Still tinkering with a new layout for the garage. The big limitation I'm facing is the the right end can't be more than 6 feet. That end of the garage has a closet on one side and the furnace on the other and we need to maintain access to both. The left can be a bit wider. My design goals are:
1) Run 3 independent trains
2) Reversing loops on both levels
3) Room for all my operating accessories and maybe 1-2 more
4) NOT a lot of open room that would need to be filled with buildings/scenery
5) Avoiding the nested loops/bullseye look
6) Tunnels to keep things interesting
7) No turnouts inside of tunnels (made that mistake before!)
8) A large yard to keep all of my rolling stock and a turntable for locomotives. There won't be any room in the garage to put up storage shelves.
So all that said, I created a two level layout with the main board being 44" high and the upper layer being another ~10" above that. There would be a reversing loop and storage yard located under the main board. I'm thinking 18" should be enough of gap to allow me to see what's going on while seated. That would put the yard 26" above the concrete. The ramp down would be a 3.2% grade which should be OK since I don't pull huge trains. I plan to use Atlas on the upper two levels since I like the look of it but will use FasTrack for the storage yard since I already have a bunch of it and the switches are a bit more reliable. Also quicker to install.
Any feedback, suggestions, ideas?
