I was just messing around. I didn't see any reason to get too specific about all the spurs and things. O.k. so you have a yard with two tracks for engines and cabooses. You could squeeze in more yard tracks as needed. You have a town in the oval on the upper left and its industries. Add more? who knows. You have this strange red mainline connection. When you are doing operating sessions where you use the layout point to point, it is an interchange track. Being double ended, your interchanged cars go back and forth over the layout. Maybe you just pile em in there and sometimes you gotta pick the right ones out. When you want to play trains and watch roundy roundy, the interchange is simply a continuous run. The plan is not to scale. But it is pretending to have 15" curves on the three corners. There is space to add things. Lets say you want to add a small-town-one-room station and a grain elevator, just put a shorty passing siding somewhere and add your structures. I was sort of designing toward a dilapidated short line that has hundred year old buildings from the 1890's to the 50's. So you add a passing siding that is really a double ended spur that holds two or three cars. And if you stay small like so: http://www.hobbylinc.com/bts-west-a...t-wood-ho-scale-model-railroad-building-27603 And like so: http://www.hobbylinc.com/branchline...-x-6-1:2-ho-scale-model-railroad-building-689 You can create a small attention grabbing scene anywhere. Again, I was thinking along the lines of a quaint looking little railway. Maybe you can add a combination car onto your trains so you're running the daily mixed train of passenger and freight! It's a huge expense, but the mail contract has to be fulfilled. As to specifics. The yard is pretty self explanatory. It's your standard 3 track yard. Down the other side you have a stub terminal. I figure a passenger station, maybe limber yard, a coal and oil service for the residents. etc. But if you look up the line, there is this little spur. It can have a double function. You can stick a loading dock on it so it can receive flatcar and boxcar loads, but it's true function is as a loco pocket. You need an extra loco assigned here to pull the cars off your arriving train, but that is adding to operations! The same goes for your yard area. A loco needs to come pull the train off of an arriving loco, or it will be trapped. On a short line this is a common practice. The layout is functional and cost efficient. If you scratch build a lot of your own buildings and such, you're not going to spend a thousand dollars building this. And the track plan only has 11 switches. You can leave off a few and still have a working layout, but save some cash. I did not add any loco turning of any kind. You could always throw in a bachmann or Atlas turntable for that if you want. There is a certain charm to not turning em. Now, none of this may be to your liking, but it's an idea. And maybe it will drive you closer to what you want.
PS: when I entered the post above "Thanks, but the space....", Your "I was just messing around" post was not on my screen yet. So in response to that , I've gone over allot of those thoughts/ideas many times. I am very aware of needing and wanting an interchange. I happen to have a Walthers 3-way switch from prior RR. I am very sure it will become a three track yard throat now. Last time it was the throat to my 2 stall engine house and caboose/RIP/track. But it's so pesky continuity-wise, this time, as a yard throat, switcher will enter or pull cars through it via a 'handle' car like at a ferry slip; engine won't itself touch the points or frogs this time. Everything so easy to reach, I won't need Kadee uncoupler magnets...Far as turning, I either won't need to. Or, Could have a small gallows TT, or have a wye in dead center where bench, diagonally, is some 2.5' deep (Diag. Meas. of a 2' square). M
Dale, yes, you are right. A RR facility is in fact an industry. New, say, short line came into this location. Other industries and structures began popping up around it: coal dealer, lumber yard, warehouse team track, scrap metal dealer. Then homes, saloon, liquor store, house of god, gas station, et al. Thanks, this makes the track plan way easier to conceive; structure locations first, then run a spur to each of them + roads, scenery, et al. I know many many MRRs do it this way. It just never clicked in my brain. I've built a main line then decided to throw the citrus cooperative here, meat packer there, by installing the lead switch into the main after they popped into my mind. To establish them up front makes more sense. Jury is still out over wye, small TT, or, no turning at all (which is more likely in such a small RR scene)..Thanks for bending my mind a little..M
no worries. I just thought I would make the effort to make a plan as opposed to just chattering away. I find that if I see something that isn;t what I want, it sometimes helps me get closer to what I do want. As you said, no bump out sections.
THANKS for everyone's help/suggestions. I believe they've influenced my planning better for my oncoming 1:87 scale RR..As I said, the only real bugger is the strong temptation for a wye, dead center. But if I do run the gradient from upper-right 24" staging, it may prevent the wye's tail from running under it. (A wise tale indeed !). Thankfully I already have my NCE PowerCab. $ is very tight. I'll keep you post toasties when I begin.... M
Hi Mark, It will be fun watching your progress! When I designed the POCR I had a set of Industries I felt should be represented from the real Port. Grain, steel fabrication, lumber wholesale, manufacturing, asphalt jobber and the fertilizer manufacturing facility. I threw in a team track for some variety in what I bring in. I also knew I needed to have the 2 outside rail interchanges, BNSF and SKOL. The easy part was given the room I had I could place most in their approximate locations to their real-life counter-parts. I also didn’t want to end up with a spaghetti bowl layout. I’m getting close though! I like your idea though, I guess you could design as the RR came in to service one or two set customers and the RR caused the area to grow. I’m sure this happened IRL. Same thing happens when a new road comes through an area, new stuff springs up around it and the network is expanded to services that need. Then as you say, spurs are added to service the need. There is no need to require a wye or TT, they would take up valuable real estate on your pike. If I had my choice between using space to a wye or TT or a location to switch, I’d got with the place to switch because I’m operations oriented. Which is where you are headed. With the right planning you could probably do a 2 hour plus session. Anyway, like I said, I’m looking forward to following your build! Dale
Dale and others thanks for all the replies and suggestions. There are a bunch of factors keeping me from beginning the bench work. It could be weeks, months....M.
I have a couple of Challengers so I put a turntable in the center of the layout as part of the curved yard.
ONCE AGAIN, thank you to everyone for your input/ideas/suggestions. I still have not begun the bench yet. Has to do with where i'm living now and $. I didn't fluff you guys off. I keep seeing it in my mind's eye but it'd have to be in my bedroom, which makes it a tough decision..If and when it gets going I'll try to download pics, as I finally own a digital camera (Nikon Coolpix). M...
