Laying model railroad track is perhaps the most fun part of the hobby. Once you start laying track, you begin to see your layout beginning to develop. There are several different brands of track and sizes available. Model railroad track is sold as sectional track, i.e., small sections of either straight track or curved track that come in 2-3 different standard radii, or as flextrack, a very flexible 3 ft piece of track that can be curved to whatever radius you want. Sectional track, but not flextrack, can also be purchased with roadbed attached. 

Loosely lay out the sectional model railroad tracks on your working surface as you have designed it on paper or on a software program – not gluing anything down, and not even necessarily joining any tracks together yet – just putting down pieces of track loosely to see how it will look. If possible, loosely lay out the whole thing as much as possible to really get an idea about how the trains will flow in the space you have available. 

Locate where you will be placing your turnouts on your model railroad track plan. Will you be using remote turnout control or regular manual ground throw switches or both? You will need to be able to reach the manual ground throw switches in order to operate them. 

You can now see if your model railroad track planning has been realistic with regard to fitting everything in. It seems that we all have a tendency to cram in as much track as possible in our planning; and then, when we look at it on the layout, it looks like a lot of spaghetti! If you find that you didn’t allow enough room for structures or scenery – a common problem by the way – you can fix it now before locking your track down.

Planning is key!