renevandervelde
New member
I am looking for some 2 up to 6 baseboard layouts please. They could be HO scale or any suitable scale.
Any suggestions?
Rene
Any suggestions?
Rene
HO scale layouts from 2 up to 6 boards?
- Thread starter renevandervelde
- Start date
ray_whiley
Active member
Layouts in TRAINZ can be any scale you choose - it doesn't make any difference to what you see, only to the measurements shown if you use a ruler.
You might look at my Dukes Denver British light railway, end-to-end, rural to city, with five stations, KUID 275817:102393. This uses only TRS2004 built-in content so no need for any downloads.
Ray
Baureihe41
Banned
Not in HO scale, but it is only two boards: http://forums.auran.com/trainz/showthread.php?t=50404
You already have one...!
City & Country USA is a small but busy route that is a default route included in any version of Auran Trainz.
There is a major flat-yard, several stations including a city passenger station, a coal mine, a steel mill & can be configured with automatic load & unload tracks.
As with all layouts, it can be finished to you liking!
I use the route to test trains, locomotives, etc, or just to kick around the territory for fun.
It's big enough to keep you busy for hours, with different tasks & even has a session included in Driver mode, but small enough that you can follow trains in Map View easily.
City & Country USA is a small but busy route that is a default route included in any version of Auran Trainz.There is a major flat-yard, several stations including a city passenger station, a coal mine, a steel mill & can be configured with automatic load & unload tracks.
As with all layouts, it can be finished to you liking!
I use the route to test trains, locomotives, etc, or just to kick around the territory for fun.
It's big enough to keep you busy for hours, with different tasks & even has a session included in Driver mode, but small enough that you can follow trains in Map View easily.
One base board would fill a 2 car garrage wall to wall in N Scale. With that in mind, check out my one base board Elko and Lincoln on the DLS for 3 different versions of Trainz. UTC, TRS2004 and TC1&2. You want larger? My Niles and Hinton. Larger still? Gore & Daphitid Line.
ray_whiley
Active member
The advantages and disadvantages of model railways versus railway simulations have been discussed elsewhere, and after over 45 years railway modelling in nearly every imaginable scale and gauge, my vote is firmly for TRAINZ, with no limitations on size and cost.
Each baseboard in TRAINZ represents 720 by 720 metres in the real world. In the most common modelling scales this would be (to the nearest foot): 54 feet square in 0 gauge, 36 feet square in S scale, 30 feet square in 00, 28 feet square in HO, 15 feet square in British N, and 15 feet square in 2mm fine scale.
In HO, therefore, five boards end-to-end would (in the home) be 140 feet long and 28 feet wide, and 6 boards would be 168 feet long. Some layout! - a life-time's work - but easily achievable in TRAINZ.
I often draw inspiration for ny TRAINZ layouts from Cyril Freezer's 'PSL Book of Model Railway Track Plans'. The largest plan in this book measures 20' x 13' 6" (6.10 x 4.10 metres) and is for a loft. In HO or 00 this would (theoretically) fit on one TRAINZ baseboard. My own Dukes Denver light railway is based on Cyril's Holman Valley, approximately 13' x 10', straightened and stretched over 7 boards, still representing a total length of only 5040 metres (just over 3 miles) - but in 00 I would need a space 219 feet by 30 feet! In my opinion, this is the right way to use model railway track plans - enlarging realistic station layouts and linking them with a reasonable length of run.
Ray
Each baseboard in TRAINZ represents 720 by 720 metres in the real world. In the most common modelling scales this would be (to the nearest foot): 54 feet square in 0 gauge, 36 feet square in S scale, 30 feet square in 00, 28 feet square in HO, 15 feet square in British N, and 15 feet square in 2mm fine scale.
In HO, therefore, five boards end-to-end would (in the home) be 140 feet long and 28 feet wide, and 6 boards would be 168 feet long. Some layout! - a life-time's work - but easily achievable in TRAINZ.
I often draw inspiration for ny TRAINZ layouts from Cyril Freezer's 'PSL Book of Model Railway Track Plans'. The largest plan in this book measures 20' x 13' 6" (6.10 x 4.10 metres) and is for a loft. In HO or 00 this would (theoretically) fit on one TRAINZ baseboard. My own Dukes Denver light railway is based on Cyril's Holman Valley, approximately 13' x 10', straightened and stretched over 7 boards, still representing a total length of only 5040 metres (just over 3 miles) - but in 00 I would need a space 219 feet by 30 feet! In my opinion, this is the right way to use model railway track plans - enlarging realistic station layouts and linking them with a reasonable length of run.
Ray
ray_whiley
Active member
More thoughts _
In the layouts mentioned above, Nelson has a minimum radius of 1000mm (76.5 metres in 00, 87.37m in HO), Holman Valley 500mm (38.25m in 00, 43.68m in HO), and a typical 6' x 4' layout 375mm (28.7m in 00, 32.76m in HO).
In Britain, the minimum radius for passenger trains is 201m; below this a continuous check rail is needed.
Strangely, in 00 1000mm radius doesn't look too bad - I know, I've used it - but in TRAINZ a passenger train on such a tight curve looks silly. Why? I think it's due to the width of the baseboard - a foot or two on a model railway and 10 metres in TRAINZ.
As for turnouts, 293m minimum is typical on main lines in Britain.
In my view, why not use model railway track plans as a basis in TRAINZ but take advantage of the unlimited area to make them as prototypical as possible? That's what I do! (You can then call them by any scale you like if you want to use a scale ruler -but why bother?)
Ray
In the layouts mentioned above, Nelson has a minimum radius of 1000mm (76.5 metres in 00, 87.37m in HO), Holman Valley 500mm (38.25m in 00, 43.68m in HO), and a typical 6' x 4' layout 375mm (28.7m in 00, 32.76m in HO).
In Britain, the minimum radius for passenger trains is 201m; below this a continuous check rail is needed.
Strangely, in 00 1000mm radius doesn't look too bad - I know, I've used it - but in TRAINZ a passenger train on such a tight curve looks silly. Why? I think it's due to the width of the baseboard - a foot or two on a model railway and 10 metres in TRAINZ.
As for turnouts, 293m minimum is typical on main lines in Britain.
In my view, why not use model railway track plans as a basis in TRAINZ but take advantage of the unlimited area to make them as prototypical as possible? That's what I do! (You can then call them by any scale you like if you want to use a scale ruler -but why bother?)
Ray
Right you are Ray.
I sugest find the layout you like and make the curves wider and the straightaways longer which gives you more room fo sidings and either less steep grades or higher elevations. A good model railroad layout will be even better if given room to breath. That is what I have done on my Elko and Lincoln and was done on the Gorre and Daphited I reworked, both on the DLS.
I sugest find the layout you like and make the curves wider and the straightaways longer which gives you more room fo sidings and either less steep grades or higher elevations. A good model railroad layout will be even better if given room to breath. That is what I have done on my Elko and Lincoln and was done on the Gorre and Daphited I reworked, both on the DLS.
ray_whiley
Active member
And yet more thoughts ...
After writing the above posts, I had a look at a model railway track plan which I used nearly 40 years ago, by Cyril Freezer (of course!) in Railway Modeller magazine November and December 1956. This was an 8' x 6' U-shaped layout, portable on six baseboards, two 4' x 1', two 3' x 9". and two 3' x 2', a small rural terminus on one leg of the U running to a "fiddle yard" (hidden sidings, manual remarshalling point) on the other leg, via a 2' 6" radius semi-circle. (For those unfamiliar with a fiddle yard, this was an idea invented I believe by Cyril when everything to do with railway modelling was in short supply and modellers were usually faced with making their own - almost everything. The FY represents the rest of the railway system and trains can there be re-arranged by hand, with operation concentrated on the station - not possible in TRAINZ although portals could be used.)
In about three hours work I laid out the track, basic station features and signalling on one TRAINZ baseboard, replacing the FY with a second station. The 2'6" semi-circle (58m in 00) became one of 250 metre radius, much more realistic; the rural terminus took a loco and eight BR Mk1 coaches instead of a small tank loco and two coaches; the goods yard grew in length; and the whole thing looked much more realistic. The FY was replaced by a second station with two platforms of unequal length - perhaps a small town. Overall capacity probably about the same, which was five complete trains plus a few specialised vehicles. For many people at the time, these would have taken a good few years to construct.
Other advantages: between 80 and 100 metres from stations and track to the nearest baseboard edge, so room for realistic scenery. No baseboards and legs to make and join together, no wiring or point controls, almost instantly ready for use in one small part of the house (computer desk) instead of in a shed, and the scenery can be changed instantly if I want to without hacking away at plaster. And it can become another country if that appeals.
A disadvantage? - it can't be taken to an exhibition. But I don't do that any longer.
Incidentally, I used TRAINZ fixed track lengths in my usual way - as aids to planning, templates for curves, replacing them with spline track later except perhaps where short straight "anchors" were needed between spline points. In Britain at least, track outside station limits is seldom straight, but laid on sweeping curves to take account of natural contours and avoid expensive civil enginering work.
Ray
After writing the above posts, I had a look at a model railway track plan which I used nearly 40 years ago, by Cyril Freezer (of course!) in Railway Modeller magazine November and December 1956. This was an 8' x 6' U-shaped layout, portable on six baseboards, two 4' x 1', two 3' x 9". and two 3' x 2', a small rural terminus on one leg of the U running to a "fiddle yard" (hidden sidings, manual remarshalling point) on the other leg, via a 2' 6" radius semi-circle. (For those unfamiliar with a fiddle yard, this was an idea invented I believe by Cyril when everything to do with railway modelling was in short supply and modellers were usually faced with making their own - almost everything. The FY represents the rest of the railway system and trains can there be re-arranged by hand, with operation concentrated on the station - not possible in TRAINZ although portals could be used.)
In about three hours work I laid out the track, basic station features and signalling on one TRAINZ baseboard, replacing the FY with a second station. The 2'6" semi-circle (58m in 00) became one of 250 metre radius, much more realistic; the rural terminus took a loco and eight BR Mk1 coaches instead of a small tank loco and two coaches; the goods yard grew in length; and the whole thing looked much more realistic. The FY was replaced by a second station with two platforms of unequal length - perhaps a small town. Overall capacity probably about the same, which was five complete trains plus a few specialised vehicles. For many people at the time, these would have taken a good few years to construct.
Other advantages: between 80 and 100 metres from stations and track to the nearest baseboard edge, so room for realistic scenery. No baseboards and legs to make and join together, no wiring or point controls, almost instantly ready for use in one small part of the house (computer desk) instead of in a shed, and the scenery can be changed instantly if I want to without hacking away at plaster. And it can become another country if that appeals.
A disadvantage? - it can't be taken to an exhibition. But I don't do that any longer.
Incidentally, I used TRAINZ fixed track lengths in my usual way - as aids to planning, templates for curves, replacing them with spline track later except perhaps where short straight "anchors" were needed between spline points. In Britain at least, track outside station limits is seldom straight, but laid on sweeping curves to take account of natural contours and avoid expensive civil enginering work.
Ray
Johnda1237
New member
I have used two baseboards to transfer 8x4 layout plans to, The aspect is similar and the expanded size makes running more enjoyable. Once the main route is laid in, I then can add sidings or main yard as I like.