First of all, thanks to everybody for sharing their ideas, plans and thoughts. That is what makes this such a great forum! Rick's next layout party is more than a month away, so I better get started on the plan, right? Here is the first chapter, for your critique. First, some background. It's a basement wall N scale shelf switching layout, with the emphasis on switching. Here's the big picture. Not designed to be pretty, it's modeled after two similar modern urban industrial park areas, the City of Commerce in LA and Commerce City in Denver. Both have prototypical spaghetti tracks with minimal attention to scenicking. Buildings are mainly concrete prefab/tiltup and metal (like Pikestuff). Not much variety and easy to scratchbuild to suit. As you will see from my first attempt, I am inclined to cram as many industries into every available square millimeter - to a fault, perhaps. Things like roads, parking spaces, houses and restaurants (a) take up too much space and (b) don't abound in these industrial areas to begin with. Okay, they do have roads, so I broke down and tried to include a token road or two If you have any thoughts to increase my "selective compression" I'm all ears (more than I should be!) Aiding and abetting my cramming mentality is Peco Setrack switches. They take up little space and give me a 22.5 degree divergence in just over 3 inches. The curve is 9". I know some may frown at that, but from the pictures I have taken of industrial sidings it's not pushing things too far. Scale speeds rarely exceed 10 or 15 mph, and the cars aren't all that long. I have tried the concept on my first layout I built for Rick's last party so I know my SD35 does OK over the curves. So smaller switchers ought to do OK. I didn't have enough siding leads on that layout to double head even SW1200's, so I had to use one 6 axle switcher (for better power pickup). This time I figure that with over 20 feet of layout to play with I should be able to squeeze in a lead for two small switchers... The problem with Peco Setrack switches is Atlas RTS doesn't accommodate them - why help the competition? So I approximated the switches by simply overlaying the straight track at the correct angles. I tested the printouts against the actual turnouts and it is surprisingly accurate. Looks pretty crappy, but it works great. So I just want to warn you when you look at the plans and wonder what the #$% these apparently disjointed tracks are I show the tracks in the "messy" format because if I don't show the full area the tracks use, I will encroach on that space to squeeze another quarter of an inch worth of industry! Sorry if that makes it hard for you to follow what's going on. A general druther is to have no switching happen at the back side of a built-up structure (where I can't see it). To that end, the front layer of industries are of the "open yard" variety. The middle layer has industries that have loading platforms, but open. The taller buildings are lined up against the backdrop. (Just so you understand my selection of industries.) Something absent from the plan is any form of height variation, even though I will be using 2 inch foam on 3/4" plywood. The first reason is the prototype areas are flat, but the second is I couldn't figure a way to do that that didn't take away switching space. If you have any ideas on elevation changes to add interest, I'd be interested to hear those. Also, if you have any good thoughts about joining the modules together, I definitely need to hear about them! Any and all comments welcome - I have my thick skin on this weekend Thanks in advance! William
william, Are your grids one foot? Is your preference for a switching layout with no continuous running or is it because of space limitations?
Rick, The grid for the first picture (all the modules) is one foot. The second one's grid is 6 inches. At the time I started planning my first layout, I belonged to a club where I could run long trains all day long. I found, though, that it didn't take long for that to get, well, boring. I first did the switching layout because of space constraints (Southern California will do that to you) but I found that the simple little 1' x 4' kept my interest - it never took me less than 45 minutes to switch out 6 industries because of the tightness. And I did it day after day (outside of football season of course!). And so I found that, to each his own, switching did it for me. Make no mistake, I still want to add a continuous loop to run my intermodal, coal and passenger trains. But that will have to wait till the next place. For now I just want something simple (he says as he eyes 5 modules at 10+ industries per!) William
I don't know what your space constraints are like, but some prefer to have both continuous running and switching. The switching keeps the interest up when alone and with friends, the continuous running to sit and drink a beer while the trains roll (also when visitors are over, but not operating). You have ample room for a loop to loop, reversing loop to reversing loop. With todays technology, you can have the turnouts throw themselves when a train approaches, and an auto reversing DCC unit to take care of your power needs. With 16 inch curves you only need a three by three area at the end of each L. You could have an oval helix that went down to a staging deck underneath that would give you lots of staged trains. You could locate this at #1 module.
Great thoughts, Rick! And ones I will be sure to incorporate next time round. And next time round will hopefully come soon We just moved to Denver and before we buy, we are renting to scope out the area. So this layout will hopefully be moving soon, hence the modular approach (with only one connecting track per module). Make no mistake, I have long trains I would love to have running while I switch. When I do, I'd also like to incorporate a "nice" staging area into that loop that could also double as a static display of my passenger and unit trains. But for now I'm adhering to your advice from last year: keep it simple till you have a little more experience. I've also decided to hold off on any conversion to DCC for now. This time round I'm going to focus on the process: using foam for roadbed, scratchbuilding the industries and detailing the right-o-ways with the usual grass, weeds and the like. That's probably enough of a mouthful for me, at least for now By the way, between us we have 2,000 posts, eh?
Changing levels....why not, as per most 'heavy industry' type areas, simply have the 'low side' of the buildings sitting on top of a concrete retaining wall. That way, the only thing that 'slopes' is the track. All the buildings are at ground level one side, and on top of a retaining wall the other. This is pretty common backing onto rail lines here in Aus in the heavy industry areas. For example, the track down the bottom side of 'Mostly metal' could come down a grade with mostly metal sitting on a wall, then have everything off the lower side of that track (lower as in towards the bottom of the picture) on the bottom level. Theres nothing to sopt you doing that except the fact that you cant run a siding 'into the hill', so that side of the track cant access an industry.
Where is the layout? All I see is the comments here. Thanks. Disregard. I did a reload and it came up.
William: I agree with Rick about the continuous running trains. It is a good option to have even if for breaking in locomotives. For mor siding length, you can extend the sidings into the adjacent building. For example, extend The Times siding into Frito Lay. Hidden track can be a hassle. Here, you could remove the buildings and quickly clean it all. That makes it tolerable. The buildings might be easier to handle if 2-3 of them are all on the same piece that you remove. Goes faster to maintain.
That has some merits, as it would make the switching more involved, as you would have to move any cars spotted at the first industry before you could switch the second.
Question about that: Wouldn't industry 1 be irritated if I had to move their car (that they're busy loading or unloading) in order to get to industry 2's car? I observe that the industrial parks I am modeling all have dedicated spurs, so they never encounter this problem. Just curious.... William
Having a spur that went through one industry into another would effectively make it a team track..... wouldnt happen if each industry justified its own spur in the first place. Keep em seperate.
OK, everyone convinced me I had to take out some spaghetti from the bowl . So I picked a set of industries that in real life are close together, (see my post in the thread about Alan's progress for photos) and this is what it looks like now: William
Hold it guys (and gals) . When I said to extend the siding through the next building, I was not clear. I meant to extend the siding through the next building for the use of the building that it entered, not to create a visual siding that would be shared by another industry. The extended track would be hidden. In the above diagram, the siding that is inside the Banner Rebar track could be extended into the Waste Management industry to get a longer siding. I would not do this if the siding is visual between these two entities. Maybe I mis-understood it all, but I didn't intend to create a team track situation. Thanks. [ 23. December 2003, 04:41: Message edited by: sapacif ]
Flash, Please help me out a little. You lost me when you mentioned the General Chemical siding that is inside the Banner Rebar track. The track immediately adjacent to the road (both sides) is not in any industry. The only two industries that have any significant structures are Weyerhaeuser and Waste Management - all the rest are pretty much just open paved yards where the rails share space with other traffic. And so the possibility to extend tracks into another building are minimal (at least on this module). But even if it existed, I am sure you have a good idea, I am just a little slow in getting it. So could you help me a little? On a personal note, how was Sydney? Nice and warm? William
I like the sectional (or modular, or domino, or whatever you want to call it) concept. Planning ahead for future moves allows for exspantion and rearanging to fit other floor plans later.
I had some reservations about your first design, as it looked too crammed. The second design is "cleaner", and looks like it'll allow for more than one or two cars per spur. I assume that the spurs on the back end will be next to building flats. ALso, this should make one of those long tracks part of a run-thru track should you decide to include running thru freights in an urban setting. Keeps the switch crews alert, and makes 'em aware of where the through freights are.
