Good day,
Been awhile since I’ve been here, but with some new ideas and starting to work on some new plans, I thought I’d pick the brains of some of you more experienced RR’ers. The last few years I’ve ran a Christmas train layout in my front yard to coincide with our Christmas lights display. This layout has not gotten a lot of round the year running, but with a new plan to extend a single track around the side of the house and connect to the future back yard layout, it could get some more running possibly in the future.
I have narrowed my space for the front layout. Instead of taking up a lot of area near the front door and the middle of the yard, I am going to make my boundaries to the northern most end of the yard, a space that is roughly 34 feet long and 24 feet wide.
This will have a loop, minimal sidings (3 at the most) with one turnout connecting to the line that will run to the back yard.
So my question is; what would some of you suggest for a smallish looped layout area, mainly used for Christmas running, but that can be utilized year round as an addition to the back yard? I guess my basic question would be, for some of you that have smaller layouts, would you mind possibly posting some pictures of your smaller pikes so I can garner some ideas to help?
The land is flat. I am thinking of experimenting with the ladder roadbed set in subbase of crushed 1/2 gravel, then fill in with a 1/4" granite ballast.
The layout is track powered with the Train Engineer system.
So, thoughts? ideas? questions? suggestions?
I’m all ears.
Michael
