Do you mean something like this? I can't get the curves right. Currently min radius with the change is just over 9" That's a little tighter than I'd like.
Yes, that was my idea. Looks like a good place for a 75° crossing. Does anyone make those? A 60° crossing might work better. Make plans to have a way to reverse the polarity of the turntable. Spin it 180° and it no longer has the same polarity it had when you drove your locomotive onto it.
Atlas makes a code 80 60degree. Managed to get the tightest curves down to 10 3/32" but man, this plan has gotten large! Just the loop around the turntable is nearly 4' deep. I'm using the walthers big turntable to support big steam (Challenger currently and Big Boy in the future), DD40AX, etc.
If you have a quick way in via the crossing, do you still need the entrance via the blue track? Eliminating it would save space. Roundhouses are generally situated with one stall straight across from the entrance, so one locomotive can pull in without stopping and getting rotated. Moving the turntable closer to the crossing will help you save space.
immediately after the crossing I have the outside curve starting easing from 13 1/8" to 11 3/4 around, so I can't make the depth any smaller there (top to bottom in the graphic). I could mess around with tighter crossings, maybe a 45 degree would allow me to move it more to the right and still make a decent tangent to the upper loop, but that would cause an even steeper lead-in to the roundhouse. Is there something I'm missing with how I'm looking at it? I could move the turnout to the backside of the commercial district, but then I'd be backing the engines back past the turnout on the main once transitioning to that loop.
I'd eliminate the other entrance, go back to a 90° crossing, reconfigure the loop to suit the 90° by eliminating some of the curvature (which makes it slimmer left-to-right) and put the turntable as close to the crossing as possible. Worth a try?
More like this? Doesn't make the bottom loop skinnier, but makes the upper loop more so and smoother with the curves
Wasn't sure how to get a 90 degree intersection with the angle of the line running from the roundhouse, through the bottom loop and be relatively straight to the tangent of the upper loop for the main side of the turnout. If I try to pull the turnout any further around the top loop, the rail on the main side of turnout would not intersect the bottom loop at 90 degrees. Not sure what I'm missing, but I can't see how else to do it given the geometry of all the pieces. I wouldn't say I like the result I have, but it appears that it would work!
If you were to go back to v4, keep the track that serves the turntable at the same angle, and bring the loop across at a 90° angle to that, it would cut back the size of that bulge a bit. You'd have to keep the longer tracks to the right. Remember, tracks radiating out from the turntable have to spread out enough that locomotives on adjacent tracks don't sideswipe each other. From that point out, none of the tracks need to be longer than the turntable, because engines longer than that won't ride the turntable. There are two exceptions to that rule. There's the one track straight across from the entrance--locomotives can reach that without moving the table. And there's any track meant to hold more than one engine.
Remembered the magic of Peco curved turnouts, it made a big difference. I ended up stretching the bottom loop down a bit more to provide a long straight in like you suggested.
I like that last version. Another option is build some of your own turnouts or crossings to about anything that you might need... http://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Trackwork/Trackwork-Index.html ... I'm really enjoying doing that, Sumner
Suddenly that crossover by the blue track looks like it doesn't accomplish much. The yard would be longer if you used a right hand switch instead of a left hander on the left end. The curved leg of the switch could make up part of that curve, and the straight leg could lead straight down the ladder track. That would make each yard track a few precious inches longer. Could stretch them from 40 to 50 or more without creating a reverse curve. Nice job avoiding ess curves, by the way. I think it looks good. Do you like it?
Wow thanks guys. Great idea on the changing of the turnout for the yard, gained me almost 8 more inches there. I've managed to get all the turn radii at least to 10" in the tight areas. Also got rid of the turnout there on the right, you are correct, it is unnecessary now. From what I can tell I'll need 3 polarization swapping blocks (green, blue, purple). I plan on using Tam Valley fog juicers on the turnouts again and am starting to learn programming of the Ardiuno chip boards. It appears making the reverses loop board code is pretty easy and DIY & Digital Railroad youTube has an example. Sumner, I wish I could make my own turnouts, but I am bad with basic flex track. So bad in fact I've pulled up and redone the track multiple times on my current table and have purchased the N scale Tracksetta guides made by Peco to help. Even after designing it out in AnyRail I print out the entire plan in full-size, lay the track directly on top of the print out, and still somehow get binds and all. Maybe I'm just really bad at splicing flex track (I offset my cuts and solder points so they aren't directly across). Always end up with a slight kink at the joint. Thanks again for all the help guys. I plan on trying a lot of new things on this layout like signaling with block detection, etc (all with Arduino boards). Haven't decided if I will mostly use IR or current draw. Adding resistors to all my cars sounds very tedious. Dale
You're welcome. Just one more thing, though. The turntable needs to be an electrical block all to itself. It needs to be isolated from every track around it.
