HO layout on two doors 24 x 160 inches

pjcsea May 5, 2010

  1. pjcsea

    pjcsea TrainBoard Member

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    I'm working towards an HO switching layout that will fit onto two 24x80 doors, and be able to separate for transport to shows. I'm not trying to support more than one operator at a time. My current design represents a small switching railroad / industrial park and its interchange with a larger railroad.

    Here are my specific limitations for the design below:

    1) at the boundary, use only sectional track. I feel I can cut this cleanly and align it properly when the modules are connected. Flextrack, switches, etc. are verboten at the boundary.

    2) provide sufficient leads and runaround that operations feel prototypical and not "puzzling".

    3) provide sufficient interest in the track plan that even with big leads, there are still challenges.

    In reality the large connecting railroad would have a local job arrive on the main, put incoming cars onto the (hopefully empty) incoming track, and then pull out the string of outbound cars on the outbound track. On the layout this would either be faked up by shuffling car-order cards or possibly using a cassette system on the RIGHT end of the layout, "unplugging" some bumpers to do it.

    I'd love any advice, comments, or ideas.

    Then the actual operations involve [​IMG]the industrial railroad switcher shuffling the outgoing customer loads to the outgoing track and the incoming loads to the proper industry.

    For the trailing turnout industries at upper right, having to possibly move / respot exisitng cars and having to reorder cars from the "incoming" track, to properly spot inbound cars, is the big challenge.

    For the leading turnout industries at left, besides the runaround, these are actually easier to switch since there are only one or two industries per branch.

    For "extra difficulty" there could be excess inbound cars spotted on the teal track between the normal interchange tracks and the derail.
     
  2. Justinmiller171

    Justinmiller171 TrainBoard Member

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    I love your track-plan, if I had that much space along a wall I would probably build some thing similar to your design.

    I drew up your track-plan in Xtrkcad to help you visualize your design better

    [​IMG]
    As you can see there is not much room for more than a few industries at the top-left corner. I suggest placing industries such as team tracks and small oil dealerships at that location. At the top-right corner you may have some trouble switching that location since there is not a storage track near that area, this is okay if you are going to be switching all of the industries at that location at once, but if you need to get to one car near the middle you would have to take all the cars before it and bring them to an empty track, grab the car you want and then take the rest back, and this can get very frustrating if you have to do it often.

    If you want I could email you the Xtrkcad file so you can run trains on it using Xtrkcad to see if you find any problems with the switching, just PM me your email-address and I will send if to you :tb-wink:

    Other than those concerns with the switching, I see nothing wrong with your design, It looks very realistic and it should provide you with hours of fun.

    I hope you have a great time building it!
     
  3. cajon

    cajon TrainBoard Member

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    Justin
    Here's a variation on your plan that gives two more yard tracks & a siding there. The spur off the end of the siding could be used as a "house" track for engine &/or caboose.
     

    Attached Files:

  4. shortliner

    shortliner TrainBoard Member

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    Just one small point - be careful having several industries along a track/siding - not too bad if they are spots for a large industry, but the prototype customers would be awfully unhappy if their loading/unloading was interupted by the car being moved away while you pull/replace cars at another company further along the spur Company bosses don't like paying their workers to stand around idle while the railroad services another customer.Also, if you have a pair of parallel tracks - eg. top right - you don't HAVE to have buildings/customers on both sides. If you spot a bocar/reefer on the top track, you can spot another on the adjacent track with the doors matching and use plates across the gap to unload the farthest away one.
     
  5. ratled

    ratled TrainBoard Supporter

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    I can see where you are going with this. I like what you are thinking here but a few questions and suggestions. Your caption reads 24” x 80 doors but it looks like your plan shows 30” wide doors. I think you meant 30” x 80” but want to be sure. What era are looking at? 1890s with 30’ & 40’ cars? 1950’s with 50/40’ cars or current ones in the 85’ range? It makes a difference on a plan like this.

    A couple of thoughts…remember I know nothing of layout design and the more I learn the less I know so PLEASE take everything with a grain of salt…….

    What does the light blue line at the derail represent? Is that the interchange? If so why, and space is at a premium, why have both the main and runaround on the corner of the layout? If you have just have main off the switch to show where it ties into the rest of the world you can get a car or two more space on the interchange/blue line.

    I agree about the industries on the upper right. If you eliminate the switch back that would open it up for more possibilities. Or consider flipping it. With a little work you could have the lower set of industries on the right as the switch back and the switch back as the industries. An open air transloader perhaps? Or one large industry for all three tracks– steel? lumber? Mill at the top right, switch back and woodchips on the switch back. Some B2B on lay out too. Empty to mill, mill to furniture factory (an upper left industry) to the rest of the world. Maybe a mine with both tracks for the tipple Ok now I’m just wandering.

    I wasn’t big fan of switch backs before I discovered the wisdom of Byron Henderson, and now that I have, I really am against them. Here is his thoughts on them and why. http://www.layoutvision.com/id16.html

    Have you thought of teeing the doors instead of butting them? It would give it 110’ run by 80 run that is 30” wide. David Barrow did a GREAT article on teeing a pair of 8’ x 18” slices of plywood for “The Cat Mountain’s South Plains District” in the Sep & Oct 1996 MR (Nov too?). You can get the whole year on Flee bay for under $20 to your door. Really a worthy read for a plan like this. Plenty of switching, yards, industries and staging. Sweet set up.

    Ok, now you got me in the train mode… off to the train room


    ratled
     
  6. Mark Watson

    Mark Watson TrainBoard Member

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    Hi pjcsea,

    I hate to say it, but nothing on this first design really appeals to me, except the idea to have this span two doors for easy set-up and transport. I like the current set up, end on end, but Ratled made a great suggestion on the L set up. I dont know if your layout location will be able to accommodate an L assembly, but the benefit would be splitting the layout into two, more distinct, portions.

    Before moving forward, you might try taking a step back and consider which specific industries and trains will operate on the layout. It's easy to just throw random spurs in and label them "industry", however designating specific industries and then joining them together with spurs will result in a much more accessible design.

    The biggest thing I try to push is dont design challenge. Trust me, even in the most simple of designs, challenge is already built in. Any designed challenge will only complicate things unnecessarily. (By the way, the absolute biggest offender is the dreaded switch-back. Pure evil they are.) ;)
     
  7. ratled

    ratled TrainBoard Supporter

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    You can see a rough drawings of the 4 "dominoes" David used on the South Plains Layout here on blackbear.com and they are in pdf format so you can save them. David also used a 3'x3' corner piece for his too, but this will give you some ideas. http://www.blackbearcc.com/SoPlains.htm They are Industry yard and South Plains links. Mike actually has a whole page to this layout.

    Yea it has the dreaded switch backs but its a good start at what can be done in this space.
    I hope this helps

    ratled
     
  8. Justinmiller171

    Justinmiller171 TrainBoard Member

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    If you don't have room for the L-shaped version of the layout, you can build each 2x8 section separately, and then have them connected with a removable staging cassette, David Barrow showed how to do this in the October 1997 issue of Model Railroader Magazine, the original series on how to build the south plains district were in the September-December 1996 issues of Model Railroader.

    I am currently building the South Plains district layout, so if you have any question on the layout please ask me or visit my blog.
     
  9. pjcsea

    pjcsea TrainBoard Member

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    Hi guys, thanks for all the great advice and feedback. I'm going to TRY to tackle this in 3 posts to keep my thoughts clear: answers to questions, industries, and then some questions of my own.

    First let me clarify a few things y'all asked.

    I can't do the T shape in my current space, nor the L. I have a little wiggle room on length but not enough to justify, in my mind, abandoning the hollow-core door concept.

    The layout is 24x160. The grid lines are 10" and not 1'. I did this so I'd have a clear reference line for the join at the mid-line 80" mark. I realize that this isn't standard and deserved a label/legend.

    I am modeling an older industrial park in present day. This gives me license for older buildings with modern modifications or uses. As I'll discuss in industries, I don't expect any 85' cars. I'd expect maybe some 50'-60' boxcars, gons, and hoppers. Since I tried hard to match the available transfer tracks to the length of the leads and to a large fraction of the industrial sidings, I think it still works -- fewer cars will fit, but then fewer cars will fit on the sidings.

    The teal blue track off the mains is "legally" available for use but I expect it would normally remain clear. If you remove the orange mains and switch, and the teal track attached to it, the you'll see what track I expect to OPERATIONALLY use. My intent is that the "big RR" has made its pickup and dropoff as part of the "magic setup", and that the industrial park switcher works the rest of the track. This will come up again when I ask questions about some of the issues raised.

    I love the idea of using plates to connect 2 tracks to one door, and will save that away in my brain, but that's not something I plant to do here. I'm aware of the customer service issues around moving spotted cars, and hoped to build some of that into the operating rules. More about that when I discuss the industries.

    OK, I think that covers the questions.

    And offer-wise, please do mail me any files! I'm still working out which tools do what, and do it well, so I'll look into xtrcad soon.
     
  10. pjcsea

    pjcsea TrainBoard Member

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    Industries! I didn't label them, but I had given them some thought. I was deferring final decisions until I had more time to examine the commerical kits, and in fact spent some time today looking at them. I was pleased to see that there are even purpose-made kits for "half buildings" now!

    Let me take you on a tentative tour of the industries, starting with the leftmost long spur.

    Left Long spur: if operationally desired I can have the far-end customer be closed or no longer using rail, and give a little storage here. Would allow capacity to have an extra car for one of the other customers, etc. But I'll write is up as a full spur ... The tail is a team track with an earth ramp at the end of track, and space for a parking pad. Around the curve would be a 2 or 3 bay building for a printing company that prints phone books and other bulky long-term publications. Paper and ink in, product out, all using 50' boxcars.

    Left short spur 1: gourmet frozen-food packer. One empty reefer a day in, one full out.

    Left short spur 2: TBD. This is adjacent to the biggest free space, but is a small one-car spot. Might be the best place for a chemical / fuel distributor who has enough tank capacity to be able to unload each car and not need to store multiple loaded cars on site. I'm still reading up on what's reasonable in 2010. I don't think many fuel dealers of that size still get rail deliver anymore.

    Right top spur: I was thinking two industries here: a one-bay industrial dry cleaner that takes deliveries of chemicals ( full in, empty out ) and a two-spot plastics molding company that takes in hoppers of plastic pellets and the occaisional solvent / etc. tank.

    Right middle spur: Since this is a reachover area I was considering something fairly simple and low, like a loading area for a scrap metal dealer. A front-loader and a small mobile crane would suffice, with the storage, sorting, and baling done off-stage. Empty gons come in, loaded gons go out with various sorted materials -- each gon has one type of load, like aluminum or copper. At times the ready-to-go gons will be blocked behind an existing empty or half-full load (yes, I hope to model those!) so there will be some need to shuffle cars into the working track. But spotting empties is pretty easy, any spot is a good spot.

    Somebody mentioned moving customer's cars mid-load. I do envisage that this is an issue, and my assumption was that the industrial switch job essentially operates at night or during a known period in the day. Thus, for example, it is the contractual obligation of the plastics company and the printer that no cars be left in an awkward mode overnight -- pellet hoses disconnected from hoppers, boxcars closed and locked, etc.

    I have considered a few other industries but need to do research. Gypsum wallboard; swimming pool chemical factory (chlorine tanks in, trucks out).

    Having B2B on the layout doesn't interest me. I think everybody has their limits for suspension of belief, and I can't imagine anybody using a common carrier to move things by rail such a short distance. I'm not saying my design doesn't have equally large fictions to swallow! Just that they taste acceptable to me personally. :)

    OK, let me post this up and start asking MY questions back atcha!
     
  11. Mark Watson

    Mark Watson TrainBoard Member

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    It looks as though you're using AnyRail at the moment. AnyRail is the easiest planning software I've ever used. However, XtrkCad is the most powerful. XtrkCad is a bear to learn, but once learned, you can do anything. And best of all, it's free.

    :)
     
  12. pjcsea

    pjcsea TrainBoard Member

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    Questions! I got some, for sure.

    First, I'm using AnyRail because it seems really simple, and I have bad memories of CadRAIL from 1999 or so. Given my lack of elevations or benchwork, my biggest gripe so far is that I can't find a way to easily draw stuff on my design, like building footprints. I don't want to derail this thread so I'll go find the no-doubt dozens of exisitng threads on which design tool does what.

    Second, I don't quite get how the "dreaded switchback" applies. In this industrial park there are two sets of spurs: the trailing spurs (upper right) which are switched using the LEFT gray track as a lead and the RIGHT gray track as a working track; and the facing spurs (upper left).

    The facing spurs have their own lead and working track, you just reverse your view of the same two gray tracks. You need to run around the whole set of cars once to get the outbound cars to the interchange track, and once when you are bringing in the incoming cars.

    Keep in mind I haven't run this in a program yet, just with fingers. But here is what I envisioned would happen:

    Start of the working day: the incoming interchange track has maybe 5-7 cars. Outbound is empty. Hurrah, BNSF did their job! Time to get to work with the switcher.

    Switcher pulls outbound cars from the trailing spurs, and places them on Outbound.

    Switcher pulls outbound cars from the facing spurs, runs around them, places them on Outbound.

    Switcher shuffles the inbound cars using the lead and working track, to get the facing spur deliveries. Runs around them. Works the facing spurs.

    Switcher pulls remaining inbound cars, works the trailing spurs.

    Sun rises, workers arrive at industries, switcher crew goes home.

    I *think* this works as long as I make sure that the total number of inbound and outbound car orders always fit on their respective 56" (400 scale feet) tracks - even for 60' cars that's six each track. Not every customer's car moves every day. In fact, I assume that the dry cleaner and plastics company use their cars for storage and only move occaisionally; the gons only move as filled; the publisher seldom has 3 cars on same day; etc. A real railroad can't assume that, but I can.

    Hrm, so this became more a discussion of my operations idea than of the question, but let me get back to it: where's the switchback problem? I read the article and I totally see why it causes problems, but I am having trouble seeing where it shows up in this track plan.

    Again thanks for the feedback. My next goal, besides track plan adjustments based on this discussion, is to add realistic building footprints for the industries. I'm perfectly happy with partial buildings. I have a mitre saw and I'm not afraid to use it.
     
  13. Mark Watson

    Mark Watson TrainBoard Member

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    Forgive me for this is very rough, but this is what I see as an unnecessary challenge caused by a switchback.

    [​IMG]
    The incoming is left on its track (blue). The switcher (box) hooks up and pulls it forward to the green position. Then the switcher must back the train to the red position (3rd move). From there, the train cannot access the left side stubs as the switcher needs to be at the other end of the train. So the train must pull forward to the yellow position (4th move). From there, the switcher disconnects and runs around to the rear. (5th move). Depending on how some number moves (some say any time the switcher changes direction) the next step can be 3 moves; connecting back with the train, pulling it back out of the run around so it clears the first industry, then shoving it into each industry.


    Consider this...

    [​IMG]

    The switcher can live in the pocket on the far right of the new incoming track. From there, it can directly place cars destined for the left side at their destinations while placing any right side destinations on the switch back if they are in the way. Then, the switcher can pull all the right side destination cars back into the incoming track. By then, the outgoing will be clear to use as the run around and its smooth sailing from there.
     

    Attached Files:

  14. pjcsea

    pjcsea TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks Mark, very interesting. And I think your markup is perfectly clear! I'll think it over and reply tomorrow.
     
  15. pjcsea

    pjcsea TrainBoard Member

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    Hi Mark,
    Real life intervened and delayed my reply. :) Thanks again for your comments and ideas!

    I found this layout which I would agree has built-in difficulty:
    http://www.gatewaynmra.org/layouts/gc15/project15-trackplan.htm
    The spur serving industry D is a switchback. You need to pull back to the runaround to work it at all. I'm against it too. :)

    But I'm still not convinced (the sign of the deluded, I know!) that my design has that problem. Yes, you do need to run around the cars once to work the facing sidings, but that's the nature of all facing sidings.

    Anyway I guess I won't really get it, for good or bad, until I get this into xtrkcad (by mail or PM or just learning xtrkcad) and run some trains.

    My one problem with the alternative you offered above is that by putting the runaround and a parking area on the in/out transfer tracks it reduces their capacity substantially. It also means you can't really reach the outbound tracks until the inbound are cleared. The runaround is also much shorter than the runaround in the original design.

    I'll report back when I make progress, in real life or CADwise.
     

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