102 Realistic Track Plans

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16-page booklet included!
102 Realistic
SPECIAL ISSUE
Track Plans
How to Build Realistic Layouts no. 5
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ETHANOL CEMENT SUGAR BEETS CANNING TRANSLOADING PIGGYBACK TRAFFIC
Wilson
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102Realistic
Track Plans
Design inspiration
Introduction to track planning
2
Page 11
Introduction/by David Popp
Careful measuring and drawing ensure that your layout fits/by Andy Sperandeo
10
Very small layouts
16
Curves, turnouts, and track
18
4 x 8s and a little more
24
Sketching by the squares
26
Layout schematics
24
28
Drawing curves and turnouts
Page 23
32
Compact layouts
48
Figuring grades and clearances
50
Structures, scenery, and aisles
52
Medium layouts
66
Sectional layouts
68
How to convert track plan scales
70
Layouts for large spaces
82
. . . and one more
Short on space? Just starting out? Try these ideas/selected by Steven Otte
Setting standards to handle the trains you want to run/by Andy Sperandeo
Track plans that start with a sheet of plywood/selected by David Popp
Learn the art of controlled doodling/by Andy Sperandeo
How to think of your track plan as a railroad/by Andy Sperandeo
Careful drafting leads to easier construction and operation/by Andy Sperandeo
33 railroads sized for a spare bedroom/selected by Steven Otte
How to plan slopes your trains can climb/by Andy Sperandeo
Layout design is more than just track planning/by Andy Sperandeo
Page 41
Got space to stretch out? Find some ideas here/selected by Steven Otte
Build a railroad so you can take it with you/by Andy Sperandeo
Simple arithmetic changes any layout design to your scale/by Andy Sperandeo
Plans for rec rooms, basements, and barns/selected by David Popp
An HO plan for a non-traditional space/by David Popp
ON THE COVER: This compact locomotive terminal and several rail- and river barge-served
industries are just a small part of David Popps HO scale plan for the Grand River Ry., featured as
plan 102 in this book. Illustration by Rick Johnson and Jay Smith
43
102 Realistic Track Plans
96
Page 77
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www.ModelRailroader.com
102Realistic
Track Plans
Design
inspiration
When youre in the process of building a house, at some point youll likely
look through books of house plans for
ideas. Having built two homes now, Im
well aware of what The Home Depot,
Lowes, and the local libraries in two
states have available on the subject.
While most of the plans in those
books never get built exactly as drawn,
I expect that they are, in fact, gleaned
for their best features, which end up in
new homes all over North America.
I suspect that track plans for model
railroaders are very similar to house
plans for home builders. In talking
with people at train shows around the
country, it seems that track plans are
a favorite feature in Model Railroader
Know plan sizes

at a glance
Wherever possible in this book, weve
included two key features to give you
an at-a-glance idea of just how big or
small a track plan is. First, each plan
is set on a grid of 1-foot squares. So,
regardless of the scale of the drawing,
you can understand the plans size
based on its grid. Second, weve include
people with most plans. By adding the
human element, weve provided a fast
way to identify the size of a layout. As
an example, here is the same person
drawn on a 1-foot
grid in several
common scales.
Scale:
38" = 1'-0"
Scale:
12" = 1'-0"
Scale:
58" = 1'-0"
Scale: 14" = 1'-0"
each month. From my own experience,

I always find it interesting to see how
other modelers have attempted to solve
the ever-present problems of space
utilization, working a railroad around
water heaters, doorways, furnaces, and
other layout-room items.
The modelers love for track plans
is something that has been around a
long time. Case in point, the best selling Kalmbach book of all time is Linn
Westcotts 101 Track Plans for Model
Railroaders. The book was first published in 1956, is still in print, and
has sold more than half-a-million
copies worldwide.
Interest in track planning continues
to be strong, as well. The track plan
Editor
Art Director
Editorial Staff

Editorial Associate
Editorial Intern
Graphic Designers

Illustrators

David A. Popp
Thomas G. Danneman
Neil Besougloff
Andy Sperandeo
Jim Hediger
Cody Grivno
Dana Kawala
Steven Otte
Kent Johnson
Eric Stelpflug
Maria Novotny
Drew Halverson
Craig Schneider
Rick Johnson
Theo Cobb
Kalmbach Publishing Co.

President
Gerald B. Boettcher
Vice President, Editorial
Kevin P. Keefe
Publisher
Terry D. Thompson
Vice President, Advertising Scott S. Stollberg
Vice President, Marketing
Daniel R. Lance
Corporate Art Director
Maureen Schimmel
Managing Art Director
Michael Soliday
Advertising Director
Scott Bong
Advertising Sales Manager
Scott Redmond
Ad Sales Representative
Martha Stanczak
Ad Services Manager
Sara Everts
Ad Services Representative
Amanda Finch
Production Manager
Annette Wall
Production Coordinator
Cindy Barder
Corporate Circulation Director Michael Barbee
Group Circulation Manager Catherine Daniels
database at ModelRailroader.com
contains more than 450 plans available to MR subscribers. The database
receives an amazing 70,000 page views
per month. So, considering the craving
for track plans, publishing 102 Realistic
Track Plans seemed to be a natural.
Whether you find a plan in these
pages to build as is, or you simply
choose one or more favorite features to
work into your own plan, you should
enjoy many hours poring over this collection of layout designs selected from
the last decade of MR.
Circulation Specialist
Circulation Coordinator
Single Copy Sales Director
Kristin Johnson
Maggie Sketch
Jerry Burstein
Editorial offices
Phone: 262-796-8776
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Outside U.S. and Canada: 262-796-8776
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E-mail: customerservice@kalmbach.com
HOW TO BUILD REALISTIC LAYOUTS (ISBN 978-089024-755-6) is published by Kalmbach Publishing Co.,
21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha,
WI 53187-1612. Single copy price: $7.95 U.S., $9.95
Canadian and international, payable in U.S. funds drawn
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12271 3209 RT. Expedited delivery available for
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2008, Kalmbach Publishing Co. Reprinted 2009.
Title registered as trademark. All rights reserved.
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NEW SERIES: Make

your own figures
8 TOHOs:W
Shoot video of
your railway
Build wood
cribbing
Make your own

structure plans
Use magnets
secure loads to
+4 MORE!
Big Thunder engine N 4, leaves

for another trip into the
mines on Dave Sheegogs Castle
Peak & Thunder Railroad.
This creative line is based on the
railroad at Disneyland.
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CIR-ADH-09X1580RH
Introduction to
track planning
Careful measurement
and drawing ensure
that your layout fits
By Andy Sperandeo
One of the most fascinating parts of
model railroading is designing a
layout. You can build a fine model
railroad by following a plan out of a
magazine like this one, but to get the
system you really want youll probably
need to make changes or additions.
When you understand the basic
techniques of layout design, you can
make sure that your ideas will work.
Some basic mechanical drawing is
involved because the only way to know
for sure that your modified plan will
fit is to draw it accurately to scale.
Even if you move on from pencil-andpaper to computer-aided layout-design
software, youll still find it helpful to

know how to make a scale drawing.
Your layout space
The beginning of any model

railroad design is knowing where the
layout will be built. Whatever kind of
space you use, your train room is
probably not exactly like any other. An
accurate scale drawing of your space
will define the size and shape of your
railroad and the obstacles it must
cope with or avoid.
The example at the top of the
opposite page shows a basement with
all its features. Notice the distinction
between walls that tracks may
penetrate and those that may not be
pierced. This is essentially a matter of
choice some areas of this basement
are reserved for activities other than
model railroading.
The amount of detail included is
also a matter of choice, and you dont
necessarily need to include all the
dimensions shown in this drawing.
Drawing track plans can be the first

step in re-creating full-size railroad
scenes in miniature. Photo by Jim Forbes
The heights of stair treads would be
useful only if you want to run tracks
under or even through them. If youd
like your railroad to pass above or
behind any appliances, you need to
show their heights also.
Getting it down on paper
Start by making a rough sketch of

the room, basement, garage, or other
space. Include all the details that will
affect the location of your railroad,
even if you cant show them in exactly
correct places or proportions.
With the help of a friend or family
member, use a tape measure to
determine the dimensions of your
future train room. Measure every
wall, wall segment, and offset, as well
as doorways and windows. Make two
measurements at right angles to
determine the location of freestanding columns, pipes, or other such
Typical layout space diagram
Architects scale for drawing

and making measurements
in scale feet and inches
All sills 6412" elevation

26'-4"
Compass a sturdy tool with

extra divider and knife points is
the best all-around choice
Drawing board a portable,
tabletop board will be fine
Elevations to
top of tread
22'-2"
8" 24" 40" 56" 72"

16" 32" 48" 64"
12'-11"
3'-8"
Sharp pencils keep the

sharpener handy, and use fine
sandpaper to make sharp chisel
points for drawing fine lines
Bench
Walls may be pierced

by track except
where shaded
312" soil pipe

Doorway may
be blocked if
necessary
Straightedge or rule
Triangles in various sizes
10'-5"
11'-1"
Erasers
50-foot tape measure
TRACK PLANNING
Drawing tools
13'-1"
Gas meter 60"
high at bottom
Water
heater
Furnace
T-square
objects. As you take these measurements, write them in on your sketch as

a guide to your scale drawing.
If youre having a new home built,
you might want to start planning your
railroad with the contractors drawings, but itll be best not to finalize
your plan until you can get into the
room and make your own measurements. Houses dont always match the
drawings exactly. Likewise, if youll be
adding wallboard or other interior
walls in an attic, basement, or garage,
the dimensions after the room is
finished are what you need.
Accurately and in scale
Choose a scale for your drawing,

one small enough to fit on a handy
sheet of paper but large enough to
include the necessary details. Generally, it will be easier to produce an
accurate drawing in a larger scale.
Small layout rooms can be shown in a
relatively large scale such as 11 2"= 12",
while medium-size rooms may work
better at a scale of " = 12". Avoid
smaller scales except for very large
plans because at 3 8" or 1 4" to the foot
its harder to maintain accuracy. On
the other hand, bigger layouts allow
more of a fudge factor, so a small
degree of error can be tolerated.
Start by holding a T-square tightly
against the edge of your drawing
board or pad and draw a baseline
Fusebox 56"
Elevation 36"
high at bottom
Top-loading washer
(54" to top of open door)
Dryer
Washtub
2" soil pipe,

elevation 42"
at jog
Office off limits
3" soil pipe
Illustration by Rick Johnson
across the paper. Use the scale to

mark off the length of the longest wall
on this line. Put the T-square back on
the baseline and rest the base of a
triangle against it to draw the perpendicular end walls. Make those lines a
little longer than necessary, then
measure and mark the end wall
lengths exactly with your scale.
If your layout room is rectangular,
draw another line connecting the end
walls at the marks and you have the
space defined. For irregular rooms
youll need to draw in intermediate
walls, but always use the triangle and
T-square to keep the lines square with
the baseline. As far as possible, make
all your measurements from the
baseline as a guarantee of consistency
and accuracy.
Adding the details
When the outline of your room is

complete, use the measurements you
recorded on your sketch to fill in the
details. Include everything you think
youll need to know to fit your railroad
into the shape of the room and around
any obstacles or obstructions. Its

better at this point to include as much
information as you can because you
never know what creative leaps youll
make once you start designing.
When you think you have your
space drawing finished, take it back to
the layout room and use the tape
measure to verify what youve drawn.
Its better to spend some extra time
checking your measurements now
than to waste time later on a good
idea that doesnt actually fit because of
an inaccuracy in your drawing.
Using the drawing
You can use the accurately scaled

layout room drawing in many ways.
One is to make copies to the same
scale as a published track plan. Make
a copy of the track plan too, then cut it
out and lay it over the room drawing
to see how well it fits. Cut the copied
plan apart, if necessary, and move the
parts around to see how the design
can be adjusted for your room. Heres
where the fun starts, as you imagine
the possibilities. RL

Even the most space-challenged

model railroader can find room for a
layout like Ted Fritzlers N scale Great
Northern Ry. It appears as plan 13 in
this chapter. Ted Fritzler photo
Not every model railroader has a
basement. Not everyone can spare a
bedroom or is willing to give up
parking in the garage to make room
for trains. These space-challenged
modelers dont have to remain armchair hobbyists, though. Almost
everyone can find room for one of the
railroads in this chapter.
From layouts that store under a
twin bed (plan no. 1) to those designed
to occupy a closet (plan 6), youll find
an answer for every space issue here.
Weve even got plans for layouts that fit
inside a coffee table (plan 4) or pack
up inside suitcases (plan 11).
Even if space isnt an issue, a small
layout can be great for a new hobbyist
just getting his feet wet, or for an
experienced modeler who wants to
experiment in a different scale. And
some of the techniques used in these
compact plans may give you ideas for
a bigger layout. RL
Very small
layouts
Short on space? Just starting out? Try these ideas

Deep cut
Barlows grist mill
Station
Farm
Dorrville Branch,
NYNH&H
Published: September 2004
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 3'-4" x 5'-0"
Minimum radius: 18"
Minimum turnout: no. 4
S
A
O LL
I
Pasture
Farmhouse
This compact oval was originally built

to provide a continuous-running test
track in a small space. Its small
enough to store under a single bed,
making it perfect as a starter for a
childs room or for a modeler without
the space for a permanent layout.
Milepost
Seven
Barn
Scale of plan:
Farmhouse
Radio shop
Privy
Maintenance-of-way sheds
10
Freight house
By Steven Otte
78" = 1'-0",
Curved turnout
12" grid
Freight house
Crossing
watchmans cabin
Illustration by Robert Wagner
Service station
Mill
Station
GN Ashton Station
Brandee River
Havaphew Central
Published: March 2005
Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 2'-6" x 5'-0"
Minimum radius: 93 4"
Minimum turnout: Atlas
Custom Line
Central Gas & Supply

Scale of plan:
Retail buildings
Theater
78" = 1'-0",
12" grid
Yard office
Water tank
Illustration by Rick Johnson and Roen Kelly
Sanford & Hawley Lumber
Bike shop
In N scale, even a small space is

enough for big railroading action. A
double-track main allows continuous
operation while switching the yard or
the flour mill. Spurs extending to the
ends of the layout would be a great
place to add staging or expand the
railroad with additional towns.
Company housing
Railroad station
Railroad Hotel
The $500 layout
Published: January 2004

Scale: HO
Plan size: 4'-0" x 6'-6"
Minimum radius: 18"
This plan was created in 2004 as a

response to a challenge to come up
with a good-looking railroad that
could be built for just $500. Though
inflation has raised that price, George
Sebastian-Colemans ideas are still
worth looking at: simple benchwork,
a single-track main line, and inexpensive paper buildings.
House
Substation
Water
tower
Incline (funicular
railway)
Pittsburgh Trolley
bridge
mural
0"
Car barn
Storage yard
Row houses
Scale of plan: 78" = 1'-0", 12" grid
Signal
tower
Store
Small houses
Steel mill
Coke
Foundry ovens
Illustration by Kellie Jaeger
Pittsburgh Area
Transit
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 2'-3" x 5'-2"
Minimum radius: 12"
Maximum grade: 3.8 percent
4"
Church
Mill City Brewery
Central business district
Coal mine
Illustration by Jay Smith
When space is tight, think trolleys.

Trolleys and streetcars travel on
curves of much smaller radius than
steam or diesel locomotives, making it
easy to fit a complete working road
into a limited space. This dual-track
figure-eight was designed to fit inside
a coffee table.

11
You can do more in 23 square feet

than just a loop of track. Though it
has about the same square footage as
plan no. 3, this layout unfolds the
main line to model a busy urban scene
with lots of industry sidings. Switching layouts like this maximize operations in minimal space. Since its rare
Federal Street
Published: May 2005
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 2'-0" x 11'-6"
Minimum radius: none
Minimum turnout: handlaid
Jones & Laughlin Steel
Brewery
Elevator Mfrs. Canning Furniture Dept. Store
Real Pie Co.
To PRR 30th Street Yard
for a modeler to have enough space to

accurately represent the length of
prototype main lines, layouts that
focus on industrial switching are
about as realistic as a model railroad
can get. Also, such a layout can be
easily incorporated into a larger layout
later by extending the main line.
Phillips Mine
& Mill Supply Co.
Southside Coal Co.
Iron City
Sash & Door Co.
This layout in a closet models a

section of a heavy-duty Class 1 railroad, with plenty of hidden staging to
keep operators busy. Switching local
industries can be challenging when
you need to clear the main several
times during an operating session to
let hotshot freight trains and crack
Junction tower
Oil
passenger trains through. The staging

tracks can be used not just as a source
of through traffic, but also as a place
for local industries to receive freight
from and send it to. Hiding the back
of the loop behind a ridge gives the
idea that the railroad goes somewhere,
while keeping the staging accessible.
To Pittsburgh
Team track
To P&LE
Pennsylvania RR,
Middle Division
Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 2'-6" x 10'-0"
Hidden staging tracks (6)
Factory
Business district
Station
Tower
Factories
To Philadelphia
Log landing
C.W. North
Logging Co.
7
12
Published: Great Model

Railroads 2004
Scale: On3 (1:48)
Plan size: 2 x 16 feet
Minimum radius: 18"
Latch
Sawmill
A small space need not keep you

from considering larger scales. The
short-wheelbase rolling stock and tight
curves of a narrow-gauge logging line
makes this O scale layout practical in
four easy-to-handle 2 x 4-foot sections.
Keeping the trackwork to a minimum
also leaves plenty of room for realistic
terrain and foliage.
Eds Bog Sand
Coal
Creek Enginehouse

MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
The Appalachian
Central
2.5"

Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 5'-71 2" x 7'-0"
Maximum grade: 4 percent
2 percent up
Lift-out
hillsides
Through
truss bridges
Searles
934"-radius
curve sections
Burgess
Programming
track
Bruce
Junction
4 percent up
934"-radius
curve
sections
Interchange
track
11"-radius
curve
sections
2.5"
Enginehouse
Handheld
controller jacks
1"
Mid-Atlantic &
Western
Published: May 2001
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 24"
Electro-pneumatic
switch control system
Jenkins Valve
Ninth
Street
If you want to run long-wheelbase

modern diesels and 86-foot quaddoor boxcars, you need broad curves
and gentle turnouts. With a switching layout, you can have those even
in a small space. Though this urban,
industrial layout was originally set
in the transition era, it could be any
time up to the present day.
Mid-Atlantic
Tea & Spice
Sweeney Mfg. Co.
Team track with

traveling crane
Canal
Street
C.J. tower
Katie Mae Milk
Supply
Compressor
house
building
Tower Street
Model Railroaders 2000 project

railroad sought to combine modern
techniques with the layout design style
of former MR editor Linn Westcott.
Styrofoam scenery, double-sided
backdrops, Digital Command Control,
and even N scale itself were new
developments since Linns day. The
result was a great model railroad in
just 281 2 square feet.
Despite its compact size, the
Appalachian Central offers dramatic
terrain, two hidden staging yards, continuous operation, vignette scenery,
and a nice, long main line for running
those unit coal trains Appalachian
modelers love so much.
Designer Lionel Strang was
inspired by Westcotts Timberline &
Tidewater, which appeared in MRs
January 1950 issue. Who knows
maybe in January 2050, well print a
track plan updating the Appalachian
Central for maglev locomotives,
robotic control, and holographic
scenery. Steven Otte
Tenth Street bridge

Section Steel
Griffon Cutlery
joint
water tank Strouse-Adler Co.
Griffon Metal
Bulk oil
Coal silos
Bayside coal offices
Tenth Rowhouses
Street
13
Blue Canon~
Quarry
Brewery Foundry Auburn
Fiddle/staging track
114"
Donner Pass
Division
2"
14"
34"

Scale: N (1:160)
Minimum radius: 10"
112"
10
0"
Interchange
Sacramento
Roseville
Industrial lead
Freight house
Published: November 2004

Scale: Z (1:220)
Plan size: 2'-6" x 8'-0"
Minimum radius: 6"
At the small end of the size spectrum is Z scale. The Val Ease
Central was designed to travel,
being built in sections that packed
into three hard-sided suitcases
(hence the pun in the name). All
three units can be operated independently, or as one layout.
VAL EASE EAST
Station
14
This N scale tabletop layout packs a

lot of action into a small space. In
addition to the twice-around main
line, this Southern Pacific-themed
layout boasts plenty of industries to
switch, a fiddle track, and a large
classification yard. Leads that extend
to the edges of the layout make this a
great plan to expand upon later.
CENTRE VAL EASE
VAL EASE WEST

+1.18"
0"
0"
Fuel, coal, Depot Transfer Car

shop
Co.
and water
0"
Old River Yard office

lighthouse
Freight house MOW stores,

Mine
Pacific Grain Terminal water, and coal
Stone arch bridge
Team track
Team track
Val Ease Central
11
Helper track
Interchange track
Laurel Creek
coal loader
Baldwin Forest Products
Illustration by Kellie Jaeger and Rick Johnson
Montandon Branch
Railroads 2002
Scale: N (1:160)
12
This layout is designed for the

modeler who prefers realistic scenery
rather than a lot of track. There are
still enough sidings for a little local
freight work, though. The high
mountain ridge down the center of the
layout divides it into two distinct
scenes, increasing the apparent length
of the main line. This plan could be
doubled in size to turn it into an HO
scale 4 x 8.
Lost Horse Mountain
Great Northern Ry.
13
1"
Kaylee Creek
Published: October 2007

Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 1'-9" x 3'-6"
0"
Mountain and urban scenery share

space on this ultra-compact N scale
Great Northern Ry. layout. Running
the main street between the two
diagonal industry spurs leaves plenty
of room for a busy town scene. Since it
has a single main line without a
passing track, switching will be
challenging. Like the previous plan,
this one would also be a good candidate to scale up to HO.
2"
1"
Maintenance
shop
Coal
Shed
Water tank
Shed
Garage
Hotel
Loading
ramp
3"
2"
2"
Town of
Trego,
Mont.
Allied
Manufacturing
Co.
Station
Meramec Valley RR
Published: April 2008
Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 2'-4" x 7'-10"
Minimum radius: 12"
14
4"
3"
Abandoned house
Hiding one side of a loop of track in a

tunnel can really improve even a small
layouts realism. Instead of a train set
that goes around and around, the
layout appears to be a section of a
much larger system. If there are no
tunnels on the line youre modeling,
send your trains behind a backdrop, a
row of buildings, or a dense stand of
trees. A main line that curves, instead
of paralleling the front of the table,
also looks longer and more realistic.
Church
Farmhouse

Gas station
Illustration by Theo Cobb
Water tower
Steps
House
45"
47"
45"
Truss bridge
Shed
Storage building
Tower
Millers General Store
15
Curves, turnouts,
and track
Setting standards to
handle the trains you
want to run
By Andy Sperandeo
Among the first choices youll need to
make in designing or selecting a track
plan are the sharpness of the curves
and the angle and length of the
turnouts (track switches). Curves are
defined by radius and turnouts by the
number of the frog. Or you can decide
on what will be the longest cars and
engines you want to run. You pretty
much end up in the same place either
way because your rolling stock will
require a certain minimum radius
16
centers
and corresponding frog size to operate

reliably. In fact, your trains will look
even better on curves and turnouts
larger than the minimums they need.
The sectional track in a typical HO
train set forms curves of 18" radius.
Thats measured from the center point
of the curve to the center line of the
track. Equivalent N scale track
sections have a radius of 93 4".
In both scales these sharp curves
are best suited to smaller steam
locomotives, older-model four-axle
diesels, and cars of 50-scale-foot
length or shorter. Nevertheless, many
larger engines and cars made in both
HO and N are engineered to operate
on these extremely sharp curves.
Experienced modelers have learned to
keep curvature and equipment in
proportion for the best operation and
most realistic appearance.
Curve radius, turnout size, and track

spacings are standards you need to
set before selecting or drawing a track
plan. Tony Koester photo
The box Curvature by scales on
the opposite page recommends
minimum radii based on types of
rolling stock in different scales. It
classifies curves as sharp, conventional, and broad for convenience,
but feel free to use any longer inbetween radius thats appropriate for
your track plan. With flextrack you
can make curves of whatever radius
you need. Of course, larger curves
are always better, if you have room
for them.
Turnouts
These are usually specified by the

angle of the frog, where the two
diverging lines cross see the Turnout parts illustration opposite
Curvature by scales
Radii in inches

Broad curves
Conventional curves
Sharp curves
N
17"
14"
11"
HO
30"
24"
18"
S
41"
32"
24"
O
58"
46"
35"
Matching rolling stock to curvature

Broad: almost all motive power including most articulated steam engines,
full-length passenger cars, and scale 89-foot freight cars
Conventional: medium-size steam engines (2-8-2, 4-6-2), six-axle diesels,
full-length passenger cars only with easements and modified running
gear, and all freight cars except 85- and 89-footers
Sharp: small steam engines (2-8-0, 4-6-0), most four-axle diesels, short
(60-scale-foot) passenger cars, and freight cars under 60 feet in length
For more-detailed recommendations for matching rolling stock and curves,
see National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) Recommended Practice
RP-11, at www.nmra.org/standards/rp-11.html
Turnout parts
(Points and switch rod are the switch)

Headblocks
Points
Switch rod
Guardrail
Stock rail
Closure rails
No. 4 frog angle
Stock rail
Frog
Guardrail Wing rail
No. 6 frog angle
Track centers
Along with the size of curves and

turnouts, also decide how close to
allow parallel tracks. The minimum
must let trains pass without touching
and with sufficient clearance for
reliability. Tracks can be closest when
straight, but when they start to bend
they have to be farther apart to allow
for rolling stock overhanging both
inside and outside the curve.
The recommendations in the Track
centers box are conservative and
allow a margin for error in track
planning. Railroads might put tracks
in a yard as close together as 13 feet
on center, about 113 16" in HO. Parallel
main lines might be 15 feet on center
or 21 16" in HO. After experimenting
with the equipment you want to
operate, you may find you can use
closer centers in construction than
you allowed for in your drawing.
When youve decided on minimums
for curve radius, turnouts, and track
centers, youll have the basic information to select or design a track plan for
your model railroad. RL
CURVES AND TRACK CENTERS
stated as a number. In a no. 4 turnout,

the legs of the diverging angle will be
one unit of length apart, four units
from the apex, also referred to as the
point of the frog. This way of defining
angles works best for drawing turnouts on a track plan.
Turnout is a term we use in model
railroading to avoid confusion with
electrical switches and because it
describes the whole assembly where
two tracks diverge. A switch is only
the moving parts of a turnout.
The larger the frog number, the
longer the turnout and the broader the
curvature of its diverging leg. Longer
turnouts are good, but they take up
more space by themselves and in yard
ladders and passing tracks. Just as
with curves, you may have to compromise on the shortest turnouts that will
handle the equipment you want to run.
Number 4 turnouts are about the
sharpest normally used for very small
layouts. On larger systems its best to
restrict no. 4s to industrial spurs where
only smaller cars and engines will run.
Number 5 turnouts are good for
layouts with sharp curves and for yards
on layouts with conventional curves.
Layouts with broad curves will usually
have no. 6 turnouts and may use no. 8s
in crossovers to ease S-curves.
In wye turnouts, both legs diverge
equally from the center line. A wye
turnout of a given number is equivalent to a standard turnout with a
number twice as high.
Track centers
N scale
Radius (inner track)
Track centers
Sharp
9"
1"
Conventional
13"
17 16"
Broad
16"
13 8"
Straight
HO scale
Track centers
18"
23 8"
24"
2"
30"
21 8"
2"
S scale
Track centers
24"
3"
36"
31 8"
42"
27 8"
2"
O scale
Track centers
32"
43 8"
42"
41 8"
54"
37 8"
35 8"
1"
For more-detailed information about track centers, see NMRA Standard S-8,
at www.nmra.org/standards/s-8.html
17
4x8s
Track plans that start

with a sheet of plywood
Even a small model railroad can have

grand scenery. This HO scale bridge
and river scene is on the 2 x 6 foot
extension to plan no. 18, the Turtle
Creek Central. Bill Zuback photo
and a little more

By David Popp
The traditional beginner model
railroad is a layout built on a 4 x 8 foot
sheet of plywood. The easiest explanation for this is that plywood, as well as
foam insulation board, is sold in those
dimensions. One can simply buy a
sheet of 3 4" plywood, set it on saw
horses or an old table, and run trains.
For a more stable layout, try senior
editor Jim Hedigers all-plywood
benchwork plan shown at right.
The plan calls for two sheets of 1 2"
plywood. One is ripped into 13 strips
31 2" x 96", which are used to make the
legs and frame. The other is used for
the layout top. From there, you can
add the roadbed, track, and scenery
materials of your choice.
Just because 4 x 8 plans are commonly used for beginner model
railroads doesnt mean you should
overlook them as a viable layout
option. Depending upon the design, a
4 x 8 layout can offer great scenery
and operation in a compact space.
18
Benchwork materials
4 x 8 sheet 1 2" plywood ripped
into 13 strips 31 2" x 96" (1)
4 x 8 sheet 1 2" plywood (1)
8 foot 2 x 2 (1)
1 4" x 1" x 10'-0" molding for
cross braces (2)
1 4" x 11 2" carriage bolts (16)
1 4" washers (16)
1 4" wing nuts (12)
1 4" stop nuts (4)
Small box 4d 11 2" finishing nails
Small box 1" panel board nails
Adjustable furniture feet (4)
Carpenters wood glue
Tabletop 12" plywood

4 x 8-foot sheet
Table
construction
diagram
16"
96"
47"
32"
Add a short extension, such as the

one shown in plan 18, and you greatly
expand the layouts operating possibilities. Most of the plans shown here
have track leading off one or more
edges, allowing you to add on to them
later and expand your empire. RL
40"
Cut to fit
18"
35"
Curved turnouts
Barn Farmhouse
Deer Mountain
15
Published: June 2004

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 4 x 8 foot
Minimum radius: 18"
Coal
tipple
Cemetery
Church
House
Deer Mountain could be set anywhere

from Illinois to Pennsylvania in the
mid-1940s to the late 1950s. The model
railroad features a large ridge that
runs through the middle of the layout,
providing scenic interest. The track
that runs past the freight station could
be used as a starting point for an
extension or a staging yard.
Wye
turnout
School
Hastings
Handcar shed
Freight station
Water tank Station Warehouse Texaco station
Curved
turnout
Highway
overpass
Freight house
Warehouse
Curved
turnout
House
Keddie Wye
Published: Model Railroad
Planning 2006
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
To staging yard or Keddie, Calif.

Spanish
future expansion
Creek
9
View block
Winnemucca, Nev.
Depot
16
The wye at Keddie, Calif., was a

junction on the Western Pacific (today
Union Pacific) in the Feather River
Canyon. A major part of the junctions
charm is the combination of bridges
over Spanish Creek and a tunnel that
make up the wye itself, which, even
when modeled at this compressed size,
will make an impressive scene.
Millington Coal & Oil Co.
CB&Q Fox River District
Illinois Midland
17

Planning 2004
Scale: S (1:64)
Minimum radius: 19"
Depot and
freight
house
Millington
Backs of stores
Feed mill
Backdrop
Piggyback
ramp
Storefront flats
Stockyard
Street
Freight house
This plan is for a quintessential

granger branchline railroad, and
features an off-layout interchange.
The layout is designed to use sectional
track from S-Helper Services S-Trax
line. These track sections include
molded-plastic roadbed, making it
easy to get the layout up and running.
Newark
Enginehouse
Depot
19" minimum radius

No. 5 turnouts (S-Trax)
Grain
elevator
Bulk oil dealer
Illustration by Robert Wegner
19
MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
Turtle Creek
Central
18

(original) and January
2005 (coal branch)
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 4 x 8 with 2 x 6
foot extension
Minimum radius: 18"
Though I had liked the Turtle Creek

Central when former managing editor
Jim Kelly originally built the HO scale
layout for Model Railroader in 2003, I
was amazed at how interesting the
railroad became when he added the
coal branch to it. The operation added
by the small branch line turned the
Turtle Creek from just a nice layout to
a functional model railroad.
The roots of the TCC came from a
4'-0" x 6'-6" plan by Linn Westcott in
the book 101 Track Plans for Model

Railroaders. Jim modified the plan for
a 4 x 8 foot table and then later added
the 2 x 6 foot coal branch.
The key point of interest on this
layout is the branch line that splits
from the inside of the mainline oval.
As shown here, Jims coal branch was
just one option for expansion, since
there are three other points where the
layout could be extended from for
even more fun. David Popp
Turtle Rapids
Leg assembly
Turtle Creek
Mine no. 1
Company
houses
312"-wide boards
cut from 12"
plywood, glued
and nailed to legs
2 x2
pine legs
Horseshoe
pits
2 x 6-foot
12" plywood top
Benchwork
23"
Bolt to
frame
joist
40" (or match

height of
existing layout)
Use one nail

every 8"
Glue
and nail
to frame
13"
General
store
312" frame boards

cut from sheet of
12" birch plywood
Adjustable feet
72"
Joists 1414"
on center
Clark Mining
Equipment
Materials for a 2 x 6 foot extension

Trailer home
4 x 8 sheet 1 2" plywood ripped

into one 2 x 6 top and 5 strips
31 2" x 96" (1)
8 foot 2 x 2 (1)
" x 21 2" carriage bolts (6)

" washers (6)
1 4" wing nuts (6)
Adjustable furniture feet (2)
14
14
Mine Creek
Turtle Creek
Mill
Factory
Dairy
Turtle
Creek
20
Coal dealer
Gas station
Illustrations by Rick Johnson
23"
Freight
house
Pier One
Phraelish
Brown
Lumber Co. Rope Works Box Co. Enginehouse
Deepwater Ry. &

Navigation Co.
19
United Shell
Button Co.
Swift
Meat
Quality Metal
Forms
238"
312"
178"
City
Fruit Co.
538"

Planning 2005
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 3'-43 4" x 8'-0"
Minimum radius: 18"
Minimum turnout: Peco
small radius
Super
Heat
Treat,
Inc.
0"
178"
Public wharf Dock master Fold line

Harbor
Car ferry
While you could build this layout to
Bridge levels
Service
out at 534"
fill a 4 x 8 foot table, the original
Corp.
intent of its designer was to fold the
layout in half and fit it into the back of
a station wagon to take it to train
shows. As such, the layout is just 403 4" 16d nails pin front panels in raised position (slip fit)
wide to fit between the wheel wells.
Strap hinge (one per side)
The railroad is filled with waterfront
charm and would require several
kitbashed and scratchbuilt warehouse
Piano hinges along bottom of protective
structures to fit the footprints shown
Illustrations by Robert Wegner
layout-edge boards allow them to fold down for viewing
on the plan. A key feature to this
railroad is the car ferry, which serves
as a fiddle yard, providing a way to
move cars on and off the layout. Like
plan no. 18, this layout features several
points for future expansion.
MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
Depot
Water Water
column tower
Standard gauge hopper Coal prep plant

(loads in/empties out)
under prep plant
Colorado
& Southern
Team
track

Planning 2002
Scale: On21 2 (1:48)
Minimum radius: 18"
Shed
Road
Backdrop
20
Industry no. 1

Road
overpass
Loading
chute
Coal tipple
(empties in/
loads out)
Depot
Water
tower
Im an unabashed fan of the hobbys

second largest scale, so I was especially captivated by this 4 x 8 layout
that features O scale models. But
instead of attempting to shoehorn fullsized O scale equipment and track into
this minimal footprint, Chris Webster
designed his Colorado & Southern
plan to use Atlas HO scale sectional
track and Bachmanns line of On2
(Bachmann calls them On30) narrow
gauge equipment. Furthermore, this
plan includes a double-sided backdrop
thats situated at the center of the
layout to create two unique scenes
and areas for railroad operations.
Kent Johnson, associate editor

21
Interchange
Tank rack
Empak cleaning track
View blocks
Rollins-Pearle
Empak repair track
Houstons Port
Terminal RR
21

Planning 2002
Scale: N (1:160)
Minimum radius: 10"
medium radius
Shell Oil
Shed with dock
Using a 4 x 8 for an N scale railroad

can offer a lot of great advantages, as
shown in this plan for Houstons Port
Mirror
Houston
Deer Park Junction
Access Tank car Refinery
Storage tanks
Terminal RR. Through clever use of
Ship
pipe bridge
(with CTC signals)
road
and piping
docks
view blocks and a staging yard buried Channel
Jesse H. Jones
Lubrizoil loading
Lubrizoil (STP)
Equipment
Equity Grain
in the middle of the model railroad,
Highway Bridge
dock (boxcars)
tank rack
delivery track
the layout is effectively split into
Illustration by Terri Field
several industrial scenes.
Montreal, Quebec
Windsor Station
Industries
Delaware
& Hudson
22"

Planning 2006
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
Willsboro Bay of Lake Champlain

Scale of plan:
916" = 1'-0",
Red Rocks
12" grid
Sedimentation tank
Magarac Steel
& Iron
23

Planning 2008
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 22"
A 4 x 8 layout doesnt have to have a

continuous oval of track with one or
two towns on it. Magarac Steel & Iron
represents a layout that is a single
heavy industry. The plans small
interchange yard provides a way for
cars to come in and out of the plant.
22
Gas supply
22
This layout features two signature

scenes on the Delaware & Hudson RR.
The first is Windsor Station in Montreal, Quebec (which is actually a
Canadian Pacific station). The other is
a bit of main line that runs high above
Willsboro Bay on Lake Champlain.
Blowing house
Powerhouse
To car-repair shop
Blast
furnace
To slag
dump
Main
office
Test
laboratory
Water
tank
Cold blast pipe

Gas-supply pipe
Ingot stripper
and soaking pit
Rolling
mill
Bessemer
house
Black River
Junction
24

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 4 x 8 foot with
1'-6" x 6'-0" extension
Minimum turnout:
Kato no. 4
The Black River Junction plan is for a

freelance railroad junction town set
someplace in Ohio in the 1950s. Here,
a Baltimore & Ohio branch line meets
up with a New York Central main line.
Having an operating junction between
two railroads works on this small
layout thanks in part to a 1'-6" x 6'-0"
Black River
New York
four-track staging yard that runs
House
Factory
NYC depot Central RR
Black River
along one edge of the railroad. Both
the B&O and the NYC keep active
passenger stations in Black River, and
the NYC also has a small commuter
station on the outskirts of town at
East Switch.
The original plan was designed for
Town
Kato Unitrack, but you could easily
build it with flextrack and turnouts.
And, you could extend the B&O main
line through the NYCs curve at the
left of the plan and extend the layout
onto another shelf for more staging or
another town.
Dont want to set the railroad in
Ohio? You could easily adapt the plan
for your favorite railroads and region.
B&O freight house
B&O depot NYC depot
The curve radii would work with fourEast Switch
axle diesels and 50-foot boxcars.
Team track
Add-on
staging
yard
B&O
NYC
Tower
Black River
Junction
Factory
Grain elevator
Spokane Valley
& Northern
Published: May 2002
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
Lumber yard
Interchange track
Illustration by Robert Wegner and Rick Johnson
25
This layout is designed as a modern

short line, spun off from a large Class 1
railroad. While it does have sharp
curves, four-axle diesel locomotives
pulling covered grain hoppers would
be ideal for this layout. Like several
other plans in this chapter, the
Spokane Valley & Northern features
several points where extensions could
be connected to add more main line or
industries or a staging yard.

23
Sketching
by the squares
Learn controlled doodling and even your rough
sketches on fast-food napkins can fit in scale
By Andy Sperandeo
Its fun to sketch layout concepts as
they occur to you, but it takes a lot of
time to try a new thought in a scale
drawing. Fortunately theres a faster
way to see if your great idea will fit.
John Armstrong, the dean of layout
designers, invented a method of
controlled doodling that can be used
to quickly test track planning ideas.
Its called sketching by the squares.
This method is based on a unit of

area called a square, defined as shown
in the box below. (These illustrations
are adapted from Armstrongs Track
Planning for Realistic Operation, from
Kalmbach Books.) First set the size of
your square, then use it to divide your
layout room into a grid.
The example below shows a 12 x 18foot room for an HO scale layout that
will have a 27" minimum radius with
2" track centers. That makes a square
31" on a side (27" + (2 x 2") = 31") and
the room size in squares comes out to

about 42 3 x 7.
Use tracing paper to lay out a grid
over your room drawing, then make
copies of the grid drawing for sketching
layout ideas. You can always try a
different-size square based on a different minimum radius by laying a new
grid over your original room drawing.
And if an idea comes to you when
you dont have one of those copies,
all you have to do is draw a rough grid
of squares on whatever paper is handy
12 x 18-foot room divided into 31" squares
Definition of a square
S (side of square)
C (track center spacing
for radius R)
R (minimum
mainline radius)
12'-0"
423 x almost
7 squares
S = R + 2C
31"
29"
(Minimum track center spacing may be

obtained from NMRA standard S-8)
Squares are of the following approximate sizes:
N HO S
O
Sharp curves
13" 22" 32" 42"
Conventional curves 16" 28" 38" 50"
Broad curves
20" 34" 48" 64"
31"
19"
18'-0"
24
SKETCHING SQUARES
Layout Design Elements
H&H Produce Co.
Seaboard Swimming Pools
Depot
West to
Mineola
Lincoln Ave.
Roslyn Road
Orchard St.
Schroeter Lumber
Church St.
East to
Oyster Bay
Illustration by Bob Wegner
You can design a model railroad using track arrangements based on the real thing. Tony Koester, editor of
Model Railroad Planning magazine, calls these Layout
Design Elements, or LDEs for short. For a small railroad
you can pick one LDE as the focal point and design
everything else around it. For a larger system, string
LDEs together a yard, a station, a major industry, and
so on and join them with segments of main line.
One advantage of LDEs is that they automatically look
realistic because theyre taken from reality. Another is
and start sketching. The grid doesnt

need to be drawn to scale or even be
exactly square to be useful.
What fits in a square
Helena Rubenstein
The key to this method is knowing

what fits in the squares, as shown
below. Keep your sketches within those
that your trains will be able to operate like the big ones
because the LDE follows a real-life track arrangement.
You can find prototypes to use as LDEs in magazines,
books, and railroad historical society publications. Also
see Tonys book on LDEs, Realistic Model Railroad
Building Blocks, from Kalmbach Books. When you find
something you like, draw it to scale and convert its
dimensions to squares. If you know that the large grain
elevator complex you want to model needs x 3
squares, itll be easy to work it into your sketches. A.S.
guidelines and your ideas will work

when drawn to scale.
Since everything you sketch by the
squares is proportioned to your
minimum radius, this method assumes
that your rolling stock will be proportional also. Aisleways for walk-in or
walk-around layouts arent included.
Thats because everything in the

squares varies with modeling scale, but
of course our width doesnt. For HO
layouts a comfortable aisle will be at
least one square wide more if the
minimum radius is small. For N scale
allow a width of at least two squares
and about half a square for O scale. RL
What will go in a square?
Standard (straight) turnouts
Minimum radius
Substandard radius
Two concentric semicircles with

the inner track of minimum radius
will fit in a two-square space. A
third track would have to be of
substandard radius.
Interlaced single-track main lines

will fit comfortably in a two-square
width.
A standard turnout centered in the two-square space will not quite fit.
Locating it at an angle will make this alignment practical.
2 squares
3 squares
4 squares
114 squares
112 squares
B
Ten tracks or more will fit
side-by-side in one square.
However, it takes approximately
two squares of length to connect
only five tracks with a simple
ladder.
A turntable and roundhouse of

appropriate size for the class of
railroad being modeled will take a
space 114 squares by 34 to 114
squares, depending on the number
of roundhouse stalls.
In highly convoluted alignments, length in one direction can be

substituted for another (and vice versa) to some extent. To get the
narrow waist of alignment A, a length (left to right of diagram) of
almost four squares is required. If length of only two or three
squares is available, extra width required for alignment B or C must
be provided.
25
Layout
schematics
By Andy Sperandeo
This small N scale table

layout has a continuous main
line, but one side of the oval is out
of sight behind the scenery, where a
hidden storage siding is also concealed. Model Railroader photo
How to think of your track plan as a railroad

Most of us start out in model railroading with one of the
most basic layout schematics, an oval or continuous loop.
Thats a great place to start, but its not much like a real
railroad. A railroad is a business, and outside of amusement parks and some subway lines, theres not much
money to be made by running trains around in circles.
So among the first considerations in planning a layout is
devising an arrangement that lets your model main line look
Point-to-point
A railroad, some people insist, runs
trains from Point A to Point B, then
has to turn them around to return to
Point A. Thats reality and thats the
way they want a model railroad to
work too. If you find yourself agreeing
with that, a point-to-point schematic
may make the most sense to you.
Using a point-to-point schematic,
trains run across your layout from one
terminal to another, passing through
such stations or towns along the way
as the layouts size allows. At the end
of the line, they need to be turned
around to return the way they came,
and probably to be switched as well.
Freight trains, especially, wont usually
carry the same cars both ways.
The complaint about true point-topoint layouts is that it takes much
longer to turn trains in an end-of-theline stub terminal than to run the
length of the main line. If the layout
represents a slow-paced branch or
short line, the share of time spent in
switching will be appropriate. If you
26
and act more like a real railroad. That arrangement is what

we call a layout schematic. These schematics come in several
varieties, and none is, in itself, better than any other. The
value of a schematic lies in whether or not it lets your model
railroad accomplish whatever it is that you want it to do.
This overview touches on only a few useful layout schematics. For more detail, see Track Planning for Realistic Operation,
by John Armstrong, published by Kalmbach Books. RL
Point-to-point schematics
Point-to-point
Yard
Yard
Station can be any number
Reverse loop
with storage
track
Point-to-loop
Yard
Station
Loop-to-loop
Storage
track
Yard
Station
Storage
track
Illustrations by Rick Johnson and Theo Cobb
aim for a busier tempo, however, a true

point-to-point will be too slow.
One solution is to replace the stub
terminal at one or both ends with a
reverse loop for faster turning. The pointto-loop schematic lets a train travel the
main line once in each direction before
having to be turned in the yard. With loops
at both ends, a loop-to-loop schematic,
trains can run continuously, just as on an
oval. Storage tracks on the loops will

support a greater variety of trains.
Just as continuous loops are good
for open-top-traffic, loop-to-loop
schematics favor the operation of
passenger trains. The same model
consist can represent the east- and
westbound versions of the same
passenger train more convincingly than
is usually the case with freight runs.
The simple continuous loop or oval

shouldnt be an object of scorn just
because its so basic. Many outstanding model railroads have been built
on its foundation, and there are a lot
of ways to put it to good use.
First lets recognize that any
schematic that lets a train run continuously in the same direction fits this
definition. It doesnt matter if the track
crosses over itself like a figure eight or
is otherwise stretched and folded. If it
supports continuous running in the
same direction, its a loop.
One way to overcome the loopiness of a loop is to hide part of it. The
N scale loop layout shown on the
opposite page is a good example. The
scenic ridge along the back of the
table hides the far side of the loop.
That ridge also conceals a doubleended siding or passing track, and
both the hidden siding and the hidden
section of the main line can be used
as storage tracks.
Suppose a freight train appears
from the right end of the layout
running clockwise. Lets stop using
terms of circular motion and say
this train is westbound. It stops,
sets out a car at the lumberyard,
and picks up some others from
the interchange track. When its
back together it proceeds west to
the siding hidden behind the ridge.
Instead of letting that first
train run, lets stop it in the
storage track and start an
eastbound train thats been
waiting on the hidden main line. It
comes through the foreground
scene in the opposite direction.
Continuous schematics
Continuous with storage sidings Storage
Simple oval
LAYOUT SCHEMATICS
Continuous loops
View block, high scenery or backdrop
Storage
Figure 8
Station C
View block
Station B
Twice-around
Station A
Now our simple loop layout takes on

the linear characteristics of a railroad. We
see a train come from one direction, pass
by the place were watching, and go away
in the other direction. Thats how a loop
can give the impression of real railroading.
If we had room to make our layout
larger we could run trains through two
or more scenes. We might even pass
through a freight yard or city passenger
station. And lets add more storage

tracks for a greater variety of trains.
You can see where this is going.
A loop is great for coal or ore traffic in
open-top cars. The loads can always go
one way and the empties the other.
If you can run your continuous main line
along the walls of your room or basement,
youll have the popular and effective
around-the-walls type of layout.
Storage yard
Yard
Double-faced backdrop
separates opposite
sides of continuous loop
Station C
Station A
Combination
schematics
There are many other possible
schematics, and some of the most
popular combine features of the
continuous and point-to-point. You can
always operate a continuous main line
as if it ran point-to-point. Or you can
add reversing loops to a continuous
schematic, so you can run coal or
ore trains in the loop pattern and
passenger trains loop-to-loop. The
key is to choose a schematic that
supports the kind of operations you
want to model.
Station B
Turning loop
Turning loop
Storage yard
Station B
Double-faced backdrop
Yard
Station A
Station C
27
Simple drafting tools will let you

draw curves and turnouts with
great accuracy. Photo by Bill Zuback
Drawing curves and

turnouts accurately
Careful drafting leads to
easier construction and
reliable operation
By Andy Sperandeo
The essence of drawing an accurate
track plan is being careful and correct
with curves and turnouts. There are a
couple of basic techniques to master
and a shortcut to help with the most
28
repetitive tasks. Think of these skills

as foundations to support your
imagination, and youll be able to both
enjoy the fun of track planning and
trust the practicality of your work.
Curves with a compass
Swinging arcs with a compass is

easy, and thats a lot of designing a
model railroad. If youve sketched your
layout plan by the squares, you already
know where the major curves will go.
Tape tracing paper over your space
diagram, trace the outline of the room,
use an architects scale to set your
compass to your minimum radius, and

draw the arcs youve sketched.
Swing the arcs through more
degrees of curvature than needed.
That makes it easier to accurately
connect them with straight lines. You
can erase the excess arc after youve
located your main lines.
To connect curves with straight
lines, align your rule so the pencil
point barely touches the outside of the
arc. This helps make the line geometrically tangent to the arc, touching
the arc at only one point, and therefore the straight track will meet
DRAWING ACCURATELY
Turnout dimensions
Q: Distance from switch point to

intersection of center lines
L: Lead, distance from switch

point to point of frog
P: Minimum straight section ahead
of switch points
S: Overall length of straight leg

of turnout
C
Branch curve
C: Overall length of curved leg of

turnout (measured as shown)
X: Offset between continuation of curve and
straight leg of turnout
This table gives key turnout dimensions useful for laying

out center-line track diagrams to scale, to ensure that
the alignment can be built in the indicated space. To
Turnout
dimensions
HO
13/8
15/ 16
15/ 16
21/2
23/4
31/8
33/8
47/8
Frog #
actually build turnouts, see NMRA Recommended

Practice RP-12, from which these figures were derived.
All dimensions are in inches, to the nearest 1 16".
S
4
41/2*
27/ 16
23/8
23/4
35/ 16
31/4
31/8
53/ 16
49/ 16
41/2
43/8
75/ 16
51/ 16
53/ 16
511/ 16
61/4
613/ 16
75/8
83/8
123/ 16
99/ 16
103/4
117/8
175/ 16
1/2
9/ 16
5/8
13/ 16
15/ 16
11/2
11/ 16
13/ 16
11/2
11/4
13/8
11/2
17/8
15/8
113/ 16
21/2
313/ 16
41/4
411/ 16
61/2
713/ 16
85/8
12
95/ 16
103/8
113/8
1515/ 16
1213/16
143/8
157/8
225/ 16
33/4
41/4
11/ 16
61/2
67/8
73/4
85/8
12
93/ 16
105/ 16
113/8
1515/ 16
1211/16
144/ 16
157/8
225/ 16
3/ 16
1/4
1/4
5/ 16
5/ 16
5/8
7/ 16
1/2
5/8
1/2
9/ 16
3/4
13/ 16
5/8
3/4
15/ 16
11/8
Dimensions given are minimums; for ready-to-use or kit

turnouts substitute actual measurements from turnouts to be
used. For example, Atlas HO no. 6: P = 11/2", S = 12", C = 10".
Most sharp- and conventional-curve N scale ready-to-use
turnouts are the curved-frog design, as are Peco Streamline
the curve squarely, without a kink of

sharper radius.
(Railroaders and model railroaders
use tangent to mean straight track,
because every straightaway on a
railroad is tangent to some curve.)
Also, if the straight line barely
touches the curve there will be room
for transition, or easement, curves.
These are spirals of gradually decreasing radius that allow engines and cars
to enter and leave curves smoothly.
Easements not only look nice, they
help trains run better by compensating for the extreme sharpness of even
the broadest model railroad curves.
Easements require an offset
between the straight track and the
constant-radius curve to allow for the
turnouts in all scales. These can best be laid out as arcs

tangent to the straight-leg center lines and the actual dimensions C and P.
* Atlas no. 4 HO turnout is actually no. 41/2. L, P, S, C, and X
are shown for this turnout in the HO columns.
gradual transition to that radius. The

offset is generally some fraction of an
inch, however, the width of a pencil
line is enough to represent it. (Note
that half the length of the easement
will extend into the tangent, so allow
for that too by not locating turnouts
closer to the curve than that distance.)
Youll also need to draw new curves
taking off from straight lines. Start by
aligning a triangle along your tangent
so that the 90-degree corner is at the
point where you want the curve to start.
Then draw a line along the triangle that
will be perpendicular to the straight
line the center of the curve will fall
along that perpendicular line.
With your compass set to the
desired radius, place the point on the
perpendicular line so the tip of the

lead barely touches the tangent. Then
you can swing the compass to draw
the arc of that curve.
Dont fudge on the relationship
between curves and tangents. Accuracy here will pay off on your railroad.
Turnout accuracy
Turnouts also call for careful

drawing, both to construct accurate
angles and to mark off relevant
dimensions. The table above gives the
information you need based on NMRA
Recommended Practice RP-12 (www.
nmra.org/standards/rp12.html). Not
all turnouts necessarily match these
recommendations nor should they. If
youll be using turnouts with other

29
Laying out turnouts on track plans - 1

To lay out a turnout at a given location on a tangent, points to be at A:
3
2
6 5 4 3 2 1
1 unit
Centers of curves joining turnout

must lie on perpendicular lines
from track center lines through
points measured in step 6, or
beyond.
1. *Measure point-to-intersection distance Q from Turnout dimensions table.

2. *Measure number of units equal to turnout frog number units may be of
any convenient length.
3. *Draw perpendicular and measure one unit.
4. *Draw line through points 1 and 3.
5. Measure length L from Turnout dimensions table this locates frog.
C
1
3
5
* A protractor may be substituted

for steps 1 through 4, using the
angles below:
P
6. Measure distance P, then S, and then C for turnout type (NMRA, kit, or
ready-to-use). This locates rail joints or other points at which curved track
can join turnout.
For equilateral or wye turnout, measure unit on each side of straight center line.
dimensions, such as scratchbuilt

turnouts following the specifications
of your favorite prototype, use those
measurements in your track plan.
The illustrations on this page and the
next show how to lay out turnouts step
by step and also give turnout frog
angles for use with a protractor.
As with curves it often helps to
extend straight lines from turnouts
longer than they need to be and erase
them later. It may allow you to mark
the distance for a frog angle in larger
units that are easier to read, and the

extended lines can be useful in other
ways. To lay out a yard ladder, for
example, extend the diverging line
from the initial turnout, then draw
body tracks parallel to the base line.
Where the body tracks intersect the
diverging line are points of intersection for the turnouts in the ladder.
Templates
One shortcut for all this drafting is

templates. Commercial templates are
Frog number Angle in degrees

3
19
1414
412
1212
1112
912
716
easy to use if youre satisfied with the

scale, curve, and turnout choices they
offer. But its not hard to make your
own, as shown in the illustration on the
opposite page, with exactly the curves
and turnouts you want in the scale
youve chosen for your drawing.
If your compass has a knife blade,
its easy to cut the required arcs in
clear acetate or styrene. You can do
almost as well by scoring with a
second point in a compass. For the
turnout template, use a hobby knife
and just score and snap out the wedge
across the straight edge of the template. Flip the template over for rightor left-hand turnouts.
A deluxe set of track planning
templates might include at least three
curves: the minimum radius, the
radius for the outer track on a twotrack curve, and a radius tighter than
the minimum that you find acceptable
for branch lines or industrial spurs.
Similarly, you can include templates
for your minimum turnout and two or
three larger sizes you can use to avoid
potential S-curve trouble in crossovers
or just to look nice. RL
The methods explained here will help
you lay smoothly flowing trackwork,
like that of the Benton, N.M., yard
leads on Eric Broomans HO scale
Utah Belt layout. Eric Brooman photo
30
To join a curve to a tangent through a turnout at a given location on a tangent, with the
center of the curve at B and tangent to pass through C:
1. Draw curve center lines of radii R and R + X (find X in Turnout dimensions table).
Right angle to
proposed track
2. Draw tangent from C to join curve R + X.

3. Draw right angle from tangent to B this locates the point of
Proposed
track
tangent offset PTO.

4. Measure distance D equal to radius R divided by the frog number
Curve R
PC
this locates the point of curvature PC. Draw line from B to PC.
5. Draw line from PC perpendicular to B-PC where this crosses tangent is the
point of intersection PI.
6. Measure distances Q and L to each side of PI to locate point and frog of turnout.
Curve R + X
PTO
PI
Proposed track
Templates for track planning

Templates will ease the task of drawing a track plan to scale, and can be especially
useful in the cut-and-try process of finding the best alignment for key trackwork. The
templates can be of any material, but heavy acetate or clear styrene will let you see
your previous drawing through the template.
Cut to exact radius; extra space

allowance caused by width of pencil
line will be about enough to allow for
easements on the actual railroad
412 units
Joint
Points
1 unit
Point of intersection
Joint (curved side)
24" radius
Scale 112" = 1'-0"
(18" = 1")
Joint (straight side)

No. 6 turnout
(offset 34")
18" radius
Scale 112" = 1'-0"
(18" = 1")
2" track centers
As you find various bits of

information, put them on the
templates for ready reference
2p
erc
e nt
Notch at exact
center of curve
at
1 unit
i se
These locations vary

with each make of turnout
No. 412 turnout

(offset 58")
Frog
"r
Joint,
curved
side
6 units
Length of R-1 4-8-4
Joint,
straight
side
31
DRAWING ACCURATELY
Laying out turnouts on track plans - 2
A trio of Great Northern diesels

leads a freight train downgrade
through the pines on Ron Johns
N scale Cascade, Wash., layout
(plan 26, below). Its hard to
believe all this scenery fits in
less than 64 square feet.
Many modelers will find a layout the
size of the ones in this chapter to be
just right: small enough to build and
manage alone, large enough to
landscape and operate realistically,
but not so big it takes over the house.
Some of the track plans youll see
in the following pages compress an
entire working railroad into less than
120 square feet, like the Red Rock
Northern (plan 34); others focus on
operations around a single industry,
like Calumet Steel (plan 45). Some
take a freelanced approach, allowing a
variety of industries and track arrange
ments, as in the City of Wauwatoga
(plan 39). Others, such as the Valley
City Street & Interurban Ry. (plan 33),
are representations of real prototypes.
Whatever your approach, one of the
plans here should fit your style.
And many of these plans have
options for future expansion, should
more room become available.
Because, after all, is any model
railroad ever really finished? RL
Compact
layouts
33 railroads sized for a spare bedroom

By Steven Otte
Access to hidden staging tracks
Grain elevator
Feed mill
Mine
Down
Orchard
Cascade, Wash.
4218"
3978"
Up
41"
3978"
Down
Garage
Oil depot
Tower
Machine shop
Enginehouse
Lumber mill
Mill pond
41"
Swimming
hole
32
Down
Up
Creek
Freight Cold
house storage

Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 17'-3" x 8'-9"
Minimum radius: 141 2
(main), 11" (staging)
26
One side of this L-shaped layout

centers on rustic scenery, with a creek,
sawmill, rock cuts, and tall pines. The
other side models a bustling mountain
town in the Pacific Northwest.
Numerous spur and yard tracks will
keep the local operator busy while
through trains run on the twicearound main. A hidden staging yard
connects to both ends of the main
line, allowing trains to enter the layout
from either direction.
Oil dealer
Diner
Gas station
Row houses
Feed mill
Tower
Factory
House
112"
Fox River RR
27
Stores

Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 8'-0" x 10'-6"
Minimum radius: 15"
Minimum grade: 2 percent
0"
Crane
Intermodal yard
1
0" 2 2"
This N scale layout is designed for the

modeler who likes contemporary
railroading. Long-wheelbase modern
locomotives, auto racks, and multiunit intermodal cars would look great
traversing the broad 15" curves, and
the double-track main can handle
plenty of traffic. Theres also a nice
mix of scenery, from a high wooden
trestle to heavy modern industry.

Oil refinery
Trestle
Dry creek bed
MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
5"
0"
Kawala Coal Co.
(truck dump)
3 percent up
0"
3"

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 10'-0" x 11'-6"
Minimum radius: 18"
6"
Christianson
Cement Corp.
Swanson
Oil Co.
Girder bridge
FULTONHAM
YARD
New Lexington
Glass Rock
& Eastern RR
4"
Conrail interchange track

Truss bridge
Girder bridge
Popp
Lumber
Co.
South
Zanesville
Girder
bridge
Glass
Rock
3"
0"
6"
2.8 percent up
Pony
truss
Conrail interchange
CSX interchange
Grivno
Clay Corp.
28
Central Silica (sand pit)

This railroad focuses on hauling raw

materials like coal, cement, sand, clay,
and oil, so bring your hopper and tank
cars. The design looks complicated,
but its a simple wye, with two legs
ending in stub tracks and the third in
a reversing loop. The layout is based
on the prototype Ohio Southern RR, a
32-mile short line that does all of its
work with a single GP7 and freight
cars supplied by Conrail and CSX.
Operations are centered on the
small yard at Fultonham, with traffic
entering and leaving the layout via the
interchanges at New Lexington and
South Zanesville. Each of the layouts
three branches has a different combination of typical regional industries
that were served by railroads in
southern Ohio. Theyll provide plenty
of switching opportunities to keep a
single operator busy for many hours.
While this track plan was inspired
by an interesting prototype, most of
the layouts industries are named for
my fellow Model Railroader editors.
Jim Hediger

33
Control panel
Shasta Division
Sacramento River
Highway 80
Golden Empire
29

Scale: Z (1:220)
Minimum radius: 11"
Minimum grade: 2 percent
Table splice
Pacific
Ocean
Open center measures

42" square
Sacramento
Division
Coast
Division
Four regions and four seasons are

captured in this Z scale display layout.
Its a perfect example of vignette
design, in which backdrops divide a
layout into discrete scenes. Here, the
scenes represent different stretches of
the Southern Pacific RR in California.
With no turnouts, this layout was
designed for scenery, not operations.
But in Z scale, theres plenty of room
to add passing sidings, towns, and
industries if you wish.
Removable
backdrop on
each side
Removable
scene dividers
at each corner
Table splice
San Joaquin Division
Control panel

Donaldson
Eaglecreek &
Northern
10.5"
Published: July 2005

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 7'-10" x 14'-5"
Minimum radius: 18"
(main) and no. 4 (yards)
30
Frank Ellison said a layout is a stage,

and the trains are its actors. With the
large window providing a view of this
railroad from the living room, the
comparison is apt. Though mountain
scenery is the focus, a town, yard,
engine terminal, industries, and
staging make it fun to operate, too.
B
Butte
Removable
access panel
(UP
staging)
Long
Neck
Creek
Station
3-track fiddle
yard on 32" transfer table
0"
Clark
A
0"
Mount Shadow
4"
Elk City
Silver Spur Mine
(E&N
staging)
Engine
terminal
Control
panel
Union
Pacific
staging
0"
Reverse
cutoff
Eagle
Creek
D
D
7"
Viewing
window
Hogback
Junction
C Raymondale
Sawmill
6"
34
31
Metro Belt
& Terminal
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 8'-6" x 11'-9"
Minimum radius: 22"
Interchange track
Commerce St.
Old stores
WEST JUNCTION
Industrial gas
distributor
Lumber
sheds
3.25"
Up
Scrap yard
14th St.
This railroad packs a lot of main line

1.0"
into a small space, thanks to the S
4.25"
curve on the center peninsula. As the
A
name indicates, it represents a busy
Beer distributor
city switching district, which means
Obtuse Saloon
lots of industrial sidings to keep the
local freights engineer on his toes. A
Franklin Street
two-track staging loop hidden under
4.75"
Team track
Franklin Street allows for continuous
operation. If space permits, the
shelf at the bottom of this plan
Scale of plan: 716" = 1'-0", 12" grid Tall brick
warehouse
could be extended around the
corner along a second or even
Old depot foundation
third wall.
(in weeds)
Two-track staging below
Franklin Street (not to scale)
Up to A
Up to B
0"
Depot
Produce terminal
Grocery Supply
Edge of scenery
Slackjaw
57"
Depot
Farmers
Trotwater
Co-op
Esmeralda
Junction
Recessed
Mining Co.
control panel
Swadfly
Creek
Boggs Landing
53"
Depot
53"
Removable
section
53"
Consolidated Sludge Inc.
12" grid
32
53"
Flying Dutchman
Navigation Co.
Wharf
Scale of plan:
24th St.
Munchie Mill

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
54"
53"
38" = 1'-0",
Clinton St.
Foundry sand
Boggs Landing &

Trotwater RR
54"
Miracle Machine Tools
Tall double-sided
flats (viewblock)
View
block
Backdrop
57"
Bakers
Inlet
City Lumber
4.75"
Interchange tracks
Crimininis
Fresh Fish
FABCO Steel Fabricators

Sweetener distributor
Produce St.
Edge of scenery
2.0"
Dunn-Wurpt Wood Products
Though theres a lot of track in this

room, the designer avoids the
spaghetti bowl effect by using
several tunnels long enough to hide an
entire train, keeping sidings to a
manageable number, and using
elevation changes to separate tracks
vertically. The removable section by
the entry allows continuous operation,
but without it, the layout can be run as
a more prototypical point-to-point or
point-to-loop railroad. Depending on
the scenery and structures chosen, the
mine-to-dock operational scheme
could fit in the Appalachians, around
the Great Lakes, along the Pacific
coast, or even in rugged Alaska.
35
33
Valley City Street

& Interurban Ry.
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 5'-6" x 10'-9"
Minimum radius: 18"
Sneakoff between
tree-covered hills
Like many roads of the early 1900s,

the prototype Valley City Street &
Interurban Railway was founded to
serve a town bypassed by the Class 1
carriers. It was an electrified short
line that handled interchange traffic
from the Soo Line and the Northern
Pacific in Valley City, N.D. Both
railroads are modeled on this plan as
Backdrop with
hills and sky
Soo
staging
House
flats
First
Avenue
branches leading into hidden staging.

This layout might be expanded with
more staging or a visible addition to
the interchange lines. A modeler might
choose to run his trains off current
from the overhead wire, or make the
wires purely decorative. Then again,
the layout could be built freelanced,
and run with diesel or steam engines.
Low
backdrop
Freight
platform
Track with
overhead wire
Grain
elevator
Coal and
fuel yard
Stockyard
NP High Line
(mainline viaduct)
Gravel pit
City limit
Miller
Fibre Co.
Soo Line
Roosevelt NP
Avenue
Curtis Olson Oil Co.
VCS&I shed
Russell-Miller
Milling Co.
North
Valley
City
Sixth
Avenue
Second Avenue
Commercial
Fifth Avenue
buildings
NP staging
Houses on
backdrop
Smith
Lumber Co.
Sneakoff
through low
backdrop
Station Sheyenne
River
Northern
Pacific
Front Street
Valley City
Station
Fourth Avenue
Granite Creek
Yellow Jacket Mine
Liftout (duckunder height 40")
Red Rock
Northern
1"
Lumber Team
supply track
0" Granite Creek
staging
Depot
Freight
house
Feed
store
Georges Gorge
Oil dock
12"
Staging hidden below

Summit main line
Staging level
not to scale
Main
Street
A
Summit
0"
Red Rock
staging
Main Street
Engine service
Depot
312"
0"
A
Big Bug Mine
36
Red Rock
Iron King Mine

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 24"
34
This twice-around shelf layout took

second place in Model Railroaders
2007 layout planning contest. Though
its depicted as being set in the
American Southwest, a simple change
in landscaping and industries could
transplant it to the Appalachians or
northern Rockies. A tunnel conceals
two staging tracks and a continuousrunning cutoff, and the engine
terminal is cleverly situated to serve
both ends of the line.
Passenger station
Pennsylvania RR,
Bald Eagle Branch
35
Published: December 2001

Scale: N (1:160)
Minimum radius: 9"
(main), no. 4 (sidings)
An aisle and a backdrop separate this

small N scale layout into three distinct
scenes, allowing the operator to
simulate a railroad that really goes
somewhere. Though its designed as a
folded dogbone, sending the return
tracks through tunnels preserves the
prototypical appearance. An engine
terminal and a good-size yard also
add to the feel of this layout being a
branch of a big-time railroad.
This railroad started out as an oval

on a rectangular table, but it didnt
stop there. The 12-square-foot engine
terminal and yard addition, attached
to what was originally a freight house
spur, greatly increases the oval
layouts operating interest. And Tunnel
no. 2, added on to represent the lead
to an unmodeled branch of the
railroad, is an obvious place to
Freight station
Schaefer Paper Mill
Tyrone
Backdrop
Bald Eagle
Keystone Laurel Creek

tipple no. 2
Metals
Laurel
Creek
Reading
interchange
Mill Hall
Engine terminal
Tower
Yard office
Cabin tracks
Visible staging

continue adding on maybe a logging

branch or an interchange to another
railroad. Theres also growth potential
in the tracks heading left from
Hastings or off the end of Hastings
Yard. Look at some of the other plans
in this section and note tracks that
lead up to the edge of the layout. A
similar addition could make one of
those track plans just right for you.
Kanawha Creek Ry.

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
Maximum grade: 2.5
percent
36
Enginehouse
Lee Farm Supply
Station
Hastings
HJ Tower
Freight
house
Hastings
Yard
Tunnel no. 2
Kanawha Creek
Station
Genesee Lager
East Falls
Maple Valley Coal
37
Excel Electronics
Abandoned
Warehouse
90 degrees
Industrial scene backdrop
Lee Street
Staging track 1
Three-story building
Used
Retail
Thacker car lot
stores
Avenue
Telephone shanty
Upstate Beverages
Distribution warehouse
Retail
stores
Quality Clean
Industrial Uniforms
Alliance
Appliances
Fenced yard
with guardhouse
Interlocking tower
(abandoned)
Republic and Wright

Distribution warehouse
Pike City Belt Line
Pike Furniture Co.

four-story factory with
six doors on this side
Hardy Moving & Storage

The Laurel Building
(offices)
37
15 degrees
Crestwood Arms Hotel
Alliance
Fred Frigid
Frozen Foods

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
Minimum turnout: Peco large
radius
25th Street Yard

Oakton
By moving one leg of an L-shaped

shelf layout away from the wall, you
turn it into a peninsula. A backdrop
divider and several tall, shallowprofile buildings separate the peninsula into a classification yard and a
small industrial switching district.
Trains starting in the 25th Street Yard
must make two switchback maneuvers
to reach some sidings, making
operations challenging.
Abandoned
crossover
Best Choice Auto Parts

warehouse
Pocket track
Pike City Eagle

newspaper

Conan Powder Co.
Houses Coal
Houses
Depot
Freight house 18" radius
20" radius
Central RR Co.
of New Jersey
19"
20"
West
Pittsford
22"
DoubleAB
sided
backdrop
18"
Tower and
yard office
16"
16"
Overpass
Low-relief Silk
structures mill
Huber
Innishowen
Sand house
Water tower
1"
5"
Church
Automobile
headlight
factory
0"
Staging,
not to
scale
Enginehouse
East Ashley Junction
engine terminal
38
Gas
station
3"
0"
Four-loop helix, 4" between levels

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
38
Want to run lots of trains on a small

layout? Tuck a staging yard underneath. On the other side of those
tunnel portals is a four-turn helix, a
staging yard, and a return loop. The
helix connects the lower deck to the
main with a manageable grade, while
making sure its far enough below the
upper level to be easily accessible.
Plenty of industry sidings, a freight
house, a stub-ended yard, and a small
engine terminal mean theres lots for
those trains to do topside, too.
Eastbound staging
0"
3"
0"
City of Wauwatoga
39

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 24" (main),
18" (spurs)
(main), no. 4 (spurs)
Westbound
Covered
staging
bridge
(viewblock)
0"
Derby Meat Packing

Building flats
Chair Co.
Building Coal tipple Water tower
flats
Sand
Ash pit
RIP track
3"
18"-radius
hidden curves
Mine
Track swings behind backdrop to pass through a window recess
6"
9"
5"
5"
6"
0"
Wye
Junction
Flour Mill
Turntable
6"
9"
0"
0"
Meat Packer
Baxters
6"
3"
1"
0"
Niess Tool
& Die
3"
Acme
Fast
Freight
Team
track
0"
Produce
Exchange
Freight
house
Passenger
Piggly
station
Wiggly
Wholesale
Grocers
Western Pacific RR
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 10'-6" x 10'-6"
Minimum radius: 18"
40
Unable to find a satisfying 10 x 10-foot

track plan, this railroads designer
combined two 4 x 8 plans instead. By
extending a few spurs, elevating others
with overpasses, and connecting them
in a wye arrangement, he ended up
with a layout with lots of operating
potential. Despite the large number of
sidings, this layout still has room for
some spectacular scenery.
1"
Brewery
7"
Badger
Mfg.
4"
Big Lou's Grill

0"
9"
Quick Flash
Oil Co.
Backdrop
Childhood railfan trips inspired this

urban layout, which is designed with
Icing
heavy freight and passenger movedock
ments in mind. The basic design is an
Pigsville
outer loop surrounding a twicePassenger Dairy
Caboose Water
Engine pocket track
column platforms
around main line, and includes an
industrial branch that has its own
hidden staging. Despite its small size,
Illustration by Dick Skover
this layout can keep several operators
busy. While the yardmaster breaks
down, services, and assembles trains,
a local turn can switch industries. Two
more engineers can run the hotshots
on the main lines.
18"-radius
hidden curves
Downtown
Wauwatoga
Welding Co.
2"
8"
20"-radius visible curves
Junior Canyon
Piers
39
Loup Creek Branch
41
Published: May 2007

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
(main), no. 4 (sidings)
Dont have much room to spread out?

Consider expanding vertically. A
hidden helix links the two levels of
this Chesapeake & Ohio-based,
mining-themed railroad. The helix
adds some running time between the
mines on the top level and the city
yard on the bottom, making operations more realistic. A branch off of
the lower level leads to hidden staging
wrapped around the helix. When

planning a multi-level layout, try to
avoid stacking towns and yards in the
same part of the room. This will keep
your operators out of each others way.
Note how, in this plan, the main
industrial area of Thurmond, W.Va., is
below Loup Creek, and Glen Oaks
industries are above the dead end of
Thurmond Yard.
3 percent down to staging

18" R
59"
Southside
Junction
Loup Creek
Junction
Rend Branch
Mine
New River
No. 1
Depot
Dummy track
No. 3 wye
Mine No. 4
Loup Creek
36"
18"
Caboose track
Backdrop
Post office
Mine No. 2
Thurmond,
W.Va.
57"
58"
18"
20" Access
40"
Staging level
Engine service
Derelict concrete
coal tower
Cals Lumber
& Hardware
Upper level
Post Glen Oak
Caf office
Bank Market
Lower level
Outbound loads track
Inbound empties track
Mine No. 3
Ninigret Cove
Branch
Six Principle Brook
Ninigret Cove
passenger station
Kettlehole
Marine
Freight house
Team track and pillar crane
Lumber
Whip-Poor-Will Biscuit Mix

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 38"
42

Exchange track
Ninigret Cove
Shellfish
King Tom
Fish Oil
40
This railroad models a freelanced

segment of the New York, New Haven
& Hartford RR. The main focus here
is switching, with only a portion of the
main line modeled. Staging is done
off-layout and moved onto the railroad
via the exchange track. Having several
industries share a single spur track
makes switching challenging.
Farm
Mine
Lumberyard
Freight house
Garage
California &
Comstock RR
43

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 8'-4" x 9'-4"
16" (sidings)
Saloon
A curved turnout allows the addition

of a spur leading to a locomotive
service yard, a turntable, and a
roundhouse, greatly adding to this
layouts operating interest. The hidden
tracks in the tunnel can be used to
stage trains for off-layout movements.
The concept of this railroad is an
isolated Western town that receives
most of its supplies by rail. With a few
changes to structure choices, it could
be set anywhere from the 1880s to the
transition era.
Cattle pens
Depot
Signal tower Team track
Maryville
Coaling tower
Caboose
track
Sand house
Water tower
Engine terminal
Fuel oil
Turntable
Roundhouse
Dummy tracks
Allen Junction
Designed for railfanning, this is a

freelanced railroad with a sense of
Rearden Metal
history. The layout is set in the Conrail
Products
era of the late 1970s and early 80s.
Enginehouse
The setting is a fictional New Jersey or
Conrail main line
Pennsylvania city that was the former
Sand
battleground of two rival railroads, as
Spano Recycling is evidenced by the many abandoned
and pulled-up tracks. Restore those
Coal
tracks and you can back-date the
Water
layout to the transition era.
Pennwell
Ashes
Diesel fuel
Station
Tower
James
River
Dam
Station
White River
& Northern
Railroads 2000
Scale: N (1:160)
Minimum radius: 12"
44

Main line
Secondary lines
Abandoned track
Abandoned, track removed
Newton
Industrial Abandoned
CNJ main line
Branch
Leslie Falls
Tanna Hill Branch Santman Cement
Berry
Lumber
White River
B
Newton
B
A
Leslie Falls
White River
A Bearcamp
Abandoned elevated branch line with mirrors under bridges
Hidden automated staging yard under farm and town
Pond
41
Calumet Steel
45
3"

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 24"
312"
Coal
staging
(in
closet)
This track plan models a modern steel

mill. Raw material moves from the
coke plant to the blast furnace, then
steel moves to various mills for final
shaping. Ore arrives at the blast
furnace from an off-layout source at
the other end of the high line. The
overall design has broad curves to
handle the length of modern cars
and locomotives. For two other looks
at a steel mills, see plan 53 (also in
this chapter) and plan 23 (in the 4 x 8
foot layout chapter).
Carbon Junction
Coal dumper
Quench tower
Coke plant
2"
Soaking pit building
and rolling mills
Basic oxygen furnace
Hot and cold
Wire mill
strip mills
Painted
backdrop
to separate
scenes
Empties in
loads out
To staging concealed
under coke plant
Blast furnace
Hot metal High line to
blast furnace
loading
Mirrored
backdrops
Concrete
overpass
Structural
shape mill
1"
Pipe
mill
312"
Lakeshore Yard

MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
Six-stall roundhouse
120-foot turntable
Crew room and
roundhouse office
Ashes
Coal
Sand
RIP track
Water column
Engine
supply
track
Car shop
Towns on a model railroad are

inevitably unrealistically close to each
other. A switching layout is one way to
circumvent the problem, but if you
want mainline operation, consider a
layout with only one town. Thats the
theme of Andy Sperandeos N scale
Ozark Lines one division point,
chock-full of action, plus an out-ofsight staging yard.
This layout could easily keep three
operators (main line, yard switcher,
and hostler) busy, and you could even
have another working the staging
yard. With pickups, setouts, engine
servicing, classification, passenger
operation and industries, it packs a lot
Team track
Diner
Freight
house
Backs of
industrial
buildings
Caboose
track
Ozark Lines,
Division Point at
Oldburg
Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 8'-6" x 12'-0"
Minimum radius: 15"
(visible track)
into barely more than half a bedroom

in N scale or a two-car garage in HO.
Terry Thompson
Optional
crossover
Hubbard
Street
Backs of
city buildings
Access to staging
Drill track
Staging tracks
Elevated
walkway
Passenger station
and division offices
Platform
Alley
Express
Optional transfer
staging track
Backdrop just
higher than eye level
24" minimum
City buildings along backdrop

face away from railroad
Railroad Avenue
Industries
42
46
Bob White Coal Co.

Eau Claire
Plumbing
Supply Co.
1"
2"
Roberts
Wholesale
Burns
Supply Co.
Published: August 2007

Scale: N (1:160)
No. 6
Shawtown
Ice house
0"0"
Half Moon
Lake
Elevator
Phoenix Furniture
Nagle-Hart
Caterpillar
Elevator Eau Claire Sand & Gravel
Team
Chippewa River
track
Key:
Two railroads compete on this layout,

representing Eau Claire, Wis., in the
transition era the Milwaukee Road
and the Chicago & North Western.
Theres also an interchange with the
Soo Line. But thats not the most interesting thing here; the switchback
halfway down the C&NW route, and
the lack of runaround tracks on that
line, makes switching challenging, to
say the least.
0"
Chippewa
River
Team
track
ramp
2"
Scale house
Omaha (C&NW)
Milwaukee Road
Soo Line
0"
Milwaukee Road
freight house
Wabasha (staging)
Gillette
Tire Co.
Eau Claire (staging)
C&NW
depot
GambleRobinson
Co.
2"
C&NW freight station
Cotton mill
Church
0"
47
Shawtown
Subdivision,
Eau Claire, Wis.
Scene divider
Warehouses
Industry
Georgia Southern
0"

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
18" (sidings)
3"
Down
48
Calhouns Gas
1"
Mid-Georgia Fuel
2"
Eds Gas
and Grocery
Depot
Louisville
Freight
house
4"
Depot
Cotton
platform
Wadley
Access to hidden staging
Up
Tourist cabins
1"
Boggy Gut Creek
Terminal
Hotel
Memorial Park
Fooling the eye is the goal of this

layout. Using a smaller-scale church in
the top corner is a technique called
forced perspective, which makes the
church look farther away than it is
thereby making the layout look bigger.
Hiding half of one of the loops in a
tunnel helps disguise the fact that this
plan has a twice-around main line.
And there is enough room to hide
several staging tracks in the tunnel,
too, making this layout seem like part
of a larger system.
4"
0"
3"
North Branch, Little River
Lumber and farm

supply unloading
Harrisons
Hardware
43
Big Bend 1 percent down
Team track
Station
Smoky Valley Ry.
49
0"
3"
Published: February 2008

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 20"
1"
Station
Car ferry
Building flats
The West Side Lumber Co. is a

popular prototype for narrow-gauge
fans. The railroad operated until 1961,
meaning that theres a lot of prototype
information available for modelers.
This plan is split into two scenic
divisions, the town of Tuolumne,
Calif., and the woods, just as the real
railroad divided its operations and
train crews.
Jiggs
Tools

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 9'-6" x 10'-6"
Minimum radius: 20"
One way to extend the operating

possibilities of a shelf layout is to
extend the shelf. Even if you dont have
room for more scenicked area, a small
staging yard or even a single-track
switching pocket on a 1 x 3 wood
plank frees up more of your railroad
for industry tracks and scenery. It also
gives you a place to shuffle trains to
and from. Staging turns a shelf layout
into a working railroad.
44
Medical
Supply
Berrigan
Bottling
Meeks Fuel
Jiggs Tools
Stores
Marshall Mattress
Plumbing Supplies
Phidias Furniture Co.
Railroad bridge
Moving and Storage
Test
track

Ozark, Ouachita
& Red River
Scale: Sn3 (1:64)
Minimum radius: 30"
Therrien
Ontario
Foods Ltd. Meat Packers
Overbrook
50
Scoddy
Industrial complex
Car shops
Ontabec Central
51
Crane
Warehouses
Building flats
4"
Dock
Cookhouse
Tuolumne
0"
4"
Landing
Camp Reynolds
1 percent up
Topton
Port
Donkey engine Buffalo Water
Enginehouse
Horseshoe
viaduct
Dublin
Sawmill
1 percent up
Oil
Lift-out B
Planing mill
Station
1"
Coal
Walton Logging railroad 0"
Station
Lift-out A
Building flats
This railway truly can be all things to

all people. Its designed around two
lift-out sections, one containing an
industry, and the other bearing a
natural resource operation to supply
it. A few options include a sawmill and
a logging camp, a cement plant and a
limestone quarry, or a smelter and an
iron mine. Many other paired industries are possible. The car ferry
provides a link to the outside world.
Slash burner
Ridgeway 1 percent up
Tank platform
Pinecone
Wood Products
1. Lumber
Team track
Oil
Storage
flex 0"
2"
Sawmill
2. Marble
Houses
4 percent up
1"
0"
22"
Odom
3"
Coal
Surfacing
building
Planing mill
22"
0"
Polishing
1. Lumber
2. Marble
Marble quarry
Wexford
334"
flex
Ann Arbor RR
interchange
Maximus D&B Container

Cannery Corp.
All curves 18" except as marked
Enginehouse
and fuel tank
Logging
railroad
Team track
334"
Pulpwood yard
There is much to learn from this

compact layout. It uses a center aisle
to lengthen the main line and create
two distinct switching areas, making
the layout look and operate like it
is larger. An interchange track gives
the road a link to the outside world,
expanding the variety of cars and
industries to be serviced. The steeply
Benedict
Cement
I.A.N. Tool Corporation
graded overpass both adds visual

interest and operating interest,
perhaps making helper service
necessary for some trains. Grouping
industries together on sidings cuts
down on the number of turnouts while
making switching more challenging.
And designing the layout in sections
makes it easier to move, if necessary.
Food Distributors
Benedict & Wexford

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
52
Pittsburgh Steel
53
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
PLEASE PROOF:
Title MR5
Illustrator Rick
Individual illustrators, Plan size: 10 x 12 feet
Issue 2008
Designer
designers, art directors,Minimum
radius: 18"
Job # MAG-MR5-NOV08
and editors must proofMinimum
turnout: no. 4 Art Dir.
and sign this form.
Code MR5-K1108
Maximum
grade: 2 percentStory Ed.
Proof 2
Copy Ed.
Date 08-11-08
Man. Ed.
Return
Editor
Big industries like steel mills depend
on rail service to move their product
within the plant throughout the
production process. Some may have
switch engines and cars permanently
assigned to them by a railroad; others
own their own fleet of cars and switch
engines to keep their 24-hour assembly line rolling. Moving the specialized
cars used by the steel industry
including ingot buggies, slag pots, hot
metal cars, and insulated flats would
make for interesting operations.
Cold strip mill

Scrapyard
Structural
shape mill
Hot strip mill
River Yard
Pipe mill
2"
1"
High line to
blast furnace
Tube mill
312"
Hot metal
loading
312"
Blast furnace
Mirrored
backdrop
312"
Ingot stripper
and soaking Basic
pit buildings oxygen
furnace
Engine service
3"
Empties in- A
loads out
Coke plant
Quench tower
Coal dumper
Valley Yard
312"
45
Sawmill cold deck
Locomotive service
Sawmill
Warehouse
Broak & Kantifordit

Tie & Timber Co.
54

Railroads 2002
Scale: On3 (1:48)
Minimum radius: 22"
51"
48"
Clarke Meadow
It takes a lot of switchbacks for the

diminutive geared locomotives of the
Broak & Kantifordit Tie and Timber
Co. to ascend from the lakeside dock
to the Pennyless Mine, two feet above.
The short wheelbase of narrow gauge
engines and rolling stock make the
switchbacks practical. They also allow
the use of the tight curves needed to fit
an O scale layout into an 11-footsquare space.
Logging camp
(cabins on skids)
59"
Steam donkey
construction
Enginehouse
Shoestring Flats
Clarke Creek
Lake
Pennyless Mine
Dock
41"
53"
65"
Charity
Creek
Clune
Creek
59th Street Branch

Background flats
5"
5"
5"
2.5"
Team tracks
Upper
interchange track
Cold
storage
Industry roofs
with details
RIP track
Yard office
Hidden
staging tracks
Public warehouse
5"
5"
Engine service
0"
0"
59th Street Yard

5"
0"
Bottling and
loading
Ballantine
Brewery
complex
5"
46
Coal and oil dealer
Twin-span through
truss bridge
Fuel track
(liftout section)
Delivery tracks
Lower
interchange
yard
Mirror
0"
Illustration by Roen Kelly and Stan Sweatt

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
15" (spurs)
(ramp track)
55
The urban canyons in a photograph

of the Milwaukee Roads brewery
branch inspired this bedroom-sized
track plan. Most operations involve
moving cars from the staging tracks
on the upper level to the interchange
yard on the lower, a job complicated
by the steep grade of the ramp
between them. The buildings that
conceal most of the tracks on the
upper level also provide switching
spots on the lower. When hiding tracks
like this, be sure to make the buildings removable, in case you need to
retrieve a derailment.
Fort Myers Ry.
56

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 1'-6" x 22'-0"
Minimum radius: 32"
Orange juice
processing plant
Fiddle yard
To fiddle yard
This 22-foot-long plan may not fit into

a bedroom as is, but a narrow shelf
like this could easily round a corner to
wrap around two or three walls of a
bedroom. Trains look better going
around curves than straightaways
anyway, and the railroad will look
bigger if a viewer cant take in the
Marks indicate
benchwork sections
Double-slip switch
Highway overpass
Public viewing side
entire layout from one vantage point.

A sectional layout like this would be
easy to expand with a port, a sugar
processing plant or maybe a phosphate mine. Many circus companies
also winter in Florida, making this
one of the few layouts that could
actually justify a circus scene.
Everglades
Warehouse boat rides
Station
Interchange yard
MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
40"
Backdrop
Stove Pipe Wells

Scale: Nn3 (1:160 proportion,
3-foot gauge)
Plan size: 4'-1" x 9'-0"
Minimum radius: 10"
Fiddle yard
sector plate
4134"
57
Turntable
This deceptively simple plan for a

narrow gauge railroad in the Mojave
Desert offers plenty for hobbyists of
4212"
all stripes: continuous-loop or pointto-point operation, a branch line,
Rendall
4212"
hidden staging including a second
Panamint
Mine
turntable, and connections to adjacent
4212"
modules. And, as an Nn3 scale layout
40"
40"
(N scale trains using track, wheelsets,
Tonopah Enginehouse
Stove Pipe Wells Princess
Nn3 Alliance and mechanisms from 1:220 proporMine
Nn3 Alliance
Turntable To Ntrak Standard
Stamp Mill module
module connections
tion Z scale trains) theres no question
extension gauge spur
connection
that this layout stands out in a crowd.
1
Neil Besougloff
Cunninghams Gap
58

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 24"
Minimum turnout: no.6
Freight house
with loading ramp
Company
Interchange Depot
houses
for mine
Stores and
Company store
commercial
Fuel depot
buildings
Mining
company
tipple
Church
More than 80 percent of the

Virginian Ry.s freight traffic was coal.
If you want to model coal trains at
reasonably realistic lengths, youll
need a lot of track. This plan, based on
a freelanced town along the Virginian,
seeks to accomplish that with an
around-the-walls loop and plenty of
staging. Running the coal tipple tracks
into staging allows operators to shove
empty cars in and pull out loaded
ones, just like on the prototype.
Curved turnouts
Ridge hides
staging from
the center
of room
Three-way
turnout
Farm
Liftout or
duckunder
section
Staging yard
Entry
47
Figuring grades
and clearances
How to plan slopes your trains can climb
By Andy Sperandeo
Even as you draw in two dimensions
you can start thinking of your model
railroad as three-dimensional. To have
a track cross above another track or
over itself, you need to plan a reasonable grade. Or you can build grades
for scenic and operating reasons. In
the hilly or mountainous country so
popular with modelers, trains have to
operate up and down grades. You may
even want a grade steep enough to
require helper or pusher engines.
You also need to provide enough
separation so that trains on the lower
level can pass under the supporting
structure of the upper level track. That
supporting structure may be your
usual subgrade and roadbed, or it may
be a model bridge. The distance
between the rails of the lower track
and the bottom of whatever supports
the upper track is called the clearance,
and it must be sufficient for the kinds
of trains you want to run.
Measuring steepness
Railroad grades are expressed in

the number of units climbed or
descended in 100 units of travel. A
slope that rises one unit in 100 is a
48
1 percent grade. One that rises two units

in 100 is a 2 percent grade, and so on.
On model railroad track plans we
often show the lowest track elevation as
zero and give elevations above that in
inches. Starting from your zero point,
measure 100 scale inches along the
track and mark the elevation in inches
at that point to establish the grade.
Or lay out a line climbing to a
desired elevation and measure to
determine the grade. Determine the
track distance in scale inches between
your lowest and highest points, divide
the difference in elevation by that
distance, and move the decimal point
in the answer two places to the right.
The 3.5 percent grade up to Mahoosic

Notch on Jack Ozanichs HO scale
Atlantic Great Eastern Ry. adds to the
fun by requiring pusher locomotives to
help heavy freights make the climb.
Craig Wilson and Jack Ozanich photo
Suppose you have a rise of 41/2" over

a distance of 11'-3". Multiply 11 x 12 to
convert to inches, add 3, and divide 4.5
by 135. That equals .0333, and after
moving the decimal point you can read
the result as a grade of 3.33 percent.
Thats pretty steep, and to reduce
the grade the railroad must gain less
elevation over the given distance,
increase the distance, or manage some
combination of the two.
Measuring distance
So how do we measure distance on a

track plan? Since our tracks are often
more curved than straight were faced
Upper track railhead level
Clearance
H: NMRA S-7
clearance*
R: Recommended
railhead-to-railhead
separation
table
N
HO
121/32"
3"
41/8" 51/2"
27/32"
4"
51/2" 73/8"
*For more details see

www.nmra.org/standards/s-7.html
H
NMRA S-7 clearance diagram
Railhead
level
Overhead clearance
Requirements for each scale are

given in the clearance table opposite.
These are from National Model
Railroad Association standard S-7 and
represent the ideal prototype clearance
of 22 feet above the rail. (In HO scale,
22 scale feet is approximately 33 64".)
Real railroads dont always have this
much clearance, and you dont need to
either. But if youre going to skimp you
should know the scale height of your
rolling stock and maintain enough
clearance for it. Be aware that some
models are taller than they should be.
Remember to allow for the structure
supporting overhead tracks, whether
its a scale-model bridge or simply the
plywood and roadbed combination
under your trackwork. Either way it
needs to be included in the railhead-torailhead measurements indicated by
track plan elevations. (Where one
hidden track crosses over another, you
can use short lengths of a thin, stiff
material like Masonite hardboard to
support the upper track.)
Characteristics of grades
GRADES AND CLEARANCES
with the problem of measuring the

length of twisting, turning lines. But
your compass can do this if you replace
the pencil point with a second metal
point, turning it into a pair of dividers.
Using your scale, set the dividers to
some convenient measurement, then
use them to step off the distance along
the track. If you set the dividers to a
scale 10", ten steps equal 100" and you
can mark an elevation at that point to
set the desired grade. Or set the dividers
to a scale foot and step off the given
elevation in feet. Multiply the number of
steps by 12 to convert feet to inches and
divide that distance into the elevation to
find the grade.
Theres a degree of error in measuring curves with dividers, but all that
means is that the grade will be a small
fraction of a percent steeper than
indicated. Usually close is good enough,
or you can deliberately plan a slightly
gentler grade than you want to build.
For greater accuracy, a simple
length of soft copper wire makes a
useful measuring instrument. Bend it
to follow the line of your track, put
sharp bends at each end of the
distance to be measured, then
straighten the wire between the sharp
bends and measure the straight-line
distance with your scale.
Or you can use a measuring wheel
called an opisometer that you steer
along the line of your track. Usually
these have scales in inches that youll
have to convert to your drawing scale.
Some digital versions do this for you.
Railroads would avoid grades if they could because climbing them increases
operating expenses by limiting the length of trains and requiring more and
heavier locomotives. In reality this is impractical. Even flat-looking country has
some slope, and of course there are hills and mountains that have to be
crossed. Railroads often follow watercourses to find the easiest path through
the terrain, but the streams and rivers wouldnt be flowing if they werent
moving downhill toward sea level.
On a model railroad we may need grades to achieve a desired routing, and
we may also use them to help portray particular types of railroading. The
descriptions below relate grades to the kinds of railroads that use them.
0 to .99 percent: Except in the flattest terrain, grades as gentle as .3 or .5
percent often require heavy earthwork, extensive bridges, and greater length of
run. These expenses may be justified only if traffic is unusually heavy. The
former New York Central advertised its New York-Chicago main line as The
Water Level Route because most of its grades were less than .5 percent (with
the notable exception of the Centrals 1.6 percent climb out of the Hudson River
Valley at West Albany Hill).
1 to 1.99 percent: A grade of 1 percent, such as on the former Western
Pacific line through Californias Feather River Canyon, is a moderate grade for
crossing mountains. The former Pennsylvania RR climb through the famous
Horseshoe Curve is on a grade of 1.86 percent.
2 to 2.99 percent: When Congress passed land grant laws to subsidize
19th-century railroad construction in the West, it specified that grades on the
new lines could not be steeper than then existed on the Baltimore & Ohio. This
required the builders of the original Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines to
maintain grades of 2.2 percent or less.
3 to 3.99 percent: Mainline railroads on grades this steep are unusual and
found only in rugged terrain. The former Santa Fe line over Raton Pass on the
Colorado-New Mexico border was built on a grade of 3.5 percent, leading the
railroad to later build a second route farther south to carry the bulk of its
transcontinental freight traffic on grades not exceeding 1.25 percent.
4 percent and steeper: The steepest mainline grade in the United States
is the former Southern Ry. line over Saluda Mountain in North Carolina, at 4.7
percent. Grades that steep are more common on cheaply constructed backwoods logging and mining railroads. Seven percent is about the practical limit
for normal adhesion (smooth wheels on smooth rails) and in steam days
required special gear-driven locomotives like Shays, Heislers, and Climaxes.
Sand on the rails and the smoke plume from the 2-8-8-4 show what
hard work was required to lift Baltimore & Ohio coal trains up the 2.4
percent Cranberry Grade at Terra Alta, W.Va. Gordon R. Roth photo
A bridge deck structure can range

from about three to more than six
scale feet deep, depending on the type
and length of the bridge. In HO three
feet is 13 32", and code 83 flextrack is
3 16" thick. If you plan for 3" from
railhead to railhead where a track
passes under a bridge, youre really

allowing at most 213 32", or a scale
17'-6". Thats too little for the biggest
modern cars, although older, smaller
rolling stock may be OK. The clearance table gives recommended separations for track planning. RL

49
Structures,
scenery, and aisles
Layout design is more than just track planning

By Andy Sperandeo
Theres more to a model railroad
than just the track, and typically youll
want a track plan to indicate the
locations of at least the most important structures and scenic features.
There also has to be room for people
to build and enjoy the layout, or the
plan wont be much use. Its easy to
account for all this as youre designing
a layout just leave room for other
things besides track.
Drawing structures
To show a building on a track plan

you need to know the size and shape
of the buildings footprint, and you
need to keep it far enough away from
the track. The first piece of information is often available from kit
makers in their catalogs or on their
Web sites. Kit reviews in Model
Railroader usually specify the footprint also. For a scratchbuilt struc-
Space was at a premium on Blair

Kooistras HO scale Walla Walla Valley
Ry. shelf layout. He nevertheless
allowed room for the roads and
structures that place the railroad in
the midst of its urban industrial
setting. Blair Kooistra photo
ture, use the dimensions from the
prototype plan. Draw a building to
scale and you know it will fit as long,
that is, as you allow sufficient clearance from the track center line. Its a
trap to cheat on this or simply not to
consider that the track represented by
a center line is wider than the pencil
trace. Trains are wider still. Allow for
this as shown in the Structure
clearance diagram on the opposite
page. Youll need to provide even
greater clearance along curved track or
where the building is to be set back
from the track.
Room for slopes
Realistic slopes can be the key to

believable scenery. This requires
separation between tracks at different
heights. Except when modeling
elevated roadbeds through cities,
The sloping banks of this creek on
Marshall and Mike Skibbes N scale
Chicago Great Western layout help
make their rendition of Iowa countryside convincing. Andy Sperandeo photo
50
Two ways to put a layout in a 9 x 12-foot room
Possible
extension
24"-deep 8 x 10-foot shelf layout along two walls
Center line of track

Loading platform
P
4 x 8-foot table layout in center of room

30" aisles along
8-foot sides
of table layout
Gauge side of rail
From center
of track A* 19/ 32"
HO
11/32" 113/32" 178"
For loading
platform P* 15/ 32" 13/ 16"
11/8" 11/2"
* Allow additional clearance along

curved track; for more detail see
NMRA standard S-7 at www.nmra.org/
standards/s-7.html
avoid extensive lines of retaining walls

between stepped-up tracks.
In open country, allow room for the
cuts and fills the railroad uses to
maintain a steady grade across
undulating terrain. Slopes are also
needed along streams. Outside of very
rugged terrain, the banks of a river or
creek should have mostly gentle slopes.
Streets and highways can also take
more space than you might think. A
scale 20-foot width may look okay for a
two-lane model roadway, but thats
tight for modern vehicles. A 25- or 30foot width will be more realistic for two
lanes. And dont forget city sidewalks.
When possible allow for scenery
and structures between the track and
the layout edge. This puts the railroad
in the scene instead of in front of it.
Room for people
You and your visitors are important

too. As the 9 x 12-foot room diagram
shows, a typical 4 x 8-foot table layout
can dominate such a room and restrict
the passageways around it. That 4 x 8foot sheet of plywood or insulating
foam can be split down the middle to
30" door
Possible extension
24" aisles along

4-foot side
of table layout
form an along-the-walls shelf layout

that leaves much more free space in
the middle of the room.
For walk-in layouts, try to maintain
30" aisles where possible, and allow
more width at frequent intervals to
make it easier for people following
their trains to pass each other.

Aisles of 36" or even 42" width will
make building, viewing, and operating
the layout much more comfortable.
Still wider aisles can be a good idea at
yards and other places where operators tend to congregate. RL
Suggested reading for layout designers

(from Kalmbach Books*)
Realistic Model Railroad Building Blocks, by Tony Koester

The Model Railroaders Guide to Freight Yards, by Andy Sperandeo
The Model Railroaders Guide to Industries Along the Tracks, Vols. 1, 2, and 3
by Jeff Wilson
Track Planning for Realistic Operation, by John Armstrong
Trackside Scenes You Can Model, by Jim Kelly
* Ask your dealer, call 800-533-6644, or go to www.ModelRailroader.com.

51
STRUCTURES AND SCENERY
Structure clearance
Medium layouts
Got some space to stretch out? Find some ideas here
By Steven Otte
Its always winter in the town of Phils Church on Bill Hendersons Coal Belt RR (plan 59, below). A medium-sized layout
space gives you room to experiment with techniques like a railroad that travels through all four seasons.
The modeler lucky enough to have
more than a bedroom for his railroad
has some choices to make.
Now that space is not as much of a
constraint, the issue becomes what to
do with that space. Fill it with enough
main line to enable long runs and
trains of prototypical length? Build a
big yard or add a bunch of industries
for lots of switching action? Stretch
out the track between cities to make

more room for scenery?
There are as many approaches to
layout design as there are spaces in
which to build. For example, compare
the Wisconsin Central, plan 61, with
plan 73, the Dakota Northern. Both
are N scale, have a similar footprint,
and occupy rooms close to the same
size. But while the Dakota Northerns
plan emphasizes continuous running

and yard switching, the Wisconsin
Centrals single-track main allows for
more realistic scenery and localfreight operations.
Take a look through these plans.
You may find one thats just right for
you. But even if you dont, youre sure
to find something that will inspire a
unique plan of your own. RL
Hinged section folds upward for entry
Coal Belt
57"
54"
56"
59

Railroads 2002
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 24"
Maximum grade: 2.5
percent
53"
Walnut Gap
52
Port Carbon
53" Three staging tracks
Pennsylvania RR
Autumn Park
interchange
Phils Church
Water column Stone arch bridge
Girder bridge
55"
54"
57"
As your train runs counter-clockwise

around this layout, you will be moving
not only through scenery depicting
Northeastern coal-mining territory,
57"
Treskova
but also through the four seasons of a

year. Spring is always in full bloom in
Port Carbon, while its always winter
in Phils Church. Many modelers pick
55"
56"
55"
summer or fall for their layouts

because its easy to landscape, but a
well-done winter scene can have a
beauty of its own.
Bay Point & Diablo
60
Diablo
Oxidizer
Amulite Mill unloading
Published: May 2005

Scale: On21 2 (1:48)
Minimum radius: 24"
(yard), no. 5 (main)
Closet
Water General
tank
store
Entrance
Diablo
Water
tank
58"
5634"
Freight depot
Narrow gauge railroading appeals to

a lot of modelers for different reasons.
Some like the look of the intricate
steam engines and rugged terrain that
characterize many such lines. Others
like that the smaller rolling stock and
tighter curves allow them to pack
more railroad into a smaller space.
Modelers who want the size and detail
of O scale, but dont have an empiresized space for their layouts, often find
a compromise in narrow gauge. This
On21 2 plan models a short line linking
mine country to a port city.
52"
Freight dock
Clyde
Minnetti Machinery
Diablo
Creek
Hastings
Slough
Bay Point Amulite plant
Oxidizer loading
Bay Point
Sierra
Stoneworks
5312" yard
Water tank
Enginehouse
4912"
Rock
loader
RIP track
Oil tank
48"
5034"
61"
Cowell Junction
Backdrop
Window
Butterfield Road
To lower level staging loop
Aptakisic
0"
1"
Feed mill
7"
6"
Cedar Lake
8"
8"
Evanston
Fuel & Material
Wolohan
Lumber
Hicksgas
Super
Fuels Signal
house
State Route 83
2"
6"
Lake
Villa
Water tower
Mundelein
6"
Metra
station
7"
Leithton
Parade
Packaging
Wisconsin Central
Grayslake
Oil tanks
Medline Industries
Seigles Home
& Building Center
Boarded-up
interlocking
tower
Olympic
Packaging
3"
5"
Cedar Avenue
North Shore Gas
U.S. Route 45
5"
4"
Team track
Alan Josephson Recyclers
Metra/CP Rail
sneakoff

Scale: N (1:160)
Minimum radius: 14"
61
Just because your trains are small

doesnt mean your scenery has to be.
This plan models the broad vistas of
Midwestern farm country in 1995. The
modest space requirements of N scale
means room for big industries,
forested hills, farm fields, a working
interchange, and even a stretch of
suburban commuter line. Doubleended staging looped under the
central peninsula allows realistic
point-to-point operations.
53
Station
Onion Valley
Mining & Lumber
62

Scale: HO and HOn21 2 (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 18"
Mining Co.
Brewery
Stockyard
61"
61"
61"
Lone Pine
Traverser
Turntable
Water tower
Freight dock
Manzanar
Independence
Tub Springs
Inyo Mine
Another Southwestern mining

railroad like plan 60, the Onion Valley
is two layouts in one: the standard
gauge main line in the valley, and the
narrow gauge mountain line that
delivers ore to the stamp mill. The line
is designed to fit around two walls of a
garage. If the layout is mounted high
enough, a modeler could suspend the
end of the peninsula from the ceiling,
leaving room for a sports car to park
underneath. Staging on a traversing
table represents connections to the
outside world.
Mining
supply
building
Standard gauge
Narrow gauge
Mining supply
Freight house building
Seven Pines
stamp mill
54"
70"
57"
Oudama
Mine
Howe
truss
bridge
Deck
bridge
Water
tower
Grays Meadow
Trestle
Atlas
bridge
Great Balsa
gold mine
Lumber
storage
54"
Onion Valley
Onion Valley
Sawmill
Freight and
passenger
station
Water tower
Turntable
Future extension
Prokhorovsk
63

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 11'-4" x 13'-8"
Minimum radius: 30"
Minimum turnout: Peco large
radius
Kearsarge
Pass
Tower
Main line to
St. Petersburg
(used as staging)
Diesel shed
Window (partially
covered by
backdrop)
Prokhorovsk
Open
staging
Building
flats
Rather than focusing on industry

switching or mainline operations, this
layout models a passenger terminal at
the end of a branch line or division.
Terminal operations involve receiving
incoming trains from various offlayout locations, breaking them down
in the coach yard, and making up new
trains for other destinations. Though
this layout is based on Russias Soviet
October Ry., it could easily represent
an American or European prototype.
Local arrivals
and departures
Mainline arrivals
and departures
Baggage/mail
platform
Prokhorovsk station
building flat
Folding closet doors
54
Double-slip
switch
Staging tracks hidden behind hill
Western
Marylands
Thomas Sub.
64
Depot
Town building flats
11" radius
Elkins
Engine
terminal
Car shop leads

Scale: N (1:160)
Minimum radius: 11"
medium radius
Parsons
Depot
Cutoff track
hidden behind
hills
Shavers
Fork,
Cheat
River
Elk River
Junction
To Webster
Springs
To Durbin
Sometimes, the prototype scene that

inspires a layout isnt a yard, an
industry, or a city, but simply an
interesting track formation. This
plans inspiration is the Western
Marylands river-spanning triple
junction in the Shavers Fork Branch
valley of West Virginia. Backdrops
isolate scenes, lengthening the run.
Cheat
Junction
Gould Tannery
Sector plate
serves all
staging tracks
Cumberland
and Webster
Springs staging Greenbrier
60 degree
crossing
Junction
Scale of plan: 14 " = 1'-0", 12" grid
Hevonkuusi Ry.
65

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 9'-2" x 13'-9"
Minimum radius: 23"
Industries
Although this plan was designed to

represent a prototype in Finland, its
versatile enough to stand in for a line
along Americas Eastern seaboard. The
streetcar line circling the urban blocks
adds interest. Hiding the back of the
dogbone under elevated terrain makes
the railroad look more realistic.
Double-slip switch
Factory
Footbridge
Loading dock
Boat dock
Hevonkuuski
Roundhouse
Woodshed
Station
0"
5"
Water tower
Tramway
Staging track under scenery
Backdrop
55
Central New
Mexico Ry.
66
55"
Mining
supply
company
Published: July-December
2006
Scale: On3 and On21 2 (1:48)
Plan size: 11'-3" x 17'-2"
Minimum radius: 28"
Mine
5834"
Coaling dock
Water tank
Transfer
track
55"
On3
On212
Tipple
Handcar shed
What is it about the Southwestern

United States that fascinates so many
model railroaders? Maybe its the
stark, rocky terrain, the interesting
narrow gauge rolling stock, or the
importance of the role the railroads
played in the development of the West.
This plan hits all the high points.
Though not much On3 equipment is
commercially available, manufacturers sell kits for converting On21 2
rolling stock to On3.
Team track
Rio Seco
Boardwalk
63"
Falls Creek
Steel Falls
viaduct Creek
55"
Ozark, Ouachita
& Red River
Kendel
County
Creosote
Co.
Oil
Gravel pit
Fishers
Meats
Diana well
Junction
Oil
distributor
Oil well
Lumberyard
Feed mill
Diana
Cherokee
Paper Mill
Lafayette
Tilghman
Future
industries
Smith Lumber
Co. Sawmill
To St. Louis
Southwestern
interchange
To OO&RR
main line
Closet
Staging

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 24"
67
Future
industries
Tilghman
Textiles
56
6614"
The designer of this layout drew

inspiration from a track plan published in Model Railroader in February
1980. Starting with senior editor Andy
Sperandeos San Jacinto District plan,
the designer broadened the curves,
extended the staging into the closet
and added a lift-out bridge for continuous operation. He also moved the
locale from California to Arkansas.
However, this plan could be set
anyplace from Alaska to Virginia.
Dead track
Denver, Rio
Grande & Southern
68
Closet
Snowshed
Ridgway depot

Railroads 2001
Scale: Sn3 (1:64)
Minimum radius: 30"
Ash pit
Office
Bunkhouse
Tool shed
Ridgeway
S scale, popularized in the United

States by American Flyer toy trains, is
gaining favor with modelers looking
for more detail than HO scale without
the space requirements of O. Modeling
narrow gauge further reduces the
space needed for curves and right-ofway, making a room-sized layout like
this one practical.
Miracle Farm
Machinery Co.
Roundhouse
Jacks Cabin water tank
Sheep
pens
Burnside
Stamp Mill
HOn3 track
Rio Verde
& Western
Mt. Michael
(removable for
access to helix)
4 percent up
Track
maintenance
shed
69
0"
0"
9"
Nn3 layouts like this one use Z gauge

track and mechanisms to represent
three-foot-gauge railroading. Z gauge
track actually works out to about 40"
between the rails in N, but the convenience of being able to use ready-made
motor mechanisms outweighs the
four-scale-inch discrepancy. Unlike
many mixed-gauge layouts, on this one
the narrow gauge is the main line, and
the electrified standard gauge line
plays the secondary role.

Railroads 2001
Scale: N and Nn3 (1:160)
Plan size: 10'-8" x 15'-4"
Minimum radius: 7"
Engine shed
5"
Rio Verde
8"
Station
Freight depot
Big O Cereal Co.
Tri-state Distributors
0"
0"
Cattle pens
Engine shed
2 percent up
4"
Rio Verde River
Electrified standard gauge

Narrow gauge
Staceyville
Yardmasters office
Freight house
Coal and lumber
Mesa Grande
Depot
Warehouse 5 percent up
Engine servicing
Freight depot
Station
Furniture
factory
6"
6"
8"
9"
Deadmans Gulch trestle
To staging loop under Mesa Grande
57
Open mountain top for access
Rudy
Arkansas
& Missouri
70

Scale: N (1:160)
Minimum radius: 10"
3
1
6
0
Arkansas Fort Smith

Steel trestle no. 2
River
(Visible staging)
Steel
Union Pacific
trestle
interchange
Winslow
no. 1
Springdale
Depot
Backdrop
This railroad climbs a steep grade as

it ascends through the Ozarks. High
ridges and trees act as view blocks for
most of the steepest grades. There are
enough operating possibilities to keep
two or more engineers busy at once.
Cyclone
Fence Co.
Miller Beer distributor
Los Angeles
& San Fernando
Valley RR
Strongheart
Dog Food

Railroads 2006
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 9'-6" x 23'-0"
Minimum radius: 48"
Coast
Division
Burbank Branch
Highway overpass
Burbank Junction
Burbank Freight Depot
Sunland
Boulevard
Burbank Tower
General Water Heater Co.
48" radius
Burbank Boulevard
Future
extension
Tradewater
Oil Co.
Citrus packinghouse
Scrapyard
Passenger
depot Enginehouse
Van Nuys
North Hollywood
5
0
Los Angeles Division
71
Highway
Sun Valley
San Joaquin Division overpass
This layout began as a 5-foot-long,

1-foot-wide shelf with a single stretch
of track. That shelf was followed by
another, this time with turnouts, then
The Schuylkill
Iron Works
72
Published: May 2008

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 15"
If your industry is big enough, like an

iron works, you might need a whole
layout to depict it accurately. Theres a
58
another and another. Building a layout

in sections has advantages: sections
can be built on the workbench,
maintenance and cleaning are
Forge
Machine Coal
Machine shop
Coal
preparation
shop
annex
bin
building
simplified, and pieces can be photographed outside in natural daylight. It

also simplifies transporting the layout,
should moving become necessary.
Open
hearth
Maintenance Storage Oil

Pump Power
Forge
building
building tanks house substation power
house
Pennsylvania RR main line on this

track plan, but the focus of this 1920sera layout is on the movement of cars
Headquarters
offices
Stripper
building
Elevator
Water
tower Stoves
Cast house
Furnace
boiler
house
Blower
house
Furnace
stock house
laden with ore, coal, coke, hot metal,

slag, ingots, and finished product
from building to building.
30"
radius
MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
Milwaukee transfer
Cement track
Pekin
Dakota
Northern RR
73

Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 12'-0" x 13'-6"
Minimum radius: 15"
Maximum grade: 1.5
percent
Depot
Northern
Seed & Feed
Warwick
Cargill elevator
Mill
track
Sheyenne
Valley City
Red River Feeds
Farmers Depot
Cooperative
Freight house
Soo Line
transfer
Gamble
Robinson
RIP track
Since Im originally from the part of

the country this layout is based on, it
should be no surprise I selected the
Dakota Northern as my Editors
Choice pick. This layout features grain
elevators, fertilizer plants, and feed
mills, all common industries in
eastern North Dakota. There are also
passenger depots, interchange tracks,
and a large classification yard at
Lakota to add operating interest.
Though this model railroad is based
on the Burlington Northern, it could
be adapted to represent numerous
granger railroads. Cody Grivno
Devils
Lake
Farmers
Union grain
Fairview
Depot
Fertilizer
Texaco Oil
Pillsbury elevator
Soo Line
transfer
Elevator
track 2
Elevator
track 1
Sand &
Gravel
Caboose
track
Freight house
Lakota
Soo Line staging
Depot
Grand Forks staging
Minot staging
Marvin Windows Power plant

CB&Q
Doorway
A
A
0"
Mississippi River
To return loop
East Hannibal
Scale of plan:
Open
access
area
516" = 1'-0",
12" grid
4"
Depot
Bluffs
Wabash RR,
Decatur Division,
10th District
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 24"
74
Hulls
Illinois Grain Co.

CB&Q Keokuk District
CB&Q depot
Valley City
Baylis
Depot
Purina
Wayne Feeds
To Meredosia
(11th District)
4"
Illinois River
Signal
2"
This layout captures the last hurrah

of the Wabash, just before its identity
was swallowed in a merger with the
Norfolk & Western in October 1967.
Its designed for out-and-back operation, with trains originating in the
yard at Bluffs, Ill., making their way
across the Mississippi River into
Missouri, turning on the hidden loop
there, and returning.
59
MODEL RAILROADER
Jim Robbins Seat Belt Co.
EDITORS CHOICE
Ford Vinyl
& Paint
Grand Trunk
Western, Romeo
Subdivision
75
Ex-NYC interchange
Great Lakes
Tractor

Scale: O (1:48)
24" (staging)
Lumber
Stoney Creek
GTW shops
Armada
Romeo
Purina Service
Romeo depot
Armada Co-op
Converted
NYC depot
Yates Siding
Growing up in the 1980s, I watched

Grand Trunk Geeps haul locals behind
my grandparents farm in Armada,
Mich. Modeling a line that features
four-axle diesels, short trains, and
slow train speeds is a great way to get
the most operation out of a limited
amount of space.
Richard Cookes clever track plan
fits several industries, an interchange
track, a branch line, and a staging
yard with a turntable into a modest
space. Dana Kawala
South Central
Minnesota RR
76

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 7'-6" x 22'-6"
Minimum radius: 26"
Pontiac
Staging yard
in closet
Who says you have to settle on only

one prototype? Many cities, even small
ones like Owatonna, Minn., were
served by two or more railroads. This
HO scale layout depicts the Chicago &
North Western and Milwaukee Road
lines through that farm town. Plan-
Milwaukee Road
Gandy Co. Sampson
Hwy.
Chicago & North Western
Dairy
218 Substation
Houses
Drop-hinge Union Baggage
Depot house
bridge
ning the sidings on the two railroads

so that the industries and yards they
serve overlap as little as possible keeps
engineers from getting in each others
way during an operating session. And
the continuous ovals allow one road to
run unattended during solo operation.
Feed
Owatonna
Metal shop Canning Co. store
County
Grain
Feed Quonset
building
Rd. 45 Straight River
elevator
mill
Gravel pits
House
Freight
house
Gas station
Lumberyard
Farm
Malt-OMeal
plant
Medford depot
Canning
company
Cemetery

60
Scodras Grocers
Phillips Furniture
Boston & Maine:

Western Route,
North Dover, N.H.
77
Wingate Wholesalers
Holy Spirits
Distilleries

Railroads 2004
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 31"
Meek Tunnel
Freight Depot
Marshall
Inbound
Outbound
station
(to Boston) Creamery
(from Boston)
North Dover
New England
River
Haney Fuels
Boston & Maine
Maine Central
When a viewer pops up in the control

pit of this railroad, he is surrounded
on all sides by scenery, giving this
layout the appearance of a real
railroad. Curved backdrops separate
scenes from each other, allowing more
locations to be modeled in less space
and making the layout seem longer.
Broad curves improve the operation of
streamlined passenger equipment, as
well as leaving room for access
hatches in the corners.
F. B. Hamer
& Sons
Conley
Lumber Mitchell
and Coal Creek
Salmon
River
Tower
B&M
staging
MEC
staging
Door and Tower
duckunder
Hidden staging
N.A.S.A. Mining Co.
J.F. Machine Shop
Montreal
& Northern Ry.
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 10'-4" x 12'-6"
Minimum radius: 18"
Pont Saint
Kevin
39" level
36" level
Bobs
Hot Dogs
Bed &
Breakfast Control panel
G.L. Bicycles
78
The two loops of this urban plan

connect only with track concealed
behind buildings. This allows a single
operator to let one train run unattended on the upper level while
switching the local on the lower. Tall,
densely packed structures combine
with partial buildings, background
flats, and a photo backdrop to give one
end of the compact layout the look of a
truly massive city.
Dan Corp.
J-P Printing Co.
Furlow Center
Milwaukee
Beer distributor
Warehouse

Photo backdrop
Mirror
61
West stub
View block
Ash Grove Subdivision
Depot
Structures used as view block
Springfield, Mo.,
on the Frisco
79
Passenger
yard

Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 12'-6" x 12'-6"
Minimum radius: 10"
Springfield
Subdivision
Nichols
Junction
Commissary
Industry
Springfield
Yard
Sleeper set
out track
West
staging
X marks the spot at Nichols Junction,

where four subdivisions of the St.
Louis-San Francisco Ry. intersected.
This track plan models Frisco operations in and around Springfield, Mo.,
in the 1950s, when sleek passenger
trains shared the rails with through
and local freights. Business blocks and
wooded hills hide the fact that the
four legs of the X form a figure eight,
as well as disguising the staging yards
at both ends of the shelf.
Memphis
main line
Station
Depot
Freight
house
Oil tanks
SPRINGFIELD
Republic
Industry
Dock
East belt line
Printing
plant
Willow Springs East

Structures used
Subdivision
staging as view block
Lebanon
Subdivision
Carm Fabric Mill
American Shoe
Joshua Fishmans
Mattress Co.
Valley
Tool
Derby
Foundry
Waterbury Branch
of the New Haven
Brewery
Short
wall
Burke
Industries
Elevated
station
Brass City
Diner (below)
Hotel
Waste
Treatment
Computer
table
Lift bridge
Yankee
Manufacturing
Colletts Cannery
Sprague
Gutter Co.
80
WestfieldKlein Co.
E. L. Woods
Manufacturing
62

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 23"
This railroads designer sought to

make his small layout look like a big
city. Layers of tall structures, kitbashed to fit between adjacent tracks,
create the look of a much larger urban
area. He also doesnt let track overwhelm the layout, keeping the main to
a single track and hiding some tracks
under hills and behind buildings.
Lift bridge
Olympic & Puget

Sound Ry.
81

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 15'-0" x 16'-4"
Minimum radius: 24"
Maximum grade: 2.5
percent
Theres a lot of main line in this track

plan, but it doesnt look crowded.
Linking distant parts of the layout
with track hidden in tunnels maximizes the mainline run while leaving
lots of room for realistic scenery, from
urban blocks to rugged mountains.
Keeping hard-to-reach track, including most hidden tracks and those on
the far side of a shelf from the operator, to single track without turnouts
reduces access problems and reduces
the chance of derailments.
Puyallup River
50"
46"
Lighthouse
Canning Co.
46"
American
Boathouse
Kent Coal Co.

Enginehouse
Depot
Duckunder
Depot
TACOMA
Wyman
Lumber Co.
Yakima Fruit
Growers
Puget
Mills
Lake
Quinault
Sawmill
Access
hatch
46"
46"
Icing platform
50"
Foundry
Coal tower
46"
50"
46"
Duckunder
Illustration by
Rick Johnson and Roen Kelly
Georgetown
MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
48"
New Havens
Cape Cod Branch
82
Union Freight RR

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 12'-6" x 20'-0"
Minimum radius: 26"
Maximum grade: 1.5
percent
Maybe its because I grew up around

water, but Ive always been fascinated
by seaside railroads. The interchange
of cargo between ships and trains, the
visual interest of bridges and trestles,
and the many different ways to model
water also add to the appeal.
This plan has all of those elements,
from Boston Harbor to the lift bridge
over the Cape Cod Canal. That bridges
544-foot span was a record-setter at
the time it was built, and is almost
mandatory for a layout like this.
When that bridge was built in 1933,
its weight limits prevented its use by
heavier engines developed later.
Similar restrictions can be used to
add to the operating challenges of any
railroad. Steven Otte
Workbench
Boston
Boston yard
Passenger
platform
Provincetown
105-foot
turntable
90-foot
turntable
Hyannis
49"
Cranberry
bogs
49"
48"
Buzzards
Bay
Cape Cod
Canal
bridge
Orleans
Yarmouth wye
48"
Illustration by Roen Kelly
63
Black Rock &

Marmot
83
50"

Scale: N (1:160)
Minimum radius: 18"
49"
A
Marmot
Able Pottery Oil City
Distributors Manufacturing
Station
Center
Marmot
Stern
Peak
47"
Center Creek
Meeks Supply
Chads Chairs
Petes Produce
Black Rock
Industries
Summit
This freelanced railroad is set in the

mountains of northern California.
Judicious use of tunnels keeps the
track from crowding out the terrain,
which stretches from the forest to the
high desert. The tunnels also disguise
the mainline loop, making the track
seem like a more realistic point-topoint operation. Stopping a train
briefly in a tunnel can also increase
the virtual distance between stations.
50"
Black Rock
Westen
End of
scenery
Black Rock
Lumber
Summit Ridge
48"
Megs Mine
Closet door
removed
48"
47"
Staging and Southern

Pacific interchange
Kabinett
Santa Fe,
Needles District
84

Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 9'-8" x 20'-0"
Shell Oil
refinery
This railroad is designed for the

modeler who has a lot of motive power
and wants to show it off. Big yards at
both ends, backed up by staging in an
Komos
Scrapyard
NEEDLES
Lee Way
Desert U.S. Trucking
Cement Rt. 66 Transfer
Annes
Diner
Engine
tracks
50"
adjacent room, means the ability to

run plenty of trains. Gentle curves on
the double-tracked main line show off
long trains to their best advantage.
Station
Fuel and sand Needles
roundhouse
Garage
door
Highway bridge
3 UP staging
tracks (elevated)
14 AT&SF
staging tracks
UP to Salt
Lake City
Daggett
Dry wash
Santa Fe
Service Diesel
diesel house shed
fuel pads
40-foot trailer
storage
UP 4-track staging
under peninsula
Highway
bridge
BARSTOW Station
Duckunder

64
MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
Maryland & Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Division
85

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 8'-8" x 22'-0"
Minimum radius: 18"
Peach Bottom Branch to Slate Hill
This track plan depicts a layout built

by modeler Stan White. I had the
pleasure of operating it a couple of
times, so I can attest that it was
faithful to its prototype, a well-known
Eastern short line, and a lot of fun.
The main line ran from the stub-end
terminal at York, Pa., to a reverse loop
with storage sidings hidden beneath
York, representing the Ma &Pas bigcity terminal in Baltimore. Besides the
off-stage loop, interchange tracks at
York provided additional beyond-the-
layout connections to other railroads.

Despite its short mainline run, the
layout supported realistic operation.
Stans layout design satisfies many
of my own criteria for a successful
model railroad, including walk-in
access, representation of an interesting
prototype, and a realistic operating
scheme. The layouts sharp curves,
18" radius in HO scale, were no
hindrance to the Ma & Pas small
locomotives and short passenger cars.
Andy Sperandeo
Red Lion, Pa.
Depot
Removable
staging for
Pennsylvania RR
and Western
Maryland
interchange
Depot
Delta,
Pa.
38"
Relay, Pa.
York, Pa.
Coal
To Baltimore Cardiff,
Water
Slate
Md. Ash pit
(staging)
Hill, Pa.
Depot
45.5"
Depot
Illustration by Robert Wegner and Rick Johnson
Farmhouse and barn
Backdrop
Oak Grove, Ill.

on the Missouri,
Kansas & Quincy
86

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 6'-9" x 16'-0", plus
off-layout staging
Minimum radius: 30"
Santa Fe depot
Hatch B
Abandoned
quarry
Hatch C
Hatch D
Hatch A
Field
MKQ/Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe
double track to
Link, Colo.
CSX
Field
Farm shed
CSX (B&O)
CSX (ex-B&O) depot
Tractor
Babes Diner dealer
Grain elevators
CSX (B&O)
The interchange between two Class 1

railroads at a Midwestern town is the
focus of this plan. Grain elevators and
other agricultural-themed businesses
help place this railroad in Illinois.
This plan could be part of a larger
layout, although it provides plenty of
operating interest on its own.
To Sedalia,
Colo.,
MKQ/ATSF
65
Sectional
layouts
This scene of mainline action on the

HO scale portable layout of the
Midwest Valley Modelers club shows
that scenic effects dont have to suffer
because of sectional construction.
Theres no reason a home layout built
in sections couldnt look just as
realistic. Ken Patterson photo
By Andy Sperandeo
Build your railroad so you can take it with you

A friend of mine was hosting an
operating session, and as we were
about to get started he apologized to
the group. Sorry, but this layout is
only temporary, he said. Someone
else pointed out that all model
railroads are temporary, its just that
some are around longer than others. If
you know youll have to relocate in the
future, or even if you just want to be
prepared for that possibility, you can
build your layout in sections that you
can dismantle, move, and reassemble.
When its time to move, a sectional
layout lets you save much of the time,
skill, and money invested in your
model railroad. With sectional
flexibility you can adapt what youve
previously built to a new layout space,
and sectional construction lends itself
66
to expansion and redevelopment. You

can even take advantage of sectional
construction to do wiring and switch
motor installation with the sections on
their sides or ends instead of always
having to work up from below.
Think sections, not modules
To some extent Ntrak and other

modular layout groups offer great
examples of sectional construction,
but theres an important distinction
between modular and sectional
layouts. Modules fit together with
standard track connections at the
ends, but builders can construct any
kind of scene on a given module. This
leads to stereotyped track arrangements and frequent mismatches
between adjacent terrain.
With sections you dont have to

follow any standard track pattern
because the pieces need to fit together
only one way. The scenery can maintain continuity from section to section
following the theme of your railroad.
Assuming you dont have to take your
show on the road very often, you dont
even have to leave breaks in the track
and scenery at section joints. When its
time to move, simply cut the rails and
slice through the terrain. As long as
you have some extra track and scenery
materials on hand, youll be able to
heal the scars at the section joints
when reassembling your railroad.
Here are two ways to build layouts
in sections. They dont exhaust the
possibilities, but theyll introduce you
to thinking in terms of sections. RL
David Barrow devised a sectional

construction system using standardized rectangular layout segments. He
likes to lay out track plans by fitting
these sections together end to end and
forming 90-degree corners, so the
comparison to the game of dominoes
was obvious. Hes described his
domino method in both Model Railroader and Model Railroad Planning
articles. The illustration shows the
basic form of domino layout sections.
David likes a section two feet wide
by four feet long but doesnt mind
building them narrower, in widths
down to 18" or even 12" when the
situation calls for it. He sticks to a 24"
maximum width to maintain a
comfortable reach-in distance. Hes
built longer sections, but prefers the
four-foot length for easy handling.
The concept calls for four legs
supporting each section, which adds up
to a lot of legs for a layout of any size.
David finds the legs convenient both for
rearranging sections and for supporting
a plywood or hardboard skirt.
The two levels of framing shown at
the right in the illustration allow space
for power supplies, switch motors,
and electronic gear inside the
Subroadbed: two layers of 14" lauan plywood

or one layer of 12" lauan or Homasote
34"
34"
plywood
edge boards
312"
x
birch
plywood track board
birch plywood top

in towns and yards
48"
Layout height
as desired
34"
3912" to top
of lower framing
(recommended),
or height as
desired if
single level
x 312" plywood
risers to suit layout
height and grades
If extra height
isnt needed,
plywood top
and subroadbed
can be attached
to lower framing
48"
2" x 2" pine legs

with one flathead
bolt into end
framing
Yards and towns: If two layers

of plywood, top layer may be
cut away for drainage ditches,
contours, and other features
34"
x 312" brace
6" from floor
Legs may be set back 6" if skirt is desired
316"
x 3"
roundhead
bolts for height
adjustment
Open country: contoured side boards

vary up and down to suit terrain
framework. As the drawing indicates,

the upper framing could be dispensed
with if not needed.
The section at the left in the
illustration shows a domino frame for
scenery extending below track level.
Grids on girders
Some find standardized sections
like dominoes too confining and look
for greater freedom in planning and
building sectional home layouts. A
solution thats often overlooked is
included in Linn Westcotts landmark
book, How To Build Model Railroad
Benchwork (Kalmbach Books).
As shown at right, Linns idea was
to use L-girder framing to support
layout sections constructed as simple
box grids. The width and length of the
sections can vary, as long as they
have a reasonable chance of fitting
through the doorways of both the
current and any future layout rooms.
Linn showed lengthwise cleats
under the sections to fit along the
girder flanges, but Im not sure these
would be necessary. The sections
could simply be secured with screws
up through the flanges from below.
The L-girder framing itself could be
unbolted for easy transportation and
later reassembled at the new site.
12", 18", or 24"

34"
This also allows track to be built on

grades for hilly or mountain railroads.
For more on domino construction,
see David's Domino planning basics in
Model Railroad Planning 1999, on sale at
www.ModelRailroader.com.
Nothing projects above girder tops
Carriage bolts used to

attach legs to girders
Permanent keeper
joist below girders
Layout section
Box grid
framing
L-girder
frame
Lengthwise
cleat under
layout
section
Legs and braces
detach for moving
All legs have lag

bolts for height
adjustment
67
SECTIONAL LAYOUTS
Dominoes
How to convert
track plan scales
Simple arithmetic changes any layout design into
your modeling scale
Proportions of
popular scales
Z 1:220
N 1:160
HO 1:87.1
S 1:64
O 1:48
(For others see National Model

Railroad Association Standard
S-1.2 at www.nmra.org.)
By Andy Sperandeo
Whatever modeling scale you use,
chances are youll find that a track
plan for some other scale appeals to
you. Just because you model in X
scale doesnt mean you have to
automatically ignore plans drawn for
W or Y. With some simple arithmetic and a little understanding of
layout design you can quickly tell how
much bigger or smaller a given layout
will be in the scale you use.
HO to N. Consider a plan drawn for a
larger scale that you might want to
build in a smaller one. Plan 94,
representing the Chesapeake & Ohios
Alleghany Subdivision, was designed
for HO, but theres no reason an N
scale modeler couldnt use it.
First, look at the layouts overall
size, 22 x 24 feet. We can quickly
reduce that in half to 11 x 12 feet. In
fact, N scale is really 54 percent the
size of HO, since HOs scale proportion of 87.1 divided by N scales 160
gives .544. However, its easier to
reduce the plan by an even 50 percent,
and the small difference will be
accounted for in the next step.
The Alleghany Sub is a walkaround
style layout with internal aisleways.
We know that modelers who build N
scale layouts are just as wide as those
who model in HO, so aisles half as
wide as on the original design will be
too tight a squeeze.
The tightest fit on the HO plan is at
the end of the aisle between Ronceverte and White Sulphur Springs, 17".
Half of that is only 8", but if we add
12" itll produce an 18" width, tight
but acceptable for such a cul de sac.
Overall, however, there are three
lengthwise aisles on the plan and two
across. That means we need to add
three feet to our estimated width and
two feet to the length, resulting in a
square footprint of 14 x 14 feet.
Checking some other passageways
we find that the N scale plan will have
68
Santa Fe Needles Sub

9'-8" x 20'-0" in N scale
19'-4" x 40'-0" in HO scale
Access problems outlined in red
C&O Alleghany Sub

22 x 24 feet in HO scale
14 x 14 feet in N scale
Extend at red lines
31" at the entrance next to Lewis

Tunnel, a minimum of 27" between
Alleghany and Hinton, and 23" at the
other dead end at Prince. If youre
happy with those widths, good, but if
not you can add a few inches to the
aisleway factor and accept a correspondingly larger footprint.
Reducing the HO minimum radius
of 34" in half gives 17" for N scale.
Thats pretty generous for 1:160
proportion and will be fine even for
the C&Os 2-6-6-6 articulateds.
N to HO. Going the other way introduces other considerations. Suppose
you wanted to build N scale Plan 84,
the Santa Fes Needles District, in
HO scale. If you simply double the
9'-8" x 20'-0" dimensions of that plan,
you get a footprint of 19'-4" x 40'-0".
The aisles of course get wider,
which usually is all to the good. In
this case a couple of 15" squeezes at
Needles and Barstow become 30"
passages, with even more generous
aisleways to either side no problem.
The minimum radius goes from
15" in N to 31" for HO. Thats
acceptable for the pig flats and

Superliner cars this railroad is meant
to run, especially as viewed from
inside the curves at Daggett and the
Shell refinery. If you can allow a little
more width and use it to increase the
radius of the turnback curve on the
central peninsula, so much the better.
But when enlarging a plan, you have
to consider access within the layout.
For example, in the N scale plan the
turnout behind the Needles roundhouse is a reachable 18" from the front
edge of the layout, but in HO it would
be 36" back, beyond arms length for
most. The staging area would be 7'-8"
wide. Some redesign to allow access
for construction, maintenance, and
operation will definitely be necessary.
Architectural issues. Once you
convert a plan for another scale, you
need to consider the specific features
of your railroad room. Look for the
entry to a walkaround or around-the
walls layout to see if it can be adjusted
for your doorways or other entry
points. If access is necessary outside
the footprint of the layout itself, youll
need additional space for that. Some
layout rooms have odd shapes or
include household utilities, and those
may require further adjustment.
Still, with this simple approach you
should find it easier to imagine how a
track plan drawn for models of any
proportion would work in your own
modeling scale. RL
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How To Build Realistic Layouts: Industries You Can Model
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on an HO club layou
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If youve got the room, you can effectively double the size of your model railroad by adding a second level, as shown here
on Cal Winters HO scale Florida East Coast Ry. Cals layout is plan 101. Paul Dolkos photo
Layouts for
large spaces
Plans suitable for rec rooms, basements, or barns
By David Popp
Got the room to think big? Though
smaller plans have a lot of advantages,
some people find that they have the
space to build a big model railroad. In
this case, you may have part of a rec
room or most of a basement you can
work in, or you may have a garage or
an outbuilding (such as a barn) at
your disposal.
With room for a long main line,
towering scenery, and large industries,
big layouts have a lot of appeal. And
these layouts generally have the
capacity to run a lot more trains,
which means you can keep a fair
70
number of people busy during an

operating session. Add a helix and one
or more extra levels (sometimes called
decks), and now your trains really
have some ground to cover as they
travel across the layout.
Though all model railroads need
careful planning, designing and
building big layouts requires even
more attention to detail, especially
considering the time and investment a
large layout represents. You also want
to be sure you get the most out of the
space you have. This doesnt necessarily translate into filling every square
inch with trains, which is often a

temptation with a big model railroad.
Instead, keep in mind that your layout
room still needs to have space for
people to run trains, view the finished
scenes, and work on your empire.
For those planning really big
layouts, Id suggest reading Track
Planning for Realistic Operation, by the
late John Armstrong. The material
John covers in his book builds upon
the material the Model Railroader staff
has presented here to get you started.
Consider that book the advanced
course in layout design. RL
Central River
Farm
Central River
Subdivision
87

Scale: N (1:160)
13" (staging)
Maximum grade: 1.38
percent
This plan was designed to provide

room to run long N scale trains. Its
accessible from three sides, allowing
operators to follow their trains in
either direction around the layout.
The fourth side is anchored on a wall,
and a curved backdrop hides the inner
staging yard loops. If you set the
layout height at shoulder level, operators would require only minimal
bending to get to the staging yard.
The plan also features a branch line
that interchanges with the main. The
branch could easily be extended to
add more towns around the outer
walls of the room.
Farm
1"
0"
S&S staging
loop
Hansel
Grain
Elevator
0"
FS Farm
Supply Co.
Ben-Hur
Junction City
Depot
Prairie
View
Feed mill
Depot
Plexiglas fence
protects staging
tracks
112"
Stock track
Backdrops
2"
Secondary
& Southern
staging
Grivno Oil Co.
0"
Tower
S&S Ry.
Depot
0"
2"
Bieber (staging)
To workshop

Duckunder
Spanish Creek
Keddie Wye
(steel trestle)
High Line to Bieber
Town buildings
Sand house
Water
Office
KEDDIE
Station
Double-sided
backdrop
Fascia rises
to valence
Machine shop
Oil
Backdrop
Freight
house
PORTOLA
Station
Oroville (staging)
88
Station Water
Railroad
buildings
Feather
River
Water

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 24"
(main), no. 4 (yards)
Blairsden
East Keddie
Merlin
Western Pacific
Third Subdivision
To future
sawmill
The Western Pacific Third Subdivision plan was designed to fit in a rec
room and features some signature
scenery of the WPs Feather River
Canyon route. The design uses
backdrops as view blocks to create
several distinct scenes. One staging
yard is set in an adjoining room, while
the other is neatly tucked behind a low
backdrop, so that the tracks may be
reached by standing on a step stool
but are not visible to a viewer standing
on the ground. Like plan no. 16, the
Western Pacific Third Sub features
Keddie Wye, but this time with the
needed room to connect all three legs
to the rest of the layout.

71
89
FELTON Elevation 54"
Millers Crossing
The San Lorenzo

Southern
Scale: HOn3 (1:87.1)
24" (branch)
San
Lorenzo
River
Control
panel
Control
panel
1
Doublesided
backdrop
The San Lorenzo Southern was

designed to fit inside a garage. The
layout is based on elements of various
narrow gauge railroads in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and would
include dramatic vistas. One of the key
features is that the layout room is
divided into separate scenes by
double-sided backdrops that run down
the center of each peninsula. This
creates the illusion that the layout is
bigger than it really is. If you dont
have room for the staging yard outside
the layout room, you could place it on
a lower level under Black Bear Siding.
ZYANTE
Double-sided
backdrop
Black Bear
Creek
Black Bear
Siding
lift-out section
Junction has 57"
Switch
elevation
Boulder Creek Branch

Doorway
Staging yard on a shelf in the garage
Illustration by Rick Johnson and Kellie Jaeger
Greenbriar River
C&Os Alleghany
Subdivision
90
57"
5438"
Station
53"
56"
Station
White
Sulphur
Springs
Staging for four trains

48"
Freight
house
RIP
track
Coal
dealer
58"
Alleghany Tunnel
Hidden tracks
49"
NI Cabin
Ash pit
Powerhouse
Freight house
12" grid
Laurel
Creek
Coal
dock
Station
Prince
45"
New
River
Staging for
four trains
52"
52"
316" = 1'-0",
Clifton Forge, Va.
Piney Creek
Coal unloading barn Yard office

Ice dock
Appalachian
Power
Station
53"
Scale of plan:
Hidden track
(not to scale)
51"
Station
Ronceverte
HINTON
Raleigh
50"
Alleghany
58"
Freight
house
55"
72
Crab
Orchard
Mine
Mill

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 34"
Maximum grade: 1.67
percent
The setting for this plan is the

Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. in West
Virginias Allegheny Mountains. The
design includes the C&Os historic
yard at Hinton, W.Va., and other key
elements of the line from Alleghany to
Prince, W.Va. The layout is set in the
late 1940s, so the C&Os big 2-6-6-6
steam locomotives and early diesels
will look right at home running side
by side here.
Like many of the other plans in this
chapter, the staging yards are placed
on a separate level below the main
layout, making the most out of the
available space.
Lewis
Tunnel
Stretchers Neck Tunnel
47"
Cranberry Mine
Hadley,
W. Va.
B
C
The Pacific &

Idaho Northern RR
E
SAN
LORENZO
91
ction
This is another split-level plan, with a

small upper deck covering a corner of
the main layout and leading to an
along-the wall extension. You could
add even more to the extension if you
have the space to accommodate it.
The layout also features a lower-level
staging yard that is not illustrated,
but the entrance to which is denoted
by the letter B on the track plan. The
staging yard could be built as a loop
on a shelf below Diamond Springs.

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 12'-0" x 15'-4" with
2'-10" x 8'-4" extension
Minimum radius: 18"
way
General
merchandise
Upper
level extends
into adjoining room
Hotel
Outline of upper level
Walker
Supply
Co.
0"
Meadows
Restaurant
0"
Stock pen
Weiser River
Freight house
Water tank
To lower-level staging
Tiger Hotel
Coal dock
Weiser
Backdrops
Main level
Water tank
Pump house
Sand house
Oil tank
23"
Silver Queen
ore bin
Stock pen
Alta Mine
Sample mill B
Sample mill A
Enginehouse
19"
Drop
bridge
Station
0"
4 percent
down
Diamond
Springs
Ajax
mill
1134"
812"
Mine tram
Upper level
Station
Backdrop
11"
19"
Closet
14"
A
Cuprum & Seven Devils RR
staging siding
Yankee-Standard
ore bin
Tiger ore bin
Cottonwood
Creek
Reverse
loop
Illustration by
Rick Johnson and Jeff Nepper
Backdrop
To lower-level
staging
73
Water tank
Southern Pacific
Bakersfield
Subdivision
92
Caliente
Residences
46"
Tunnel 12

Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 9'-0" x 30'-6"
Minimum radius: 21"
Oil
tank
Stock pens
Caliente-Bodfish Road
To hidden
staging
Tehachapi
Creek
52"
48"
Tunnel 1
Ilmon
siding
If you have a big space, you can do

amazing things with scenery in N
scale. This plan features the famous
Tehachapi Loop (all of it), and has the
room to model the scene effectively.
The yard at Bakersfield serves as
visible staging. The layout was originally built by Les Combs, and he
designed to fit in an authentic Southern Pacific caboose. How cool is that!
Bealville
Helper
spur
Building material
warehouse
Quantico
Warehouse
Factory
Edison
Packing
houses
Herders
shanty
Icing
dock
Pacific
Fruit Express
48"
UPs Daneville
and Donner River
Subdivisions
To staging
Duckunder
Plastic
pellet
transfer
The
48"
Narrows

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 11'-6" x 22'-4"
Minimum radius: 33"
(main), no. 6 (staging)
Maximum grade: 2.6
percent
Tunnel no. 2
2.5percent
grade
Staging yard
hidden below
Daneville
54"
4712"
Warehouse
DANEVILLE
4812"
Cement
plant
56"
Donner
River
Canyon
Depot
Mills Brother
Lumber Co.
Scale of plan:
14" = 1'-0", 12" grid
49"
74
Illustration by
Robert Wegner and Roen Kelly
Donner
River
5512"
tio
Sta
46"
2.6-percent grade
Tunnel no. 1
(to staging)
93
Featured in many Model Railroader

articles and several books, the Union
Pacific-themed layout built by Denmarks Pelle Seborg is an inspiring
model railroad. The design for the
layout features a hidden staging yard
under Daneville and provides space
for both rugged mountain and urban/
industrial scenery through the use of a
backdrop that runs down the center of
one portion of the layout. For more
information on how Pelle built the
layout, see his book, Mountain to
Desert: Building the HO scale Daneville
& Donner River, available from
Kalmbach Books.
Though Pelle models the present
day, this layout could be set in any era.
Add a few simple details, such as water
columns, and the plan would work for
the steam era.
Auto repair garage
5th crossing
Hidden staging below
Tunnel 10
52"
lie
Ca
nte
k
ee
Cr
Walong siding
Loop Hill
De
De
sk
sk
53"
To hidden
staging
Dispatcher's
control panel
Staging
access
Bealville
Road
Staging access
Monolith
Hidden
staging
control
panel
Tunnel 9
Relay
box
Monolith
Cement
50"
Yard
Maintenance- control
panel
of-way
Interchange track
Depot
Kern
Junction
tower
Santa Fe Team
track
tracks
Agriculture
business
Oil
Junction warehouses
47"
Bakersfield Ice
Oil storage
tanks
49"
Oil tank
Warehouse
48"
plant
Caboose Roundhouse
track
Engine service,
4 ready tracks
Freight
house
Famoso Oil unloading
West Bakersfield
spurs
Pleasant Valley Branch
Soldier Summit
94

Scale: N (1:160)
Minimum radius: 14"
Yard for staging

Pleasant Valley
Branch trains
Colton
Abandoned wye
60"
Soldier Summit
UPPER LEVEL
To Gilluly
Kyune
Castle
Gate
Kyune
To Castle Gate
Section A-A
Illustration by Bernard Kempinski and Rick Johnson
If you want a modern (well, late 1980s

to be exact) main line layout, Bernard
Kempinskis design for this Denver &
Rio Grande Western line through the
Wasatch Mountains in Utah may be
for you. This large N scale layout
increases its main line run by adding
a second level over half of it. There is
also an option for a branch line and
one or more off-layout staging yards, if
you have the space.
Equipping the layout with Digital
Command Control would add to the
fun, since you could easily use helper
engines and crews to push trains up
and over Soldier Summit, the layouts
high-elevation point. And, during this
time, Amtraks California Zephyr still
ran daily on this line, giving you an
option for passenger traffic.
Lower-level backdrop
Upper yard (visible staging)
To D&RGW
staging
(optional)
To Utah Ry.
staging
(optional)
48"
Engine
terminal
HELPER Sand Station

Panther Junction
(Utah Ry.)
Castle Gate
Coal Co.
Start 3
A
percent grade
To Kyune
To Soldier
Summit
Thistle Tunnels
Narrows
Price River
Kyune
A
Tunnel
Nolan Tunnel
Castle Gate
Rio 50"
LOWER LEVEL
Gilluly
54"
75
Quarry
Water
Sand
Coaling tower
Dock office
Cabin
Creek
Lake Erie coal dock
Business
block
Depot
Lake freighter
Pierce McLouth
CABIN CREEK
JUNCTION
Machine
shop
Stiff leg
derrick
Concrete
arch bridge
Lighthouse
Lumber yard
Handcar
shed
C&O main line
Section
house
Spar log loader
140-foot
Howe truss
bridge
Sharon
Republic
No. 3
tipple
Republic
company
store
Abandoned
mine buildings
Log unloading boom

Powerhouse
Shay enginehouse
Turntable on
hillside
Gulch
Creek
Machine
shop
Abandoned
farm
Coke ovens with

overhead tram
Coal office
Blacksmith
shop
Imperial Carbon
Co. tipple
Abandoned
powerhouse
Company
houses
Wooden
water tank
Company store
Bunkhouse
Cane Forks
Carbon Fuel
Co. No. 9
Slash burner Sawmill

Handcar setoff
Seng
Creek
tunnel
Abandoned
track and
tunnel
C&Os Cabin
Creek Branch
Powerhouse
Dacota
Old caboose
bunk house
Water
tank
DA Cabin
Powerhouse
Bunkhouses
Covered
scales
Section
storage
house
Superintendents
house
Retail
coal dock
Company
houses
Eskdale
Depot
Powerhouse
Consolidation
Coal Co. tipple
76

Scale: O (1:48)
Minimum radius: 38"
95
Company
store
Lumberyard
ED Cabin
CRANES NEST
Standard
Oil Co.
O scale layouts are very effective in a

large space. The Chesapeake & Ohio
Cabin Creek Branch plan is set in the
Kanawha coal fields in the mountains
of West Virginia during the late 1940s.
This is a coal and lumber-hauling
railroad, and its numerous tipples and
large sawmill will provide hours of
switching work. If you have more
space, you can complete the connection between the C&O main line and
the branch at Cabin Creek Junction,
which will provide an interchange
point for freight to move on and off
the layout.
If you have room in your garage, or a

large spare room, this plan could be for
you. The Minnesota & International
can be built around two walls of the
layout room, and the lobe at Bemidji
could be moved (depending upon your
available space) by extending the
layout beyond the siding at Walker.
Also, you could expand the staging
capacity by adding tracks to the
return loops on the lower level.
Minnesota &
International
96

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 27"
Station
Coal yard
Feed mill
Bulk oil
Liquefied-petroleum
To reverse loop
Concrete
batch plant (International Falls) gas terminal
Warehouse
Land O Lakes
warehouse
NP/Soo
Line station
6"
6"
Pulpwood
loading
Walker
Leech Lake

Concrete
overpass
Station
Lake Hubert
Hubert
Lake
6"
Narrow gauge
NP wood- lines for
treating tie plant Lift-out
section
plant
Main line
to Staples
Sawmill
Mississippi
River
Lake Bemidji
BEMIDJI
Round
Lake
Mississippi
River
Lumberyard
6"
Minnesota
Plywood
warehouse
Retail stores
Station
Station
Feed mill
0"
1"
Liquefied-petroleum
gas terminal
LITTLE FALLS
0"
INTERNATIONAL
FALLS
BRAINERD
Pine River
0"
Warehouse
Fence post
storage
Pulpwood
loading
Fence
Pulpwood post Jenkins
loading plant Station
Coal yard
Feed mill
3"
1"
B
Staging
(not to scale)
Bulk oil
Sawmill
Pulpwood
unloading
and storage
NP
station
Utility pole
storage
Coal yard
5"
0"
3"
0"
Brainerd
Hide Co.
Soo Line
freight station
Warehouse
B 4"
Feed mill
6"
5"
To reverse
Stored parts
Paper
warehouse loop (Little Falls) and scrap
NP Office Boiler
house
shops
Main line
to Duluth
Maintenanceof-way siding
77
TOP DECK ELEVATION 57"
Peoples Avenue Yard

Baggage
Union Passenger
and express Terminal (NOUPT)
Coach yard
U.S. Post Office

Desk
Backdrop
Mississippi
River
Staging
concealed in
warehouses
Riverfront
wharves
Down
MIDDLE DECK ELEVATION 40"
Television
Courthouse
Square
Hines Lumber Co.
Desk
Down
Up
Jourdan
River
Garletts
Farm
Pearl
River
STAGING DECK ELEVATION 30"
Passenger train staging
Southern staging tracks

Helix outer loop
reaches all three decks,
inside loop connects
staging to top deck
Desk
Up
GM&O staging tracks
Removable
bridges
Entrance
78
Central River
Subdivision
Railroads 2007
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 27"
97
The plan for this layout makes use of

three levels, providing three times the
amount of railroad to model and
operate in the same space as one. The
upper two levels are set at 57" and 40",
making them easy to see and work on.
The bottom level, set at 30", has no
scenery and used for staging. However, if you wanted to make one or
more of the yards on the bottom level
active or model a town at the passing
siding, you could do this comfortably
from a rolling office chair.
Midland
Continental
98

Scale: N (1:160)
Plan size: 14'-9" x 31'-3"
Minimum radius: 24"
James River
Jamestown
Junction
Section house
Ash pit
Coal
Crossing gates
Soo Line
Jamestown
Terminal Elevator
Interchange
track
Section
houses
Northern Pacific
Milwaukee Road
Wimbledon
Wye to Milwaukee
Road enginehouse
Team track
Edgeley
JAMESTOWN
Loading ramp
Depot
Granger railroads tend to be flat and

straight, and this plan has both of
those features in spades. While this
layout is designed for the Midland
Continental RR, a North Dakota short
line, it could easily be used to represent more than a dozen other railroads. Its predominantly shelf design
means that sections of the layout
could be built elsewhere and then
installed once the messy construction
work is complete.
Operating the line involves making
up trains in the yard at Jamestown,
then running along the walls to switch
industries at the towns en route. Once
the work is complete, the train can be
turned on the wye at Jamestown
Junction for the trip back to the
terminal at Jamestown.
Coal dock
Through track
Co-op storage shed
Depot
passing
track
Enginehouse
Elevator
Grain bins
Depot
Loading ramp
Water tank
Stockyard
Depot
3rd Avenue South

Warehouse
Proposed line
to Cooperstown
Freight house
Otter Tail Power
Co. powerhouse
Passenger
platform
Lift-out
section
Creek
Pile trestle Coal Dock
Frazier
Farmers
Elevator
79
Pandora &
San Miguel RR
99
60"

Scale: Sn3 (1:64)
Minimum radius: 28"
The Pandora & San Miguel RR is a

fictional bridge line between the
Denver & Rio Grande Western and the
Rio Grande Southern railroads. As a
result, equipment from either railroad
would look right at home on the
P&SM. The layout is designed for Sn3,
which doesnt require much more
space than a typical HO layout. An
Sn3 minimum curve radius can be as
tight as 22", though 28" or greater is
better. If you dont wish to model in
Sn3, you can use the same plan for an
HO layout.
Vance
Junction
Black Bear Mine
58"
Ore ramp
PANDORA
Three-way
turnout
Post
Office
Depot
Almost
Ophir
Cour
dAlene
Mine
Oil storage
Entrance
Illustration by Terri Field and Roen Kelly
New Haven
Shore Line
Drawbridge
Mystic Bay

Railroads 2000
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Minimum radius: 36"
100
Mystic,
Conn.
Boston coach yard
Boston, Mass.
Pond
South Station
Double-slip
switch
Southhampton St.
roundhouse
Rockys
Beach
Lift-up
section
Ball Mill
Mystic River
80
Depot
52"
Hillsgrove Tower
56"
The Pit
(liftout
section)
LINDBURG
dock area
Freight yard
Raymond
Falls
Sorting Avalanche
Gold Hope Mine
House
South Boston
Double-slip
switches
Lizard
Head
Pass
The New York, New Haven & Hartfords main line between New York
and Boston (called the Shore Line)
was a hotbed of passenger train
activity in the first half of the 20th
century. This plan depicts the railroads Boston terminal in the center of
the room, and it uses shelves around
three of the walls to provide a lengthy
main line with gentle curves suitable
to run big steam locomotives and long
passenger cars.
While trains simply loop back to
Boston on this plan, you could use the
open fourth wall to build a staging
yard, representing many of the New
Havens destinations west of that city.
MODEL RAILROADER
EDITORS CHOICE
Stock
pen
Upper level
Duckunder
Florida East
Coast Ry.
101

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 16 x 24 feet with
2 x 11 foot staging
Minimum radius: 30"
This plan is a great example of getting

the most out of your railroad space by
building a two-level layout. Note that
to keep from having more than one
operator trying to work in the same
location of the room at the same time,
the towns on the railroad are not
positioned in the same places on the
two decks. Also note that the helix is
completely hidden from view, eliminating the need to try difficult scenery
work to disguise it.
This is a staging yard-to-terminal
(essentially a point-to-point) railroad.
The line starts in hidden staging and
ends at Key West on the upper level.
If you didnt have space to put the
staging yard outside the layout room
as shown here, you could build a third
level under the town of Glades. Also
note that there is a hidden staging wye
behind the sky backdrop at Key West.
This makes it easy to turn a complete
train if you dont want to spend the
time to do the work in the yard.
The design for the layout is set in
winter of 1930 at the height of the
tourist season, making for a lot of
interesting operation. David Popp
Freight
house
Icing
platform
Office
Trumbo
Yards
Stock
Island
Wye for turning KEY WEST Car ferry

trains and engines
Export/pineapple dock
Bahia
Honda
bridge
Station
Fish loading platform
Helix
Marathon Store
Pigeon Key
Lower level
Staging in garage
Miami
trolley
line
Lift-out
section
Flagler Street
MIAMI
Water columns
for tank car loading
Glades
Long Key
Passenger
station
Station
Helix
Railway
Express
Agency
N. W. Fifth St.
Long Key Viaduct
Scrapyard
Ice house
Buena Vista
Roundhouse
Leg of wye
in bedroom
81
...and one more

An HO plan for
non-traditional spaces
Grand River Ry.
102
Freight house
Grand
River
By David Popp
While weve explored a lot of plans
designed for open spaces or spare
rooms, that isnt always the space you
have available for a layout. I saved this
plan for last as an example of what
you can do when designing a model
railroad to fit the space you have.
In this case, the HO scale Grand
River Ry. is made to fit around a
basement stairwell and wrap around a
support post and a furnace. By
keeping the area between the post and
furnace open, you can still use the
space under the stairs (and river) for
storage. Also, the furnace remains
accessible from three sides, making
routine maintenance tasks easy.
The Grand River Ry. itself is set in
the steam era and serves a terminal
town along a navigable river. The
industries on the rivers banks, such as
the grain elevator and coal yard, are
served by barge as well as rail, making
for some interesting operating traffic
and modeling projects.
Because of the layouts 24" curves,
smaller 2-8-0 and 2-8-2 steam
locomotives, 40- and 50-foot freight
cars, and short 60-foot passenger cars
would work best on this railroad. You
can use an 0-6-0 or an early diesel for
a yard switcher. Despite its size, the
layout could provide plenty of operation to keep three people busy for an
entire evening. RL
No. 6
No. 7 curved
Cold
storage
No. 6
No. 612
curved
No. 8 RH
Station Street
No. 712 curved
Furnace
Depot
No. 7 curved
Backdrop
No. 612 curved
Sugar Creek
Illustration by Rick Johnson and

Jay Smith
Narrowed Walthers
swing-span bridge
This section
under stairwell
Passenger
yard track
Coal trestle
Storage space
under layout
and stairwell
Sugar
Creek
Yard
Coal yard
Caboose
track
No. 7 curved
No. 6
No. 6
Oil dealer
30-degree
crossing
Furniture
factory
East
Bank
Water
column
Shoe
factory
Coal
tower
Staging tracks
behind backdrop

Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Plan size: 9'-2" x 16'-2"
Minimum radius: 24"
Maximum grade: none
Benham
Street
No. 6
Flour mill
Grain elevator
82
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618201
2009
Big Blue rolls on

in the Motor City
The modern auto industry and a Conrail Shared
Asset area highlight this N scale track plan
By Dana Kawala
rototype railroad track charts

can offer great inspiration for
a model railroad track plan.
While doing an internet search for railroads that served the auto industry, I
found track charts for the Detroit District of Michigans Conrail Shared Asset
area. In this district, as in other shared
asset areas, Norfolk Southern and CSX
jointly control former Conrail property,
and many of the diesels are still in Conrails blue livery. Part of the Detroit District is the Sterling Secondary in my
hometown of Sterling Heights, Mich.
Reviewing the charts, I imagined a
switching layout that could fit into
a spare room. After all, two of the main
customers of this part of the line, a
Chrysler assembly plant and a Chrysler stamping plant, were only a couple
of miles apart. Then I went to Google
Earth, a Web site that provides satellite views of most places on the planet,
and received a dose of reality.
Automotive plants are massive and
often connected to a mainline classification yard. In addition, a network
of industrial track serves inter-plant
operations and connects the plants to

outside vendors. It was clear that I had
to make some adjustments if I was
going to design a track plan for a relatively small space.
I ended up with this N scale plan
that fits around the walls of a 10 x 12foot room on a 2-foot-wide shelf.
Running just in time
Although I designed the track plan

primarily for switching operations, I
used wide-radius mainline curves and
made the yard body tracks long enough
to handle the maximum length of an
eight-car train of 89-foot auto racks
led by a pair of road diesels, such as
SD70s or Dash 9s.
The main line runs between semihidden staging at Livernois Yard to
Sterling Yard, and its connected to the
loading docks of the Chrysler assembly plant. The double-track main line
turns into a single track just before
entering the curve into the staging
yard. This turnout lets the main line
double as a runaround during switching moves at the stamping plant.
Six Railroads You Can Model www.ModelRailroader.com
The Chrysler plant looms behind

Sterling Yard. The auto industry
inspired this track plan. Ray Sabo photo
Although the main line is short, following the prototypes operating rules
helps lengthen the run. Along the Sterling Secondary, the maximum speed
limit is 10 mph.
Industrial track serves the stamping plant on the outside of the main
line and smaller industries located in
front of the staging yard.
The track plan isnt designed for
through trains. As on the prototype,
Sterling Yard is the end of the line for
most of the large diesels originating
from out west. Most of the action
involves classifying trains that enter
the yard into locals that deliver loaded
cars and empties to their destinations.
Road engines that bring trains north
lay over in Sterling Yard until the yard
accumulates a full train of cars to take
back to Livernois Yard.
Industrial track that connects to the
main line provides access to online
industries. In addition to the Conrail
Shared Asset local freights departing
from Sterling Yard, industrial switchers make inter-plant runs.
The fun of operating an automotivethemed railroad comes with following
prototype industry practice of just-intime delivery. Auto companies dont
want to pay for warehousing, but they
also dont want to pay for workers sitting idle. The schedule of the entire
Power plant
Scrap loading
Chrysler stamping plant
15" radius
19" radius
22" radius
Holding tracks
15" radius
17" radius
Yard office
Coal dock
Coal track
Engine
track
Chrysler
assembly
plant
TRW
Conrail Sterling
Secondary
N scale (1:160)
Layout size: 10 x 12 feet
No. 6 turnouts
Scrapyard
Livernois
Yard
(staging)
Low-relief
structures
Detroit Plastic
Moulding
Detroit News
printing and
packing
Sterling Yard
Auto rack loading
supply chain is important. From trainloads arriving at Sterling Yard to locals

setting out empties and picking up
loaded cars to plant switchers delivering parts into the docks, everything
needs to be done on time.
A variety of modern rolling stock
This track plans setting allows for a

variety of motive power. Although pairs
of modern six-axle road diesels, as well
as SD40-2s and SD60s, are primary
power for mainline trains, four-axle
GP15s and GP38-2s switch the yard and
handle local freight traffic. Local power
is in either Conrail, NS, or CSX livery,
but the larger mainline diesels can also
come from BNSF or Union Pacific. An
industrial switcher makes inter-plant
deliveries, such as moving cars from
holding tracks to the docks.
For rolling stock, the auto industry

relies on more than 89-foot auto racks.
Typical freight cars include 50- and 60foot hi-cube boxcars, 50-foot gondolas
for scrap metal, coal hoppers, and covered hoppers for plastic pellets.
For even more variety, I added a
non-automotive customer that I found
on one of the track charts. The railroad
delivers newsprint boxcars to the Detroit
News printing and packing plant.
For most of the structures, I planned
low-relief buildings along the walls.
You dont need to model an entire milelong factory, just the parts relevant to
the railroad, such as loading docks.
Low-relief buildings between the staging yard and south industrial tracks
would defi ne the scene in the front, yet
still provide an operator with access to
the yard in back.
The track plan at a glance

Name: Sterling Secondary
Scale: N (1:160)
Room size: 10 x 12 feet
Theme: modern auto industry
Period: 1999
Mainline run: 24 feet
Minimum radius: 17" main line,
15" industrial track
Minimum turnout: no. 6,
turnouts set at no. 5 angle in
Livernois Yard
Maximum grade: none
For fans of urban railroading, the
Sterling Secondary provides plenty of
switching with enough mainline action
to keep a few road diesels busy. MR
Six Railroads You Can Model
A plug-and-play industry
Raw materials storage silos
Rough roll furnace
Grinding and polishing
Yard
Ware room
Office
By Henry Freeman
ike many young model railroaders,

I started with a basic loop of track
on a 4x8 sheet of plywood. Years
later, as my friend Bill Chapin and I
worked on designs to add a major industry to my large HO scale layout, we
realized the best approach to solve my
space problem was to return to the
4x8 layout concept.
As a twist on the traditional plan,
however, our self-contained industrial
plant is made to plug in to the rest of
the layout when needed and be moved
out of the way when it isnt.
A plug-and-play layout
By itself, my 4x8-foot Pittsburgh

Plate Glass Works No. 7 plant is a selfcontained industrial switching rail-
road, complete with a small interchange

yard. The layout can provide hours of
fun for a switch crew moving cars
of time-sensitive raw materials in and
around the glass factory. In fact, the
plan only varies in two ways from a
traditional 4x8 design: It has a threefoot single-track tail, which serves as
the drill track for the plant, and there
is no loop for continuous running.
When plugged into my B&O Cumberland Division during an operating
session, the PPG plant always provides a steady stream of incoming and
outgoing traffic for the rest of the railroad thanks to a connecting track
at the end of the interchange yard.
When the session is over, I unplug the
4x8 plant from the layout and store it
under the railroad, freeing up valuable floor space in my layout room for
working on other projects.
This is how Pittsburgh Plate Glass

Works No. 7 plant in Cumberland,
Md., looked in the late 1950s. At
this point in its history, the float
glass system has yet to be installed. Most of the plant could be
kitbashed using various manufacturers stock kits and styrene
shapes. Photo courtesy of PPG Industries
The prototype and the model
Pittsburgh Plate Glass started construction on the Cumberland Works

No. 7 plant in 1954, installing a rough
roll, flat glass furnace with a chemical
polishing system. In 1963, PPG introduced to the world the first float line furnace, starting a new era in plate glass
manufacturing technology. Once the
furnaces were fired, plate glass production went on 24 hours a day, 365 days
a year, and consumed huge amounts of
raw material. PPG closed the Cumberland plant in the 1970s.
for your railroad
An HO layout doesnt have

to be a loop of track
Pittsburgh Plate Glass

HO scale (1:87)
4 x 8 feet
Scale: 34" = 1'-0"

12" grid
Grinding and
polishing
Ware
room
Minimum curve radius 18"

No. 4 turnouts
Power house
Office building
3foot
tail
Switch
lead
Rough
roll
furnace
Shipping
docks
Batch house
To rest of layout
Lehr building
(annealing oven)
Interchange yard
Float line
bath
Raw materials
Float furnace
A glass plant receives its raw materials by rail and stores them in a series
of silos. An intricate system of conveyers automatically gathers the materials from storage, weighs each to a specific formula, mixes them in a batch,
and carries them to the melting tank.
Timing and continuity of the railroad shipments are of vital importance
to keep a glass plant running. Soda
ash, limestone, and sand are all delivered
in covered hoppers. Salt cake, needed in
the manufacturing process, rouge (iron
oxide) and felt necessary for the polishing process, and packing material for
outbound loads are all shipped in standard boxcars.
The Cumberland plant made plate
glass from 1 8" to 3 4" thick and shipped
it by truck, boxcar, and flatcar to customers for installation in store fronts
and office buildings, processing by mirror manufacturers, and fabrication into
automobile safety glass.
Though most of my PPG plant would
involve scratchbuilding or kitbashing
structures, you could apply this con-
Making glass
At one point in its history, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Works No. 7 plant was the
only factory in the UnitedStates producing plate glass using both the traditional flat process and the new float technology side-by-side.
The major steps in traditional flat glass production begin with mixing and
melting raw materials into molten glass. The molten glass is then rolled into a
continuous solid ribbon, ground to a uniform thickness, and polished. The final
steps include cutting, inspecting, and packing for shipment.
In the float glass plant, raw materials (largely sand and soda ash) are melted
in a gas-fired furnace at over 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The molten glass
flows out of the furnace as a continuous flat ribbon that floats on a bath of
molten tin (which has a much lower melting temperature) until cool enough to
hold its shape. Final processing further cools the ribbon, then it is cut into
uniform sheets which are trimmed to sizes specified by customer orders.
Unlike the flat process that uses rollers to shape the glass, the float system
produces glass with a perfectly flat surface. H.F.
cept to other heavy industries that have
large plants. Recently there have been
plastic structure kits available for
automobile plants, paper mills, and
steel mills, so you would have a good
starting point for the buildings.
Perhaps a plug-and-play industry is

just what you need for your existing
layout. Or it could be the starting point
of your first model railroading adventure with plenty of room to grow as
your modeling skills advance. MR
Naugatuck Valley in N
An apartment-sized New Haven layout with room to grow By David Popp
s the last of the benchwork for my 11x30-foot HO

scale Soo Line layout was unceremoniously shoved to
the back of the storage unit, I figured it would be a
while before I built another one. A recent move had caused
my wife and I to temporarily downsize to a small apartment
while we built a new house. Sensing my loss, however, she
donated part of the living room for a small layout, and my
plans for an N scale apartment-sized railroad were born.
I designed the layout in two pieces. The benchwork for

the main part is a 32" hollow-core interior door covered
with 2" foam insulation board. It has a completely independent loop for display running. For support, you can set the
layout on an inexpensive folding table.
Frame assembly
48"
4612"
A prototype with modelers in mind
Looking for something different to model than the Midwest, I sought out the New York, New Haven & Hartford for
inspiration. After some research, I focused on the New
Havens Naugatuck Line, following the Naugatuck River
Valley in Connecticut. This area was once rich with mills and
factories and would provide some nice industries to switch.
In addition, a devastating hurricane in 1955 caused the New
Haven to rebuild most of the original double-track main line
as a single-track one, making it ideal for a modeler with
limited space.
The region also included some picturesque scenery as the
New Haven wound its way north to Waterbury. Its dramatic,
near-water-level route was surrounded by tree-covered rocky
hills between towns and included some interesting bridges
to model.
And by the late 1950s, daily traffic on the line was ideal
for a small layout. It included a north and south through
freight, a local serving the towns, and four passenger runs
each way with Budd Rail Diesel Cars (RDCs).
The layout plan
Because of my space limitations, I knew my layout couldnt

be an exact representation of the New Haven. With that in
mind, the modeled towns of Seymour and Naugatuck
exhibit the flavor of 1959 New Haven railroading in Connecticut but arent accurate reproductions. Most of the structures
can be easily kitbashed for the New England look.
Legs
16"
6"
Two 14"-diameter
dowels cut 134"long
for centering pegs
1412"
14" x 2"
carriage bolt
with 34" washer, lock
washer, and wing nut
22"
1312" cut with

beveled ends
Extension construction diagram

Staging
side
12" x 40" .060" styrene

backdrop sandwiched
between foam and
curved to follow tracks
2" foam
insulation
board
14"
plywood top
14"
hardboard fascia
14"
hardboard fascia
Legs cut to
match table
height
1 x 2 frame glued
and screwed together
14" x 2"
carriage bolt with 34"

washer, lock washer, and wing nut
Nail-in 34"
nylon furniture
glides
1 x 2 legs with a 13" spacer and

triangular plywood cleats
Moving freight on the Naugatuck

Clamp attachment
Late in the New Havens history, the railroad would run
a single freight north to Waterbury, Conn., each day.
The train would have three locomotives, typically Alco
RS-3s. In Waterbury, the crew would break up their
train into three locals, sending them off in different
directions to switch the main back to Naugatuck and
the Torrington and Forrestville branches.
In the evening, the three locals would return to
Waterbury, where the crew would reassemble the train
and then take the whole thing back south to Cedar Hill.
By using the staging tracks as a fiddle yard, you could
simulate this operation on this smaller version of the
Naugatuck Line. Or, you could easily adapt the layout
and its operation for your own railroad. D.P.
14"
hardboard fascia
2" foam board

14"
dowel with
tapered end
Hollow-core
door 134" thick
1" from edge
1"x114" hole
cut in bottom
of door
Small Quick-Grip clamp (2)

Illustrations by Jay Smith
Track and roadbed
Depots by John
D. 6004 country station
Peco code 55 track

387 no. 8 curved right-hand turnout (2)
388 no. 8 curved left-hand turnout (3)
393 20-degree crossing (1)
1791 no. 4 right-hand turnout (1)
1792 no. 4 left-hand turnout (4)
1795 no. 6 right-hand turnout (3)
1796 no. 6 left-hand turnout (2)
1797 no. 7 wye turnout (1)
5801 36" flextrack (25)
Design Preservation Models

F. 506 Gripps Luggage
(furniture factory)
G. 660 Woods Furniture (kitbashed to
fit backdrop)
Six-lane
staging
Midwest Products
3019 cork roadbed (25)
6
Staging, south
to Cedar Hill
Model Power
I. 1572 Jackson Meat (kitbashed
into a textile mill)
J. 1509 brewery (kitbashed into
lumber mill)
K. 1546 Holland Iron Works
L. 1547 U.S. Customs (kitbashed
into warehouses to fit backdrop)
Structure key
Atlas
A. 2548 plate girder bridge
Bar Mills
B. 304 low boy trestle (coal dock)
E. 912 Whistle stop depot
American Model Builders
C. 617 barn (used as fuel dealer shed)
L
M
Walthers
M. 3246 Gold Flame coal dealer
(modified to fit backdrop)
Minimum curve radius: 12"

All turnouts No. 4 unless marked
12" grid
Store
Highway
bridge
Naugatuck
Staging, north
to Waterbury
K
Scale: 1" = 1'-0"
N scale (1:160)
23.5 square feet
12"-high styrene
backdrop with
building flats
Micro Engineering Co.

H. 75153 40-foot ballasted-deck
bridge (3 cut to fit curve)
G
6
Shed
A
Tree-covered
scenic divider
with tunnel to
hide loop track
wye
6
D
Church
Houses
F
J
E
6
8
Naugatuck
River
Shed
Seymour
To gain a little more space and add some operating interest, I added a 16"x48" removable extension. This piece
allowed me to include a six-track staging yard (three tracks
at each end of the railroad) and a 6"-wide industrial park for
the town of Naugatuck.
When in use, the extension clamps to the layout with two
Quick-Grip clamps and is supported by a removable leg. (To
build the extension, see the construction diagrams.)
Fun for two
I designed the small layout with two operators in mind,

and it would be a good candidate for an entry-level Digital
Stores
Command Control (DCC) system with walkaround control,

either tethered or wireless.
For an operating session, using a simple timetable, one
operator would run the local and switch the industries at
Seymour and Naugatuck. The other operator would handle
the through freights and the commuter passenger trains.
The commuter trains would make station stops at both Seymour and Naugatuck.
Despite the Naugatuck Valleys small, apartment-living
size, the plan has a lot of potential for expansion. Since
completing the layout as shown here, Ive added on to it
three times, tripling the railroads size. MR
Rails
to the harbor
This 121 2 x 17-foot HO scale track plan features

the National Docks Ry. during World War II
By Howard R. Lloyd
fter spending 20 years working on my HO scale Arvern

Bay Terminal layout, I was
ready for a change. Though I enjoyed
scratchbuilding structures and modeling urban scenery on my old harbor
layout [featured in the April 1991 and
March 2000 issues of Model Railroader.
Ed.], Id maximized the model railroads potential in terms of detail and
operation. Still, I wanted to model a harbor scene, but on a slightly smaller layout. I finally settled on the track plan
shown here for the 12'-6" x 17'-0" HO
scale National Docks Ry.
When designing the track plan, set
near my hometown of Jersey City and
nearby Hoboken, N.J., during World
War II, I had a few goals in mind. Tops
was finishing the layout in five to seven
years. The Arvern Bay Terminal (ABT)
was a fun model railroad, but I wasnt
ready to devote 20 years to another
layout project. I also wanted a highly
detailed layout. By selecting industries
that lent themselves to detailing, such
as an export elevator and oil tank farm,

I could achieve that goal.
With the industries selected and the
track arrangement set, Im ready to get
started on my new layout.
Prototype history
The section of Jersey City and Hoboken, N.J., that fronts the Hudson River
is about six miles long. During the early
1940s, most of this old marshland was
crowded with railroad yards, terminals,
piers, and rail-marine industries. The
Central RR of New Jersey (CNJ), Erie,
New York Central (NYC), and Pennsylvania RR (PRR) operated extensive yards
devoted to handling, storing, and shipping cars either across the river to New
York City or to other destinations.
A latecomer to the harbor railroad
scene was the Lehigh Valley (LV). The
railroad wound up with slivers of leftover marshland and had cramped access to the water. The railroad built
and acquired three small terminals:
Claremont, Jersey City, and Black Tom.
After studying the prototypes, I found

Black Tom the most interesting of the
three terminals.
At one time, Black Tom was a small
island in the Hudson River. Then, in the
late 19th century, thousands of yards
of fill were dumped into the river to
connect the island to the shore. The
resulting peninsula was nearly 4,500
feet long and about 300 feet wide at
its narrowest dimension.
The newly created land was then
developed into the National Storage Co.
freight terminal. There was a series of
brick warehouses, open docks, a grain
elevator, and an oil tank farm with
harbor frontage on the peninsula.
National Storage Co. was even served
by its own railroad, appropriately
named the National Docks Ry.
The Lehigh Valley eventually bought
the National Docks Ry. and expanded
it several miles north and south, renaming it the National Docks Branch.
The branch linked the LVs three terminals and provided connections to
the CNJ, Pennsy, and Erie.
Operating a harbor scene
Though operation wasnt my overriding consideration, I designed the

plan so there would be a mix of
transfer runs and switching. I could have expanded the layout to fill
Lehigh Valley
Claremont Yard
Standard Oil
Grain
elevator
Warehouses
National Docks Ry.

Black Tom Terminal
Not to scale
New York Bay
Half section of freight shed
20" radius
Bayside Park Apartment flats
View block
Freighter
Brick warehouse
(access hatch)
National Docks Ry.

Black Tom Terminal
Lehigh Valley (LV) main

Central of New Jersey
HO scale (1:87.1)
Room size: 12'-6" x 17'-0"
All curves 18" radius except as noted
Wooded bluff
Terminal
grain elevator
Engine
servicing
track
Grain barge
Coastal tanker
Tank farm
Duckunder
Single-track staging
(elevated)
the 12'-6" x 17'-0" space, but I preferred

to leave about a third of the model railroad room available for other uses.
Since my previous layout was pointto-point, I wanted to give continuous
running a try on my new model railroad. To do this, I had to design the
terminal around a loop of track. I used
a view block to hide the fact that trains
were operating in what would be the
Hudson River on the prototype; that side
of the loop is concealed in a long freight
shed along the backdrop.
Because of the model railroads relatively small size, I had to selectively
compress the scenery and rearrange
the tracks. For example, I left out the
broad expanse of marshland between
Van Nortstrand Place and the National
Docks Ry. Black Tom terminal.
With curves 20" or less in radius, Ill
use small steam switchers and fouraxle diesels to serve the terminal, and
Ill operate 50-foot or shorter freight
cars. All of this equipment is appropri-
The track plan at a glance

Name: National Docks Ry.
Scale: HO (1:87.1)
Room size: 12'-6" x 17'-0"
Theme: New Jersey harbor scene
Period: World War II
Mainline run: 39 feet
Minimum radius: 18"
Maximum grade: none
ate for the World War II era (1941-1945)
Im modeling.
The railroad will be at sea level, with
the only elevation change (and a minor
one) being the wooded bluff rising above
the CNJ tracks up to Garfield Avenue. I
plan to set the benchwork height at 58".
Two-track staging with dummy

turnout to tracks off stage
Illustrations by Jay Smith
Selective compression
According to my version of history,

the National Docks Ry. is jointly owned
Howards HO scale Arvern Bay Terminal RR was featured in the March 2000 issue of Model Railroader. Scenes similar to
this could be modeled easily using the National Docks Ry. plan. George Hall photo
by the LV and ABT (which, in turn, is
owned by the CNJ) and, for tax reasons, operated independently. All three
railroads have trackage rights over the
National Docks Ry.
Both the CNJ and LV main lines are
depicted on the track plan, though the
former tracks are purely cosmetic. The
LV main, on the other hand, serves as
a one-track staging yard for the National Docks Ry. In addition, I included
two staging yard tracks at ground level
that represent LVs Claremont Yard.
With only a 12'-6" x 17'-0" space to
work with, I couldnt possibly include
all of the actual industries from the

Black Tom terminal in my track plan.
Instead, I selected three key areas from
the prototype. Tops on the list was the
Standard Oil tank farm. This was a
distribution point for lubricating oils
that arrived by tank car and left by harbor craft. Fortunately, Ive already modeled the coastal tanker that will be tied
up at the Standard Oil dock.
I also included a terminal grain elevator. This large, concrete structure received grain by boxcar and shipped it
by barge. One of the elevators major
customers was Schaeffer Brewery in
Sabotage at Black Tom Terminal

During World War I, Lehigh Valley used Black Tom terminal in Jersey City, N.J.,
for the storage and shipment of munitions. Despite a city ordinance, the LV
kept explosives within city limits. That was until July 30, 1916.
On that date, a fire of suspicious origin spread to a barge loaded with
dynamite. The barge exploded, obliterating most of the warehouses and
leaving a large crater and smoking ruins.
It was widely suspected that the explosion was the work of German saboteurs, a suspicion that was confirmed many years later through an examination
of German records. Although the destroyed warehouses were never rebuilt, the
other damage was repaired, and the terminal continued to operate with LV
moving record levels of traffic to support the war effort. H.L.
10
Brooklyn, which received grain shipments directly by barge. Other barge

loads of grain would be positioned next
to ocean-going vessels loading cargo
elsewhere in the harbor, and a floating
grain elevator would transfer the grain
from barge to ship.
Other items I added include a ship
basin with an open dock, a brick warehouse (concealing a lift-out access hatch),
and a half section of a large, corrugatediron storage shed.
A three-island freighter, stick lighter,
covered lighter, and a tugboat resting
between assignments will be tied up in
the basin. War materiel waiting to be
loaded on ships to be assembled into
convoys destined for Europe will be
crammed on the docks.
From plan to reality
My HO scale National Docks track

plan gets a lot of harbor modeling into
a modest space. From ships and barges
to big industries to switching and transfer runs, there are many opportunities
to add details and run trains.
I hope this plan will inspire you to
give waterfront modeling a try. Having
completed one harbor layout already, I
cant wait to start work on the National
Docks Ry. MR
Ahead
of its time
A forward-thinking 1950s John Armstrong

layout design inspired these two plans
By Robert L. Warren
ve often thought that one of John

Armstrongs best track plans is his
Montana & Puget Sound (M&PS)
design, fi rst featured in the December
1959 Model Railroader. This 12 x 18foot S-shaped layout featured Pacific
Northwest railroading set in the Cascade Mountains and incorporated several layout design ideas that we take
for granted today, but which were innovative in 1959.
Johns plan made economical use of
a 16 x 22-foot room thanks to its clever
walk-in, no-duckunder design. The fact
that operators could follow their trains
around the perimeter of the entire
layout, coupled with Johns decision to
use a scene-dividing backdrop, makes
the M&PS seem much larger than it
really is. Also, John gave the layout a
three-track staging loop at one end for
easier point-to-point operation.
Because of these attractive features,
Im surprised more people havent used
the plan for their own layouts perhaps its because Johns design really
was ahead of its time and model railroading had some catching up to do.
A lot has changed in the hobby in
the 49 years since the M&PS plan fi rst
appeared. Digital Command Control
(DCC), wireless throttles, N scale,
multi-level layouts, and vast staging
yards have become commonplace items.
With all of these improvements in the
hobby, the time is ripe for the M&PS
plan to be revisited and updated.
New twists on an old theme
Using the basic shape and walk-in

feature of the M&PS design as a starting point, I drafted two new plans one
in N scale, the other in HO. Both plans
use the same 16 x 22-foot room, but I
made several modifications to enhance
the layouts operation. The first variation
was to shorten the upper-right end of the
railroad so I could expand the benchwork to run along the top wall. The
second modification was to add an upper level, creating space for a major
yard and more staging. To do this I
used the mushroom design, a concept
popularized by John in his later track
plans and fi rst featured in his October
1987 MR article, Meet the Mushroom.
Plan 1: A granger railroad
The Montana & Puget Sound. John Armstrongs 1959 track plan featured many
innovative ideas, including walkaround design, a linear main line, and some
hidden staging. Those concepts are now common in modern layout designs.
Since Johns layout already explored

mountain railroading in the Cascades, I
wanted a different theme for mine.
I selected a granger railroad, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific (CRI&P), setting it in the 1950s. The Rock Island
served a number of major cities, including Chicago, Memphis, Minneapolis,
11
Map area
To Twin Cities
I O W A
ALBERT LEA
Glenville
To Fort Dodge
Minnesota
Iowa
CRI&P rights:
on M&StL,
Albert Lea to
Northwood,
on CGW, Manly
to Mason City
M&StL rights:
on CRI&P,
Northwood
to Manly
IC rights:
on M&StL,
Glenville to
Albert Lea
SYSTEM MAP
Not to scale
To Twin Cities
Lyle
Gordonsville
Northwood
To
Chicago
Kensett
MANLY
To
Cedar Falls,
St. Louis
MASON
CITY
To Fort Dodge
To Des Moines
Minneapolis & St. Louis

Chicago Great Western
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific
Illinois Central
and St. Louis, and extended as far as

Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Also
of interest is the fact that the CRI&P
railroad owned one of nearly every firstgeneration diesel locomotive made by
Electro-Motive Division (EMD) and Alco,
making for a varied roster.
For the track plan, I chose to represent parts of the Rock Islands line from
Manly, Iowa, to Albert Lea, Minn. As
shown in the map above, the Rock
Island shared this 30-mile stretch with
the Minneapolis & St. Louis (M&StL),
and the Illinois Central (IC) used a portion of it too.
Just north of Manly, Iowa, was a
major junction. Here, the CRI&P and
the M&StL split. The Rock Island continued southeast on its own tracks to
places such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
and St. Louis. The M&StLs main line
continued south to Mason City, Iowa.
The Chicago Great Western (CGW)
crossed the CRI&Ps line at Manly, and
the CRI&P used the CGWs line to get
to Mason City, before returning to its
own tracks heading south to Des Moines.
Modeling the line in N scale
By working in N scale, I was able

to fit a good portion of the Manly-toAlbert Lea main line into the original
plans 16x22-foot room. This right-ofway saw a number of colorful daily
passenger trains on the CRI&P, so to
12
The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific owned a colorful fleet of locomotives in the
1950s, as shown by this pair of EMD GP7s in red, white, and black passing
through Stockton, Iowa, on a sunny afternoon in 1952. Charles H. Kerrigan photo
accommodate them I used 22"-radius
curves on the main line and the helix
(the staging loops use 18" curves).
Though the plan offers a loop for
display-running, I designed it for pointto-point operation, using a DCC system
and wireless throttles to take full advantage of its walkaround features. I also
included plenty of staging. In addition
to the main yards on the upper and
lower levels, there are other staging
tracks on the layout representing the
various connecting railroads, including the IC and the CGW. The second
track on top of the helix provides staging
for the M&StL branch line to Fort Dodge
and doubles as the Albert Lea yard lead.
The plans only major compromise
is the IC connection, which should be
at Glenville, Minn. I had to push this
junction over the border into Iowa to
take advantage of staging space for the
IC train under the helix.
Operating the line
During a typical operating session

the Rock Island would see one manifest freight in each direction and two
locals. Most of the switching on the
modeled portion of the line was handled by the M&StL, but the CRI&P
had industries to work at Glenville. An
additional Rock Island train operated
each way between Minneapolis and
Cedar Falls as well.
The CRI&P ran two daily passenger trains out of the Twin Cities through
this region. The Twin Star Rocket ran
to Houston as train 507, with its
counterpart, 508, running north.
Train 509, the Kansas City Rocket,
ran to Dallas, with 510 being its
northern side. The trains made station stops at Manly and Albert Lea,
and according to the 1959 timetable,
507, 508, and 509 called at those
towns during the day within six hours of

each other.
The M&StL also ran a daily manifest freight and a local each way over
the line. The locals would handle the
switching duties at Northwood and
Kensett. An additional freight ran from
Minneapolis to deliver cars at Albert
Lea and then return.
The Albert Lea job would have a
yard crew to handle local switching
and sort the interchange traffic with the
IC. An additional M&StL train worked
the Fort Dodge branch line. The M&StL
also had a daily local passenger train in
each direction, consisting of a gaselectric coach and trailer.
An operating session would see one
IC train running up the branch from
Chicago via Waterloo, Iowa, (staging)
to interchange cars at the Albert Lea
yard. The train would then return to
home rails via Glenville. The Chicago
Great Western would run one daily train
in each direction as well, switching the
industries in Manly as needed.
Plan 2: Climbing mountains
If youre looking for a coal-hauling

mountain railroad to model, the Western Marylands line northeast out of
Elkins, W.Va., is hard to beat. Heavy
unit coal trains with long strings of
engines on the head end, mid-train
helper action, and rugged scenery are
all part of the WMs charm. Thats why I
chose it as the subject for this HO plan.
Ive designed an HO scale layout for
the same size room and based it on the
Western Marylands Thomas Subdivision running from Elkins to Thomas,
W.Va. Like the Rock Island plan, I used
the principal shape and walkaround features of John Armstrongs M&PS design as a starting point. I also carried
over several elements from my Rock
Access
Twin Cities staging
Upper level
Milwaukee
Road
interchange
North lead
16"
Lower level
Meat
packing
plant
Access
Low backdrop
Freight
house
Team
track
A
M&StL
staging
Fuel oil
dealer
MANLY CRI&P
Ready
Mix plant
staging
CGW (CRI&P)
CRI&P
CGW
staging
ALBERT
LEA
M&StL
Caboose
track
A
Low
removable
city scene
to hide
track
16"
Section A-A
North Manly
Lower level
A
Grain elevator
4"
1"
CRI&P (M&StL)
Ice track
Backdrop
Glenville
Team track
Team track
Backdrop
0"
Grain
Elevator
CGW to
Twin Cities
Grain
elevator
Grain elevator
Fuel oil dealer
Passenger
station
Gordonsville
Freight house
0"
Team track
Kensett
Northwood
M&StL
(CRI&P)
0"
Team track
16"
M&StL
Branch to
Fort Dodge
(staging)
Four-turn
22"-radius helix
with 8" straights
each side,
2 percent grade
Meat
packing
plant
IC to Lyle
Fuel oil
dealer
3"
Lumberyard
Grain
elevator
1"
Quarry
Rock Island and Minneapolis & St. Louis

Scale: 38" = 1'-0"
12" grid
N scale (1:160)
All turnouts no. 6
Illustration by Rick Johnson and Robert Wegner
13
Operating the Thomas Sub
A trio of WM Alcos leads an eastbound coal train out of the yard at Elkins on its
way to Thomas. The WM collected loads of coal from various mines and
brought it to Elkins. There, crews weighed and sorted the cars into outbound
trains such as the one shown above. Frank E. Shaffer photo
Island plan, including staging tracks
along the west wall and the multi-level
design, to give more yard space. However, this time I didnt need a helix.
Since my Western Maryland design
was made to haul coal up big hills, I
used a steeply graded main line (just
over 5 percent on Black Fork Hill) to
connect the yard at Thomas on the
upper level to the rest of the layout. As
it was not uncommon for the WM to use
two to four locomotives on the head of a
train and three to six mid-train helpers, I felt the steep grade was justified.
And, thanks to Digital Command Control (DCC), you can easily add helpers
to a train.
A look around the layout
My Thomas Subdivision plan starts

on the lower level at Elkins. This is the
biggest town on the layout, and it includes a yard, passenger station, and
engine terminal. Theres also a scale
14
track for weighing loaded cars, a small

car shop, and several industries. The
staging yard for all points west is hidden behind the passenger station.
Going east from Elkins, the main
line starts a 1.4-percent climb, passing
through Montrose, on its way to Parsons. Because of the small yard and
the number of industries in Parsons, I
made the tracks in town level. The town
also has several industries, including
the largest on the layout, a Kingsford
Charcoal plant.
Continuing east from Parsons, the
mainline grade kicks into high gear,
requiring mid-train helpers through
Black Water Canyon and up Black Fork
Hill to Thomas on the upper level. Ive
included a small coal loader and fourtrack yard at Thomas, but the yard
could be bigger if you have the space.
From Thomas, the main line continues into the upper staging yard, representing the rest of the WM east.
Traffic on the line is fairly simple:

coal moves east, empty hoppers come
west. The Western Maryland had three
branch lines west of Elkins, and the
railroad collected coal loads at Elkins,
weighed it, and blocked it for shipment.
Normally three daily freights were
dispatched from Elkins. The first one,
called the East Local, was actually a
through freight. To keep the yard at Elkins fluid, the East Local often left town
overloaded and would set out cars at
Montrose to reduce tonnage. The second train out of Elkins picked up the
loads set out at Montrose and continued
up to Thomas.
On the model, Id make up the East
Local at Elkins with excess cars on the
head of the train, mid-train helpers behind them, and two cabooses. At Montrose Id have the head-end power set
out the cars while the helpers held the
rest of the train on the grade. The siding
would need to have some sort of brake
to prevent the setouts from rolling away.
When the train reached Thomas, the
helpers would take their caboose and
return to Montrose to assist the second
train up the grade.
The second train would carry general freight from Elkins and Durbin
and any additional coal traffic. At
Montrose, the train would pick up the
East Locals setouts and cut the helpers into the middle of its train. Once
the train arrived in Thomas, the helpers would then return to Elkins.
The local industries between Elkins
and Parsons are worked by the Parsons Turn. Though Parsons has a tannery, team track, and the Kingsford
plant, I added a sawmill at Montrose to
provide more work for the turn.
Elkins would have its own yard
crew to sort and weigh loads coming in
from the mines, make up outbound
trains, and switch the local industries,
including the car shop.
A daily westbound passenger train
would also run from upper staging and
terminate at Elkins. This train would
then be turned around and sent back
later in the day. The consist on the Western Maryland generally included a Railway Post Office (RPO) and a coach; the
train was pulled by a hammerhead
Alco RS-3. (There was a steam generator under the taller-than-normal short
hood, giving the engine its nickname.)
Lessons from John Armstrong
John Armstrong was a master when

it came to getting the most out of an
available space. Whether you consider
building either of my two plans or de-
Staging
16"
0"
Tracks
to wall
0"
Car shop
Freight house Oil company
Passenger station
Cold storage
Low removable backdrop
Western Maryland RR
Caboose track
All turnouts no. 6,

except two no. 4s
in Elkins staging yard
HO scale
Room size: 16 x 22 feet
Sawmill
Montrose
ELKINS
Thomas Yard
1"
16"
Elkins Yard
Floor elevated
6" for viewing
and operating
upper level
A
Section A-A
A
Gould
Tannery
10"
Upper level
Lower level
Blackwater
Canyon
THOMAS
Backdrops
8"
12"
Team track
Scale track
Edge of
lower level
Parsons
6"
12" turntable
Double-sided
backdrop
0"
Black Fork Hill
14"
Truck dump
4"
Engine terminal
Yard lead
Down to
Blackwater Canyon
16"
Kingsford
Charcoal
Edge of
upper level
2"
Up to
Thomas Yard
To purchase more John Armstrong

plans, see the four-volume Information
Station downloadable PDF series The
Best of John Armstrong. Click on
Downloads at ModelRailroader.com
Cha
WEST
rles
ton
Web
ster
S
V I R G I N I A prings
KY.
Th
Pars omas
ons
ELKI
NS
wn
Ha
ge
r
st
o
rla
Cu
m
be
rg
ks
bu
ar
Cl
OHIO
rk
cide to design your own model railroad

from the ground up, theres a lot you
can learn about layout design simply by
studying one of Johns plans. MR
er
sb
ur
g
nd
Illustrations by Robert Wegner
Pa
2"
To Baltimore
To Washington
Modeled area
VIRGINIA
To Richmond
Western Maryland
Chesapeake & Ohio
Baltimore & Ohio
15
Start Benefitting
Now!
C R N
DC ODEATIO
C L 4
DE TAL GE 7
S
IN PA
N scale shelf layout plan
New 4-12-2 in HO tes

ted
Dream it. Plan it. Build

it.
November 2009 www

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Learn how to
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rate extras
2"
cement transfer
Team tracks Bulk
Pillar crane
Freight house
Fast food restaurant

Bedford B&M depot
0"
Fuel track
Car float (barge)
Acme Engineering
Team track
Bristol Ferry
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I wanted one industr textile mill
that looks busy
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and city building
location combin
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from
Feature choicestransfers have always one I remember
Rail-to-water
s
By Brad E. Smith
the car float provide
planning
intrigued me, so
cars Full-size
Photo by the author
Terminal RR plan
ce new freight
My Bristol Ferry
Mouna
a way to introdu
HO scale Iron
barge serves as
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Railroa
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idea that I revised
that switch- lection operating sessions.
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lately Ive found
scale.
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proportion for N
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For added interest
nge adjusted the took shape, I transfer red
my
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and
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panded for use
is 18" wide and
The N scale layout
able
size thats manage
eight feet long, a
portable. I
still
and
for construction
approach to design
used a conservative
A pair of railroads
scale
serve this busy N
industrial district
RR
scale Bristol Ferry
Brad Smiths N
for two levels contrack plan calls
grade, typical of
nected with a steep
locations in New
many interchange
countryside.
Englands rolling
Diner
NH Depot
Water tank
actual track compotest fit some of the final adjustments.

any
nents and make
revisions, I quickly
As I did these final
of the
to kitbash most
realized Id have
available spaces.
buildings to fit the cars on the track
Then I set a few
menclearances and
plan to test the
each move. If things
tally envisioned
aligntrack
the
d
didnt work, I modifie s until I had all
turnout
ment or shifted
of the track plan.
of the bugs out
track with a
each
over
Next, I went
g
drew in the buildin
black pen and
a red marker.
footprints with
6.5-percent grade up
Wonderful Woolens
Main line to Boston
Bristol Ferry
Terminal RR
N scale (1:160)1
1'-0", 12" grid
Scale of plan 1 2" =
8'-0"
Layout size: 1'-6" x
photo locations
Numbered arrows indicate
New Haven tracks
Boston & Maine tracks
to
allows specific cars y
more cars. This
at each industr
be spotted and remainoperating cycle.
one
for more than
simulevels rear track
Since the upper
drawI added a Faller
lates a main line,
to inraised position,
bridge, set in the
continues on beyond
dicate that the line
Valley fuel
Illustration by Theo
at
The track plan
Cobb
a glance
Terminal RR
Name: Bristol Ferry
Scale: N (1:160)
Size: 1'-6" x 8'-0"
&
York, New Haven
Prototype: New
& Maine RR
Hartford RR and Boston
Locale: New England
Era: Early 1950s
Style: Island
feet
Mainline run: 8
22"
Minimum radius:
: no. 6
Minimum turnout
6 percent
Maximum grade:
this
be in the clear for
switch job has to
arrival. Then switchits
first-class trains
This layout offers
using the layout.
can continue until
kitbashing. Im
ing operations
ties for structure
return to Boston
ial
systems made by
time for the RDCs
Operating potent
the modular building
Models (DPM)
B&M yard and indus- (back into the tunnel).
ation
the
for
Preserv
water
Except
Design
owns
maintains a
also used some
, the New Haven
The railroad still
and Walthers. Ive
s tries at Bedford track on this layout.
so an occasional
at Bristol Ferry,
of the larger Walther
and serves all the
of Bristol tank
serve as the New
Cornerstone build- The car float slip in the town
locomotive can
steam
locorotated
Haven.
switcher. The NH
ing kits as raw ma- Ferry is served by the New
m, the Havens
ct
outlying yards
terials to constru
space is at a premiu cars motives from its small
termina ls for
nal Since track
three-d imensio
must pull its inboundthem back to the major engine
I
and switch crew
inspections. Thus,
distribute
structures, flats,
the float, sort, and picking up the monthly federal
a differgs. Since off
excuse to operate
low relief buildin
the same time theyre industr ies in have a good
my collection each
m, I elimi- at
d cars from the
of
ent locomotive from
space is at a premiu
all the outboun
nt this rotation
from
represe
to
docks
,
of month
Bristol Ferry.
nated the loading
along the front
for the largest. Instead,
the motive power.
railA storage track
new
waiting
the
industries except
the
in
cars
outbound
at freight doors
As the photo shows,its track is now
the layout holds
is a
I spot the cars
and
Next to the slip
g.
road is under way,
running
for the car float.
walls of each buildin
that receives tank
nal. Im already
laydual purpose track the railroad tug- fully operatio
ly operating the
nt size
s
trains and regular
loads of fuel for
Enhancing appareapparen
t size of the car and locomotives. The rest of this out as I continue work on the railroad
To enhance the
cabooses.
. MR
struc- boats
locomotives and
the streets and
structures and scenery
railroad, most of
of the track stores
switcher or road
edges
the
yard
from
Haven
has
A New
From
tures angle away
hobby veteran who
many of the build- unit is stationed at Bristol Ferry.
Brad Smith is a
New
disapfavorite
layout. Additionally,
his
with
of
Boston
models
line to
etrical shapes
under been building ent in many scales for
d here, the main
ings have asymm
square. I designe
equipm
a tunnel that passes
arent
into
Haven
workthat
pears
corners
When he isnt
the layout visually the B&M in Bedford.
more than 30 years.
has
my plan to make
open
project, he also
local RDC (Rail
congested, yet
on this N scale
The New Havens
scratchinteresting and
in this tun- ing
e HO layout, and
r to easily reach
car is concealed
at an extensiv
enough for an operato
cars Diesel Car)
Brad and his wife,
ed arrival time
s and uncouple
builds in 1" scale.
kee.
nel until its schedul
its manual turnout
depot. This arrival Sherrie, live in suburban Milwau
tool.
the Bristol Ferry
the
with a uncoupling
8 to 10 freight
ng operations, as
57
r
The car float carries has spots for can tie up switchi
Model Railroade
11/o9
layout
cars, although the
res
Fitting urban structu
many opportuni-
Visit www.ModelRailroader.com
Call 1-800-533-6644
Outside the U.S. and Canada, call 262-796-8776 x 661

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