model railroading Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, t ...

, a ''layout'' is a diorama containing scale track for operating

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

s. The size of a layout varies, from small shelf-top designs to ones that fill entire rooms,

basements A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse b ...

, or whole buildings. Attention to modeling details such as

structures A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...

and scenery is common. Simple layouts are generally situated on a table, although other methods are used, including doors. More permanent construction methods involve attaching benchwork framing to the walls of the room or building in which the layout is situated.

Track layout

An important aspect of any model railway is the layout of the track itself. Apart from the stations, there are four basic ways of arranging the track, and innumerable variations: * ''Continuous loop''. A circle or oval, with trains going round and round. Used in

train set Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, t ...

s. * ''Point to point''. A line with a station at each end, with trains going from one station to the other. * ''Out and back''. A pear shaped track, with trains leaving a station, going round a reversing loop, and coming back to the same station. * ''Shunting (US: Switching)''. Either a station, a

motive power depot The motive power depot (MPD) or locomotive depot, or traction maintenance depot (TMD), is the place where locomotives are usually housed, repaired and maintained when not being used. They were originally known as "running sheds", "engine she ...

or a

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly ...

where the primary mode of operation is shunting. This includes layouts which are built as a train shunting puzzle such as Timesaver and Inglenook Sidings Common variations: * On a point to point layout, the train can increase the time it takes to get from A to B by going around a continuous loop a few times. * Single or double track or more, so more trains can run at the same time. * Intermediate stations, to distinguish between express trains which go straight through and local trains which stop briefly. *

Branch line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

s, to add an excuse for more stations and different types of trains. * Use of multiple levels. * Arranging the continuous loop as a figure-of-8, possibly with one track going over the other instead of having tracks crossing on the same level. * Folding one loop of a figure-of-8 over the other loop to produce a looped-8, so as to reduce the amount of space needed while keeping a long continuous run. * Using one or more fiddle yards (US: staging tracks) to represent the rest of the railway system. A fiddle yard is regarded as off-scene; it may hold multiple complete trains, and may also be subject to direct human intervention (fiddling) to re-arrange trains, * Dog-bone arrangement of a continuous loop; the sides of an oval are squeezed together so it looks like a double-track section with a loop at each end where the trains turn around. * Rabbit warren; a continuous loop folded over itself several times with multiple levels and many tunnels for trains to pop in and out of - often a small layout with sharp curves and short trains.

Station layout

There are three basic types of station, and sometimes combinations of these types: * ''

Terminus Terminus may refer to: * Bus terminus, a bus station serving as an end destination * Terminal train station or terminus, a railway station serving as an end destination Geography *Terminus, the unofficial original name of Atlanta, Georgia, United ...

'' or ''terminal station''. As the name implies, all trains stop here, and then go back to where they came from. * ''Through station''. Trains can go through this station; express trains don't stop, while local trains do stop briefly before continuing their journey. * ''

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''. The tracks diverge/join here. Other factors which affect the track layout of a station include: * For passengers only, or for goods only, or for both passengers and goods. * Use of steam engines and/or diesel/electric engines. * Use of trains which can be driven from either end, e.g. Diesel Multiple Units. The simplest possible station for passengers consists of just a platform beside the track, with no points (US:

switches In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type of ...

) or sidings. Both terminal and through stations can be as simple as this; a junction requires at least one point.

References

* "Adventurous Model Railway Plans." A. Postlethwaite. . Basic configurations, page 9. * "Basic Model Railroading: Getting Started in the Hobby." Kent J Johnson. ,

Kalmbach Publishing Kalmbach Media (formerly Kalmbach Publishing Co.) is an American publisher of books and magazines, many of them railroad-related, located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. History The company's first publication was ''The Model Railroader'', which be ...

, 1998. * "Railway Modeling." N Simmons, 8th edition, {{ISBN, 1-85260-596-0. Planning the layout Chapter 5. * "Track Plans", C. J. Freezer. Peco Publications, 2nd edition.
Layout Design Special Interest Group
see subpage: Design Primer/Introduction to the wide variety of layouts possible

External links

* http://www.plasticoferroviario.it – Hints and tips for model railroaders * http://modeltrains.about.com – Online resource for model railroaders * http://www.gatewaynmra.org/project.htm – Small model railroad project layouts * http://carendt.com/ – Micro/Small Layouts for Model Railroads showing hundreds of examples Rail transport modelling