After a discussion with my GF, we decided to expand the yard out by 5 and a half foot long (total) and break it in half so its easy to either attach or detach from each other and from main layout. After a close look at engine service area, we believe its too small to house for, at least, 11 engines. We have 17 operational engines, and we believe that only 8 of em will be either running or park somewhere else on the layout. I also believe that first section can be expand width wise by 1ft total. It is at least 8" at the moment (the section that connects to main layout). This might allow the yard to expand by several tracks and allowing more room for engine service area. I would want to make sure it got room for coal, water, fuel and sanding station plus a decent size engine shed. I would give this yard a temporary name for future reference which is: Main Yard. And then for the middle of the Main layout, I think we have some room for 4th spur. It may cross one of the track that connect to 2 spur. Looking over to the Oregon mountain, we do want the river to scoot closer to one of the spur. We want to give Oregon mountain some more room. All said can be done if I buy the full version of AnyRail... which I cant anytime soon! Doh. But for now, we are making adjustment to the frame of our layout. We are really looking forward to our progress! Stay tuned!
Hello, We have made some modification to our layout. This is regarding to spur #1, near by Oregon Mountain. As you can see, we would be needing to re-route the river around spur #1. Also will have to fill in more land mass underneath spur #1 which is about two 1" foam stack. After a big foam mess, this is what we got so far. Its not pretty, obviously but it will be fine once we cover it up with scenery stuff. All foam was glued together to plywood below. With a drywall knife, it was a easy yet messy situation. The track plan that you see is a paper glued to cardboard and temporary connect to each other. This allows me to either expand or shrink the overall track plan as I see fit. Here we are. We are test fitting everything together. The main yard wye will receive a 3rd bridge. I am debating if its either going to be wood trestle bridge, open deck bridge or steel bridge. It is obviously one track bridge, so I may have to consult advice or suggestion on what kind of bridge should I go with. As for the Oregon Mountain, we almost shrunk the whole mountain base by at least 50% due to river re-routing and Main Yard junction (wye connections). Was disappointed to shrink the mountain but we accept it. After all, we agreed it might simplified the whole layout outlook. I will still stay firm with tall towering Oregon style mountain, regardless. Note, if you guys can see, a black double track steel bridge. About couple inches away, will be tall deep cliff and a tunnel portal. Next to it will be a road access climbing upward for several homes nested on top of the Oregon Mountain. What it means that along the river until the wye bridge, will be wall with cliff face. We may add this interesting detail to the cliff: http://vintage.johnnyjet.com/photos/Italy-Capri-June-2010-47.JPG . This will allow more room for the road and the detail of the mountain to work together. Possible might add waterfall at that spot (going up, water will fall to the east of the road and will pass under the road down to the river). For the final thought regarding to 4th spur, Ive decided to scratch that idea. It is a little too crowded after all. And now, finally the Main yard. I can finalizing having a junction tower at the mouth of the yard, some signals and possibly a yard office. David, I was wondering if you can help me out here for one more time. My AnyRail refused to allow me to add any more tracks until I get full license of the program. I wont be able as my budget says 'No-no'. See my previous post about expanding the Main Yard. I will provide one more picture below: Again, owning about 17 locomotive doesnt make this area pretty... just way way way crowded! It does not inspired us to purchase any more locomotive until we fix this area. I have no doubt in my mind once we expand the Main Yard, width and length wise, we should be able to expand this area as well. Oh, if anybody ask, that can of paint is actually a dead weight to hold everything together... temporarily. Now, one last thing, I was wondering if I can continue to use this thread as both layout update and discussion, is that alright with trainboard? Thanks for looking and helping out! Al and Jordan
There is a very simple work-around: delete everything else from the plan except the yard itself. Then you will be able to redesign it as you like. You do not need to keep the entire plan in order to work on the yard alone. Note, however, it may not be possible to arrange the tracks to hold all of the locomotives they way you have them posed in the last photo. Each switch requires a fixed amount of space, and there may not be enough room for them all. Also, as another suggestion, you really do have way too many locomotives for the size of your layout; perhaps sell off six or eight? (Some of them are a bit large for the layout as it is.) This would help pay for the AnyRail license. Just a thought!
That's a great idea. I don't know why have I not thought of it. 5 years of CAD and I still fail to think of that. Thanks for the AnyRail tip. I will get right on it. I'll tweak the engine service area for a bit and see what I can do in term of sacrificing space for engines. We, mainly me, love engines. I wouldn't dare to sell any locomotives, eventhough they may fetch a nice budget increase for the layout. I still refuse to sell any of em off. You can say that I see them as a collector's treasure. Or I am a huge machine/engine kind of guy. I love locomotives more than rolling stocks. :teeth: As for small layout, I don't entirely expect all of the locomotives to fit on the layout, but I do like the idea of having different consists. After all, I did say that this layout is entirely freelanced and its main purpose is to stage a beautiful scenery for mix variety of consists (BN consists, SP consists, etc etc). I would limit about 20 engines on this layout at any time. The rest will be put on display with easy access should we switch locomotives however we desire. So, my main goal is: A really effective engine terminal/service area for locomotives. It would have to be big and realistic enough. I don't see one area that house 4 engines as engine terminal/service area. I truly see any more than 10 locomotive as a true engine terminal/service area. At least only 4 or 6 engines should be out running around and shunting and such. After all, you wouldnt want to put a beautiful Cab forward or GS-4 on display, rather put them on a layout where they belong as either under a shed or running. Right? After saying that, I hope I'm not the only locomotive fanatic here? :sweat:. I will get back to you guys soon later today as I get on AnyRail and see what we can do with the space give and take. David, regardless, thank you for keeping me in the right way. I may want to consult with you regarding to realistic track arrangement. I don't have many studies on yard designs or switch designs.
Here are the result! Still hit the 50 track limit so I resorted to Illustrator to present my purpose and design. I hope this is clear enough for all of us to understand. I created two variation; Roundhouse and Shed. I am extremely happy but not 100% set with the yard design and track arrangement. One, if we take a look at shed variation, we can see that its a lil messy. Roundhouse variation looks simple enough so thats a B+ in my book. If you guys noticed something first, theres a red and blue line surrounding the layout. The red section is a red module which can be detach or attach to blue module. Blue module will obviously attached to the main layout. And now finally, there are 9 track total in the yard. Very spacious and I believe it can literally housed all of our available rolling stocks and locomotives. I added one little detail within Main Yard and that, I believe, is a go-around. A consist will pull in from the main layout. Once it reached before the switch, loco will disconnect from the consist. Using the go-around, loco may be able to return to either engine terminal/service or to turn around from the Wye. Thanks to the spacious yard and design inspiration from David, I never foresee the possibility of having more actions within small space! To be frank, this is turning out to be very interesting and exciting for me! Stay tune for more progress!
Not sure what you're doing wrong, but those attachments don't work. As for extra rolling stock that won't fit comfortably on a layout, a lot of people use these.
Whoops, give me one sec. Edit: Should work now, let me know if it doesnt. As for the display case, wow, thats a beauti. Its funny you mention that, we have already built two of those: It is two separate display case that can be attached together. We opted for side by side instead. It is now on our wall (one of em is).
You should maybe take a few of the yard ladder out so you can check the clearances by that turntable. The two tracks that appear to come off an engine servicing area and end just above the turntable looked very cramped, especially next to that switch on the engine servicing ladder. I'm sure you'd be able to fit one in, but I doubt the 2nd will fit as easily.
I agreed. It does look cramped but with trail version of AnyRail, I wont know how cramped it might be. You can go ahead and call this concept design for now. Not everything is final until I start track laying.
You can relieve some of the congestion by eliminating the runaround on the top two tracks, and use them for staging. The track that runs parallel to the yard ladder forms your runaround. You've also got a lot of extra stub sidings that don't serve much purpose except consume space and money. Try this on for size:
I see. So there is no chance for a roundhouse addition? Can we try expand the engine area (from engine to 2nd wye entrance) by total of 1ft and half? It will remain 1ft and a half until the switch that begins engine service. Then it can slim down to the rest of the yard. I want to take a stab at this roundhouse addition one more time because the idea of including roundhouse is my dream. Although it may be a new first N scale layout for us, this addition would be great enjoyment. Otherwise if its not possible, then that's fine. The current design from you is good enough. You presented lots of simplistic design which I enjoyed. I should study more often on yard design. Mm. Back to research and tweaking.
Roundhouses have a strong romantic attraction to many modelers; unfortunately, they are very inefficient in terms of the layout space they require. Forcing one into your layout is kind of like cramming 7 pounds of mud in a 5 pound boot, IMO. Quite frankly, I think your obsession with storing all of your locomotives on your layout risks compromising its appearance and functionality.
That's a shame to hear. I agreed, even though it doesn't have to be cramming lots into it. Like I said previously, I'm willing to either give or take any spaces to make it happen. It may be a obsession but I wouldn't see it that way. I think of it as preparation from a small layout to a big layout. During that time, our equipment size will either increase or stay par. Regardless, all is well. I don't entirely expect to win at everything, especially with this small layout. Although, I do expect to score some big ones once we have a chance to expand our layout (bigger space, bigger house, etc etc). At least we attend to Belmont Shore N scale club in San Pedro where our trains will be able to stretch its legs. Its a really huge layout (55 scale miles from one to another and back). Thats the another reason why we have several more locomotives than normal for a small layout owners. Now then, I suppose this is where we'll have to turn this design into reality.
You may be "preparing for a larger layout," but in the meantime, what are you building? A small, functional, interesting layout, or a display case for a lot of locomotives? If the latter is your goal, then go for it, but when you wind up unhappy with its cluttered appearance and compromised operation, then you may realize the goal at the outset may have been a small layout in every respect. IMO, of course. Consider: I have dozens of locomotives and hundreds of cars, yet I am content to build small layouts (such as the 2 x 3 foot Hoboken Manufacturers Railroad) that will hold at most two small locos and a handful of cars. My goal is to build layouts that are interesting to look at and operate, not showplaces for my collection. But of course, we all have our priorities.
Oh no, I totally understand. I think in the first place, I was a lil gung-ho about it. Part of it was hoping that with a new addition and design to Main Yard, it looks big and it convinced me that it just 'might' fit more locomotive than expected. But no, to cram many thing is not one of my goal for this layout. It almost to the point that its actually half and half. To display our trains and having a stage for them. I think the concept is: Set a beautiful (however big or small) stage for our trains. In the back stage though, it will not be messy nor crammed. Another thing to add, it is not my intention to put 17 locomotive at once on this small layout. It would be silly, if by your consult. I'm only relying on your expertise to tell me otherwise. All we care about is beautiful layout and the functionality of it. We may acquired more stuff in the future, but only one set of stage/theme can be applied. For example, we'll have possibly 5-6 southern pacific geeps and SDs on layout at one time. Then we'll switch out SP for Burlington Northern sets. Again, part of the reason why I kept this layout freelanced, not set to prototype or real thing, rather more northwestern feel to it. Northwestern area has our favorite railroads such as Great Northern, SP&S, Northwestern Pacific, and both obviously SP and BN. We may be limited to small space or whatnot, but it shouldn't be a problem to switch out one of the railroad for another, right? We do have display case on stand by for any desirable needs to display our beauties. I hope this clears up! There are no desire to cram things up. I'm only looking for opportunity to take advantage of any space for more trains on layout, otherwise, the main goal still stand: Function, pleasing to look at, and having fun with it. And speaking of taking chances and opportunity whenever, I just spot a different concept from your website, David. http://whiteriverandnorthern.net/plan-22.htm That inspired me to try one more time. I may have to consult with 3D programming and see if its possible. The new idea is: Raise the whole layout by another ft so that the ground level clears my desk computers. Then, run the whole she-bangs either C configuration as seen in the link OR upside down F configuration. We'll see. All about concept and trying many different things.
Food for a thought. Here's a different concept that we can possibly try. It is F configuration, but can work just fine as C configuration. Another inspiration by FreemoN as well. Only the main layout is in big chuck (the size is 2' 1/2" by 2' 1/2" x2 and 3' by 2'). The other modules are in between of 1' wide and 2'. The one above my desk is 6' 1/2" long. The one that connect to Main Yard should be at least 5' or 6' depending. It is raise up by the total of 4' and half (from floor to ground level of the layout). It is up to my chest, so reaching or looking at the layout is no problem. See example below. I can see two wyes opportunity, one yard, and two module worth of shunting/switching. Or, one wye, roundhouse, and two module of shunting/switching. Whatever works. The width in question (1') doesnt seem too wide. If that's the cause, we checked that 2' is allowed if needed.
Am I missing something here, or would putting a standard "balloon" loop built into one side of the oval make it easy to turn trains to head back to the staging yards the way they came?
