Track Layouts

[MattC]

Hello and Happy Holidays! I got an HO set for Christmas (feel like a kid again) and I really want to put together an interesting layout. If anyone has some ideas or resources they would be willing to share I would very much appreciate it! The set is on a 4X7 foot board.
—Thanks

[Kris Everett]

AnyRail

www.Anyrail.com


just to let you in u will run out of that quickly i started with a 4x6 now its a 6x6 with plans to expand.

[jward]

there is an ez track plan book:
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=1921

also, atlas has several plan books:
https://secure.atlasrr.com/mod1/items.asp?Cc=H801&CatName=HO ATLAS LAYOUT BOOKS&Bc=&BrandName=&Tp=&iTpStatus=1

and then there's this one, an oldie but goodie from model railroader magazine:
http://www.kalmbachstore.com/12012.html

you should be able to find something of interest in one of those books.
the atlas books are carried by most hobby shops. the ez track book may be a little harder to find.

note that many of the plans are for a 4x8 table. you've mentioned that you have 4x7. optins below 4x8 are limited but if you can squeeze in that extra foot pf length you'll find plenty of plans to fit.

[CNE Runner]

Matt - Welcome to the wild world of model railroading! The other posters have left excellent references; and I cannot recommend the AnyRail track planning program more highly...easy to learn and easy to use. Another resource is Carl Arendt's excellent website on mini/micro layouts. You can scroll through the Scrapbook section and find all sorts of layout ideas in the space you indicated. Carl's website is at:

http://www.carendt.com/

I wish you a Happy New Year and hope you begin construction soon.

Regards,
Ray

PS: I am currently planning a single turnout layout for the motor home utilizing the new MinitrainS HOn30 set...'will use one from Carl's website. This project should be relatively inexpensive and will fit under the couch in the main cabin.

[Kris Everett]

with every thing said i would use a combo of everything once you find some layouts that you like you can use anyrail to figure out how many pieces of each thing you need and then when your ready to order

www.trainworldonline.com

will help you out.

or of course your LHS

[mf5117]

and there is always:

http://thortrains.com/

[jward]

thortrains is not adviseable. most of his plans have some wicked s curves in them that are sure to cause derailments with your trains. they can be made to work with some reshuffling of track components but i wouldn't build any of them without modifications.

the problem is, beginners who don't know better may build these layouts aas shown and experience nothing but frustration. plans like that work with lionel as they are designed for sharp curves. but we'r in the world of scale model railroading, and things work a bit differently here. i doubt he's ever built and run these track plans. better to stick with the books i recommended. especially with the atlas and ez track books, these layouts have been built and are known to work if built to the plan......covered in the books are also the very good reasons why s curves like the ones on thor's layouts are to be avoided at all costs.

[mf5117]

I guess your right MR Ward .I remember the modifications I had to do just starting out . I had sense and asked alot of question's as a matter of fact I think you and Joe S helped me on a couple of issues .The only real problems I had was were they utilized the #5 turnouts . The half dogbones with inner and outter loops . they don't give you a couple of track piece size .But it does give you some idea's like you say . I took some of the post that Terry Toenge's did of the EZ Track configurations and got rid of the #5's and went with the # 6 turnouts , and solved alot of the derailment issues . But I mean to each his own , but I learned alot from it . I looked at some of the Hurried layouts on the Atlas site you can purchase and felt the same way you do about the more complex 4x8 ft layouts Thortrains have to offer . Again it just gave me an idea of what I could do with the EZ Track ...

regards : Happy New Year  mf5117

[jward]

what i think we are several more books of ez track plans. and possibly a cad type freeware program which lets you plan your own ez track layouts without limiting the number of pieces you can do. sorta like what atlas has. afterall atlas is bachmann's biggest competitor in the track department. and they do a wonderful job of providing resources for track planning using their product.

and yes, i do remember helping out with the modifications necessary to make one of thor's plans work properly.

layout ideas can come from anywhere. it is up to each of us to turn our inspirations into reality.

we have several really good knowledgeable people on this forum, jim banner, hunt and joe satnik come to mind but they are by no means the only ones. and don't ever feel bad about not knowing the answer to something. i've been in the hobby about 40 years and i still ask questions on here all the time. one of the things i like about bachmann's forum as opposed to say the atlas forum is that here you don't get the holier than thou attitude often found elsewhere. we can all learn from each other's experiences.....and we are lucky to have a resource like this available...