In this post I want to talk about design considerations that are influenced by available space.
Big dreams need a big space. Mine is only 205 cm by 360 cm ...
That seems long enough but the width looks on the narrow side. One way to deal with this is to build a second fully scenicked deck. It isn't possible to build a peninsula down the middle with a big turnback blob by which I could gain height to get from one deck to another and a helix will eat up a lot of floor space too. Not to mention block the movement of people and air as well as narrowing the view in an already narrow room. I would really like to keep an aisle width of 1 meter so movement of people and air is not restricted. So how is the model railroad going to gain height?
Going around the room to gain heigth to move to another scenicked deck takes a lot of meters if you want a grade that isn't too steep. There doesn't seem enough length in the room for a corkscrew or nolix (no helix) around the room unless you go twice through the same scene. Not really acceptable. Doing it with a lot of hidden trackage (behind the backdrop) also isn't acceptable as that creates access problems. In Model Railroad Planning 2003 Gary Saxton described his New York, Ontario and Western layout featuring 7 levels in a dining room. For my taste the decks are too close together at 7.5 inches and the second time the train goes around a deck it is 4 inch higher thus closer to the underside of the deck above. As a consequence the sky is then limited. But if you dream big you sometimes are forced to go to extremes.
One way to gain height is virtually. In this design you do not actually connect the decks with track but either by imagining the connection or manually move locomotives and cars between decks. It is, so to speak, the poor woman's method. Byron Henderson had a proposal in Model Railroad Planning many years ago with the railroads of Hawai as inspiration.
One way to gain height is virtually. In this design you do not actually connect the decks with track but either by imagining the connection or manually move locomotives and cars between decks. It is, so to speak, the poor woman's method. Byron Henderson had a proposal in Model Railroad Planning many years ago with the railroads of Hawai as inspiration.
Another big consideration is the room itself. It is finished but comes with restraints. One long wall is a load bearing concrete wall. DENSE concrete as I was warned by the previous owner and the man who installed a new kitchen. As my downstairs neighbour has been finding out as he renovates his appartment one room at a time. The other long wall is made of blocks of sand and quicklime or burned lime pressed together. A common source for building interior walls here in the Netherlands. It is thin however (this is in keeping with the fact that my house is an entry level cheap house) and I have the feeling with these limesandstone blocks that if you point a drill at it that it crumbles spontaneously.
Then there is the door to the room. Of course it swings inward. Do they ever swing outward? It has a steel frame so it is not easy turning the frame around so the door swings outward. Exchanging it with another door in the apartment is difficult too. Multiple decks means operating trains with a closed door and a number of planks or bridges across the door. Or removing the door so in case of danger one can escape quicker. I'm pretty certain the latter will happen eventually. The door is located almost in the middle of the short wall and that leaves enough room for the chosen benchwork on both sides. Phew.
The window is pretty big, as most windows are in the Netherlands. At least it is east facing so not a lot of heat gets into the room though there is a flat roof above it. Unlike the master bedroom next door which has walls facing east, south and west and the aforementioned flat roof...
So the space is not ideal (is it ever when it comes to repurposing a room for a modelrailroad?) but workable. It has to be. Because of its limitations some inventive thinking is needed. What at first seemed simple, an along the walls type of plan, may end up more complex with 2 or more levels, a train elevator and lately I've been thinking about a partially freestanding layout. With helixes no less ...
So the space is not ideal (is it ever when it comes to repurposing a room for a modelrailroad?) but workable. It has to be. Because of its limitations some inventive thinking is needed. What at first seemed simple, an along the walls type of plan, may end up more complex with 2 or more levels, a train elevator and lately I've been thinking about a partially freestanding layout. With helixes no less ...
To be continued.
