My grandest Model Trainz layout ever!

JonMyrlennBailey

Active member
An indoor G-scale layout with the floor space of two American football fields and then some. Probably the largest indoor G-scale you've ever heard of. The only thing about the building is the open sky as I can't seem to make a proper ceiling. In the real world, my ceiling would be painted sky color with some clouds and "daylight" light fixtures would be used. The doorway to to the massive train room, if it were physical, would be through the basement and up a ramp into the middle of the floor areas since the layout completely blocks a doorway through all the walls of the building.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srp0IifuD68

[FONT=Roboto, Arial, sans-serif]Jon's Double Gridiron G-Scale Model Train LayoutThis Trainz Route was started in February of 2018 and completed in May of 2018. Created in N3V Games Trainz Railroad Simulator 2012, Build 61388Based in the fictitious American town of Jonsville in the fictitious Squatch County and in an area typical of the rural Pacific Northwest with pine forests, a river, two small dams, a boating lake, a small town, a large campground, a small industrial complex, a mountain, a large central mesa, farms and ranches. This G-scale layout is housed in a special square building which floor is slightly longer than a football field: floor dimensions are 315 feet x 300 feet. The walls are painted from bench to ceiling with sky, forest and mountain scenery to make a wraparound diorama. The mainline is about 7.10 miles long in the form of a figure 8, the largest loop of which runs about the walls of the building leaving this loop massive with a giant pine-forest mesa in its center separating the train building into two major open-floor divisions and the smaller loop of the 8 is near the north-central wall of the building where Pine Mountain and Hemlock Grove Park reside. The crossover of the figure eight is a train bridge spanning over the tracks below. at ground level. The track is graded up an embankment to the figure eight crossover. The line tunnels through Pine Mountain on a grade. Two parts of the layout, the industrial complex and Lake Drummond park, protrude from the middle of the large loop of the figure eight into the east-side open walk-around floor area of such. Lake Drummond, a scale body of real water, is about 100 actual feet long and about five actual feet deep, being large enough for real humans to swim in. The mainline is a double-track system with standard American loading gauge. This is a standard gauge railroad scaled down to G-scale. The railroad is the fictitious 'Jon Bailey Home RR'. This is the fictitious 'Pine Mountain Division'. Note: There is a tour helicopter and amusement stagecoach and horse carriage rides for this layout also.[/FONT]

 
That is a lot of work done in a very short time. Well done Jon! Looks like you have some good AI going on there too.
 
Most of the train building footprint is empty floor space. Most of the train action stays near the walls and in the center of the building. This is the common modern approach to indoor model trains and puts the human observers as close to the train tracks as possible where all the railroad action is. I have even made some revisions to the layout just after this video was shot. I expanded the stables at Groves Homestead to house 100 horses for their amusement carriage rides offered to the public. The carriage animals need changing during the work day and during the week with alternating fresh horse teams. I also greatly shortened the concrete abutments of the crossover girder bridge of the figure eight making them much less conspicuous and more realistic. The section of dirt road is very narrow under this bridge where traffic goes to and from Groves Campground. One of the Groves brothers runs it while the other Groves brothers run the stagecoach and carriage rides. Anyway, I put in traffic lights so traffic only moves one way under this bridge at a time kind of like a road tunnel with a single lane. The lights work in a staggered phase fashion: 5 minute red followed by 20 second green followed by 10 second yellow (prepare to stop) and repeats endlessly. One end of the narrow road turns green (go) halfway into the five-minute red (stop) phase of the opposite end and the process repeats giving both ends alternating green lights every 2 minutes:25 seconds into the opposite end's five-minute red phase so there is never a traffic conflict along the narrow part of this dirt road. SLOW signs ensure traffic creeps through this curved narrow section of road under the train bridge.

Yes, I have fiddled with this route a lot to get the AI mode decent. The improved Wait For command helps a lot.

This route was built rather fast because it is mostly rural area in the boonies. Probably 500 trees were used or more. Mountains, mesa and forest. The town is small and the population is sparse. A major city would take several years on a layout. it is supposed to be a G-scale indoor layout that covers a little more than the area of two American football fields. The main line is about 7.16 scale miles long so the trains, even the heavy freights, have enough room to hit at least 50 mph for a short distance. The longer distance allows the trains to accelerate and brake more gradually and naturally and allows for broader more natural curve radii typical on American standard gauge. One a physical layout, track would be super-elevated as well in turns and curves would be easement curves for you civil engineers out there. I can't stand trains that barrel around tight turns or pick up speed much too rapidly and brake too hard. These are railroad trains and not roller coasters!
 
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Very nice work with interesting details scattered about the route. What is the red vertical line in the center of the view? A bit distracting. Too bad the backdrops don't have transparent tops, then they would blend in with the Trainz sky.

Even though I'm not much of a fan of recreating model railroads, this is not bad. I like to leave the space limitations of real model routes behind and go big. Also don't like to have my trains go around and around the same scenery.
 
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