My current layout
After my move to Enschede in 2020 I became a member of the Twentse Modelspoorweg Club here in town. Of course this gave my modelrail hobby a new boost. Initially however I have mainly been busy for the club. First with the three modules (for the Open Door Days) and a large part of 2023 with building the villa Ledeboer for the club layout. So my own layout showed little progress.
I therefor decided that I wanted to put some time into my own model railroad, before starting a big new project for/at the club.
Layout design 2023:
In some lost hours I had already made a design, for the first time on a computer, with the paid versie of Anyrail. This is a very user friendly program, with an extensive library of track from various brands.
Because the room that I had available is almost square, with a door in one corner, I first had U-shaped setup in mind. But a disadvantage of such a U is, that you only can send trains up and down between the two ends, òr that you need a turn of at least 180° at both ends to make trains turn around. Both did not appeal to me. I don't like endless shunting. And for a half circle you nees almost a meter of space (when you do not want to use sharp bends). I also wanted to limit the depth of the layout to 80 cm, so that you can reach everything more easily.
In the end I therefor choose to make a circumvent layout, with a removable bridge near the door. In this way you can use the complete length or width of the room to have track rise or fall between levels. With some puzzeling I managed to limit all slopes to max. 3 cm per meter.
Total overview of the current design.
On a special page an enlargement is available, including separate drawings of the different levels.
Model of an earlier version of the current design.
Before I start the real building I like to make a small model in cardboard. With that mistakes (and extra possibilities!) in the design can be traced more easily.
The model in the photo is an earlier version than the drawing. E.g. in the lop left corner an extra hidden track has been added where a train can be stored unseen. And the blue track in the top right on the lowest level has been displaced for better accessibility.
Current situation
Currently (december 2023) all wooden frames of the layout are ready. The complete layout is made as modules of always 80 cm deep and maximum 1,08 m long. This way I can take out each piece seperately, and transport it to my workshop for 'dirty' jobs like painting and plastering. The fact is that the floor of my train room has a fitted carpet.