I am trying to avoid what happened with the last two town sections I built on my railroad - I ripped them out and started over! Last time I got a solution from this forum so this time I'm getting comments before any subroadbed is cut. This is supposed to be a medium sided town in an eastern mountainous region. The main line is double track with a passing & switching siding off the eastbound main. There is an express car track adjacent to the passenger station on the north side of the main and a freight house and team track on the south side of the passing siding. Coming off the east end of the passing siding is a spur down to some industries. The spur descends on a roughly 2.5-3% average grade (I intend to vary the grade a bit). There is a runaround track on the spur for switching hoppers of coal into the electrical plant or run around cars if necessary. Operators - don't forget to set the brakes on the runaround! (Actually, use a rubber block on the downhill side to hold the train). Two of the industries (cement distributor and brewery) are served by tracks that go under the main line from south to north. I like the visual effect of how tracks have to snake this way and that, over and under in these mountain towns. Most of the switching will be done by local freights from the west and returning westbound. They can switch all tracks easily enough. I included a turntable and watering facility off the spur, thinking that steam locos would be turned prior to returning to their home yard. One question I have is about the turntable - include it or not? An occasional westbound freight may have to switch an industry but can use the passing siding or the spur runaround as needed. Also, there are crossovers between the main tracks so westbound trains can take the passing siding, or freights leaving the passing siding heading west can get to the westbound main. The crossover on the west side does not show in the diagram. This is HO scale. Diagram represents an area 14' 8" wide and varying depth from 40" on the left (west) to 24" on the far east end. I'd appreciate your comments because it's so hard to tear it out and start over!! Again!!!! George V.
Hello... I have a problem with the clearance of only 21/2' at the cement plant. That hight is enough for the clearance gauge but there is no space left for the bridge construction. Concerning the turntable ... that is a possibility but combined with your overall theme I would suggest to try to fit a wye into the area (more prototypilcal). Perhaps you put the Wye at the A/D track in the area of the cement plant branch and shift the cement plant into the front of the scene ? scopewime
Express car spur on the north side of the main, westbound. Is there any way this track can be switched by or for an eastbound train, or does the express car only go onto/ come off of westbound trains? (There may well be a justification for that...) It looks like there is a passing siding off the eastbound main which can be used as both a passing siding and a runaround. There is also a runaround on the industrial lead. I will call the two the Upper runaround and the Lower runaround. I wonder if both are necessary. You might be able to work well with just the upper runaround and get cars on which whichever end of the switcher they need to be before going downhill. (I am being stingy with track...) If this town is switched mostly by a “turn” that comes eastbound from the west and returns going westbound, I can see a use for a turntable here. If the local continues east to terminate at a yard or staging somewhere east, the turntable might not be needed. Can the turntable be only as long as needed for a local switcher?
What track are you using? The problem I see is not being able to match the track to the plan due mostly to switches that are not drawn to match actual switch geometry, which means substantial revisions and the elimination of a fair amount of track. Other problems I see are the lower runaround not being long enough to hold much (and on a grade no less), and a steep grade required to descend low enough to give the cement plant tracks sufficient clearance.
GeorgeV, What turnouts are you planning on using? What do you expect the radius to be for the curves on each end? I don't do HO but I am thinking a crossover will take about 18" to 20"? do you have sufficient room for that on the upper right?
I did a quick sketch in AnyRail to see how things looked using real track geometry. I used Atlas Code 83 as a starting point. In order to create sufficient clearance over the cement plant tracks (3"), the grade must be 4.5%, and that's with the grade staring right at the switch connecting the two siding tracks. Even when I move the mainline switch for the lower runaround, etc., all the way to the right (on the other side of the crossover), the grade is still 4%.
Guys, thanks for all the quick comments. And I owe you some apologies because I can see I didn't provide enough information. First of all, I have actually laid this out in full size on the benchwork. The girders and joists are in place and I covered them with some scraps of paneling and cardboard so I could lay out the track and turnouts. I use flex track and the turnouts are a mix of Atlas, Shinohara and Peco (#6, #4 and Y's ) that I have picked up at train shows for reasonable prices. The location of the turnouts in my diagram (particularly those which come off the mains) are based on measuring their actual location. The crossover on the east side is actually shown on my diagram just east of the river (the easternmost turnout is curved). The curve radii for the mains and passing siding are 26 to maybe 30.5" on the west end and 30-32" on the east. It appears I wasn't clear enough in my concerns, and again I apologize. Where I have had problems with designs in the past is operationally - sidings difficult to switch, configurations that tied up the main line more than necessary, and so on. I am pretty sure the physical layout is feasible with the components I have on hand. I also wondered if the railroads back in the 1940's would have had a turntable in town like this. Sound like it might be prototypical (as opposed to running a long way home in reverse). I did try real hard to fit a wye in first but couldn't make it fit - the tails were too short and the radius was too tight. After re-measuring a boxcar I will slightly increase the separation under the mains for the two sidings at the west end, but not all the way to the 3" standard. The comment about enough room for the bridge structure was a good one. I know I am deviating from here but I want only enough room to get a 40' box or 34' covered hopper through there. A boxcar plus the rail and tie height is 2 5/16" (not 2 1/8"!), so a separation of 2 3/4" leaves room for bridge structure above the roofwalk and still get the car through there. The lower runaround I've put in and taken out several times. It is short - but running the moves in my head of pulling hoppers out of the power plant by the river and moving the full ones down makes me think the lower runaround would help. I'll think on it some more, maybe make some cardboard strips of the right length of the hoppers that will fit in the power plant siding for some pretend switching. Thanks again for the comments. George V.
hi gentlemen, some remarks about this plan. Most important are the vertical easements. Their length should be a carlength for every percent of change of grade. To make things even more complicated turnouts should be kept away from these easements. When clearance is 3" the grade will become 5%, however the easements as drawn by me are to short. Unwanted uncoupling might be your fate. I do love engine terminals, they are not just a turntable only. Some space for coal, ash, lubricants and water should be added; also a small shed for the local. The latter could well be demolished by now however, its space can't be left out. IMHO you really need a crossover at the left. I assume the main of your railroad is elevated throughout this scene. While the spurs have varying heights. This could become quite tricky since the lowest elevation will be near the river. As you can see my layout is 15 ft long, since the end-curves on your plan were not completely drawn, the real length you have will be a bit longer. Wish you wisdom (a lot of a ado due to the spurs passing under the main)
You may be able to physically build it, but operating it may be a very different kettle of fish. Paul and I have drawn the same conclusions: the grade is entirely too steep to be practical, a grade on a runaround is a headache in the making, and there are a number of other technical hurdles to overcome before the plan is practical. FWIW, my recommendation is to think in terms of major revisions, if not a complete rework. If it was me, I'd try something like this: I don't even know if this is feasible, but it at least offers a few advantages, and adds a bit more switching interest at the same time. With the switchback situated one-third of the way from bottom to top, and most of the (now 2.5 ft) runaround and turntable two-thirds of the way up, you can achieve grades in the neighborhood of 3%. Something to chew on, at least.
Guys, thanks for the comments and ideas. To eliminate the runaround on a grade I will move the lower level runaround to the spur that leads to the electrical plant sidings, moving the plant and it's spurs a few inches to the right (east). The runaround will be long enough for a cut of 4 34' hoppers - same as siding at the electrical plant. There will be enough room for a locomotive to work both ends of the runaround. I will raise the west end of the main line a bit to get a little more room for the two sidings that will pass underneath the main at the west end and reduce the grade of the spur which comes off the passing siding to all these sidings. I do have, by actual measurement using the turnouts that are laying in place on the benchwork, 90 inches from where the spur leaves the passing siding to the point where the sidings go under the main line at the left end of this section of the layout. I'll get another 1/4" elevation difference between the mains and the sidings using a slight uphill grade in the main line from east to west. David, I like what you have drawn with the additional track on the west end, but there isn't room. There's an access gate to the left of this section. Again, thanks for the help. I'll post some photos when the track is in. George V.
This is resurrecting an old topic but I thought I'd post a couple of photos of the bench and trackwork that came out of the original design. I finished this up last fall but didn't take pictures until recently. I want to thank you again for the comments to improve the design. First photo shows the left side of the track plan. You can see the end of the open swing gate that connects to the rest of the layout. The slab of plywood sticking out will need some trimming once I figure out how I'll build the turntable in that location. Second photo shows from the other end. The lift-out at this end is not in place in this photo. Here's a view of the liftout in place (some scenery work for an industry is why the newspaper is over the fascia). A wire bundle carries track and other power feeds to the new section. Track power on the finished side is also loops through the wire bundle. If the liftout is not in place, track power is dead from the swing gate in photo 1 to about 15 feet on the other end of the liftout. So - that's how it looks now. I am in the process of selecting some commercial backdrops for the new section. I've had my fill of painting for this life! George V.
