Track Plan

This plan from an old Model Railroader(?) was the original inspiration for my plan.





I thought it would be a good candidate for conversion to a multi deck plan as it ran though the same space twice in most places at different levels with a lot of hidden tracks.

As it was in almost the same space I had I tried outlining a multi-deck version of it and was very pleased with the length of run I got although the curves where sharper than I would have liked and the isles narrower.

At the time I was plan to use this space for a On30 layout and the resulting plan was rejected the narrowness of some of the sections and the sub-standard gap between the levels would have made it difficult to scenic convincingly.

Overall Concept

The Albion, Lancing and Madison RailRoad is a fictitious line set rather vaguely somewhere east and set in a late 50's era. It's probably a class 3 railroad of some 200-300 miles length connecting the three largish towns in it's title while acting as a feeder line for several larger lines.

The model is in a 18.5 X 10 foot room at the back of my garage/workshop which is basically a small industrial unit, concrete block wall construction with a corrugated "abstestos" roof. This was formally the office area for the tool hire company that used to occupy it.

It's a point to point with six staging tracks at the lower end. It's arranged as a "Nolix" gradually gaining height as it winds around the walls and along a central peninsular. At various points it has two or three decks, and is designed to pack a lot of operation into a smallish space.

However, this has resulted in a lot of compromises, curves are 24 inch radius , trains are limited to 10 cars and the ruling grade is 2.5%.

My preferred type of operation is the way freight running between multiple towns with some passenger trains as well. The line will be run with Lenz DCC with wireless walkaround controls, most switches(Peco) will be operated manually and I intend to use some sort of car dispatching software.

Construction will mostly be 40 mm foam board supported by steel studding.