It was supposed to be a high desert springs town somewhere along the California/Arizona border. But after squeezing all the “must have” things into my little layout, it looks more like a desert metropolis and I am at a loss for a name. It only has a small residential Neighborhood, a small town with a theater, and a Denny's fire & police station, and small trucking company. And besides a yard and train maintenance facilities I have a small mining operation, propane storage facility and a lumber yard. So, I guess it’s not really a metropolis, its more of a small desert town. This is a drawing done in XTrkCad and the colors are deceiving. I used colors to illustrate the elevations, but it's basically 3 levels with a river and a waterfall. Its also going to have desert shrubs and trees.
You're pretty busy there. And there's a lot of track going on. If you want to stay Southwest, and keep that plan - why don't you invent something that never was? How about Phoenix Belt Lines? Or Belt Railway of Phoenix? You'd have your own power, ATSF, SP. Having been down 60 through Glendale, outskirts of Phoenix where ATSF comes into town, it could work. That would be the only thing I could see for that heavy a track concentration with an 'outlying' theme.
desert railroad service town I just might end up with “My little Railroad”. Maybe it could be a railroad town like Barstow was. It still is, but so much other industry has grown up as a result of the RR that it doesn’t look like it as you drive through. Is there any terms to describe a remote desert railroad service town? I have pretty close to a full service train yard with an engine house, car shop, machine shop and a yard. I know there is a lot of track and I did go overboard, but I just could not figure out how to have a yard, reverse loops, duel main lines and a terminal in such a short space. I would love to have a long run for long trains, but I’m just going to have a separate single temporary track like true track or unitrack for that. I’m just going to have to have two railroads. Its really a change from my old layout shown below.
That is a cool looking layout. I like that water tower in the upper right corner---nice touch!:thumbs_up:
Thanks, but that’s my old layout. It’s in storage at the moment, mainly because my family was always complaining about it being in the way and I wasn't using it enough. I maybe pulling it back out because my daughters boyfriend is realy interested in it. I had a crossover and a spur switch in the back tunnel that was always giving me trouble. I had an access opening in back to free them up and retrieve my trains, but they still would stick once in a while and derail my trains. And it always happened when I was showing it off. Hey, Pittsburgh's my hometown.
Since it is filled with your "must haves" call it: Musthaven - Pronounced "Must Haven" Musthavit - Pronounced "Must Havit"
That’s interesting, I like it. I’m going to play around with it. Maybe I can somehow incorporate “South West” or desert.
I’m been thinking about the busy thing and I thought maybe it would not seem so busy if I turned off all the layers except the track. Does it still look too busy?
In general, the layout will look better if you take out a third or so of that track. How about a connector line to the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific called the N specific? Or the B specific?
IMO, that is an awful lot of track on such a small space, but it is your railroad, so whatever makes you happy is all that matters. As for names, may I suggest Phoenix Belt Junction- the PBJ Line.
I have two ramps one from the lower loop to the main lines on the second level and another ramp from the main to the upper loop and the 3rd level. Both ramps are traveling up counter clockwise with the upper loop on top of the lower loop. The lower ramp is completely hidden from view and only the section up the upper ramp is hidden where it travels beneath the upper loop. Since the upper loop was so small and after a 100 changes, I finally figured out that if I split the upper ramp into two parallel tracks, I could maintain a 13 ¾” minimum radius and that is only on the upper ramp. The rest of the track has a radius of 16” and above. I have two reverse loops. One is the upper loop with a siding and a spur (the upper spur was a last minute move to keep my new passenger train). The lower reverse loop doubles as my yard. I only had room for one Arrival / Departure Track without an exit for the yard, so I came up with the idea of having two parallel tracks running through a tunnel back to the ramp. This really opened up the possibilities for my yard especially with the use of curved switches. I did lose some yard tracks, but opening up the yard was worth it. The only down fall was I had to shorten the main lines to have a yard. It was suggested a few times in the past to run the mains around the outside, but there were so many clearance and grade problems plus problems keeping a minimum radius on the ramps and the loops. Believe me when I say I developed a real bad case of carpal tunnel syndrome using the mouse to make thousands of changes. So if I lose the reverse loops, I know I will get bored just watching the train going around in a 4x8 circle and I want the yard to double as a staging area for my rolling stock as well as something to play with. This is why my layout became Spaghetti. Can I live with it, I don’t know. I do know that if I can’t, it will be a very expensive lesson.
This is the only actual track that will be visible. Everything else is hidden in tunnels. Also I forgot to mention all the track shown with gray background is Kato Unitrack Viaduct.
High Desert Railway Lower Colorado Railroad Amargosa and Colorado or, counting the expenses, Bullion Basin Railroad; Gold Pit Railway
"Spaghetti Springs" The named passenger trains that run through could be the Meatball Express, Pesto Limited and the Elbow Daily (commuter with a lounge car) Do you really have a switch right above a tunnel portal on the right side? It is hard to tell. Will that switch be on a bridge? Actually I like the plan. I am fond or really busy trackwork. If you saw my current layout you would understand.
Thanks, I've been thinking about it all night and I think after I get all the ballasting and landscaping it will be alright. Oh I see what switch you’re talking about. Yes, it is a switch over a portal. I was moving stuff around to replace a curved Atlas switch to a hand laid switch and I had to move the portal. I just forgot to change the underlying portion of track to a tunnel. I’m using XTrkCad with about 15 layers so I can shut portions of the layout off so that I can see what I’m working on and sometimes I forget to check what’s below. I struggled with that switch especially because I was planning on using a Tortoise Switch Machine, but after a lot playing around, I decided to use a long linkage. If it doesn’t work I’ll switch to a ground throw. I do have a switch on a bridge in the upper left corner. I wanted a curved trestle bridge but then with the space available I had to settle for a custom made girder bridge.
