Layout Drawing
January 2010 - showing the overall train room
NPF Railway is built into a 23' x 11' room that functions as train room, office, guest room and music room. The main entry is a 30" door; the floor is level with the rest of our ranch-style home. An 8' sliding glass door and 1' fixed window fill in the South wall (to the left in this drawing) and provide a privacy entrance for guests.
February 2007 - Highlighting Rework of 2004
Level 1 includes two lines, part of which acts as a double mainline (black track). Blue track is the addition and re-work of 2004. In addition to almost doubling the layout's track feet, this change replaced "dead man's curve" with a much more manageable 5-6% grade and O48 curve to the level-2 hill. Re-work also introduced a couple siding tracks. The turnaround at the South (left) end was all O31, and its "S" curve posed problems for smaller & lighter cars; the "S" curve has since been rebuilt with O54, which resolved the issue.
Level 2 added a long 2-track yard (the upper, purple track section) in 2004. The dark blue track is all from the 1999 work. The switches to get into this yard are a pair of Ross O31-O54 curved switches. These innovative switches really help to save space and to place the switches in easy reach. Unfortunately, yards see a lot of backing-up of trains as the consists are built up; these curved switches see a lot of derailments as a result. The track to level 3 has up to 10% grade on O60 curve, and can be a real adventure for trains to climb.
Level 3 has tight, 27-30" diameter turns at each end. It may eventually connect to the purple unpowered display tracks, but there is no connection at this time. As of Feb 2007, the red track and purple display tracks are in place; the purple switches are not. This means the only way for a train to get down is to back down through the level's only switch -- or to have backed up onto the level in the first place. Rework plans for this level include adding the purple switches and possibly changing the ends to allow wider diameter turns.
January 1999 - Introducing Gargraves Track and Ross Custom Switches
This second major rebuild of the layout added the East (lower left) leg and introduced a third level. The grade from level 1 to level 2 was much improved but failed to shake its Dead Man's Curve nickname: the trains rarely derailed any more, but came barrelling down out of control and frquently slammed into the side of an unsuspecting mainliner on the Level 1 outside track. The grade from level 2 to level 3 started short, about 5' long and as much as 18% grade; this was gradually worked back further into the display case to make a 9' track with up to 10% grade... still excessive, but workable for the short trains of level 3, and sometimes requiring helper service - just like the real trians did.
Coming soon - the early years, and first 2 versions of the NPF Railway layout.
Will It Fit?Different track systems are often slightly different sizes. Normally you'll design your layout with enough leeway that an inch or so here or there won't matter much. But for those of us that like to work "close to the edge" this can be a fairly big factor.
I tried setting up a bunch of O31 curves in RR-Track to see how big the curves actually are, and found quite a range of sizes. Keep in mind these are all measured center-to-center: the outer edge of the outer rail will be 1 1/2" greater than the center-diameter, the outer edge of the ties will typically be 2 1/8" greater than the center-diameter.
The red gridlines here are every 6". Turn off snap-to-grid temporarily to line up the top-most centerline point exactly on the gridlines:
Lionel O31 29.15"
MTH ScaleTrax O31 29.15"
Lionel pre-war O31 30.3"
RCS O31 31.52"
Curtis O31 31.52"
GarGraves O32 33.33"
For a closer look in RR-Track, we can zoom in on the bottom edge and position around the 30" gridline (5th red lind below the one each track is centered on). Turn snap-to-grid back on to get the dots every half-inch.
It would have made sense to include O27 and maybe all tracks up to O36 here. Oh well, maybe later, if anyone mentions they found this useful.