I finally decided on a track-plan!

Justinmiller171 Feb 27, 2010

  1. Justinmiller171

    Justinmiller171 TrainBoard Member

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    I have decided to make an Ho-scale layout because the cost and time it would take to build an N-scale layout was just too much, Mainly due to the fact that I have much more stuff in Ho than I do in N, Including a proto-2000 B&O GP-7 that I bought at the Sacramento International Rail-fair for only $35.
    My layout will be set in the Baltimore Harbor area, The railroad will be a fictional joining of the Western Maryland Railroad and The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It will be just like Chessie systems but without C&O.

    So here is the Track-Plan:
    [​IMG]

    I think this is one of the best designs I have ever made since I was able to fit alot in the space I had. I was able to have a relatively good yard, about 8 industries, a small staging area and a small town near the top of the layout. I only have one switchback so other than that I don't see any switching problems. My only major concern is that the yard has too much in such a compact space.

    So tell me what you think!
     
  2. Odd-d

    Odd-d TrainBoard Member

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    If you like switching cars......and maintenance of switches ......this looks like a dandy layout. Just remember that you do your hobby FOR YOU and not for us in the great beyond. Personally I think the layout is too "switchy" and will cost a fortune to buy and install all those switches. Also I think it makes a good representation of a large urban area but it lacks the sense of a train going from town to town. Just an opinion. Odd-d
     
  3. Justinmiller171

    Justinmiller171 TrainBoard Member

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    I wanted a layout mostly for switching and I did want it to be a large urban area and not more than one town. And about the switches, I already have a few and i know of a great place that sells switches for about 10$ a piece. I am still wondering if the yard is too compact. So if anybody has experience with yards please give your opinion.
     
  4. steinjr

    steinjr Passed away October 2012 In Memoriam

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    Scenes deeper than about 30" requires a tall person and/or a low table. A tall person and/or a low table tends to work more poorly with duckunders.

    It looks like you haven't quite been able to make up your mind on what you want to model.

    On one hand, you seem to want to model a railroad which will have a lot of arriving and departing trains.

    Hence two dedicated A/D tracks, engine service tracks, a dedicated caboose track, a RIP track and so on and so forth - basically the stuff for a division point yard, where trains will be coming in from several directions and departing in several directions.

    But you don't have the staging capacity to support a lot of arriving and departing trains, and your trains will have to be short, since your room isn't all that big.

    So why not focus on what you say is your main goal - urban switching, and forget the dream about a division point yard. You can have a decent sized urban support yard and quite a few industries in a room that is 11 x 11 feet.

    Here is a rough idea of the type of plan that might work for an urban switching layout:

    [​IMG]

    Biggest difference relative to your plan is that I have tried to focus on urban switching, and I have tried to create not so deep scenes.

    But there still is a quite a few industries - 14 regular industries, a team track and three interchange tracks (which are general industries that can take any kind of car, loaded or empty), and plenty room for two or three people to be switching at the same time.

    If you want a car float scene, it can be worked into one of the two sides of the central peninsula.

    If you want continuous run, it could e.g. be worked in by having a detachable plank across the door in some way.

    Lots of options here. But consider what your goal is - is it having a yard where a lot of trains will be arriving and departing at the same time, or is it having an urban switching layout for one or two persons, where the fun is organizing the cars and delivering them, with one or maybe two trains max moving at any given time?

    Smile,
    Stein
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 27, 2010
  5. Justinmiller171

    Justinmiller171 TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks for the advice, but I have a few things I need to clarify. First: my yard was not meant to handle very many outgoing and incoming wayfreights, it was meant for small locals consisting of about 4 cars. Second: The maximum reach for my trackplan is only 34 inches so it should not be a very hard reach. and finally, I like your track-plan, but it is 11x11, and my room is 10x11 and would require that the middle peninsula be shortened by a foot which would take away alot. And I think layouts that focus on only one subject are very boring and dominate the entire layout, leaving no room for scenery.
     
  6. steinjr

    steinjr Passed away October 2012 In Memoriam

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    Well, Justin - your drawing isn't really clear enough to tell how deep your benchwork is all around, but I suspect that Pythagoras would possibly disagree with you about the 34" maximum reach.

    Diagonals into corners are sqrt(2) times depth of benchwork, or about 1.4 times depth of benchwork. If your bench on the left is 34" deep , I think reach into the upper left hand corner would be around 45" or so from the inside corner in the upper left hand corner of the room.

    I am currently doing a layout where the deepest reach for tracks is about 22". That is deep enough by far for me, who is about 6 feet tall, and who prefers layouts to be at chest height. I don't think I would have wanted to try to do fiddling another foot further back, or to go to helicopter perspective to get a little more reach.

    Also I am not totally clear on why a switching layout which will be running 4-car trains need both three dedicated A/D tracks and a bunch of yard tracks. Sorting four cars into order takes one turnout, two if you need to run around the cars for some reason. It would be hard to make yard tracks shorter than 4 cars, so an entire train could fit on a single yard track.

    But your layout, your call on how to do things. Good luck with your plan.

    Edit: Just for the heck of it I checked how much work it would be to change the one I drew up to fit a 10x11 foot room instead of a 11x11 foot room. It took a whopping 7 minutes, without actually making the peninsula shorter - I made the benchwork along the lower right end narrower instead, and took a foot out of the bottom of the yard on the left side of the room.

    I then added a little bit of "scenery" as in your plan - a couple of roads, some water etc. Not all that hard to do when you got quite a bit of length, even if you don't have all that much depth. We usually run out of length far before we run out of depth.

    Like this:

    [​IMG]

    Not a proposal for you - just something I did for my own amusement.

    I realize that you probably don't want to change your track plan much, and that you probably don't want people to point out challenges with your design. I sometimes feel just the same way about things I design for myself :)

    Anyways - have fun with your layout!

    Grin,
    Stein
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 27, 2010
  7. shortliner

    shortliner TrainBoard Member

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    Bigger than the area you have - but it might be worth looking at for ideas
    SFIR Track Plan
     
  8. randgust

    randgust TrainBoard Member

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    I see something entirely different. It's a very 'flat' layout. If your big yard to the left were elevated... and the left leg of the wye was pushed down..... your staging yard concept could be under the big yard on the left. It would sort of become a point-to-point, and that wye could be used for turning trains.

    Depending on how you wanted to operate that top yard (ground throws vs. switch machines) you could do it. If you want it bad enough, consider making the entire staging yard under the big yard a 'roll out' for maintenance on its own table with casters - you only have a one track connection into the leg of the wye.

    With HO and 3 1/2" - 4" vertical clearances min you can reach in there to clean track...

    I haven't run the math but the top plan 'looks' like you've got enough running distance to accomplish the grades, and some vertical separation would probably make the urban scenery more interesting. It will be tricky to calculate where you can safely build in the grades and how tight your clearances are, but considering your theme of short trains then 2.5-3.5% is doable. Your connecting trackage can all be on grades as long as the sidings themselves are flat.

    I'd also run the math on the your yard at no. 11 to see if you could get the tail track of the receiving track under it. If the storage tracks ran right into the backdrop a mirror would look great, fantastic there - 'behind you' as you enter the room, and you're not dead-on to it so you'd never see your own reflection.

    I like it, and I think building in some vertical separation would make it a great layout. There's a couple details like switch placement (the second entrance switch into industry 5 should be a RH, not a LH, so you don't have a reverse S curve and you can fit more cars) but conceptually its a very good concept.
     
  9. Tony P

    Tony P E-Mail Bounces

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    Nice Layout

    I may not be up to speed in RR modeling as I am just getting back into it after a manymany year break but I am a scale modeler with alot of experience in modeling in general.
    Your layout is very impressive to say the least . It has the WOW factor alright, BUT I think you have a huge bite to take by tackling this baby.

    Speaking from a general standpoint only as I admit I don;t have the technical knowledge to get into that area. It;s only my opinion, but, I would hate top see you start and not finish, or start and sooner or later run out of the proverbial Steam, get sidetracked and end up with a half done layout, half landscaped, not finished !! As was mentioned the cost will be pretty high also.

    As one who is getting into the hobby really for the first time seriously I am going to do a fairly somple layout concentrating on detail and accuracy as far as landscaping. buildings and the trains themselves are concerned. To each his own, to be sure.

    I wish you all the luck in doing what your layout dream is and hope to see it completed !

    Regards Tony
     
  10. ratled

    ratled TrainBoard Supporter

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    Thanks Stein for posting those plans. I'm not the OP and won't be building any of them but I did enjoy the "what if" of the plans and what can be done in the same space. "...only took 7 minutes" WOW- take 2 at boys from petty cash!!

    ratled
     
  11. cajon

    cajon TrainBoard Member

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    Stein
    Overall your plan is very good. In fact you've given me some ideas for a final (ha ha) configuration of my LAJ switching layout. That's the whole point of forums like this-to exchange ideas! Just don't see a good justification for that long spur going from the right end of the 3rd St yard to very lower left and only serving two industries. Maybe it could be justified by making the road a small river and have it serve a few more industries. And why not a river as there's a barge in your plan. Otherwise that spur could easily come off the 7th St yard.
     
  12. steinjr

    steinjr Passed away October 2012 In Memoriam

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    I don't want to hijack the OP's thread, but let me just reply briefly about the thinking behind this plan (which was dashed off rather quickly - initial design took about 60-90 minutes, so there are no warranties whatsoever that it is optimized in any way)

    I didn't really try to cram in the maximum number of rail served industries on this plan.

    Instead I tried to maximize the run length for the switching jobs, so there wouldn't just be switching, but also some running, and to try to organize the layout so there hopefully would be room for two or three people working at the same time without getting too badly in each other's way.

    Anyways - feel free to grab anything you like and change whatever you don't like - it was mainly intended as an illustration of the concept, not as an optimized track plan for the OP - I fully understand that he wants to keep his own design rather than reconsider some of his ideas.

    Smile,
    Stein
     
  13. Wolfgang Dudler

    Wolfgang Dudler Passed away August 25, 2012 TrainBoard Supporter In Memoriam

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    Stein,
    I like your plan. A lot of switching AND scenery!

    Wolfgang
     
  14. Justinmiller171

    Justinmiller171 TrainBoard Member

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    I have made a new plan with a simplified yard, shorter shelves and staging.

    [​IMG]
     
  15. steinjr

    steinjr Passed away October 2012 In Memoriam

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    I think it is a much improved design.

    May I still recommend buying (or borrowing) this book from Amazon and reading what Lance Mindheim has to say about the principles of shelf layout design?

    Smile,
    Stein
     
  16. Triplex

    Triplex TrainBoard Member

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    There's definitely more feeling of going somewhere on this plan.

    However, I'm not sure about the feasibility of that staging connection on the removable part.
     
  17. Justinmiller171

    Justinmiller171 TrainBoard Member

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    Sorry I didn't indicate it on the track-plan but the removable part will go under the layout to a hidden staging area.

    I am still finishing up the track-plan so there are some problems until I post the updated version.
     
  18. cajon

    cajon TrainBoard Member

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    It would be easier to have the staging yard lead take off on the curve in the bottom left & have it disappear behind a back drop. Your current lead, besides being a lift out, will have to be on a very STEEP grade to get under your bench work. In fact you could have a lead on both sides to a double ended staging yard. Just build the staging first & get it running good before putting anything above it.
     
  19. steinjr

    steinjr Passed away October 2012 In Memoriam

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    To amplify a bit on my earlier critique : the yard and engine service area looks good. But there still are some challenges. Here is a copy of your drawing with some stuff marked out:

    [​IMG]

    The biggest problem is the way of getting down to staging. That construction won't work - it will be steep, and it will be in the way of ducking into the room or working the yard.

    Do you want staging and/or live interchange? Or in other words: is it very important to you that during the operating session a train (or several trains) will be arriving into your scene from somewhere else, and/or departing for somewhere else?

    Or is what is more important to you to simulate that your railroad is connected to the rest of the world - so cars for your layout have arrived from somewhere else and cars from your layout will depart for somewhere else?

    The latter can be simulated (in very little space) by starting the session with cars on a track somewhere "having just arrived" or "having been dropped off during the night", and ending the session with "the cars on this or these tracks will be picked up tonight".

    With two such interchange tracks, you can simulate the interchange with two (or more) railroads, so you have to put outbound railroad cars headed in one direction on one interchange track, and outbound cars headed in different directions on another interchange track.

    Staging is not a goal in itself - it is a technique used to stash trains you want to arrive during a session, to simulate traffic in some way that makes sense in the scenario you are running.

    If having the train(s) arriving or departing is important to your modeling goal, try to consider whether you e.g. could model industries along the right wall, left wall or top wall as a long flat (or a combination of flats and e.g. trees and bushes, hiding a single ended staging track along the wall.

    If you use "surround staging" behind something, make sure that whatever you have in front can be lifted out so you can access stuff on the staging track. With Murphy being in effect at all times, a derailment will occur on the least accessible track :)

    Btw - one single ended staging track can support two trains arriving and two trains departing, if you either use short trains on a long track, or play tricks with the sequencing.

    You could e.g. start the operating session with one train "having just arrived" on the visible part of your layout, take that train into your yard and then later having another inbound train arriving from staging, before the first outbound train departs into staging. The session could then end with the second outbound train "about to depart".

    But these are really strategic quesions about what it is that you want to model. If it is trains arriving from the rest of the world and trains departing for the rest of the world, engine service etc - than it makes sense to look at staging.

    If you just want to simulate cars having sources or destinations beyond your layout, consider the modeling trick I mentioned of interchange tracks on which cars will just be fiddled by hand between operating sessions.

    Back to the plan - some more comments. You have a fairly long double ended siding in the lower right hand corner. If you make the double ended siding by the yard longer (as shown by blue lines showing added tracks, and wavy red lines showing what you can remove), you would get a main track configuration similar to the "heart of Georgia" model - loop with longish passing sidings in opposite corners.

    Would allow you (if the fancy strikes you) to run several quite long trains, with meets at either location (double ended siding lower right hand corner or double ended siding upper left hand corner).

    It would also allow you to switch the yard using the double ended sidings as a yard lead without fouling the main at the same time.

    But you would lose some flexibility of switching the industries along the upper wall independent of the yard. On the other hand - the length of the main between the yard ladder and the double ended siding on the main is fairly short, so you might still not be able to do much switching of both areas at the same time.

    Again - a strategic decision - do you want you layout to have the potensial for playing traffic games - ie having trains meet or overtake each other, or do you want to focus on the local switching?

    Btw - observe that when you put the yard between the main and the aisle, you get far better access to yard tracks for switching, but you lose (to some degree) the option of having rail served industries along the back wall behind the yard - where it is easy to have the yard crew also switch the industry, for variety.

    It would of course be possible to move the main a little out towards the aisle and slip in some industries along the left wall, served by a spur off the main along the left wall. Maybe - you will have to play with it and see what works for you.

    What else - you have a tendency to shove industries all the way into the corners and try to get the tracks to run all the way back by the wall. Probably wouldn't hurt to bring those corner industries forward (closer to the aisle), and maybe even put them at an angle across the corner, so your world won't have quite as abrupt corners.

    Upper right hand corner - consider let the track go into the rearmost track and a right hand turnout take you to the other track (continuing the curve of the approach track), rather than doing a lurch back to the left as you do there.

    I would have suggested bringing the track to the front of the building. Putting tracks into buildings look cute on plans, but is a pain to operate, since you cannot see what you are doing, and the whole building (two tracks worth of car spots) is then just one big black hole your cars disappears into.

    In contrast, by putting a single track along the front of the building and having three or four loading doors (no dock, just doors) along the side of the building, you can make up rules like : "produce cars must be spotted at door A, refrigerated cars at door B, beverages at door C and paper products at door D", in effect creating four industries out of one big industry building, with quite a bit of work necessary to remove two cars before you can spot the new inbound car at the right door. Think "car spots" instead of "industry tracks".

    I would also consider swapping those two industries along the right wall - have the smaller one on front and the bigger one along the backdrop. Then you can have the bigger one hiding stuff (including the end of the world and possibly a staging track behind it), and you can see and reach past the front industry to get to the rear industry.

    Last nitpick - I see that you joined the approach to the left and right side of the peninsula. That works, but it also means that you cannot switch both of them at the same time, since they will be sharing the same switching lead.

    I would have considered letting the switchback lead for the frontmost industry along the right wall continue all the way to the carfloat tracks, and maybe leaving a track next to the carfloat tracks where you can stash outbound cars while you pull inbound cars off the car float, and then you can pull forward, back up to get the outbound cars and shove them onto the carfloat.

    You need some workspace where you can leave inbound or outbound cars while switching.

    Probably sounds like a lot of criticism. Not intended as criticism - intended as a critique - intended to point out possible weaknesses, give you some ideas, and make you consider why you want to do things a particular way.

    It is not up to me to decide what you like. That is your job. What I can do is to "force" you to consider and explain why you want to do things this way or that way, and to explain what your goals are. That makes it possible for you to make a design that works for your goals.

    And that Lance Mindheim book is still a good idea - it will explain these ideas and many more in simple, plain language, with excellent illustrations that quite possibly will make you go "ah, why didn't I think about that!". I know it had that effect on me, and I have been drawing switching layout plans for a couple of years.

    Doesn't mean that I follow all of Lance's advice on my own layout - but at least I know what advice I am not following, and why. And then I know some things I could reconsider if I decide that what I did doesn't work as well as I hoped.

    Smile,
    Stein
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 28, 2010
  20. Justinmiller171

    Justinmiller171 TrainBoard Member

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    I read your ideas and I made anther track-plan

    [​IMG]
    I fixed the yard, made separate switches for the peninsula, made some industries diagonal, added a few industries and added some street running. Most importantly I got rid of staging since I have removable staging from the rail-barge and the interchange track underneath the team-track at the bottom, which will have a removable track extension piece.
     

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