Here are some pictures of the space I have been alloted for my model railway fantasies:

Thanks for those thoughts David. Someone else also suggested I get water up there, so I'll definetely be sure to ask for a sink area, turn it into a proper workshop area.

The entire house is in a similar state, the whole beauty of the concept being that it is the purchaser that decides how the interior is to be redone based on the purchaser's own needs.

We'll be hiring a personal architect to redo the entire house from top to bottom, so there'll definetely be a fixed staircase installed that will connect all floors (at the moment there is no staircase)

They've redone the entire roof, and indeed have installed new windows, after heavy rain there was no sign of any new leaks or anything so that's already a good sign.

Will definetely be sure to ask about isolation - though I suspect a good deal of work has already been done in this regard.

In terms of lighting, would I be looking to install halogens or so?

Aside from just after the velux windows to the walls, I'd say the rest of the space is one where you can remain standing. 

Sounds ideal! Will need to read up on it!

Hello fellow AnyRail users,

It's been a while since I've posted any form of layout plan, but now that I have the architect's measurements and concept plan for the 3rd floor of our house (or 2nd, depending on what you call the ground level ), I've been able to iron out a new layout plan and move forward.

To be honest, I've been working on this for a good month or two now, but I wasn't comfortable releasing anything until I had the measurements confirmed. So without further ado here's a new layout plan for the North West Region of the Rosebourg Monarchy... or I guess according to the map that I've designed for this imaginary country, this would be more the centre region.

The layout is designed to allow me to operate full-length TGV trainsets, in HO-scale a TGV trainset is 2.4m long, so I've designed the platforms to be 2.5m - I intend to have a heavy passenger traffic and moderate freight traffic, as the region I'll be modelling is a capital region for this imaginary country, it'll no doubt get very urban.

I still have to complete trackage, delineate cities and buildings, identify where the landscape will be, and point out where the hidden track will be. Track will be doing quite a lot of up and down 0 at the bottom level rising to a whopping 40cm at the top, the gradiant is 2 to 2.5%.

For more details of the concept for my model railway, I invite you to visit my blog.

My layout calls for three major cities to be represented, Arnou - the capital city - where the terminus station is, Wouterke - a major city to the north-west of Arnou - with a population size nearly equivalent to that of Arnou, and finally Adamstadt which is a medium-sized city.

I've more or less finished placing the various kits I intend to use for Arnou. I intend to use the Tillig tram tracks to develop a small tram layout to run across the Arnou scene.

Still plenty of work before I am satisfied that I planned as much as I can, but at least it's moving forward. As mentioned before, I intend to go into way more detail on my own personal blog which will chronicle the renovation work being done to the house to enable me to live in it (and the trains) as well as the eventual building of this layout.

Without further ado:

Hi David,

Many thanks for your thoughts which I'll be sure to take into account for the next renditions of the plan. I'll see what I can do about increasing the amount of space available in the back. I had taken my cue from one of Model Railroader's book planning and they seemed to think that whilst tight, it was do-able. I should be able to squeeze a few cm's from the top though.

The four parallel tracks are in that position because I intend to buy the Trix Dammtor train station - due to the elevated track it requires, and the four through tracks it was one of the few ways I could integrate it and still keep a massive terminus station.


The layout essentially has two runs - one for my TGV express trains (pink line), and one for all of my other trains (dark purple)... As TGVs often run on their own dedicated line, I wanted to give them a trophy place on the layout (I also have a large collection of them!) - Aside from my freight trains, that shouldn't be too problematic as most of them are end-to-end trains - but the point is taken.

I've been trying to find more places to enable continuous running and I haven't found many places - but I think, based on your remarks that I definetely need to find more places... the problem is that a whole lot of the running space for the layout are either underneath Arnou's approach, or conditioned by the approach to the Dammtor station...

The light green track not being able to get to the west-side is half intentional, half not... there is a way to get from one section to the next using the middle double-crossover... In any case, most of the trains either are running exclusively on the TGV line and vice-versa, so it won't be too problematic.

I'll post updates once I've figured ways to enable a loop-to-loop