The Perfect Loop?

[Phoxtane]

I finally decided that I had enough track to try and set something nice up for myself, so after a bit of LDD work and the assistance of this webpage, I came up with this:

I knew what I wanted was something that felt big, that had long straights, and track that wasn't just going at perpendicular angles to itself. The best part is, this track all lines well enough that LDD only has a small fraction of a stud of offset from the two 'ends' where the track connects back to itself - which is close enough that LDD let me place the track pieces intersecting each other with no issues.

As an added bonus, there's lots of land space included in the right-hand loop, so it can house fields, houses, churches, more houses, warehouses, housing supply stores, etc..

This layout only really works because of some special numbers - seriously, read this page if you haven't already, because it's super useful: http://www.brickpile...ayout-geometry/ It's worth noting that the baseplates he shows in his examples are 48x48, but that won't really matter much if you're using 32x32 unless you insist on your track always being exactly four studs away from the baseplate edge.

Starting from the left and working around in a vaguely clockwise fashion: The light blue segment is six straight pieces, the purple segment is the standard four curves for a 90-degree turn, the top green segment is 14 straight pieces, the orange segment is another 90-degree turn, the pink segment is one straight piece, the dark green segment is FIVE curve pieces, the red segment is 12 straight pieces, the minty-green segment is eight curve pieces, the pinkish-purple segment is one straight piece, the blue segment is another eight curve pieces, and the orange-yellow segment is three more curve pieces.

In total, to build this, you'll need:

- 34 straight tracks

- 32 curved tracks

For organizational purposes: keep two straight pieces separate, and connect the rest into a six-long segment, a 14-long segment, and a 12-long segment. Then you'll want to build three 90-degree curves, and two 180-degree curves. With the four remaining curves, attach one curve to one of the 90-degree curves, and connect the rest into a three-long segment and connect that to one of the 180-degree curves. Connect as shown to build this layout.

I believe it's possible to extend the loop by adding pieces in certain strategic locations, but I haven't got the space to do so - however, good places to do so would be adding track into the middle of the light blue segment and into the 'middle' of the minty green curve (where it comes closest to the light blue segment), at both ends of the dark blue curve (extending how far out the curve reaches), or at the end of the orange segment and the corresponding parallel section of the dark green curve. Adding pieces into the middle of the orange segment and the red segment will throw off the alignment, according to the webpage I've linked twice so far (if you do this, add track segments in multiples of 12 only!).

Anyway, this is my perfect loop.

[FreeBee]

In reply off:

Adding pieces into the middle of the orange segment and the red segment will throw off the alignment, according to the webpage I've linked twice so far (if you do this, add track segments in multiples of 12 only!).

If you add a piece to the middle the orange segment you can make it fit by adding a piece between yello and dark bleu.

If you add one to the red section, add a piece after the first orange (counted fro the ligth green)

It doesn't have to be multiples of twelve.

[bigginsd]

Thanks for posting this, very helpful and a great simple non-right angles layout.

[koalayummies]

Yeah nice layout thanks for sharing. Its always nice testing out a build idea and finding out its "LDD-legal".