New Shelf Layout

SO here's the new layout plan. The top left is a coal loading area to be tied in with the big layout and its coal plant later on. On the peninsula I am thinking there has to be a more efficient way to use the space than what I have done.

Would love to hear some comments or ideas for imporvement before I start building.

Thanks

 

What is the intended use for the peninsula? You might be able to sneak a Peco 6" or Atlas 7.5" turntable in next to the inbound radius and use it to tun locos around if the last switch is eliminated. Just an idea. 'Course, if you run only diesels, that would not be useful.

 

yeah layout is staged in modern era. Not sure what to do with peninsula. Thought it might add a couple more industries. Where the layout disappears on the right will go through a wall into the eventual main layout room where an interchange yard will be to tie in with the main line.

 

I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve. Given that space I personally would:

• Design the yard at the left providing for future use with the main including at least three tracks four feet long
• Figure out what you want to do with the peninsual
• Have the lead to the peninsula start near the top of it to maximize the usage of the area.

Take it from there. Make sense?

 

I would run a backdrop down the middle of the peninsula so that it makes 2 separate scenes. Also makes operations a bit more challenging (admittedly maybe too challenging) as there would be a switchback.

This is one of my all time favorite designs:

http://www.frankenmodell.de/floridaindustrie.html

(note the site is in German)

 

I like that. Looks like a good layout. I am going to try redesigning the peninsula section. Fortunately this can wait as the peninsula will come later. That said I need to lay that portion of the leads now as they are on the current shelf area.

 

Dave - that's a great layout! Thanks for posting the link.

OP - note how the curves end near the top to the peninsula.

Here is a variation on a theme. The yard could be the other direction (or not):

 

What sticks out the most to me is that there is no room for anything other than building flats. You might want to add a foot of depth to allow for stuructures. Also, the front track runs right along the shelf edge. I like to keep tracks at least 4 inches away from the edge to allow scenic depth. At the bare minimum, I would suggest 2" of buffer with a 1/4 inch+ high lip to prevent that prized loco from tumbling off the edge of the world.

Other than that, you might want to position the peninsula turnout on the opposite side of the coal yard turnout so that a train from the peninsula can go directly there instead of having to do the switch back move.

Keep us posted.

 

At the base of the peninsula I would add another leg to the right and create a wye. It's nice to be able to turn equipment around every once in a while.

 

Thanks for the info guys I really appreciate hearing from folks who have been doing this a bit longer. I have taken some of your adviec and below is what I came up with.

On the buildings, yeah I have gone over this a lot, do I want more track or more buildings. For now I am going with more track. I will be using my photo backdrops to represent soe buildings just as soon as I can get good weather and time to do this. Not as 3-d as kit buildings but I like a lot of track.

I added the Wye on the peninsula and even a couple industries. I used opposite facing wye's but I think a double slip would do the same job in less real estate. I also included a bit of where this is going to lead. The branch continues into the main room where a modular yard will be built. The interchange with the main is on this side of the main. THis is similar to a local branch.

Thanks for the comments, keep em coming. I will post a photo of the shelf space and layout as it comes along.

 

Well, you do have a lot going on there, and I share Mark's concern with too much trackage and no room for buildings/industries. I'm a big subscriber of the less-is-more approach, with clearly defined industries and an obvious "purpose" for each piece of track.

Planning is more than just throwing tracks down that work with good elements. Runaround - good operationally. Wye - neat idea but overkill for this plan in my opinion. Moving the branch "mainline" from the back to front - good visual design element. Let's go back to the basics - what this is being designed for.

Your primary purpose of this branch line is to provide coal loading from a mine for an on-line coal plant which I assume will be modeled at a later time based on your posts so far. Operationally that means empties in, loads out at the mine and vice-versa at the plant. First question - how does the coal get from the mine to the plant? Small cuts delivered every so often? Or longer dedicated unit trains? Second question - what kind of capacity do you want at the mine and the plant? Are you going to be able to pull a 15-20 car unit train and spot it at the plant? Or are we only talking 3-5 cars at a time?

Answering these questions will allow you to move forward with your planning and provide you with a better operation overall - rather than going back and saying "I wish I had more room for hoppers." After you've taken care of your coal requirements, you can fill in the remaining space with whatever industries you please.

Now you said you were modeling in the modern era. Just a few notes from my railroading experience that may help you decide. The regional railroad I work for has 2 coal-fired electrical plants. One receives 88-car unit coal trains with big mainline power (Dash 9s, SD70s, etc). The other receives 30-car unit coal trains pulled by GP40-2s. So there is a wide variety of what you can model. The larger plant also receives chemicals by rail, about 15-20 cars a year.

Your connection with the mainline instantly got me thinking about a modeling opportunity. If you pull up your favorite overhead satellite software and plug in the following coordinates you'll see a former junction that instantly came to mind (43.049832,-70.935175). In modern times, there are a lot of abandoned RoWs that used to go somewhere. The crossing-at-grade could be modeled as a former crossing, with the diamonds ripped up but the tracks still in place on either side of the main. A good example of this is Voorheesville, NY where the CSX and CP crossed (formerly NYC and D&H).

My suggestion would actually be to move the coal mine to the peninsula.

By the way, what scale are you in?

 

Ho Scale. Those are good point. Moving the mine to the peninsula would give room for longer cuts.

The Mine is the central theme, I am also looking to generate traffic for the rest of the layout. I don't know why I didn't think of moving the moving the moving the mine there. That might free up space for other things on the shelf and make the peninsula all about the mine. I do like the WYe but am back and forth as to whether it is necessary.

I am hoping the mine could service about eight cars at a time. More would be nice. I have the fleet of hoppers to do it. And for some reason I really like to look of those cars. As far as the rest of the shelf goes I would like a furniture factory with a couple box cars which should be east to squeeze in. After that I really would just like something to keep a couple folks busy for a couple hours. It is good to be getting these ideas that make me slow down and go back to the drawing board though. I tend to ruch into laying track and pay for it later.

I will redraw something this afternoon and see how it comes out.

Thanks

 

Drew up a quick example just focusing on moving the mine. This allows you the following:

Approximately 90" run-around (clearance to clearance)
Mine with approximately 166" of capacity broken down as follows:
Track 1: approximately 62" of storage
Track 2: approximately 52" of storage
Track 3: approximately 52" of storage

Depending on your hopper size (40' = 5.52", 50' = 6.90", 60' = 8.23")

That means you can run around 16x 40', 13x 50', 10x 60' cars

Track 1 would hold: 11x 40', 9x 50', 7x 60' cars
Track 2 would hold: 9x 40', 7x 50', 5x 60' cars
Track 3 would hold: 9x 40', 7x 50', 5x 60' cars

Total mine capacity would be 27x 40' cars, 23x 50' cars, 17x 60' cars.

Using this info, you can now figure how you might want to adjust things. Keeping the mine the same size, you could reduce the runaround to be the same length as the long mine track - and shuffle the cars one track at a time. Again, you have to go back to the operation - how big of a yard is off the mainline? How big are your coal trains going to be?

Here's an operational example using 50' hoppers and unit trains of 21 cars. Local runs light to the mine, hauls out one track at a time, runs around, then drags it back to the yard. Repeat until the mine is empty (3 moves). Loaded train is assembled in the yard as a unit and departs with road power. Somewhere else on the railroad the empty unit train is returning (or could be in the yard already). The local can then haul the entire empty train toward the mine, and shove in 7 cars at a time, spotting them up for loading.

A variation on this involves swapping empties and loads. Local hauls 7 empties up, drops them on the runaround, goes to the mine, pulls a loaded track, shoves the empties in, then drags the loads back to the yard.

 

Well, I spent a couple hours redrawing the plan. I still seem to end up with a lot of track, but, way fewer turnouts which would save a lot of money. I moved the coal mine,as you suggested, to the peninsula. I like it there actually. And I like the idea of longer cuts of cars. Gives a more modern and industrial feel.

I put my furniture factory just before the mine lead and then off of the main further down is another spur for another industry. Really not sure what yet. I like tank cars a lot but there are some industries around here using covered hoppers which could be fun to model. I also saw an article a couple weeks ago in Model Railroader talking about a multipurpose spur for use by a few industries which sounds like a neat idea.

The more I think about it I like the idea of the rolling stock having a purpose on the layout. I think it will be fun having the coal cars loaded at the mine and then transported throguh the main layout to a power plant. I know there would be another stop for processing but it work for me.

 

OOps here it is

 

You can lengthen your rightmost mine track by having the diverging route of a turnout complete your curve for the middle track. I provided two examples using sectional track in the images attached (a picutre is worth 1000 words). The first is what I'm talking about - the second is how you drew yours up. Would add a minimum 2 cars of capacity to that track and 1 car of capacity to the middle track (since your clearance point has been moved), but that's your call.

Overall it looks better, but I don't like the industry off the runaround - way too cramped to effectively do something there. Couple of suggestions/options for you. My preference is the second, but that's just me.

First, you could move the industry to the top of the runaround and work toward the top left corner. Adjust the tail track so that it is either straight or goes down instead of up. This gives you real estate to model something there.

Second, you could adjust the runaround. Instead of coming toward the front right away, stay parallel to the back wall, then turn towards the bottom left corner with the tail track coming right into the corner. Then you can bring the industry off approximately where you have it, angle it a bit toward the front of the layout, and you have some room to model.

As for this industry, you could make a rail-truck transload location. This could serve both tanks (liquids) and covered hoppers (plastic pellets). It could also be used for occasional centerbeam flat cars (plywood/wallboard) or a special high-wide load (transformer) to add some variation to the operation.

I would operate this as being a 2-local switching district. One is the coal local, the other is the general freight local. You certainly could have 1 job do both - it's your railroad.

 

I redrew the mine and it does look better. There are definitely a lot of things to learn about layout design. I really appreciate the help and advice. I am undecided on the line off the run-around. I thought about the crampedness ( is that a word?) of it when I drew but I am hesitant to stick it in the back left. Although that would have the benefit of spreading out the layout a little. As I have it all the real action is from the middle and to the right with the exception of the runaround movement. Might be good to have another scene down on that end.

 

So I went with option B. I put the third industry at the far left of the layout. I liked this for two reasons. One it spread the layout a little more giving operational potential along the entire layout. Secondly it also presents a spur facing the opposite direction. I think this will add operational potentail as it requires a runaround move to be completed.

I like your notion of having two trains. One for the coal mine and one for the local freight. Question, woulda mine of this size have its own loco for for switching thecars for loading or would they use one of the branch line's loco's.

Also how would coal be loaded? I have looked at some flood loader models but wonder if this would be on a fourth track or is one track used for loading and the other two for storage?

 

Sorry for the delay in response, have been on vacation.

The mine could have any of the things you mentioned for unloading. A small, old switch engine to shuffle cars - a car mover or front-end loader to shove cars around - or they could contract with the railroad for additional switching. Really however you want to do it.

Modern flood loading mines are generally through-tracked with a single or double track setup to load, so it's not really appropriate for that track layout. I think something like the New River Mining kit from Walthers fits the area nicely.