Matt Since your ramp to staging starts at your duck under, there's no need to have the staging lead start off the yard. Start it off the top of the curve in bottom left. If you move the mainline closer to the wall. This gives you more room for switching spots! See my latest revision. Since the duck under is narrower you could make it a lift out or tilt-up.
Awesome plan Matt, I haven't looked at this thread in a while, but I still like the plan a lot. The newest plan looks really cool. I was wondering if 6" separation between decks is going to be enough finger room. Take care, Greg
Yes it is going to be really tight for 050 operations. I think it will work as I will be using the locomotive run around track in staging as a loading and unloading zone for the layout. The crude mock up (using my desk hutch shelving which is less than six inches) I am able to rail and unrail cars (including autoracks) so I think it will work. There is no way I will be able to reach the inner track if all are populated. Loading and unloading will only occur on the outer most run around track. In the event of Murphy's Law and I have to 050 the inner tracks, I will have to move trains out of the way first and then resuce the rolling stock from the inner tracks. It is not ideal but a compromise I think I can live with to keep the grade down on the staging ramp. Of course, the real test will come during initial construction and basic testing....that is still a little ways off yet.
No plan changes to the main level. Some subtle changes were made to staging to include a inexpensive turntable so that I have a place to turn my locos without having to 050 every time. Also added some tracks to store some locomotives when not assigned to trains.
The turntable is a very good addition! 0-5-0 handling causes alot of damage especially to loco details, You might think about moving the turntable to right side to keep hands or elbows from knocking things over. LOL
When I was an engineer on the MNNR a few years ago, the turntable could not rotate a full 90 degrees to completely turn a locomtive end for end. This was because of a problem with the pit rail which would only allow the bridge to rotate up to about 85 degrees which was enough to reach the last, stall, north and no further due to a chain bolted over the pit rail which stopped it. To turn a unit or car, we used the Merrium Park wye which surrounded the roundhouse. Barry
Wow, that is interesting and must have been a bit of a pain . I think they have it working now. The CVisions production dvd on the MNNR show a loco being turned on it but I can't remember if they did a 180 or not.....I will have to pop in the DVD and look again
Well I am getting closer to actually start building this thing. Seems like I have been in the planning stages for my layouts FOREVER!. Between work, family, college, and competition for funds it is very difficult to keep projects rolling sometimes. The basement office were my MNNR layout will call home is almost gutted of everything and remodeling it can continue at full steam (in between work, family, and college of course). I had major scope creep with the office remodel but it was needed and the end results will be nice. First major scope creep was computer networking. I am first and maybe foremost a computer geek. I have a household domain with a couple of hefty servers and a VMWare server hosting many more servers. I have several workstations destined for the office, the wife's office with three computers, all the kids have computers, mac minis in living room and bedroom for multimedia, computer in the garage, two computers destined for the attic railroad empire, network enabled security camera DVR station with 14 cameras (live in the city), ethernet based intercom, and ethernet connected security system ran by yet another computer. In total there are about 45 devices networked in the home. Most of this was running on WI-FI but I was not happy with the performance.....so I deciced to wire up the whole blooming house with CAT6, new 48 port gigabit managed switch and patch panels. MAJOR SCOPE CREEP. This all had to be done prior to completing the office remodel. I finished all the wiring except for the office itself about two weeks ago. I hope to have the office ready for layout shelf building in a couple of months. I will post updates here.
Hey Matt - Sorry I'm a little late to the game here but what size is the grid on you plan? Is the Aug 15th post version the current one? Are you an Op's, railfan or little of each? Just wondering. I have a layout of about the same space and know the pains of trying to fit it in the space you've have (not like no one else ever had this problem). ratled
Rattled, The grid is 5" square. Attached is the current plan using Atlas Code 83 flex and sectional track and Atlas turnouts. I am a little of both on Op's and railfan. This layout is geared more towards ops with the opportunity to run a train as a roundy - round. Here is the overall idea of operations not including inbound transfers from BNSF, Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, and Twin Cities & Western and the occasional small Amtrak Train. I still have to work out car types and frequency for most of the routes. All of the routes except MNNR Local Job #11 are represented in staging (off layout) to include transfers with other roads. All traffic is (inbound and outbond) is transferred with connecting roads. MNNR trains are classified on the layout. MNNR train routes off layout are then ran to and from staging. Most trains do not exeed ten cars as in practice on the prototype. MNNR Motive Power 1 ALCO C424 - MNNR 313 - MNNR Yard Duty 2 ALCO C424 - MNNR 314 - Hugo Job #19 / Bayport Job #15 3 GE B23-7 - MNNR 1971 - BNSF Transfer Job #88 / CP Transfer Job 4 GE B23-7 - MNNR 1978 - BNSF Transfer Job #88 / CP Transfer Job 5 GE B23-7 - MNNR 1983 - Belt Job #46 6 Alco RS-27 - MNNR 316 - Hennepin Job #52 7Alco RS-27 - MNNR 317 - MNNR Local Job #11 MNNR Local Job #11 (On Layout) Route Operates Daily Industries: Lakeville Shipping Central Gas & Supply Small Factory - Not directly rail served Small Factory - Not directly rail served Sicken Tire Lube-Tech Trans-World Trucking - Not directly rail served Recyling / Scrap Flour Mill Open Air Transload ADM Grain Elevator Hennepin Job #52 Route Operates Daily Industries: Epsco Steel - Inbound coil cars Raptner Steel - Inbound coil cars Twin Cities Reload - Lumber - Inbound Center Beam Flat cars Hawkings Chemical - InboundChem Tank Cars Eureka Recycling - Paper / Plastic / Glass - OutboundBoxcars Belt Job #46 Route Operates Daily Belt Pole - Pole Yard - Telephone Poles - InboundFlat Cars with Ideler Cars Hood Flexible Packaging - Plastic Packaging - Plastic Pellets Inbound / Plastic Containers Outbound -4 bay covered hoppers / Boxcars Wirehouser Recycling - Scrap Metal - OutboundGondolas Murphy Warehouse - Bulk - Transload - Inbound and OutboandBoxcars / Covered Hoppers / Flat CarsSheerer Lumber - Lumber - InboundCenter Beam Flat Cars Commercial TransLoad of MN - Transload - Steel Inbound - Other Inbound and OutboundCoil Cars / Boxcars / Flat Cars Rolland Marketing - Potatoes - Mechanical Reefers Twin Cities Arsenal (MNARNG)Arden Hills - Military - Inbound and Outbound Military Loads Hugo Job #19 Route Operates Daily Rollins Oil Co - Petrolium / Fuel Oil - Petro Tank Car Belden Plastics - Plastic Products - 4 bay covered hoppers / Boxcars Old Dutch - Potato Chips - Reefer Cars Inbound Fulcrum Plastics - Plastic Products - 4 bay covered hoppers / Boxcars Drywall Supply Inc. - Drwall / Construction Materials / Tools - Boxcars Structural Wood Corporation - Lumber - Centerbeam Flatcars Universal Forest Products - LumberCenterbeam Flatcars Polar Plastics - Plastic Products - 4 bay covered hoppers / Boxcars St. Croix Hardwood - Flooring - Boxcars 84 Lumber - Lumber - Centerbeam Flatcars Norlake Services - Fuel Oil - Petro Tank Car MNNR Team Track - Misc Bayport Job #15 Route Operates Daily Anderson Windows - Inbound Lumber, Plastic, Glass, Packaging - Outbound Boxcars.
Just found this thread...looks like a great plan! One suggestion...why not eliminate the backside staging yard ladder (near the turntable) and just bring the tracks straight into the turntable itself? You could (a) eliminate 6 turnouts which is always a good thing, (b) probably lengthen your staging tracks a bit, and (c) still have room for loco tracks if you slid the turntable up toward where the current turnouts are just a little.
Matt I hear you about ops and roundy round. It’s nice to put a drone train in orbit around the layout will you switch a yard or industry. A couple of questions about your plan and a few suggestions for your consideration. It looks like you are at about 28” in depth on most areas. That’s a very long reach to the industries in the upper and lower right corners. This is especially true for the grain elevator that you will have to reach over a yard of cars. Is the whole layout at 62”? I’m at 52” with 24” depth and my corners are a long reach in and I am 5’ 10”. I have to use a step stool just to work back there. Central Gas could be tough to service with the warehouse in front of everything track wise. Have you thought about extending the line for the warehouse to service the gas supply and add a line to service the warehouse? That would bring everything up front and wouldn’t detract visually from the scene since it’s all behind the warehouse anyway. You could either have a rat hole into the warehouse or a 1st floor exposed loading dock sheltered by the second floor – which could look very nice at 62” being so close to the viewer. Walthers had a backdrop building that had this feature you could pattern it after. You will want to mock up your 4” grade. I just ripped out my 3% grade with 24” radius. Everyone told me the 3% with the curve caused too much drag for my trains to go up…. They were right. I was lucky as my staging track faces the rest of the garage and I could squeeze a little more room out for it. The best way to sum it up is what one guy told me (after of course) “just because you can doesn’t mean you should”. 5.5” of actual track to deck separation is going to be tight for your staging. Make sure you have LOTS AND LOTS OF RE-RAILERS IN THERE! I would have one before and after every turnout and curve. You can’t have too many. Once you get it built it will be almost impossible to add them. You have a lot of action going on for such a smaller space. I think you can make the most of it but you probably will have to make a few concessions once you start laying track so be ready to come up with a plan B on the fly Steve
Doug, That is a GREAT!! idea about re-designing the staging and yes....less turnouts the better!! I am not sure why I didn't see that one ....can't see the forrest through the trees scenrio Steve, Yep, you are right about Central Gas & Supply. After taking another look, there is no way I can reach that turnout (layout was originally designed using Kato track with integrated switch machines). So either a re-design of the servicing tracks is needed or I eliminate the gas supply industry all together. I agree and am already planning on doing a mock up of the 4% grade as that is simply a grueling grade. Being that I absolutely do not want to have staging go across the door opening in any fashion, I have limited myself of many options. In the space provided with the overall current plan, a 4% grade is mandatory. The question is can a single loco pull about ten cars on a curve with on a 4% grade. If the testing confirms that I am indeed out of my mind, then a major re-design will be needed. I did think about lowering the entire elevation of the layout, making it a tad wider maybe 30" (which is a long reach even at chest height..I am 72" tall so current height is stretching it) and maybe incorporating some kind of around the walls staging. Downsides to around the walls staging is making it accessable (long reach) while hiding it. The grain elevator will be a pain if the yard is full and even throwing the turnouts in that general area will likely be a challenge if the yard is full. Under the table turnout controlls are not a option with the current place due to tight clearance issues with staging so the ugly (IMO) Atlas remote turnouts could be an option (or the pesky to install Atlas under table turnout remotes that are quite small). Perahps, I could relocate the grain elvator towards the top of the layout plan, redisgn the yard to accomidate the moved elevator and relocate the Amtrak station somewhere towards the right of the layout.....just thinking out loud. The current depth of the layout is 24" (excluding the corners). It is very high. Two reasons for the current layout height is to allow for under layout staging. And under the layout there will be 30" wide shelves / desktop that will be used as my office area (many computers, a work bench area, a couple of printers, and general office junk. So a reasonable amount of clearance is needed for office use and lighting of the office space to be attached underneath the layout. It is a busy layout but works for the urban industial shortline area that it depicts. Slow and short trains is the overall ruling theme for the layout with lots of interchange traffic. Great feedback guys as always. Any suggestions towards around the layout staging?
Attached is the updated plan that address staging and spurs for Lakeville shipping and Central Gas & Supply. I did not alter anything for ADM Grain Elevator
Matt I think I would take up knitting before having to use snap switches again. (but don't tell anyone I have 2 on my staging because it was so cheap (free) for remote and hidden switching). The only staging alternative I can come up with is a bit abrupt but if it saves the day..... Anyway, eliminate the lower deck and make it a single deck at 55". Next is to cut the visible yard to about half from 8 to 4 or 5 (1 or 2 A/D tracks and one for East, West and Local). With the lowered layout now you can expand that area to say up to 30". Now you can add a short backdrop, city scene, tree line etc. (say 10" -12") and run 4 staging tracks behind that. One very smart track planner told me that back in the day I didn't listen to him …… would have, could have, should have….. You could drop staging to 3 tracks- East, West & Through if you wanted to. Another tweak for this to work would be to move the transloader from the lower right to the lower left (old staging) and give you a little room to transition the new staging. You could also move the grain elevator from the right top corner to the upper right corner (does that make sense?) if you want to. It would/could make it easier to switch cars. It isn’t necessary since it would move forward to allow for the new staging, just something to consider. I would try and keep the gas dealer since its rail served. Steve
Steve, Yep your very acurately described what I was thinking about around the layout staging. It was not my idea...I read in Model Railroader a while back about I think an O scale layout that used this method for staging. Pros for around layout staging: 1. ONE LEVEL - in a space this size in HO scale one level in my opinion is preferred. Perhaps if I was doing N-Scale (which I was considering at one point) this would be more plausable. 2. No need to have a brutal 4% grade 3. Simpler = KISS 4. Easier to maintain track and rolling stock in staging (eliminates issue of 6" clearance). 5. Lowers elevation of layout to a more comfortable level while still providing a good eye sight view. 6. Provide more real estate for the layout due to both a wider shelf and no need for ramp 7. Easier to design and build the benchwork. 8. One level means if I want to use tortosie machines I can since there will be no clearance issue to contend with beneath the main level. Cons to around layout stating: 1. Might be harder to wrap my head around train organization with say four tracks of staging as opposed to six. 2. Will try to preserve current yard size as a large part of the operations would be breaking down and building MNNR trains. 3. Might be quite a reach to maintain staging track and rescue rolling stock as needed. However, I am hoping that some good cleaning cars like the CMX tank car will handle most track cleaning issues (this is pretty much all we use at the club). So far I think the pros outweigh the cons. I will have to play with this idea some and see what I can come up with. Off the top of my head staging should have at least two points of entry. Next off the top of the head question, would it be better to have four track or so loop around the layout with crossovers somewhere to access the tracks or do I have two yard ladders feeding into a single track that then connects to the layout (bi-directional)? Layout planning is interesting.....once you think you have THE plan you create another one Better to try ideas on the computer than ripping up track though.
Really nice plan!! I had to show this to my dad.. He's got a room thats 11x11.. Something like that would be sweet for his train room.
Sounds like you have some fiddling to do. I have always been a fan of the KISS method (Keep It Simple Steve) You could try and leave the transloader in place and fit it in some how with the new staging. Keep the old staging track as a single/secondary staging, an interchange perhaps? The SOO comes onto the layout, rolls over to the yard, drops off it's cars and picks up a bunch of out bounds. Does a quick run around of power and heads back to staging. A cool train to run, adds variety and is the perfect excuse to run that loco you you've always wanted but could never justify I have a 9x11 layout with cross overs similar to what you are thinking. You can see what I did with the cross over here http://s90.photobucket.com/albums/k256/ratled/?action=view¤t=Ver1.jpg You can also see where I had to punch out a little get rid of the 3% grade. Steve
