As long as you keep one of the two tracks at lower right clear, for switching an incoming train, all should be good.
I like your plan, I once had a layout with a lot of the same industries that you are planning to use and my suggestions come from my experience with that layout. The Atlas GP35 or similar loco is a good choice. Be sure you don’t depend on the turnout points to stay live after a short period of time or after you have painted or ballasted the track. Get the extra feeder wire in there routing power through a set of electrical contacts working in sequence with however you are controlling the turnouts. That way, even if you decide to use a switcher you’ll be covered. I would suggest having your industry sidings on the viewer’s side of each industry so the structure does not block the view of the work from the operator. I had a Medusa Cement building set up just like you have and that’s how I know this. I would have enjoyed it more with the railroad parts of it out where I could see them. You could also do more by using shallow relief for flat buildings along the sky board of the industrial area. When you get this going, it would be great if let us know and post some photos. Brad http://www.n-scale-dcc.blogspot.com/ http://www.palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/ http://tokyo-in-nscale.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the info. I will see about making those changes. I'll be using peco electric frog turnouts with frog juicers. Will I still need to use feeders near the points?
I took the liberty-- or you might call it irresponsible licentiousness to modify your plan. I liked the schematic and the space-use of your plan. I liked the operating possibilities. I liked the diagonal main tracks across the layout. I did not like the geometry of the spurs, which seemed to go off on whatever angle the tracks came off. Even more, I did not like the geometry of the structures, which did not seem to be aligned with the right angle plots of typical rectangular real estate, but angled to fit the spurs. I cut and pasted your track and structure elements to imagine a townscape laid out on a grid aligned with that diagonal main track. I moved the printing plant over to share a spur with the furniture plant. That makes that corner of the layout a fairly crowded industrial district- but I found a place to run a cross street. I thought the depot should have its platform side on the main track where a through passenger train could have stopped and then proceeded after handling passengers, without having to back onto a spur. I am thinking of the size of your station as fitting a small to medium town, where through passenger trains stop on the mainline, not an end-of-the-run terminal. Even if you never run passenger trains, I thought that is how the station would have been oriented from the time in the past when your line DID handle passengers. A freight house track goes to the BACK side of the depot. And although your passing siding is not long enough to allow long through trains to pass (I assume you are using it primarily as a runaround), it is positioned to suggest in condensed form an arrangement where a train placed in the siding to allow a higher priority train to meet or pass, will not block the track right in front of the depot. Finally, I turned the building with the track down its center-line (a machine shop?) so it is parallel to the main track, but across the highway from the depot and other spurs. I think these changes I sketched will give BY ITS GEOMETRY a realistic impression of a small to medium town along the tracks. DISCLAIMER: I tried to keep reasonable standards for track layout but I did not check the exact fit of whatever kind of track you are using. Would take some trial and error to fit.
Peco Electrofrog turnouts are good. The frog juicer takes care of the switching part but you will still need to connect a wire from the frog to the juicer. Brad http://www.n-scale-dcc.blogspot.com/ http://www.palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/ http://tokyo-in-nscale.blogspot.com/
I like the revised plan alot better than your original. A couple things I would do is: 1- I would utilize the extra space in your staging area. Is this going to be hidden or exposed? If exposed, why not add an industry or 2 in that area? 2- I would also add somewhere in the lower left of the main module a little engine house or service track. These areas can be quite small and add ALOT of detail to a scene. I like mine to be long enough for an engine and a tank car. The tank car is the source of fuel for the little RRs loco and also adds switching variety. Just my $0.02 on it Ryan
You have a very nice plan coming along. It looks like it would easy to incorporate into a larger plan.
Sorry I haven't replied but I've been building the shelfs. Thanks for all the info. I've certainly been considering all view points that have been brought up.
If you're using Peco Electrofrog turnouts then you don't need a juicer. It's called "Electrofrog" because it juices the frog all by itself (through contact between point blades and stock rails). Just make sure not to paint the rail between the point blades and stock rails and it should work fine for years (with an occasional cleaning with rubbing alcohol). If you use Atlas turnouts or any others with ISOLATED frogs, then a juicer or Bullfrog or slide switch to change the polarity of the frog is in order. As far as your layout goes: loaders like Medusa Cement need to be at least 1/2 way or all the wall towards the FRONT of the siding. Locos need to push / pull a cut of cars all the way through PAST the loader. Unless you're only loading one car at a time, which seems a bit silly at the end of all that track. I'd also dedicate at least a track or two (in both directions) for storage, unless you want to play move-every-car-to-get-anywhere-Tetris. Think cuts of loadeds and cuts of empties. Think specific car spots, numbers, and specific loads (putting specific cars in specific places is going to be the challenge / fun, not the number of tracks or industries). I'm a big fan of shelf layouts, so looking forward to seeing what you come up with!
Ditto on the staging- at the very least, consider adding a second or third track, this way you can use the area as a staging/fiddle yard. One can never have enough staging, plus you can run different road jobs.
The extra sidings in staging are good. I would use it as a yard or interchange - randomly spot your cars on track 1 or 2 (if using 1 as a main) and sort 'em on 2 or 3 in the order that you will be hitting your industires. Remember, you only need one siding to sort cars. I think Medusa Cement is in the wrong spot. It should be halfway or farhter down the siding. You should be able to spot all cars in front of the plant and then a puller or trackmobile can pull them through. At it's current spot you would have to place them beyond the loader and as they're pulled through they would foul the main. Halfway would give you a 50-50 split, towards the end you could spot more cars and assume there is more track beyond the layout. I don't think there is a storage problem on the layout. The extra siding by Medusa can be used for off-spots (cars in your consist that aren't ready for delivery to the shipper because their siding is occupied). Make sure your run around can hold most of a consist so you don't have to break the train a lot. Make sure your switching lead has a length of 2x the cars in a siding plus the loco.
Okay I moved medusa cement where you suggested. I'm only running short trains about 10 cars. I don't know if that makes a differrance.
