5 X 10 Layouts

[TexasBigAL]

Good afternoon,

I am looking for track plans using Bachmann track for a 5 X 10 layout in my garage.  I want the emphasis of the layout to be a yard of decent size with some curves at 22 degrees and the inside curves at 18 degrees.

Thanks for your help

[Catt]

Have you looked at any 4'x8' track plans? They are quite adaptable will a little more track to fill you 5'x10' space.You could also expand on a smaller layout plan too.

[Morgun 30]

http://www.freetrackplans.com/Layout-Plans.php

[Doneldon]

BigAl-

If you are going 5' wide you might want to consider going to 24" radius curves for your outer loop and 22" for the inside loop. Those will make your operations a little smoother and enable you to run almost any currently manufactured equipment without major hangover problems or a terrible appearance. It will also give you a little more room inside the ovals for the layout features you want to include. I urge you to go even a little wider (say, 26" and 24" radii) and still have plenty of room for safety if you have a derailment, or for a siding or two outside of the loop. That can give you bonus room inside and avoid having yard leads crossing sidings to get to the inside tracks. Or, it will also permit you to rotate your whole oval so you don't have long straightaways running parallel to the table edges.

A 5'x9' table really gives a lot more room, more, it seems, than the extra 13 square feet. Curves stretch out, the corners become large enough to play important roles on the railroad, straights are longer, and there's generous room for some of the space eating features like yards, engine terminals and significant terrain structures.

I don't know your set up, of course, but if you have space for a 5'x9', you probably have plenty of room for an around the walls layout. That's invariably a more efficient use of space because you are using the outside area of your space, the area where you'd be walking around the 5'x9' table, for the layout and walking around the more confined inside where the table would have been located. Often, you can even build a peninsula into the middle area, a place which makes ideal yards, engine terminals, major industries like a steel mill, or a helix up to a second around-the-walls level.

Whatever you do, good luck.
                                                                                                                                                                                    -- D

[wjstix]

Just to clarify your question, real railroads use degrees of curvature, in model railroading we use radius of curve in inches. A lot of equipment in HO will run on 22"R or even 18"R, but a lot of stuff - like large steam engines and full length passenger cars - won't. For example, Walthers passenger cars require 24"R or broader curves.

Even the cars and engines that will take the sharp curves will look much better on broader curves. Allowing 2" on the sides of the track, a 60" wide layout would handle an outer track of 28"R, with a track of 24-26"R inside of that. If you use No.5 or larger turnouts, you should be able to run anything you want.

As far as track plans, you can take a layout for a 4'x8' space and expand it out to fit your space, using broader curves. A 4'x8' layout generally uses 18"R curves.

[Joe Satnik]

Dear All,

HO curve track radius is measured to the center line between the rails. 

For a circle (or the semi-circle part of an oval),

Outside width (to the outer edge of the trackbed) = twice radius plus a track bed width (tbw). 

OW = 2R +tbw

In the case of 22"R and 2" tbw (common width of HO cork roadbed and HO track with built in roadbed)

2 x 22" + 2" = 46" outside width,

which fits nicely leaving 2" to spare (1 inch on each side) on a 48" (= 4 ft) wide table.

Hope this helps. 

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik