Further track planning reflections

After coming up with a concept that I liked, the next stage is to find out what sort of space it would fit in. Looking at the sketches, I felt it might fit into an area about 4' x 2'. Which of course, is twice the size of a proper micro layout. But I'm OK with that. It would certainly be a micro in 4mm scale. 

Besides I have a little "cheat" definition I use in the larger scales. I consider the footprint of the track area. If that's less than 4 square feet then that's OK by me. 

Many micro layout planners, (myself included) plan their micros full size, using points and track, or track templates. But when the inspiration hit me, these were not to hand. So I tried planning in one of my iPad apps. I have an App called "Graphic" that I'm learning to use. I can blunder my way around the features and managed to scale up the sketches into something that makes sense, (well, it makes sense to me anyway).

I could write considerable amounts about the ins and outs and the minutiae of the designs. But that would be boring. You can see the plan works and fits in the area I considered originally. I'm sure that it could have a few inches trimmed from it here and there to reduce the size and a 4 square foot "true micro" may be possible If you use the tightest of points and sharpest of curves. Though some of these curves could be susceptible to buffer locking on some of the schemes.

The final track layout will depend on what I can lay my hands on here in the US. I think I may have a preference for using PECO medium radius turnouts. But a sharper Setrack point would not be out of place given the light railway subject matter. I will be taking a look on eBay to see what I can find.

Next, I need to come up with an arrangement of structures for the industry. Some kind of stone crushing or stone dressing plant was what I was originally envisioning. Looking for, and developing the design of structures is one of my favourite parts of layout design. We will see what I come upon with in the next post.