Help overcoming "builder's block"

Hi. I just read your post. When I get some down time tomorrow, I will take a look at your layout. 

Unless your platform is on wheels, putting the mountain on the edge against a wall presents one serious problem.  How will you fix derailments when they occur?  One solution would be to build the mountain in foam board that you can lift out when issues arise.  Is that your plan?  If so, no buildings or track up there.

Chuck

Either the top will come off if it just is a mountain, or the city will come off if it's flat for buildings on top.  And my arms are long enough to reach the middle of the layout when I stand against the side, so being just over 6'-6" across is not an issue either.

Sinclair,

I have some free time to work on the layout design. I do have a few questions!

What is the exact size of the table? I can approximate 180" x 81". Could the layout be widened to 88"?

Which sides will be against a wall?

How mature are your children? If you had a yard for switching and/or two mainlines had to share a portion of track, would there be a lot of fighting? Or do you want a separate loop for each kid?

It is 180" x 82.5", the flat end opposite the rounded end is the one against the wall (To the right in the image above.).  The table is already built and was built as wide as possible.  Below is a photo of the table in the room.  I fit it between my train wall and a chest freezer.  As you can see, just to let me run trains I threw my FasTrack I have for carpet running up there.  Under the table is storage as we don't have a garage or an attic to put things in.  The table was sized to have a loop of O72 track on the outer edge with 4.5" straights on the short edges and 100" straights on the long.  This gives about 3" from center rail to edge of the table except along the wall which is 5" from center rail to the wall.  This was to allow for the scale Big Boy to swing and not overhang the edge of the table (The little kids stand on kitchen chairs and lean against the table.  I'd rather not knock them down or slug them in the tummy with the leading edge of the boiler.) or hit the mountain/tunnel support that would be along the wall

My sons are 6 months, 3 years, and 12.  The 3 year old has a 5 year old friend that my wife babysits most weeks that also likes to run trains.  Every couple months I have a whole bunch of my nephews and nieces over and they like to drive trains too.  They are all in the pre-K, elementary school age group.  I have all the Thomas and Friends LionChief trains (6 of them) for them to run.  My oldest and I run TMCC/Legacy.  So I could do switching while my older 2 boys run with me, the 12 year old being able to interact with me.  I'd like to run at least 3 trains at once continuous for the times when all the kids are over they can take turns 3 at a time, so 3 separate loops.  But the loops having some kind of crossovers for the evenings after the kids are in bed I can do my operating.

Thanks.

Sinclair,

I've made several versions of a layout to fit your space. I'm going to start with this version so you can start thinking about options. This is a basic three oval option (O-72, O-54, and O-45)  with a reverse loop. The middle loop and outer loop are connected by a pair of O-54/72 turnouts. The middle loop and inner loop are connected by three #5 turnouts and one double slip turnout. The double slip turnout turns into a spur for the station.

Here is one version with all the buildings on the layout. I know in this version your passenger cars won't be able to get to the station due to the O-54 requirement.

This is the same layout with a loop to loop added for a fourth mainline.

Here's one more version before I get off the computer for the night. The O-72 loop is disconnected and is now a single loop. The middle of the layout is raised offering more space, which could include a yard now.

Posting the SCARM files for the layouts above for those who requested them.

Here's one more version, this time with a yard. Inner mainline is O-36, middle mainline is O-45, and outer is O-72.

I like this one with the yard, I might play with it a bit.  I also like how you use curved switches for both crossovers.