Thanks Piggy. I will have to put some access hatches so I can easily get to the back area. I have considered it, but have not done it yet. I would like to have the ability to store long trains in there.

Thanks Thomas. Yes, I am fortunate to have had Haxpet's unconditional help. He truly is great guy. I believe the dimensions of the turntable/lokshed are 135 cm x 120 cm. In terms of track, he sent me a list with all the track required for the layout, in one of the revisions. That list does not reflect the latest changes that you can see in the posted pics.

What do you mean digital, feedback?

Sebastian,

I suggest you get a track planning program that works on the Mac. It would allow you to try out possible tweaks/ideas, etc. with little effort. The biggest effort would actually be in manually putting the present plan onto your computer. A commercial program that some people on the forum use is railmodeller:
http://www.railmodeller.com/.
I have a PC and use a freeware program, Xtrkcad, but there may be a Mac version now available: http://www.xtrkcad.org/Wikka/MacOSX

Thomas, I use Central Station. I would like to have traffic control as automatic as possible. Whether this means feedback or decoders or something else, I do not know at this point, as I am not that knowledgeable in this area. Of course, I do not want to take away from the fun as effectively control my trains and stop them whenever I want. I have a lot to learn, I know.

Thanks guys, I will look into railmodeller. Maybe I can work something out with it.

Thanks Henrik. Please find my answers below. In essence, I am not that good with layout planning, so I am bound to make mistakes. Any help would be appreciated.

A: Which one? I can't see it.

A: I was thinking to use the slim switches, so the passenger cars do not waddle from one side to the other when going through the switches. I know the station is short. Which solution would you recommend?

A: I know. I have that in mind and I will put one.

A: I don't understand. Can you give me more details?

Now that I watch the plan again, I think that you got the reurn loops already covered! (although I still dont see where they are connected, but it is clear that there are two of them ;-)

To get more length for the platform tracks, It´s like I have mentioned; you can dedicate 1 or 2 tracks in each direction to "one-direction" use only. You can then edit the plan, removing all the cross-overs and swtiches which wouldnt be necessary to enter the track in opposite direction.

A "dogbone" style layout is when you imagine one big singletracked oval line. Then you squeze it flat in the middle, so that you get a line with two parallel tracks, with return-loops in each end. Now, if you hide these two return-loops in tunnels (maybe even combined with a shadow station in each return loop) then what remains visible is a double tracked mainline. -Much like what you have planned already, except that the trains will be travelleing in both directions in the visible part, giving the illusion of "real" running and more variety compared to the standard "double oval" concept you are using currently.

What Piggy says is very important; You cant fit a platform in the 64mm parallel space. (which only leaves around 24mm free once track and ballast is subtracted.) Normally you would want AT LEAST 90mm between tracks for platforms. (meassured from track centres.) -although there are commercial platform kits available which will fit with 77mm distance.

Hi all.

As you all have figured out by now, this trackplan is made by me. So I will try and explain it a bit

This layout features both the dogbone and the merry-go-round. So your trains can go out in one end of the station and then enter the other end, or it can go out and enter at the same end. This works in both directions.

At the moment there is no hidden yard. I have made on to this plan but Sebastian haven't got that plan yet. But for the moment it's only 7 more tracks in the bottom level for trains from about 4 meters to 2 meters. I think it's possible to add a couple of more tracks. But I have been busy with other stuff for a while.

The size is actually 6.10 x 2.35 meters, and the roundhouse area is 1.30 x 1.20 meters.

I have made this plan so that trains can access all tracks in the station area, that is the way that Sebastian wanted it from the beginning. I have done other layouts where you have this right hand traffic. And then you only have to be able to access every other track.

And as you all pointed out already, these slim switches takes up a lot of room on the table, but the are beautiful.

Very good trackplan, How long by wide feets is it?