Model Railroad Layout Design for Beginners

this video is brought to you with support from my patrons on patreon hey everybody it's jimmy from the diy and digital and today we're talking layout design and where to start if you're a beginner back everybody first of all if you haven't already go ahead and hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any updates like this video so today we're talking layout design specifically track plans i want to talk to some of the beginners out there that are looking to build their first railroad or get beyond certain points and i also want to talk to people who want to expand their layout we're going to talk about design elements and what to do to make your layout more fun to operate for a longer amount of time so let's go ahead and dive in to track plan types the design that is the foundation for the vast majority of all layout design is the original loop of track we pretty much all start here most starter sets come with either a loop or a circle of track these are great for getting trains run quickly but they can get boring pretty fast when that happens we tend to either expand the loop into things like a figure eight or we add a turnout to go to some sort of industry this gives our trains something to do on our layout other than just run in circles when we want to add more interest the next step is to include a passing siding this helps with the trains being able to get from one side of the train to the other for switching and delivering cars from here you can expand the oval out you can add more industries with sightings or more passing sightings or even storage tracks for rolling stock and locomotives and for a lot of people this is what they want and this is as far as they're going to go whether it's because they like this or if it's for budget reasons or space constraints and that is totally totally fine model railroading is what you make of it and that is the one of the great parts about this hobby but for those people who want to run operations and stuff what does it take to run your railroad more like a real world railroad let's take a look at that real world railroads are a gigantic delivery network that takes goods and people from one place to another this means that the first thing you need to do to make your railroad more realistic is give trains a place to come from and go to you can do this simply by having a turnout that leads off the layout to a staging or fiddle track like here you can even make your layout look like it's part of a branch line and have the main line that passes by with a couple of turnouts to connect them this will also allow for future expansions okay so we've taken our loop of track and we've turned it into a full blown branch line but what if we want to do some mainline railroad modeling most of us like the idea of rail fanning our own railroad so continuous running is a must-have for that we start to mold and modify the look the first plan we get to is the l-shaped layout this really begins to spread the layout across a larger area and gives more room for industries and sidings another very popular design is the dog bone the dog bone can give the illusion of a double track mainline with loops at the end this is a very customizable design because it is a double track anchored by two loops so the shapes you make are only limited by space some people even fold them on top of each other and have elevation changes another variation is called the loop to loop which is where you have a single line of track connecting two separate reversing loops these require special wiring to prevent short circuits i have done this with an arduino in a previous video and i will link that right up here as well as in the description below there are tons of ways to expand the simple loop to your liking but what if you want to run your railroad like a real world railroad and you want to have a realistic track plan like those real world railroads it's time to start looking at non-continuous loop track plans there are two basic types of non-continuous track plans the point to point and the loop to point the point to point is the most prototypical track plan this is how the real world railroads design their railroad network they go from one place to another in the steam area you would have turntables at each end to turn the locomotive around but since modern diesels can run both directions equally well a passing siding is all that is needed to reverse a train's direction the loop to point is like the point to point except it has a reversing loop at one end this type of plan is far less common than the point to point you typically will find loop to points with a loop located in the hidden staging yards to reverse a train's direction one big element of realistic model railroad operation is off track staging now whether that is just a simple removable track cassette that you can plug in to the end of your layout or if it's a massive hidden staging yard complete in a separate room just know that staging yards and fiddle tracks make running a railroad more realistically a lot easier this video is brought to you with support from my patrons on patreon you can join my patreon community for exclusive content you can join for a monthly contribution of one dollar two dollar and the all new five dollar engineer level which includes an exclusive digital model of the month that you can download and print yourself a link to my patreon page is in the description below so let's take everything that we've learned and design a track plan based off of it in this plan we have taken a dog bone and folded it we've added places for trains to come and go to staging areas but still have a continuous running provision there is a passing siding for main line that train meets and we've taken our original loop and made it into an industrial area along the main line we've also added several other mainline industries on the left we have a point-to-point branch line that runs to a large industry remember that branch lines to single industries are only built if the industry is large something like a coal-fired power plant or if there are several smaller industries that are located on that route so we've taken our model railroad and we've expanded it from a simple loop of track into something that can take up a room or even be the beginnings of a basement empire now i have three things that you need to remember when you are designing your model railroad the first is don't let your eyes get bigger than what you actually want we've all seen those basement empires that are absolutely massive but the thing we have to remember about those is that the people that build them have taken years if not decades to build them out to the size that they currently are we're only seeing the finished product a lot of times they just start small or it takes a while if they're starting big and typically that's not that person's first layout it's more along the lines of third fourth fifth or sixth layout so just remember that to start small and expand building a layout is in my opinion more than half the fun now the second thing is that real railroads use the least amount of track possible in order to cut costs so don't go crazy with your track plan and putting turnouts here here here having double triple quadruple quintuple tracks going everywhere if you want something that's a little bit more realistic and you want to save some money use the least amount of track possible and use some thinking to figure out what i can do to be able to use just a double track or a single passing siding rather than having turnouts and sightings going everywhere and the final thing which i consider the most important thing so everybody listen up real quick is design a railroad you're going to have fun with that is the most important thing by far personally for me i love doing operations but i also love railfanning with a continuous running railroad so i will more than likely never have a point-to-point layout that's just something that it would be somewhat fun for me but i would want to have some continuous running so and that's different for everybody so design a layout that you are going to have fun with that is the most important thing so that is it for today guys i want to thank you guys so much for watching and then i also want to thank my patrons they're listed right here and if you want to become a patron there's a link in the description below and if you haven't already go ahead and hit that subscribe button hit that like button and hit that bell icon so you don't miss any updates like this video until next time i am jimmy from the diy and digital stay safe be kind and happy railroading and we're going to talk about that even storage sightings for passing sightings and more places to even store rolling stock and locomotives you

Channel: DIY and Digital Railroad

Views: 127,710

Rating: 4.9430275 out of 5

Keywords: ho scale, ho scale model railroad layouts, ho trains, how to, model railroad, model railroad operations, model railroad scenery, model railroading, model railroading 101, model railroading for beginners, model railroads, model railway, model train, model train scenery, model trains, model trains o scale, n scale, n scale model railroads, train layout, model train layout planning, model railway track planning, kato unitrack layout planning, model railroad for beginners

Id: oJL8DZO5mks

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 16 2020