will tell you the shelf layout is the way to go. But I think that layout style has drawbacks for rooms that have many windows and doors. The shelf works best in a basement. Personally, I refuse to block any door or window, even a closet door (claustrophobia speaking). I also think that shelves are too narrow to represent mountainous scenery. Sure, you can get that feel a little bit in the corners or on any penninsulas, but along a 24" wide shelf, it is pretty difficult to create the illusion of an extensive mountian range. Sure, there are some talented backdrop painters, but a backdrop is still a 2-d backdrop.
I am curious what you come up with here.
My problem, exactly. The room has a standard door, a double patio door, a sliding pocket door and a walk-in closet door. In the middle of the remaining wall, the best one, too, there is a window. If I were to use the long wall with the window, I would have trouble laying out the curves I would need to best utilize the space by doubling back and so forth, so I'm looking at a sort of free-form layout that allows me to work around the perimeter, eliminate some of the switchbacks, and use the mountain(s) as a means of controlling the view at any given moment. I'm also thinking that it might allow better access all around to under-the-table staging yards.
I'm curious what I will come with, too!
Re: Island layouts - steinjr - 09-09-2009
MountainMan Wrote:I don't recall saying that either of those were "wasteful of space". I did say that I felt that along-the-wall layouts were, in my opinion, because they depend upon using only a narrow strip along the walls, often substituting distance for realism.
Mmm, yes - I suppose that if you have a big room and only use a narrow ledge around the walls, leaving a huge empty space in the middle of the room, which you have no use for for any other purposes, then yes - it could fairly be considered to be wasteful of space.
Of course, in practical terms, in the case of a big room with no other uses for the center of the room, I don't really know of any fan of shelf layouts who would advocate not adding a a peninsula or two to an around-the-walls shelf layout if you have the space for it.
Just like I don't know any fan of island style layouts who advocate not expanding a island style layout if you have the room for further peninsulas and lobes, without getting into too many problems with too narrow access aisles around the layout and too long reaches.
A fundamental law of layout building is that a layout will expand to take all available space, and then you start wondering about how to make a little more space available ...
Realism is in the eye of the beholder. You can make scenes look reasonably realistic on a four or five foot wide island layout with a center divider, or on a 2 or 2 1/2 foot deep shelf up against a wall - makes little difference in actual practice - in either case it would be 2 to 2 1/2 foot from the layout edge to a "wall".
Would a scene it look more realistic on an island style layout without a center divider ? Depends on what you model, and whether it would be realistic to have tracks passing through the scene both close to you and four or five feet away at the same time and whether the aisle and background on the other side of the island would be visually distracting or not.
Also, it often takes more space to model a fully 3-dimensional object (mountain, building, whatever) that you can view from any direction than it takes to model a 2 1/2 dimensional object (a not very deep structure that gets cut off at the backdrop/center divider) that only can be viewed from one side.
I sometimes trot out these two drawings to illustrate room use for an island style and a shelf style layout in a bedroom sized room, and to illustrate that mountains can be made on shelf style layouts too:
![[Image: flyboy_room_4x6.jpg]](http://home.online.no/~steinjr/trains/modelling/forum/flyboy_room_4x6.jpg)
![[Image: flyboy_shelf_siding.jpg]](http://home.online.no/~steinjr/trains/modelling/forum/flyboy_shelf_siding.jpg)
Here is a couple of picture showing what a much more talented modeler than me can do scenically with a mainly shelf style layout in a bigger room:
![[Image: P1030217.jpg]](http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm237/GrampysTrains/P1030217.jpg)
![[Image: P1010161-1-1.jpg]](http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm237/GrampysTrains/P1010161-1-1.jpg)
More pictures from that layout here: http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm237/GrampysTrains/
But by all means - I totally agree that for your circumstances - largish room, many doors and windows that you can't/won't block, it makes a lot more sense to build a walk-around or walk-in layout in the middle of the room - single level if you prefer, or mushroom style if you have the space and inclination, rather than try to force in an around-the-walls style layout.
Layout shape obviously should be adapted to the site where the layout is built. There is no single layout shape or type of layout that always is superior under all circumstances and for all shapes.
As for whether your middle of the floor layout would work best as a walk-around, a walk-in, or some kind of donut shape layout with a lift-out, swing gate or duck-under, or whether you want a continuous run or point to point layout - that's another discussion entirely.
There are quite a few interesting options out there.
Grin,
Stein
Re: Island layouts - nachoman - 09-09-2009
What about a layout that is shaped like a + sign? The center portion could be the peak of a large mountain. The "arms" of the "plus" could be about 5 feet wide, and since you can access both sides you can easily reach the center. The shape could lead so some interesting, winding track plans. Perhaps one of the "arms" could be a stub-ended yard used for staging.
Re: Island layouts - steinjr - 09-09-2009
Charlie B Wrote:a pretty big island layout. I'm thinking 7 foot wide x 60 long with a backdrop down the center. I may be dreaming here, but I have the room so why not?
Why a seven foot wide island might not be totally optimal ? Perhaps because it can be pretty hard to work on stuff that is 3 1/2 feet away from the edge without either crushing things that are closer to the edge, crawling under the layout and popping your head out a an access hole or dangling from some kind of overhead contraption.
With Murphy being the realist what he was, it is in those kinds of situations (when it is very hard to access something) that I often find that I have forgotten some tool I will need, so I have to crawl back out again to get the tool, swearing in a couple of different languages both coming out again and going in again (and even more so for the second or third time)
If I had a space that was 14 by 70 feet, I think I probably would have considered doing something like this:
![[Image: 14x70.jpg]](http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/pp124/steinjr_1965/forum3/14x70.jpg)
Ie combining an island/peninsula down the center of the room with shelves along the two long sides. Advantage is better reach (nothing is further than about 2 feet away from an aisle), and room for a more (and more visually separated) scenes along the track, a longer mainline without having to loop back through the same scene - you get about 280-300 feet of run length down one wall, up the peninsula, around the lobe at the end of the peninsula, down other end of peninsula and then up the other wall, before curving around at the end of the room to go back to the first wall again.
Disadvantage ? You have to make some kind of swing gate/lift-up/lift-out or duck-under at the point where you need to move into the layout, and you have to decide what to do with the windows high up on your southern wall - whether to leave them as-is, have roll down curtains with sky painted on the backside or some other solution.
Anyways - just a suggestion - if you want to do a seven foot wide island, then by all means do a seven foot wide island - it is your space and your layout - I am just pointing out that it is not a case of either a layout that just runs along the walls or just stands in the center of the floor, but it is quite possible to mix and match and combine the two styles when there is room for that
Edit: I didn't mention this, but lets make it explicit: longer and narrower benchwork is probably better suited for scenes where each train pass through each scene once during a round of the layout - which is the case for the overwhelming majority of real life railroad scenes, including mountain scenes.
But equally obvious: wider benchwork would probably be more suited if you desire to make a scene where a trains loop over and around itself and meanders through a scene from many directions as part of it's ascent or descent of the mountain, popping in and out of tunnels and across bridges.
Which is just yet another way of saying "there is no 'one size fits all' in layout design". Around-the-wall style is good in some circumstances, freestanding middle-of-floor is good under some circumstances, combinations of the two are good under some circumstances. No single style is always good or always bad.
Grin,
Stein
Re: Island layouts - doctorwayne - 09-09-2009
nachoman Wrote:What about a layout that is shaped like a + sign? The center portion could be the peak of a large mountain. The "arms" of the "plus" could be about 5 feet wide, and since you can access both sides you can easily reach the center. The shape could lead so some interesting, winding track plans. Perhaps one of the "arms" could be a stub-ended yard used for staging.
Actually, this concept could offer some real options: for instance, how about a fixed centre portion, with each "arm" of the plus sign being modular? As long as you have space to store additional modules, you could create totally differently-themed layouts - urban, branchline, logging - whatever appeals to your personal interests. Or mainline continuous running (for entertaining non-modeller visitors or as a Christmas display), or a switching district, with a waterfront scene on one arm, a steel plant on the next, etc., etc.
The modules could be done as self-contained units, complete with legs, (this would use a lot of storage space if you had too many modules, though), or with only the layout portion modular, with the support legs as a permanent or semi-permanent part of the centre section.
Wayne
Re: Island layouts - steinjr - 09-09-2009
doctorwayne Wrote:nachoman Wrote:What about a layout that is shaped like a + sign? The center portion could be the peak of a large mountain. The "arms" of the "plus" could be about 5 feet wide, and since you can access both sides you can easily reach the center. The shape could lead so some interesting, winding track plans. Perhaps one of the "arms" could be a stub-ended yard used for staging.
Actually, this concept could offer some real options: for instance, how about a fixed centre portion, with each "arm" of the plus sign being modular? As long as you have space to store additional modules, you could create totally differently-themed layouts - urban, branchline, logging - whatever appeals to your personal interests. Or mainline continuous running (for entertaining non-modeller visitors or as a Christmas display), or a switching district, with a waterfront scene on one arm, a steel plant on the next, etc., etc.
The modules could be done as self-contained units, complete with legs, (this would use a lot of storage space if you had too many modules, though), or with only the layout portion modular, with the support legs as a permanent or semi-permanent part of the centre section.
Sure, modular can be flexible. But what would be the specific advantage of having a hub-and-spoke (or "plus" or "star") shape layout with a fixed center and a fixed number of flexible arms, compared with just putting together flexible modules in whatever pattern happened to fit the desired purpose at any given time - long and narrow, doughnut-shaped or generic "octopus" shaped or whatever ?
Anyways - what MountainMan actually does have room for in his layout room without blocking access to all the doors etc he needs access to (unless he has changed layouts rooms since the last time this was discussed, in March 2009) is an L-shaped N scale layout where one part is about 5 x 7 foot and the other part is about 2.5 x 6.5 feet, fit into the room in such a way that two adjoining sides of the 2.5 x 6.5 part is up against walls.
Charlie drew it like this back in March 2009:
http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/download/file.php?id=1758
Seems like a reasonable footprint for a room that size and shape.
Best route forward from there is probably to try to identify three scenes he want.
One possible rough idea would be:
Scene 1 (2.5 x 6.5 foot wing): junction town with interchange and small yard
Scene 2 (lower left hand corner of main 5x7 part): some kind of en-route location
Scene 3 (upper right hand corner of main 5x7 part): some kind of end-of-line location
Then work on placing a sensible sized mountain (possibly up against a center backdrop) in an arc from the upper left hand corner across to the middle of the right side of the 5x7 and along the upper wall of the 2.5 x 6.5 part.
And then start tweaking track plans, scenery plans and possibly benchwork.
Grin,
Stein
Re: Island layouts - nachoman - 09-09-2009
Mountainman - you must be flattered that all of us want to decide what layout is best for you.
Seriously I hope that some of this gives you ideas. If you have access to old Model Railroader magazines (from the 50s and 60s), they use to have a regular feature called "track plan of the month". Back then, there wasn't really such thing as an "around the walls" layout. I doubt any of these track plans would give you exactly what you want, but they are interesting and creative, and have some ideas that may be useful.