The layout is in a 12′ square room (with inconvenient chimney breast jutting out) and was started nearly 5 years ago. I started with two layers. The upper was to be US outline and the lower UK outline. Over the years I have given up on the UK and gone wholly American.
My layout was originally envisaged as based on the New Haven in the 1950s on one layer. Last year, a friend suggested going down to the lower level and I also bought a couple of South River roundhouses. These then lead to a never built lower level with a steam servicing facility. This was to be set in the 1930s. You can see it here. However, the upper level just wasn’t working so I have now started pulling it down and rebuilding.
The decision was made to rip out my existing layout after some of my train friends convinced me that ripping out a layout was cathartic and good for the soul! I wasn’t happy with all the track on my existing layout so some of it had to go.
After a week of turmoil and sleepless nights I had some provisional track plans. A no-lix (helix around the outside) was the favoured plan but I was worried about the grades. Storage had disappeared under the layout and looping up in a folded figure of eight with one loop flat and including my exising elevated section which was cut out intact from the old layout. The storage itself was from the old layout to be cut out with tortoise etc included. I was hoping to save most of the items I had spent time on including the NEBISCO complex of buildings.
I am still ripping out electrics but will save my existing staging yard, an elevated section of track and a factory complex:
