Okay, so I'd already cut three 1/2" sheets to the same size as the base, when I cut the 2" base to size. Then I cut those 1/2" sheets in two (semi) diagonally, leaving about 6" of each end, so they are not triangles but four-sided, wedge-shaped pieces to stack for terrain, and there are six of them. BTW, both the 2" and the 1/2" thick sheets are right at 1/16" proud of the nominal thickness. So the wedge-shaped pieces are worth 9/16" in elevation each. So I'll cut the 3% risers off at 7/16" too, so they'll each be a bit longer to climb the extra sixteenth of an inch. I took one of the 9/16" layers and slid it under my tracks, then marked on that sheet where the ground-level tracks were. I slid that sheet back out from under the tracks, and took it out to the shop. I used a drywall stab-saw to cut along the marked extents of the ground level tracks, then used that cut-to-shape sheet to mark the remaining sheets for cutting and stacking. Clear as mud? As soon as I get one of those back in place on the layout, I'll post another pic that will hopefully make the above word salad more clear. After that, it's just a matter of cutting out the areas where the inclines will be, one layer at a time, and stacking them up. Once all of the layers are stacked up and inclined risers installed, I'll cut them back to create the hillsides that the rear tracks will climb upon. "I love it when a plan comes together!" to quote John "Hannibal" Smith of "The A-Team."
BTW, I'll cut the inclined riser strips off at 9/16" thickness to match each layer of foam board. One layer, one incline, all the way up. Actually, there will be several layers above the highest tracks in the rear, for background terrain (and perhaps a little foreground too.)
Okay, it took me a minute... you mean vertical easements at beginning/end of the incline? I'll take a look. That would be be easier at the top than at the bottom.
Here's the latest pic. I've moved the layout out from the wall a bit so I can get around behind it during construction. The foamboard stacked up, underneath the viaduct on the the left, will be cut back closer to the single track across the back of the layout, since that stub underneath the viaduct will serve an industry behind it (TBD). Most of the straight, double track pieces will be replaced with single tracks (with wood ties), but the double tracks hold things together better while I'm sliding and pushing things around. Kinda messy... My wife bought a new, small shop vac that's perfect for layout construction, so it was worse before I cleaned up a little (mostly off the floor, to avoid tracking pink foam sawdust all over the house, and thusly enticing her wrath.)
Yeah, that stage of scenery building is a mess. I often wore a mask, did what I could outside and did my best to stay ahead of the pink with frequent vacuuming. Ugh. Your layout looks great so far!
I did the initial rough cutting of the built-up layers, all to the same shape (as for the first layer above the base), out in the shop, where my table saw w/extension table gives me my largest available, flat worksurface (all 3 other workbenches are cluttered and smaller.) Insulation board is a lot easier to move than the layout (at least at this stage with layers & inclines only pinned together, not yet glued,) or I'd move the layout to the shop. And the train room/office is air-conditioned, but not the shop. I also carried the latest layer back out to the shop to cut out the incline sections from it (after marking it on the layout.) It's a slow process, but one thing I've learned since I retired: I've got time! I don't have a program manager hounding me about schedule anymore.
Here's another pic, This pic shows the WS incline starters a little better. I cut each 3% incline starter short, so it rises just one layer of 1/2" foamboard. The layers of foam board are stair-stepped to support each successive incline riser under the tracks. There's still some trimming/shaping to do on the edges of the stair-stepped foamboard. The fourth layer of 1/2" foam board lines up just a tiny bit taller than the track piece in the first viaduct, atop a 2" pier. I need to shave the top layer of foamboard shown, to match up with the track height atop the viaducts on piers. Note the assortment of surf-form tools retrieved from the shop for the purpose, as well as some overall shaping of successive layers to come in the background. I will also pull the Unitrack out of the viaduct housings, and paint the housings and piers black. I like the matte black finish of DeaconKC's viaducts on his layout. The viaduct over the three ground-level tracks will be a Unitrack through truss bridge (in silver, for now) that I bought and used years ago. I have the same length viaduct standing in for it now, since the viaduct is more robust, while I'm still shoving things around. I have more layers of foam board to cut & stack at the rear of the layout, beyond the tracks. I'm pretty happy with the texture of the hand-sawn edges of the stacked foam board. I used a drywall stab-saw with pretty aggressive teeth. I may experiment with a surf-form on those too. I want a rough surface there, but not the slanted ridges produced when I cut them by hand. Horizontal ridges (or slightly sloped) are what I really want. I'm gonna experiment with a stiff wire brush on some scraps, to see what that'll look like.
Funny how looking at a photo you've just posted can show you things you hadn't seen before... The upper end of the incline (white styrofoam WS incline strip) occurs under a long straight track piece that also spans the adjacent flat terrain of the top layer of foam board. One straight piece spanning two different slopes = gap between track and base. With it's attached roadbed, Unitrack is pretty stiff vertically. I'll replace the single straight piece with two pieces so the joint between them lines up more or less with the change in slope. I purposely started the slope at the bottom of the hill at a track joint for just this reason, but overlooked the upper slope transition. But I also need to resolve the issue with the height of the viaduct trackage on the piers vs the higher elevation of the top layer of foam insulation board. Somewhere, there's a solution, I just gotta find one for both problems at once. I suspect it's gonna involve shaving down the foam board and the top of the incline with a surform tool (like a very sharp cheese grater, masquerading as rasp.)
It looks like replacing the S248 section with S186 and S62 sections will put the joint pretty close to where you want it.
Yeah, that was my first thought, but I also need to address the elevation of the track leading into the viaduct on piers, which may impact where the break-over, and thus track joint, should be. But that may still be close enough. And I need to build in a step to support the end of the viaduct housing. Right now, that end of the viaduct is just hanging on the track atop the foam board.
I've been playing around with locations of structures, both in the virtual (XtrackCAD) world, and on the in-progress layout. This helps finetune some siding arrangements, and figure out how the "downtown" area is going to work out. I wish WS had more N-scale built-ups of RR industries... Their skill is much greater than mine! I bought some of the MP built-ups too, but their detail and quality is quite lacking. Maybe "decorating" them is something I can do to get my feet wet in model building...
This is probably too late to be of much help but I modified your layout planbelow) This version lets you run a train continuously on the folded dogbone, work an industrial area with a local, and switch cars in the yard -- all of which don't ever get in the other's way. (Note: I don't know if the geometry of Kato track will let you make these changes, so maybe this won't work for you). The long yard lead lets you switch a decent string of cars, the inbound track has an escape track, the separate industrial area's (from point "A" to point "B") runaround lets you switch both trailing and facing points w/o fouling the main, and the "crossover" moves an outbound train to RH running (unless you model the CNW) and immediately it runs through the reversing loop so when it needs to return to the yard it can go strraight in on the YardLead/Inbound track. This means the long dogbone going up and over is the only reversing circuit you need -- it's long enough that any way you do the recversing there won't be any short circuits. There's also a lot less of expensive Kato switches. The radius of the industrial runaround shouldn't be a problem -- the track will only handle freight cars and short wheelbase locos. Right? Things I didn't touch but you might think about: where you plan an engine facility is a long long way from the yard -- engine movements from there will tie up the mainline. It would probably work better as a large industrial complex that has several spurs serving as raw materials in, products out -- the more spurs the merrier -- so any local going there has only facing point switches and some space to stay off the main. If you do make it such an area, I suggest you move the switch to it from connecting where it is now (directly to the main) to point "B" -- which links both industrial areas together with only a quick croosover the main to get from one to the other. Meaning the switcher makes a dash through the crossing when there's no through freight coming on the main. Putting the engine facilities in the lower lefthand corner of the layout -- where the two straight short tracks stick out -- has them right in the yard and uses those too-short-for-yardwork tracks perfect as access to them. A nice touch would be to put the engine house/fuel track at an angle to the front edge and those tracks curve to reach it. I assume there'd only be 2-4 locos working on this layout (considering the trackage), so it need not be very big facilities. And I suggest adding another yard track along the front edge of the layout (looks like there's room). Putting a RH turnout just to the right of the rerailer would give you a nice long track for extra car storage -- believe me, you'll be glad you did. Also: if you put all the spurs inside the RH loop parallel or at Right angles to each other to form a grid-like pattern, you create an industrial-looking area based on square/rectangular building shapes that can fit close together, like real life.
Backshop, Thank you for your well-considered improvement suggestions. I've considered adding a crossover & escape track in the yard, but decided that a loco would never pull the train into the yard in the first place, but simply drop it off on the A/D track around the outside left loop. Then a yard loco would be dispatched to push the train's cars onto their respective yard tracks (increased by two for not having dedicated arrival & departure tracks inside the yard.) For departing trains, cars are pulled from their yard tracks , onto the yard lead/A/D track, again in order and as required. What I give up in throughput, I gain in yard capacity. Unfortunately, your most significant changes at the left end of the yard switches/crossovers are not possible/practical with Unitrack. There's just not enough room there, and the changes remove/prohibit some desired functionality. The RH crossover you added at lower right, in the shank of the dogbone, creates a reversing loop that I'd rather avoid, at least for now. The LH crossover you removed at center bottom provided access from the bottom of the A/D track onto the mainline, without the track polarity reversal. In essence, while I don't have a bi-directional yard, I have a bi-directional A/D track. Since I have no plans to run steam (at least not prototypically), I can always run two or more diesels, consisted back-back, to make turning locomotives unnecessary. The inner loop on the right will also enclose a small town business district, and streets from off-layout left, leading past industries and businesses inside the left lobe. All-in, the inner right loop serves three (maybe four) small industries and a passenger depot, while enclosing the downtown business district. The upper spur inside the left loop is now a doubletrack siding for a two-stall engine facility. I'm trying to post an update of the layout that shows various industries, potential downtown buildings, etc., but having problems with that (file size). Regardless of whether or not I implement your suggestions, thank you for the time and effort to consider my track plan and suggest improvements. There are no perfect track plans; it's only a matter of which compromises we can live with.
Okay, here is the latest... I went back to an earlier yard design at the bottom, with fewer but longer yard tracks than the double-ended yard experiment. This plan is more or less what is shown in previous photos of the layout build. I don't think they show the crossing stub sidings in the right half though.
Yeah, wasn't sure how Kato track geometry is. I haven't used sectional track for decades. Where is the site to build layouts using Kato templates? Have you considered how you'll switch both trailing- and facing-point switches in the industrial area? Ahh ... see you added another yard track. You'll be glad you did. One point to clarify -- an outbound track like I had on my drawing is where you'd be building the next train to leave the yard, so it's part of your car storage/classification yard. It comes off the same track ladder as the other yard tracks, so it's easy to shift cars from track to track. With my plan the train is built on that track, a road engine hooks on and pulls onto the lead, and stops with enough space at the end for the yard switcher to take a caboose from the upper left-most spur as caboose track (that's a perfect place for one) , tack it on the road freight and away that train goes. How would you build an outbound train on your combination I/O/lead track?
Backshop, Sorry I didn't see your response earlier. I designed this layout using XtrackCAD $free SW available on sourceforge.net. It has several different libraries of sectional track, or you can use flextrack and/or hand-laid rails too. But many other track planning SW packages have Unitrack libraries, too. Most other major layout-planning tools have Unitrack libraries too. This layout is 100% Kato N-scale Unitrack sectional track. There is one place where I may choose to cut down a longer piece of unitrack to replace two shorter pieces. The best way to do that is to cut a section of the roadbed out of the middle, and slide the two ends together and glue them, then trim the rail ends to match. The predominant direction of travel is counter-clockwise around the right end on the outer track, which happens to be uphill as well, on the longer radius side of the double-track curves (built from single-track sections.) Given that predominant direction of travel, there's only one facing point siding, which is the stub to the right of the 15 degree crossing, inside the inner loop on the right side. The double-track loop around the left end allows running around a cut of cars to serve any siding as trailing point. I expect I will go out one direction and serve all the trailing points that way, then run around the train on that left hand doubletrack loop to serve the remaining industries. There's another short run-around on that left hand loop, using the pair of crossovers either side of the 90 degree crossing. That's where I can run-around a caboose to tack it on the end of the train if necessary.
