I'm still working on ideas for a 36"x80" N scale layout that I plan to start building next year. Previously I've been playing around with a Carolina Central concept for that project. But, a viewer suggested looking at Kunihiko Ikeda's books on Amazon and so I bought a couple of his books and really love some of the concepts in them.
►Kunihiko Ikeda Layouts Book 1: https://amzn.to/3M8TLY9
►Kunihiko Ikeda Layouts Book 2: https://amzn.to/3M8bIpJ
Two of the layouts, the Mason and Manchester R.R. from the 1st book and the Port Beatrice plan from the 2nd book really interested me because of the multiple track levels, river, water scenes, and the urban setting to them. I've recently been inspired by the urban settings in Jason Jensen's layout, as well as Eric's Chicago Crossing layout and so want to lean more towards a dense urban theme for this project.
►Jason Jensen Trains: https://youtube.com/@jasonjensentrains?si=9ZenPCeu8Co0b673
►Chicago Crossing Model Railroad: https://youtube.com/@chicagocrossingrr?si=XG1o9u8Hc3EpdLd5
So, I took the Port Beatrice design from the 2nd Kunihiko book, but modified it to have larger minimum radius curves. In this concept here, there are two track loops with a double cross over connecting them along with a single cross over. The outer loop which has no grade to it, has a 12.4" minimum radius curve, while the inner twice-around loop has an 11.1" minimum radius curve. The 12.4" minimum radius is broad enough to run just about anything in N scale even if it doesn't look fantastic, and 6-axle diesels will still navigate the 11.1" radius curves just fine.
This is a bit of a spaghetti bowl of a layout, but much of the track will be hidden with access from the back and sides. With the double crossover, you can have a single train make three laps around the layout without traversing the same section of track which will allow for running some passenger and other longer trains without them chasing their tail too much. There is also a staging track on the back for storing another train. I'll likely integrate some of my ChooChooVision cameras on this layout as well for viewing hidden tracks and the like.
Here is a first guess at structure locations and such but I'll probably have even more structure density than this sketch indicates.
I want this to be a visually interesting layout and one more for watching trains run than doing switching operations. I would like to take this layout to train shows and so want to have a lot going on in a small space, along with full lighting, signals, etc. This would be a project I would work on for multiple years while also working on other smaller project layouts.
Anyway, you can watch more in the video below.
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