Hello everyone, I have been reading for about a month now and have been learning a lot. I have a plan together and would love any feedback. LEt me see if I can rattle the details: * HO LAyout * 5' X 10' * Era Post steam and probably in the 70's * Everything to the right of the stream is mountain * The mine is an elevated run into the mountain. * Southern CA features and decor * Code 83, #6 switches on main and #4 elsewhere. * 22" and 24" radius on the curves. * The middle blank area is for a town, roads, and buildings.... * My best stab at using the software. I would love any feedback since this is first layout since being a teenager. Look forward to any feedback for the rookie... Thanks, Dave davegates@cox.net [ 17. March 2003, 06:36: Message edited by: bigwavedave ]
Hi Dave, You've got some nice elements planned for your layout, and you've made a good first effort. However, as planned I think you'll quickly outgrow this layout, and it might not work out the way you'd hoped. Here are some suggestions and pointers: 1) Your industries should not be stacked up in series on a single siding. Industries must be able to have cars spotted and pulled individually - there is no reason why the industry at the end of the track would happen to be ready to receive or ship at exactly the same time as the industry at the front end - so you'd have to disturb all of the industries in front of it to get to that last spot, interrupting their loading or unloading and also jarring their partially-loaded cars, which is not allowable. Try to find a way to have one track for each industry. 2) Your engine facilities are out in the middle of nowhere. Engines usually get serviced at the home yard of a railroad, or at least a major yard or city. On your plan, engines go out to the furthest point on your railroad to get serviced. Try to attach your roundhouse and turntable to your yard or yard area. 3) You have a whole lot of yard for only a little railroad. In limited space, you should plan your yard to have one track for each destination on your road. A lot of that space would be better dedicated to industry, or more operations area. 4) Your passing siding turnouts off the mainline next to the yard are reversed. You should be able to come off the main (outside track) onto the passing siding and back. Your design makes it so trains go from the passing siding onto the main and back. Flip the turnouts around. 5) Your plan calls for an elevated mine, but you only have about 6" of track in which to increase elevation if you keep the packing house on the table. Even if you elevate the packing house too, you don't have enough room to elevate the mine into a mountain and then level it out for a car to stay put on its spot. You may want to pick up some track planning books. There are some excellent plans published for tables of your desired size that you could use as starting points.
Good input. I wish I could figure out how to post a picture of my yard so you guys could help me out with it.
Dave, David Chong has brought up a few good points. Let me add another one or two: 1. Unless you're going to be storing a whole lot of engines on your railroad, you probably don't need so many tracks leading off your roundhouse. Plan on one track for each locomotive you want on the railroad - I suspect you could eliminate all the shorter tracks without any problem. 2. I agree with David in making your yard a little smaller, and moving one or two of your industries into this area. You could also move your roundhouse to the upper right, and access it from one of the yard tracks via a switchback. Take a look at Atlas's Great Eastern plan - it's got some similar aspects to your plan. Overall, you've made a good start. Keep it up! Pat
Thanks for all of the usefull information. I will work on round two this weekend. Would rather get as manay mistakes out of the way up front although I am in for a learning experience. DAve
