While I'm getting the room read for my full layout, looks like some months away: Newbie with 8'6" X 19' room to play in, in N scale, I'm figuring on getting some practice and use some of the stuff I've gathered. I have a bunch of Atlas 80 track and turnouts but have decided to go code 55... Inspirations: Mount Coffin and Columbia 3'6" square got me thinking (model railroader trackplan 200607), with a dock area. Then the Colu mbia Valley and Western (Bob Christopherson, model railroader 200102) yard and dock area seemed doable on a door - diagonal yard from a loop. and Petley (N Scale Modeler 200607 - 08), an upper level in one corner with an outer loop upgrade So wants: harbour/dock area, continuous run, change in elevation, convertible DC and DCC Results attached. Questions: does the yard/industrial area make sense the linkage at the upper top of the yard back to the loop doesn't seem to make sense to me, loco is reversed in direction, with no way to re-reverse (unreverse? . Direction is counter-clockwise with the passenger train on the upper level backing down... If this is true, delete the upper right turnout?
Thanks bremner, I see I didn't include dimensions, whoops. It's a 26" door, I'll add a couple of 3/4" plywood risers at the back to give sufficient depth at the correct grade for the track at the top. Foot print as shown is 28"X80". I think 24" is the recommended max reach? I'm thinking since its higher than the foreground, gives a little more leeway for reach. If worst comes to worst, I have a place where I can put it that I can get all round.
You've run into the typical problem of a "one way" reversing section - it creates a nice cut over, but then forces everything into the same direction. I created one of these, inadvertently, in my first version of my big layout, and it took months of running to realize what was happening. Solved by adding a second section, "pointed the other way". For a door layout, you don't have quite as many options available, due to size limitations. Of course, there is always simply the "back out of the yard" if you want to head the "other way".
To me a while to figure out what you meant by backing out of the yard but the light bulb finally came on... I want to power this for DC and DCC. I have an auto reverser but the wiring diagrams I've seen for it show a loop returning on itself, but this in effect would be two loops sharing a leg in the middle...
Put your autoreverse from the legs of the switch at the top, down across the bridge, and end before the switch at lower left
Might as sell keep the connection you're talking about. You don't want to park anything on that track anyway. It's the switching lead. Yes, two reversing loops would create too much congestion in the middle and make the harbor impossible. As for backing the passenger down, what era do you favor? Old high hood road switchers are wonderful because they look equally good going either direction. Add a runaround track at the depot and one of those can pull the train in, run around it, and pull it back out. Even if the passenger has head end cars, that doesn't mean they have to be at the head end. Even the Santa Fe's vaunted and gorgeous San Diegan wound up carrying its baggage on the tail end half the time. At the height of the streamliner era, the Reading had fine trains with no baggage cars and a round-end observation at each end--one on the tail, and one right behind the back-to-back cab units. This is one of those layout designs that makes me scratch my head, not because it only has one reversing loop--the limitations are understandable--but because the one reversing loop is bass ackwards. If the diagonal went from the upper left to the lower right, the passenger train would never need to back up, the bridge would quite naturally go right into the tunnel (that sure looks good at Harper's Ferry), and the depot would look very regal reflected in the harbor. The switching tracks would be a simple mirror image of those, with the exact same operational possibilities, and the passenger road switcher runs around its train at the depot, runs its circuit, and comes back. Does that not make a whole lot more sense?
I have a Trainmaster, would do quite well. Runaround at the depot's a great idea. You mean all on one level? Can't picture the reverse diagonal otherwise...
You might have a little trouble tapping the diagonal into the loop before it enters the tunnel. But I don't think so. I think you can find a good angle that will work. And, yes, an H-24-66 is perfect! If you can keep that damned weird, opposed piston, overhead and underfoot crankshafts, twice as many pistons as cylinders, funky crazy diesel working! Mighty handsome engines. Glad I never had to work on a real one... If you keep the outer tracks just the way they are, then you can get by with a single-track bridge. And if don't add an extra crossover in the lower right hand corner, then you have an excuse to run the passenger around the loop one direction (which puts it on the inside track) through the diagonal, and back around to the outside track, before heading it back uphill. That makes for a nice run.
Yeah, a lot like that. Like it? Seems to do everything it did before, and allow the passenger train to operate gracefully too...
Looks good to me. Thanks for your input. Will be interesting making a believable drop from the upper level down to the harbour. The previous version was going to be fronted by a building with brick retaining wall. I'm figuring now rock cliff face irregularly topped with dressed stone block going right down into the water. Like you say, the reflection will be nice...
