Finally!

It looks like my days as a rug racer are nearing an end. My wife and I have been waiting for over a year now to hear about this house we've been wanting to buy, and the paperwork is finally complete. Move in begins in January.

This means I will have a full attic to use for running cars. The agreement to turn it into a slotcar room was reached long ago, and it's all mine. The attic as A-frame style, kind of like what you'd expect in a German home, and the roof starts from the floor on either side. There is between 8-10 feet x 20 feet of standable non-head-bumping room, then the ceiling starts to slope. I have a grand total of one picture, and this is it:

A shot of a corner of the attic with a bit of the back wall. Obviously, the higher off the floor I want my track, the shallower it will have to be. And since this would be otherwise mostly unusable space unless for storage, I'm going to put some form of track in there. 

My plan is to make the bulk of the track design against the flat back wall, about waist-high. Since there are two sloped sides to deal with, I'm considering a U-shaped track, where the two angled walls will have essentially straightaways going out-and-back. Likely I'll have to make some form of height adjustment and actually lower the track to go along the angled walls. I think that would be kind of cool having the arms at knee-height. I could focus the back wall section to be more technical, and the two arms of the U would be where I could air out the cars and let 'em run. I might be able to get away with #4 banking at the ends. Plus I could design an extremely long track.

I can't find the exact dimensions of the attic, so I'll have to take detailed measurements next time I go out there. From the photo above I'd say from post to bottom corner it's about 6 feet. That's the width of #4 banking. But if I bring the two ends all the way to each side of the door [which is smack dab in the middle of the wall], I could raise the height.
My plan is to do the whole thing first in Carrera track on tabletops. That'll give me the opportunity to do multiple attempts at layouts until I'm satisfied with what I have. I might choose a simpler L-design as well so I can leave one side of the attic clear. Quite a bit of track will have to be purchased, but I can find that at reasonable prices these days.

It'll be analog. It'll be mostly for me, and I don't know how ready I am to get all-in with digital. I think I'll have to be talked into it. It's not that I don't like it, or trust it, as I think it's pretty cool. Aside from the price, it's partly due to the chipping thing. I'm not confident in getting that done right, and don't want to risk it at this stage. Besides, the cars that are coming are all analog to begin with, and I don't want to have to limit myself. Of course, being with Carrera means I can always upgrade it to digital at any time, which is a good feeling. And I can buy cars pre-chipped, even from third-parties who will do the chipping for me if I was so lame to go that route. I need cars and track. Once I get enough of those, I'll consider bells and whistles.