Designing My HO-Scale Room Layout

[steinjr]

Thanks Steinjr! I may just do that, but the only reason a logging layout is my dream layout is for the long run of the layout, I will still look into building a logging switching layout though.

Perhaps the first thing you ought to do is to make up your mind about what your main goal is.

In this thread it has variously been:
- H0 scale continuous run, a lot of track relative to scenery, a yard, lots of switching for two operators
- On3, scratch built wooden structures, turntable, "more about scenery and photography rather than realistic Operation"
- Scenic realism, more about mainline running than switching, local freight + passenger trains
- On30 Northern California logging layout
- HO scale Industrial switching in urban Milwaukee

If what you really want is lots of scenery, logging locos and longish runs, you could get a fairly longish run by the simple expedient of doing a switchback along two walls.

Start with a track hidden behind some trees along the left wall, representing "the forest", run it along left wall while going downhill, curve around to top wall, go through turnout into a switchback tail.

Then go back left and further downhill from the other end of the turnout, back along the front of the shelf along the left wall, until you end up in a sawmill complex with three-four tracks where the shelf ends at the lower wall.

Scratch build a nice little sawmill, add an enginehouse on a switchback track, and you can have fueling locos as well.

Maybe you also will even be able to hid a part of a mainline behind the sawmill building, with the main track continuing between the two lumber tracks in the upper left corner and disappearing under a bridge or into a tunnel or some such thing.

Rough concept sketch:


Anyways - whatever else you do - try to figure out what *your* goal is.

Smile,
Stein