Model railroad layout guide 1, researching your plan

What do you think of when I say model railroad layout. Is it big, small, sitting on bookcase ? Now what are your needs. Do you have the space ? and if so do you have the time. All these questions may be bringing you down, my intentions are to encourage you to see the value of a project plan.

In this Hub I am going to make a plan for my railroad using various free tools online. We will address tangible room size, layout size and shape, the time period we are modeling and the general geographical area.

The Numbers

Ok it has to be done. We need to do some work to get this done right. A tape measure is needed to size up our location. Below is information we will be using to keep the project on target.

• Room Size:

• Layout Size:

• Modular or Permanent:

As I am building for a future large permanent layout, I am going with Modular, 2'X4' default sized modules. This way I can build each module to finish before moving on to the next. As each is completed I then put them in storage.

Once we have put together where and what size you have to build this layout. Before we start creating scenes and the masterpiece arrangements we need to make a plan.

Plan, for what ? It is so much easier studying a topic then it is to not have one. We need to write down what you want to portray. These points will further guide you to sources of information about your desired railroad or location history.

• Time Period (Era)

• Geographical Area

• Do you want serious operations or a continuous run

In my case the time period is 1930's, Southern Ontario and Serious operations in design. I am not a bit operations kind of guy. I do want friends to operate it though.

To research you plans goals we need to check many different sources, Google being the first. Google Maps is an invaluable product for exploring the possibilities of your project plan.

By collecting screenshots and Geo data on these locations we become able to start thinking about our track plan. Not only the track plan, we can find structures to plan and build.

Next Hub we will discuss how to string these images together and make a track plan.