Over the years I have seen and been lucky enough to visit and run on many beautiful layouts. From Ted Schnepf's Fox Valley O Scalers layout, Jack Pette's HO scale Princeton and Sedro Woolley to the Reid Brothers N scale Cumberland Valley System. They were all great railroads and very enjoyable to operate.
I wanted my railroad to have operational potential, but also something I could operate alone. Other than helping my Father, I had never designed a layout, but had heard the horror stories from people who did and then found the finished product lacking in some important qualities.
At this stage in my life I do not want to build a layout only to find out I fell into one of the many "got ya's" of layout building. I had my ideas of where and when the layout should be based, as well as the types of scenes I wanted. In my mind it was better to get professional help and do it once rather than base it on trial and error. As Clint Eastwood said "A man has got to know his limitations", and I know mine. I handed all my ideas over to Ted Schnepf of Rails Unlimited. Ted designed the Fox Valley O Scalers layout as well as many others.
Below are Ted's rough plans. I will be converting these to CAD shortly. For now, you can see the actual room dimensions on the Layout Room page.
These plans are not set in stone. I am sure as I begin the building process there will be minor changes, however, this will get me off to a great start.
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