@E-Unit-79 - Thanks!
@Bogart - Yes, there's about 21" between the benchwork and the shelving along the left side, and just a tad more around the top side (I'll see if I can add the other basement "fixtures" to the layout for illustrative purposes). The entire layout will be in the middle (more or less) of the basement, although the top and left sides are not intended to be young-spectator walk-around areas.
@Will - It's amazing how much a "large" basement shrinks once all the "home" stuff is put away neatly in boxes on shelves. Then adding even a small walk-around path for containment purposes eats into the operating area. I'd love to go corner to corner, but then that cuts into the shop area, etc. I have to make the best with the space I have (I'm sure we all want bigger!). The same goes for scenery -- the plan is to be able to run as many trains as possible, and I'll fill in scenery as space permits. Thanks for your support of the two wyes -- the O72 double turn-around takes up a lot of space, and it took a while to come up with this particular setup.
@PRR1950 - You're correct about the circles -- they are to help me see where my reach limits would be. My bad on the yard -- I added the yard after placing the reach circles, so yeah, that'll be a potential problem as well. My intent is to make the yard as long as possible once I see how everything looks in the real world. This is iteration 9.7 of my design, and the first with even a hint of a yard, so I was quite happy. Of course, more is better, so we'll see.
Thanks everyone for all the helpful advice so far. I'm going to try tweaking the layout based on the feedback. I know a lot of this layout is just a lot of circles, and that's why I added the crossovers and turnarounds -- to change things up a bit. If anyone has seen plans that fit into the same 12ish x 16ish is space, and lets you run at least three simultaneous sets, I'd be VERY interested in trying to adapting it to my layout.
Thanks!
-Frank
