Some of my track layouts

[zephyr1934]

Long ago my Lego trains outgrew my home layout. I have a roughly 10 ft x 10 ft (3m x 3m) double loop on the floor of my lego room. While it has some nice qualities like disappearing under tables and shelves for half the loop (it is important for trains to disappear for a moment), there's no storage tracks and I have several trains that are roughly 15 ft long (4.5 m). So my trains spend most of their time in boxes. Every now and then I'm able to get out to a large space and really stretch the trains out. I like to see those 15 footers go straight for a little while before hitting the next curve. Another important part of a layout is displaying your trains while they aren't running, so storage is also a premium. I settled into variants of this roughly 30 ft (9 m) layout for several shows.

It's nice because it has R120/104 loops, plenty of storage for parked trains and the inside loop has a little S-curve on the top leg so the trains bend as they pass. It is also designed for public shows so that the trains can run without paying much attention to them.

With thoughts of improving that layout I've expanded my track collection to include R104 switches and two of my favorite bits of track geometry: TrixBrix R104 double slip switch and R40 yard lead for compact yards. With those parts, I could probably get the layout down to 25 ft if I had to. But even a nice layout gets boring after a while. So I shook things up with this layout:

This one is designed for more attentive operations and the double dog-bone on the inside track proved for great fun when running.

Throughout all of this, there's that magic R104 switch where the geometry lines up for crossovers, but my outer loop is R120 so there's no graceful way of escaping the curve. For years I had been longing for a 3D printed crossover piece where a R104 switch could go straight across a R120 curve that matched the diverge on the R104 switch. Well, last month I checked what was new on TrixBricks and to my surprise they just released said part. And not only that, they also released an R120 switch. Whohoo! But before I get to that, another thing happened in my layout designs.

Last year we had a day long show and the trains were relegated to a 10 ft x 6 ft layout. Ugh! How are you supposed to store anything on a layout like that if you have R120/104 curves? I caved and put the yard in the curve, R88 and R72. While all of my trains are designed to handle R40 switches because most predate R104 switches (and most can handle full R40 curves too), parking trains in curves just highlights all the ugly overhangs. I don't love the look, but the economy of being able to store the trains in otherwise dead space is very helpful when you are tight on space.

Anyway, Matthias Runte http://mattzobricks.com already had all of the new parts in the BlueBrick library, so I got to playing. I thought to improve upon the double dog bone with the return at 45° instead of 90°, but that requires giving up a lot of storage on the top side of the layout. Ah... what about the curves! I went nuts and came up with a 25 ft layout (7.5 m) with tons of storage in the curves.

So much so, that for my needs the lower branch on the layout probably does not need sidings. I put a charging station for up to 6 locomotives in this layout. The basic loop is still R120/104. I envision mostly using the dog bone for both loops and only using the lower branch for storage. If I expand the layout another 5 ft, I can have the loop yards terminate on the bottom of the image while keeping the R88 curve going all the way to the current end point, giving me a switching lead on both yards.

Anyway, my TrixBrix order arrived (I haven't opened it yet) and I'm looking forward to my next large layout... now I just need to find an event.

[JopieK]

Very nice work. Thanks for sharing @zephyr1934. I should look into that if I get my new cellar in a few months (and hopefully be able to get my LEGO than back from storage).

[JWBDolphins]

Can't wait to see it!  

[Feuer Zug]

That's an impressive layout. I wish I had the kind of room it will take up. It looks like you took the image of all the curve radii and rotated it for each corner. Since you went crazy with all the spurs off the center siding, you could add curves to make them more vertical and extend them deeper into the empty middle area.

[Man with a hat]

oh, if only... I am so jealous.

But anyway nice layout. Interesting to read the reasoning behind it as well.

[bogieman]

Looks like a great show layout. Will you have it at Brickworld Chicago this year?

[SerperiorBricks]

On 5/20/2024 at 11:58 PM, zephyr1934 said:

This layout is very cool and looks really intricate, definitely my favorite.

That being said, what is the benefit of the green, orange, and dark red routes? If you're filling the layout with parked trains then why have those curves at all? I can only see 2 possible ways to run at once, without signals and/or crossthroughs. Though I know not everyone is looking to be someone like Sevbrick and run 6+ trains at once, you're spending a lot of space putting those curves in.

https://imgur.com/a/tPEOs4W

Yellow / largest radius: can run outside loop or go in to the middle route, cannot run a second train if using middle route.

Pink / second largest radius: can run second outside loop all the way around, but will need to crossover yellow track if using inside route or actively manage two switches.

 

Would it make more sense to limit the number of rings, or make more rings usable at once, then build something more prototypical for storage? or even wall storage? 

[Stereo]

I don't know if number of sidings or total length of siding is more valuable to you, but if you're building around the corner anyway, it opens up possibilities for some weird configurations.  Like connecting a switching lead in a loop to the other end of the yard so you can run around trains, or turn locomotives around on an interior wye without blocking either mainline.

(orange outer loop, blue inner loop/dogbone, green sidings) Of course I drew the switches at a pretty steep angle so this is more parallel than it would actually be.  The innermost siding serves as the second end of the dogbone, which is not entirely ideal but at least it's present, so if the tracks are clear you can turn around either way without backing up.

[zephyr1934]

@JopieK you're too kind. This layout all started with the R120 crossing part. The layout is only about the trains, no scenery no mils.

@Feuer Zug yep, used the curve radii layout for the yards, outer two tracks are for running, the rest for storage. The awkward legs on the bottom are for parking locomotives while charging the batteries. Most of my trains have lego lipo batteries that are built in. I don't want the sidings so far in that it would be hard to reach from the edge of the table. Oh, and I don't have room to set it up either. If I clear out the living room I might be able to test build half of it.

@Man with a hat well, the track just followed me home one day... and another day... and a few more days. And who can refuse a poor little lego track segment without a home?

@bogieman nope, no brickworld for me this year, and this layout isn't really good for BW, no landscape. If I were manning the layout most of the time I could keep it interesting, but there's so much going on at BW that I could never sit with my display that long (grin).

@SerperiorBricks remember, most of the curves are for storage. Here's the same layout with all of the storage on the bottom tracks

As you can see, there are only two loops for running trains. I am envisioning using the dog bone most of the time and only using the lower branches for storage. The extra curves on the dog bone keeps things more visually interesting when you are following a train. Only problem here is that the outside loop is not directly accessible from the yard. The goal of this layout is to squeeze a lot of storage into a short term 25 ft long public display, e.g., at the local science museum. Assuming I have collaborators that also want to display trains I'll probably need both the storage tracks on the curves and the straight yard in this layout... but I don't have enough of the R40 yard switches (doh!)

@Stereo Nice layout you have there! I have a bunch of trains that are 10-15 ft long, so I need long sidings. I don't anticipate doing much switching so the yard leads are not critical. That said, here's the 30 ft version with yard leads:

[Jon Reynolds]

All very nice and all very impressive layouts but....they are not exactly prototypical!  Great that you enjoy them and have the space too, though.

I think the availability of various radii via the 3rd party track systems affords us so much flexibility that we should explore going outside the rigid rectangle type layout with 180 degree curves at each end.  It's a great use of the space but still looks to 'Lego City' for me.  One of my favourite layout types is the dumbbell (or 'dogbone'), with hidden return curves at each end.  This creates the impression of a real section of railway with trains disappearing at one end, only to return from that same end a bit later.  I guess we are transgressing into the world of traditional model railways with that...but I'm all for it!

Play Well.

Jon

[Space78]

@zephyr1934 Intriguing layouts.  I just "re-did" my Lego train table.  A slight expansion, but I'm limited to 4 ft wide by about 10 ft long.  I don't have a lot of long trains.  At this point they are all regular Lego sets from the 9V and later eras.  What are you using for couplers to get a 15 ft long train? 

Using Lego magnet couplers, I find at about 7 ft, the magnets on the lead engine don't want to hold.

[zephyr1934]

@Jon Reynolds Indeed, these layouts are far from prototypical. Long ago, when I started trying to incorporate yards in a layout I realized just how insanely long real train yards need to be just to have switches to get to a few tracks wide. So I'm not going for prototypical here. As I said in my last post, "The layout is only about the trains, no scenery no mils." Something that could be laid out by maybe two people in a couple of hours. I don't think of them as city though, in my mind city is strictly R40 and usually 90° curves. I would agree, hidden returns would go a long way to make a realistic looking layout, I've always thought a nice touch of realism are gentle curves, maybe 22.5° S-curve out of R104 track.

4 hours ago, Space78 said:

What are you using for couplers to get a 15 ft long train? 

Using Lego magnet couplers, I find at about 7 ft, the magnets on the lead engine don't want to hold.

The 9v era magnets are stronger than the modern sealed magnets, so that helps in getting to longer trains. I used to supplement that with neodymium magnets to get longer. With the super magnets the trains would stringline the curves before the magnets pulled apart.

These days I use roller bearing wheels, they greatly reduce the drag, and the wide radius curves help a ton too. So you can get to 15 ft trains without the super magnets using the old 9v couplers. With the more modern sealed magnets and roller bearing wheels on wide radius curves you might need to supplement the joint with 1x2 plates or a super magnet. Just remember that you only need to reinforce the joints with the greatest force, so you don't need to supplement the couplers on the last half of the train.