RadCam posted:Hi Carl,
sorry for the late response I've been a little under the weather the last couple of days.
I will come up into the center of the layout when I enter the attic. When I mentioned a hatch in my previous post I meant for accessing the back portion of the loops. Not really a big deal, it's not something that's going to stop me, and if I have to climb over the top I'll just have to make sure I build the bench accordingly.
Funny you should mention adjusting the deck height. When I took my initial measurements I set up a stand at 30" put a box car on it and had about 2" clearance on top. I was all fat, dumb, and happy, until I realized I would probably one day have cars taller than a boxcar. I did have the car right up against the wall, and in the plan the outside track is 3.5"-4", from the wall. So I do need to reevaluate the deck height before I cut any lumber.
I've read the books by John Armstrong, and Tony Koester, recommended by the sponsor of this forum, as well as what I can gather from the internet on the operation of a model train layout. I'm also open to any recommendations. So I am trying to plan with a purpose in mind, as well as staging. I'm just not sure how much space I'll need to accomplish it. For the most part my free space will be inside the loops, and the outside of the corners. I'll probably be able to fit a small siding to the left of the top loop, and another to the left of the room access, but I don't think either one of those can be much longer than 4'.
I did play around with the MTS a little last night and actually had some fun with it. I was wondering if the train in MTS will derail if there is an issue with the track?
Thanks again for your help.
If it was a scale boxcar you should be ok. The autorack and a double-stack container are the only cars higher. if you have 7" from a 30" height at 3.5-4" from the wall it should be good.
The MTS train will stop or "derail" if there is a track joint that is not made in the software. It could be a place where you kinow you cut the track or wiggle it some to get a fit when you actually build. If that is the case, I make cut fits in the software for MTS running and rename the file "fit for sim" or something and keep the build file as is.
