You could go dystopian with it. That way it can be whatever you want. Or a Fallout type design that way you could display most of the track, abandoned buildings, burnt out cars? My first thought was Switzerland and not any type of direct copy but hidden things and build out towards the camera, to keep the surprise effect of where trains are coming and going. I think you’ll regret a tear down.

One of the most challenging aspects of building a layout is to plan not only the track but the scenery balance as well. While the trains are certainly very cool to watch as they weave in and out of each others paths, I agree that there isn’t much else you can do. Might I suggest that you perhaps use a tiered with minimal elevation change per line rather than an interwoven approach. You’d be surprised that with building bridges in the front and keeping things in the back steeply vertical, you’ll be able to stack 3 or 4 train lines in a relatively small space and still have room for scenery.

You could make cuttings etc for trains to run through. I like the multi layer effect. At the front, you could extend the base board for a town, station etc. I would also consider installing turn outs to join loops together so trains can change loops adding more interest

I wasn't expecting this question from you as I'd have thought that was included in the track plan. However, What I'd do is make a multi-layered scenic layout. Build embankments on the inner side of the tracks, create vanishing points with gaps and add in small scenic area, such as cabins and use trees instead of tunnels on the hill sides. Where you have a lot of open spaces, create small scenic areas, lake with a waterfall running from the top. I'd also extend the front a bit to give you some form of yard, logging with a small Inglenook shunting option.

Starting a new project is always fun .... I just tore down my 4x8 layout and I am starting a new L shape point to point layout for doing operations instead of watching a train run around in circles ..... I'm going to post picture videos as I'm building it 😁👍

Everybody has the little towns in their layouts maybe just a few hillsides n tunnels and enjoy the multi-level madness 😏😉✌️✌️👍

I like several of the comments so far. I think you could some interesting bridges close to the viewer along a mountain slope (zone 1). I think a lake below the upper level of zone 2 with a train in the near side bridging over the output from the lake. Not sure about zone 3. I think you could also add some space off the front of what you have built so far to give you some more real estate.

I think starting over is your best bet. Too many model railroaders use too much track and forget about where these trains are going and for what purpose. Maybe eliminate a line to see if that opens up enough real estate for your buildings and logical scenery. Good luck Ken!

Section 2 and 3 could be a city scape. Walls could be background sceneries

cut out a few circles of foam to cover access wholes build some tall mountains with trees goats, waterfall a house or two with access road to name a couple ideas

You add landscaping supports with hills. Make cuts. Look at actual railroads and you will see how to make the next step. On the buildings you can reduce their size. You just have to give the impression that a building is there. What you need to figure out now is how you are going to make removable sections of scenary.

railroading is a dream. you can do anything you want to do. :)

Elevate a section in the back between section one and two so you can use that for village. Put some mountains and that surface can be scenic space

Track work is perfect.

Ken, what if you filled in the round cutouts. Put them on hinges so you could use that area for landscape. You could still gain access to the back by opening them. Just would need to be glued down very good.

How about adding even more complexity with moving cars/trucks/bikes using something such as Magnorail. There looks to be enough room on the baseboard, and could also have bridges and additional raised sections for roadway. The beauty of what you have created so far is the mesmerising complexity, so try building on that rather than going the conventional route of adding scenery.

I always thought this looked futuristic. Maybe some dystopian world where there are only trains. Maybe some crazy towers in the loops. I think I’ve lost my mind.

Make a mountain in the back and have a winter mountain village.

How big is the room, you are in? Can you just add on to the track system and do a Alaska type of land with the mountain range and narrow land along them. Take a look at the railroad system in Alaska for help with ideas!

Your going through the growing pains of being a model railroader. In most train people's eyes the railroad is 1) What you enjoy2) doing what real railroads do. Mive goods on and off their railroad. Modelrailroading is only fun if your doing what you enjoy. Take your time ,it will come to you.

Ken build what you want, it doesn't matter what someone else wants keep yourself happy.

Love your channels, please leave your train tracks as is, your work is fascinating

Where's your bib overalls and engineer cap??? That'll give you some inspiration LOL. Be healthy, stay safe and many blessings, Morgan

Ken, I helped a friend with a large layout like yours and he had the same dilemma. His access holes were visible to a viewer, so we decided to build a hinged board the same shape and he glued his diorama to it. It hinged down when he needed access. The raised tracks had a combination of mountains with tunnels and hillside villages. May be that may work for your setup.

Good day Ken, the BIG question ? Train layouts take a lot of thought FIRST ! Your track now reminds me of the L.A. freeways, five layers high and going every witch way. No room on this layout for scenes ! ?????

Ken, have you thought about pulling the layout out a couple feet away from the green screen to give you access to the inside of your mountains and tunnels instead of through the holes? You could then build plateau space for modeling buildings of some sort in the area where the circle cutouts were. Also, maybe you could extend your table on the front side and develop that area? It would just be a shame to wreck such an interesting track layout.

Build scenery on the access holes that are removable if you need to get in to work

Ken is there anyway you could build another little section in front of the others for your village???

Cool Trains! You could add a section in front of Section 2 for a village as part of the L Shape. Maybe removable if need be.

Interesting dilemma! If you could find a good design program you could load photos of your layout and experiment with options. Certainly the access hatches would help a lot. Creating trestles and bridges with your elevated platform would provide interesting visuals. Montains and large trees to scale in the back would help bring a very strong visual. This is where many scale railroad hobbyists run into snags. Be patient my friend and experiment! For many of us it's the journey that brings the most challenges and joy, the finish is just a delicious dessert!!!

You coul have the table level track as an open fronted tunnel, lifting the scenery level up higher to open some more space

Possibly, determine where you want, villages, industry, etc. And maybe take 1 track out, then run longer trains, so the scenry is still populated with trains running.

Have you ever considered modeling the coal country of Pennsylvania? Some of your track work would go along with some of the scenes and towns settings that I’ve seen and Sheridan PA just outside of OHIO. You also have some areas that look like the Virginia mountains. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

If you have the room, move the layout away from the wall so you can access all sides, thus avoiding the gymnastics required to access the inner parts of the layout. I think it will make it more enjoyable.

Make the front of the layout like the tracks are on the side of mountains or cliffs. The back of the layout will be the mountains where the tracks go through and are not seen . Maybe the upper level will have some exsposed track and little town or homestead scenes. Will give the oportunity for different types of bridges and trestles. False front buildings and mirrors can do a lot in a small space. Forced perspective may work but will be hard with this layout. You can have waterfalls. I'm thinking it would be like a narrow gauge RR but not as dainty.You can have little super detailed scenes. Check the Franklin and South Manchester RR for ideas.

It's too cool to tear any of it down. It's awesome ... just needs a little 'city planning' and 'zoning'. The only current usable space would be wonderful for the Grand Train Station. Then, maybe consider adding a half sheet (2' x 6' or 3'x 6') extension where you stand currently (which would is in front of the train station). This would provide a lot of space for a town, park, etc. All three of those 'access circles' are lost space in Kenville. You could put some 1x's ledges below the black plywood, cut a circle to fill the access circle hole and then you have three surfaced (and removable) areas that can have houses, trees, ponds, animals, etc. Your brothers train layout incorporates a race track, but you could just layout a street (with little cars/trucks) connecting the new circle areas to each other. If you add the half sheet to Kenville, that whole area could be the town, looking towards the train station, holes 1, 2 and 3. Just thinking out loud. Maybe visit with your brother and brainstorm ideas. The mountain backdrop idea you have is also cool. Or even, a city skyline looking down on Kenville. God bless.

Hi Ken & it's is Randy and i like yours video is cool & Thanks Ken & Friends & Randy

Connect your two layouts run a line between them. Big city small town. All you need is a track wide base (wood) between them.

Would love to see the trains going along mountain sides. Maybe a tunnel or two. You could use your mountain building skills to include flattish spots for roads and buildings of all sorts . I think that would make a great scene. Just a thought :)

I love what you have done so far. I have built and torn down a number of layouts, and I would encourage you to continue with scenery on this layout. Lots of mountains and tunnels with trains popping out and disappearing. Sometimes when I reach a point on my layout that I don't know what to do I stop for a while. I've told many people that my model railroading hobby is for fun, it's not work, so if I don't get anything done for weeks or months, that's ok. When the ideas hit me, I jump in and keep going. Halfway through every layout my skills are better than when I started and I always think "oh I should change this or that and start over, but there is really something amazing about a layout with a lot of completed scenery.

Maybe pull the table away from the wall, and make the table bigger so you can have houses and factories around it, maybe make the whole garage a train stations lol and tunnels are a great idea, but this is your project do what you want, what makes you happy.

I like the idea of the mountain scenes. You could put your Villages or town on top of the mountains the tunnels are another awesome idea I like tunnels because it hides the trains gives you a little bit more distance as far as parents I think on the other side you could put a mountain scene around the track in the middle of the track and leave that open so you can see the three trains running. I think you go with what you have those are my suggestions. And I would use a lot of trees I love trees that's the other thing I would do and maybe with that you'd want to use fall like colors good luck with whatever you decide to do. Be looking forward to seeing what you come up with

There is a lot happening with the three trains. All of these trains are either going too or coming from far off places. So when I see this layout I see a busy hub central area to off load or to load up. Maybe a shipyard would be cool with cranes and buildings. Or just make it a city with tall buildings and factories. Happy Railroading! 😊

Great job and engineering, but it is very unrealistic, if one end of your platform was several feet higher or lower the spiral would move the train up or down and allow for landscaping. Still looks interesting for a stripping or mining operation

Encase your helix in a mountain. Use carved foam slabs as lift off mountains for access to tracks. Create mountain plateaus on the upper level tracks and the mid level tracks and use short tunnels. The plateaus can be the footprint for your buildings.

As you stood there with your saw ready to go, it looked like you wanted us viewers to make some "cutting remarks". 😂

Hi Ken, Like the layout! How about building some mountains/villages on the cutouts for the access holes and make them removable for future access or changes.

You could use some bridges in there. That might be a fun project

Keep in mind that the layout doesn't have to be realistic, it's not realistic as it is actually. You never see a scenario where there are three trains on top of each other winding around, so you have created an unrealistic layout, and could continue and not worry about making it photo realistic. So for instance in section 1 since there's not a ton going on over there, you could cover that area and have all kinds of space to build buildings and whatever you'd like. If you were to cover the bottom two tracks on the front of section 3, you would have all kinds of space there to add things too.... I think if you start thinking of it as not realistic, but it's own little world, you may get some inspiration.

I really like the layout, it has inspired me to follow and design one similar. You could actually put the town buildings on the layout in the areas by the tracks. Look up Wichita falls, Texas for pictures the highways are over the streets, maybe it can give you some ideas.

PLEASE keep the track. I love the track layout. Like the idea of shoehorning in landscaping and buildings wherever you can.

I can see facades of mountains with illusions of tunnels that you can still maintain from behind if any trains come off the track. Maybe the ski trails could be coming down the facades of mountains with a town at the bottom of the hill, if you can extend the table in front.

Please put Sawzall away and enjoy running your trains for a while. Take your time designing mountains, tunnels, cliffs, and bridges. Remember how much fun it is to watch a train enter a tunnel and try to figure where it will come out? You didn't design this as a switching layout, enjoy it for what it is. Thanks for all you do.

Mountains with log cabins and hikers. Ski lifts and skiers. Swiss alps!! Passenger trains.

Ken, build up the surface where you want the village with that sheet insulation. Make a couple of tunnels but not too many.

Yep, you are right. Other than making drop in panels and making some bump outs in front you have little real estate. If you are unhappy with creating more real estate, you may want to move on with a new idea. Cheers, Lee

I wondered where you were going adding all this track ! But you’re having fun and I was having fun watching you ! I’d say use cut block retaining walls for tracks in the foreground that are close together. As for the access areas, use removable sections and either a mountain area for one, a downtown area for another. This way you can remove the areas to work on them and to gain access as needed.

Maybe create lots of scenic bridges over gorges/ravines. Mountains would be cool too. You could use concrete form tubes on the inner circle parts of your layout to build elevation foundation. Faux finish or paper mâché exterior of them. Build ski resort or a village above on the plateau. All removable of course for maintenance. Look into pictures of West Virgina coal train bridge scenery. WV has a bunch of this coal train/mountain/ravine/hilly train track vibe you got with this particular track layout. I'm digging it.

Been said before but extending the baseboards out front would be a start. Keeping all the track visible will be a challenge, but with the front extension it may resolve itself. I would try putting it on paper first though to prevent more time and energy just to be back at square one. Bon courage

You did awesome 👍 job I watched from beginning and the other one too thanks great Job 👏👏

If it can be found, use train-yard scenes or some train-related wallpaper behind the layout. You might find a way to have train photos or city-scapes printed in enlarged sizes to use as background on the walls. One thing definitely I hope you don't do is tear down the layout you've done already. I didn't see the start of this project, but is it attached to the wall, or on supports from the floor? If it's not attached, you could slide everything away from the wall to give some horizontal surfaces behind the tracks.

The track is spectacylar. I wouldn't destroy it, per se. I would remove one of the tracks to give you room to remodel the rest. Perhaps recreate a small mountain railway? Perhaps doing the scenery and tracks at the same time?

Use the corner for a plateau village use wall behind section 1 back ground screen build smaller areas on section 3

Well you built the audience so what’s it matter anyway do whatever you want 😂🤣🤩🥂👍

Ken build in those areas anyway. You don’t stand in only one place. Put in some mountains 🏔️ and an apartment building 🏢 a monastery, a lake. Don’t think about it, just make it.

Less is more. I build O gauge layouts on a 4x8. There is a much bigger O gauge following vs HO. Go O gauge for more subscribers and have fun. Also I was thinking maybe build a train depot building. For trains or anything, basically a big shed.

I think it is too early to go for the saw. A thin cityscape of tall buildings OR a couple of 3-D mountain ranges along the back might help give some profile to the setup.

I did something similar on my first layout. Too much track and not enough open space. Too much vertical and not enough flat. The more I tried to make it work, the more I realized it was just a bad design. It eventually got the Sawsall and ended up in the garbage, which was alright because it turn out to be a great learning experience. Mostly of what not to do. Remove all the track and start over keeping the underlying benchwork. You don't have any turnouts and associated wiring, so you are really only losing the cost of some track and a little bit of lumber, and a ton of your time;)

build some mountains and use the tops for buildings and scenery

Good morning 🙏 KEN. Pray. Background vlog on the green. Sound track. I do enjoy the trains. COOL SHOTS. BLESSED MEMORIAL DAY 24 🇨🇦 🍁 27TH 🇺🇸 SE MICHIGAN 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏

Instead of tearing down the layout, add some scenery. Background mountains Small towns Hillsides Siding with steam locomotive Streams Few Tunnels with open side like snow sheds

Wild idea here but why not create all the track beds as bridges. Every available length as bridges but not just one type or style. All different various of bridges. Not just from the USA but around the world too to sort of acknowledge those of us around the world who watch. Where the black uprights are they can be disguised as little "islands" of scenic trees, bushes hills or base pillars for the bridges. Where tracks go below the tracks above then have tunnels. For the Access holes light weight foam sheets layered up to create mountains or town scenes basically becoming mini dioramas in a larger layout. In future this access hole dioramas can be changed with new ones and mixed up in different configurations. Just a thought that I'd thought share

👍👍🌻🇺🇸👍

Section 2 incline is like a roller coaster.

Hey Ken around the back, why can’t you do a wall mount with buildings and houses that protrude out at different points, and it all just hangs on the wall?

Three tripods with cameras in the access holes for different perspectives. Your painting skill used on background -happy little ?

Sincerely just add walls tunnels etc and it will still look great lots of ridges and tunnels and trees

Great video. I have decided with my next layout I am going to get help from a professional planner. Just too expensive in money and time to end up with something I am not really happy with.

How about a city landscape. Maybe a park area like central park in NYC

👏🏻👋🙂🙋‍♂️

ken you have a lot of great ideas from your followers i myself would have gone upside down L 16 x4 by 32x4 but my final words toyou are model with inn your means *Happy Rails *

I watched most of your videos with this layout and have been amazed as to your vision of something so complex created for 3 separate loops. You are right in that it leaves very little room for landscaping etc. I always in believe in the KISS principle Keep It Simple Stupid. I believe with your imagination that you will create something more towards the traditional but interesting.

your 3 accesse holes make removible panels to go in them that you can built on and remove if you need accesse

Forget scenic crappie.Carry on developing track configurations.This is your forte!ENJOY!

Have you ever heard of operational layouts? A layout designed to operate much like a real railroad. It gives purpose to a layout! do some research on it. You would love it

When i see this layout it makes me think of the movie Metropolis from the 50's.

Personally, I think you have gone down the wrong avenue... there are no sidings, changeovers, places to park or change over rolling stock etc... you just laid track and built it... but what you have gives you scope to change it to a more friendly and usable format... you could add foam/polystyrene to make mountains in the background and have the trains coming and going from them like you first suggested you might do. Make a station in the front part where the 2 level sections of track are, make some buildings and scenery come up from the baseboard and like the Swiss Alps have mountains and trains coming and going from all places... You need to sit and look and maybe do some Google picture research to get a few ideas to help you....

Build on the places your got and use the green screen😊

Mountain-side villages

Could it be as simple as expanding the tables? Do you have the room?

Did you not in an early video of this series forecast that there would be mountains and tunnels?

reminds me of the freeway system in LA

What about using access covers for your senses mountian and maybe rased scenery buildings or whatevers

add some plywood to the front of the layout

Hey Ken Have You thought of Installing A Switch in The Back Of the Layout of the Ground Level to Pick up And Drop Off Cars?

The layout is kind of hopeless. One big nono is having visable tracks right on top of eachother. But many of the railroads i US goes through mointainous reagions with no visable signs of life around. So just build vertical mountainwalls. And track running in and out of short tunnels. You need close to no buildings for that. An abandonend station, freighthouse and water tower. You can watch Northlandz. He loved mountains, tunnels (perhaps) and bridges and he didn't care if it looked real.

Fill 2 hole in build there

Put a city on top of section 1

See Richmond's Triple Crossing

What I believe is that a railroad modeler’s work is NEVER done. A layout is NEVER finished.. If you remove the top track will the remaining 2 systems be workable for scenery?