Island layouts

[steinjr]

I know you are planning an N scale layout, and that you are okay with a point to point design, and I think you mentioned that you want one junction town (or at least somewhere where you can connect to the rest of the world).

What kind of era, engines, rolling stock, train lengths and what kind of railroading are you envisioning for your N scale layout ? Any prototype scenes that inspire you and you would like to try to recreate or use for inspiration for your layout ?

Steam circa 1900, standard gauge, short trains due to mountain grades. One mine, one factory and one town. Freelance, and well outside of the box. Inspiration? Emmett Brown, Nikola Tesla, Jules Verne and Isombard Kingdom Brunel. I'm not very conventional.

I can see why you are struggling with coming up with a design. "Well outside the box", "not very conventional" and "Inspiration ? Doc Brown, Nikola Tesla, Jules Verne and Isambard Kingdom Brunel" all sounds very fancy, but aren't exactly very clear goals for designing a model railroad layout.


If you close your eyes and try to visualize a finished layout with running trains - try to describe what a train running session would look like:

Will there just be one person running trains at any time, or will there sometimes be two or more persons running ?

Will there typically be people watching the train or trains run ?

What do you mean by "short trains" - five cars ? ten cars ?

Will you be running freight trains only, passenger trains only, both or mixed trains (freight and passenger in the same train) ?

Will your favorite activity be watch your train move slowly through a dramatic looking mountain scene, or will your favorite activity be switching inbound and outbound cars at the mine, factory and town ?

Will there at any one time just be one train on the visible part of your layout, or will you need to be able to have two (or more) trains meet or pass each other somewhere on the layout ?

Where will your train or trains typically come from and go to ?

- Are you thinking about having your train(s) haul something e.g. from a mine down to an on-layout washer/crusher/smelter or some such thing or haul miners and supplies from the town to the mine site ?

- Are you thinking about having your train(s) haul something from a mine or an industry down to an interchange track or yard, where some other railroad will "pick up the cars later", i.e. between running sessions (or from an interchange track or yard to on layout destinations) ?

- Are you thinking about having your trains come from "somewhere else" (ie hidden staging/off-layout), enter the area modeled on your layout, drop off inbound loaded cars or empty cars to be loaded, pick up outbound loaded cars or emptied cars and depart for "somewhere else" ?

- Will you need/want to sort inbound RR cars into the right order to be dropped off at modeled industries on your layout, or sort outbound cars before your train drop them off at an interchange track or head out of your modeled area ?

What kind of inbound and outbound loads are you visualizing ?

What do you mean "inspired by Emmet Brown (the character Doc Brown from "Back to the Future" ?), Nikola Tesla, Jules Verne and Isambard Kingdom Brunel" and what do you mean by "mountain grades" ?

The only one of those four names you list that bring any railroad specific thoughts to mind outright is Brunel - and his name reminds me of railroading in southwestern England in the mid 1800s - viaducts crossing relatively gentle river valleys and tunnels running through what I would call relatively small hills.

What kind of mountain landscapes are you visualizing ? Are you imagining:

- New England style mountains covered in leafy trees in blazing fall colors ?
- Narrow Appalachian style coal mining valleys ?
- Mountain sides with pale green/yellowing meadows on the rain shade side ?
- Trains running along ledges blasted out of sheer cliff sides ?
- Trains coming out of one tunnel to cross a river on a high bridge across a chasm and then ducking into a new tunnel ?
- Some other type of mountain scenes (if so - what style) ?

Or is your vision so totally different from what my questions above are trying to pin down that the questions are irrelevant ? If so - try to describe in your own words what you imagine your trains will look like, how they will run and so on and so forth.

I am sure there will be more questions later on, but these should be a start in letting you get a start on firming up your vision of what you want your layout to look like and run like.

Grin,
Stein