The snow hasn't started yet so I'm back in my office, at least for a couple hours.
All children are grown and out of the house and the basement family room doesn't get used much anymore. I have a couple of small grandchildren and that's why I originally got back into the hobby, but then got bitten by the bug again. This will be the third "expansion" in the past year and a half.
I like the idea of the yard being sort of a display and, by using switches, the outer main loop of the new layout can either stay running just in the train room or go out and around the yard and back. The outer loop of the yard would stay open for train running and not be used for yard storage.
Yes, there is a boxed in drain pipe ( 6" X 9") in the upper right I have to jog around. It starts about 16 1/2" out from the right side wall. I figured the "empty space" in the corner would be good to use for the additional long siding.
I'm not concerned with how much additional track I might need to buy. Whatever I have now (about 95' of track and 8 switches, including command control) I will re-use, but whatever I need for new track and switches, I can readily acquire. The guys at Charles Ro have become good friends !
A couple of additional points - there is a structural steel post just above where you wrote "Family Room" so the length of the yard is restricted to 130", even though the wall, itself, is 142". There is a similar steel post inside the train room just below the shorter loop. Also, I can go a few inches wider to about 52" for the width of the new yard, but was trying to keep it to a single sheet of plywood. I intend to cut a window into the wall so the yard is viewable from the train room and vice versa. Hooking the new yard up to the existing layout isn't critical, but the outer spur of my existing yard in the train room (where the Rio Grande GP9 is sitting in the photos) is almost exactly where the outer main loop of the new layout would be, so its doable.
I'd like to be able to run two trains at once - so I have two main lines in the train room design and because of the small space, I've done them as O-36 and O-31. I've also tried to cut back the width (other than the two loops) to about 36" so as not to have too many reach issues. I'm not concerned about being able to run large locomotives or 21" passenger cars. I have one O-31 curve in my existing layout to access the yard and my LC, Legacy and rolling stock are all able to negotiate it with no issues.
Sorry about the lengthy post - thanks.
