Posts Tagged: geometry

Mod­el rail­ways, like the real thing, tend to be fairly flat.  If you want ot have more com­plex lay­outs with gradi­ents you need to plan care­fully in advance, and avoid the tempta­tion to cre­ate an unreal­ist­ic (and undrive­able!) incline.

Below is a lay­out which fits a triple loop design into a typ­ic­al shed of 12ft x 8ft. This gives a good length of run between each sta­tion and still leaves plenty of space to reach the entire lay­out and add some scenery.

Below is a track plan for a reas­on­able size approx­im­a­tion of the former Shef­field Vic­tor­ia sta­tion lay­out.

I have recently returned to mod­el rail­way­ing after a hiatus of over a dec­ade. Since I last mod­elled, things have changed con­sid­er­ably, with the wide avail­ab­il­ity of mod­el­ling soft­ware which allows lay­outs to be care­fully designed in advance — ensur­ing the design will fit in the space, and that the required track is avail­able.