I have come here to the design gurus for input. I no longer have space for an N scale layout. My new project is a Z scale layout in a gun case (12"x48"). That way it can be closed up and stored in a closet. Era: modern control: DC only one engine. I tend to be the type that tries to squeeze too much in. I'm posting 2 designs and would welcome input on both. Basic idea is a small industrial area where cars would be dropped off (4 to 5 at a time) at an interchange area, pulled to a small yard, then distributed to the industries. The designs shown are done in N scale thus a little oversized so it would fit 12" by 48" in Z scale. ABOVE: This is my design. Maybe too much squeezed in? Interchange with a dummy track on the lower left. Yard on the right. Lots of industries (6) - maybe more than the volume of cars coming in can support? ABOVE: This in one of a couple designs I found on the net. I still like it, but seems less crowded? Less industries, but still 5 spots to switch. Interchange on the lower right, yard in the upper left. Any thoughts or advice? I would also welcome new designs that provide 4-6 cars at the interchange at a time. At least 4 spots to switch. fits the 12" by 48" dimensions. Thanks in advance.
Your design looks more interesting to me. More curves, spurs and buildings at more different angles. However, the lower yard track is the tail track for the runaround, so you often won't be able to leave cars there.
Yours is a tight design, might give coupler trouble on the sharper curves if using MTL couplers. If cars are backed into a curved siding the couplers can swing sideways under compression, when the locomotive pulls forward again they can release. If spotting only 1 car from the locomotive is not a problem, but if 2 or more cars are involved unintended uncoupling can occur between the wrong cars. This happens randomly and often enough to be annoying. I started building a small layout with sharp curved (145mm radius) sidings and lead-ins, never completed it after running into these coupler problems. You also may want to avoid truck mounted couplers (again MTL) and stay with body mount couplers to avoid derailments when backing over turnouts. A truck mount coupler twists the truck sideways in reverse, whereas the body mount truck is allowed to free-roll without sideways twist forces forced upon it. A nice thing about the MTL couplers is they can be uncoupled with a bamboo shishkebob skewer - insert and twist.
Beaumont Yard: I'd like to jump in with Triplex and Glen: I also like your design better. I have always tried to minimize the number of S-curves in yards or switching areas. One of the reasons I liked your design was because you had so few S-curves through turnouts. Another reason was because you kept the majority of your industries behind the turnouts and sidings instead of in front. This variation of your design has no S-curves and one industry is moved, but I tried to stay close to your original concept as much as possible. I hope there's something here you can use. 1. As Triplex pointed out, you won't be able to use the run-around if cars are spotted on the lower yard track...so I adjusted the yard a little. The industry on the right front end of the layout has been moved to the middle and is served with a siding off of the 2nd yard track, but you could also serve it from a turnout off the 2nd track that serves the industry in the upper right. If you go with the alternate arrangement, you will gain a little more length in your shorter yard track, too. I moved the industry behind its siding so you could see and reach the siding more easily for coupling and uncoupling, and would encourage you to keep the siding in front of the building, even if you move the turnout to the other track. 2. I have a personal preference against switchback track arrangements unless they are absolutely necessary...so I separated the switchback into separate sidings reached with a crossing. If you move that road that goes off the top of the layout to the left side of where the track crosses the road, then you would have a great location for a team track (and all the variety of cars that might get spotted there). Some people enjoy switching puzzles and deliberately make their track plans hard to switch...and a required switchback move is certainly one way to "make things interesting". But I would encourage you to consider making things interesting or challenging by requiring some cars on a siding to be held while others are pulled. This means making more moves with the same number of cars, and is a lot more typical of prototype switching tasks. Also, if an industry is served by 2 sidings, use one for loading and unloading and another for holding cars waiting to be loaded/unloaded. All inbound cars go to the holding track, held cars go to loading/unloading, and loaded/unloaded cars are pulled. Again, lots more car movements for the same number of industries and cars. 3. FWIW...The industry in the front middle of the layout...if it is a taller building, it will obscure the turnouts behind it. An industry with a low profile, like a scrap yard, will let you see tracks behind it more easily. 4. I put the turnout to the interchange track as far into the run-around as possible so you could get lots of cars onto an interchange track. If you decide to use this arrangement, you can adjust the turnout location closer to the left end if you want...but you may introduce an S-curve if you go too far, and you may magnify the unwanted uncoupling problem Glen mentioned. 5. The left end tail of the run-around must be at least 1 loco long. The points of the turnout to the team track must be at least one loco plus 1 car length from the left edge of the layout. I put a short piece of straight track between the turnout to the left end industries and the left end turnout to the run-around to give a little more length to the run-around...but I'm not sure if that will fit in 12" x 48" or not. 6. How long are Z scale turnouts? If they are 3 inches long, then my variation on your design can work...but if they are 4 inches long, then you will need to shorten the length of the run-around to fit my version of your plan into 48 inches. If you use a crossing for the sidings to the middle front industry and the interchange (like I proposed for the team track in back), then you can shorten the run-around quite a bit. FWIW...You probably already know this, but, for others viewing this thread who might not...the run-around should be at least as long as the longest cut of cars from the yard, so there is enough clearance to make a run-around move. Some people introduce unnecessary difficulty to the switching moves by making the run-around too short. 7. If you need to compress the layout even more, shorten the length of the run-around and yard (while keeping them about the same length as each other), but definitely keep the arrangement of turnouts from the yard to the run-around so that both yard tracks can serve both sides of the run-around. If you don't, your operating sessions will be very frustrating. Also, keep a 3rd track reaching both sides of the run-around to serve as the right side tail of the run-around. This could be the siding serving the middle right end industry or a 3rd track going toward the upper right corner. If all else fails, you could always use the empty yard track as your run-around tail, but I'd suggest avoiding that because it significantly undermines the illusion that the yard and the industries are separated by at least a little bit of distance. Keeping the run-around tail separate supports the idea that the run-around and yard are distant from each other...an illusion that is especially important in a small layout. You asked if the industries might need more cars than can come in from the yard. Probably not, especially if you rotate cars from holding tracks and spot cars from the interchange tracks to the industries. Remember too, some industries can be served on one shift, and others on a second shift (or even # cars get moved from industries on AM shift, and odd # cars get moved on PM shift). Using a gun case to store the layout between uses is a great idea! Any pics or references/links to a layout in a gun case? Someone posted about a small layout in guitar or viola case here on TB a while back...not sure if it was on the Layout Design, Inspection Pit, N-scale, or Z-scale forum.
WOW! Great input! It'll take some time to digest. Let me look that over, make some revisions and I'll repost the design. Fantastic input! Thanks!
Have you seen this one? should make a nice little layout in Z switching_trackplan_with scenery on Flickr - Photo Sharing! and this? which should be superb in Z Lance Mindheim Dot Com or a whole heap here which will shrink? Layout Plans @ Fotopic.Net
Harry: :thumbs_up:THANK YOU for the gorgeous rendering of my drawing. Guessing from the title, it looks like you used Marklin software. Is it easy to use right after installation, or does it have a fairly steep learning curve? I've tried 3DPlanIt and a sophisticated CAD program, but haven't had the time to master the first or the skills to master the second.
Hi Dave, I use with WinTrack and give also as demo > WinTrack - Die 3D-Planungssoftware fr Ihre Modellbahn , also english :tb-wink:
Thanks for the links Shortliner. I liked the first one and savedit for future reference. I see it would fit my space even in N scale, so I might take a look at what I could do with it in Z. The second link was interesting, but not helpful for this layout. The third link was where I got some of my ideas.
Ok, after reviewing the advice given - VERY helpful by the way - I have a revised track plan. This includes a seperate tail track (industry E) for the run around. There is an industry there, but even with a car spotted there, the tail track is as long as the run around. This alos gets the tail track out of the yard. The switch back at the top has been removed. Having a crossing there actually created another industry - a team track (industry G). If I can't get a crossing to work in that spot, I'll just eliminate the team track. I do like having a crossing in there though. Just not sure what exists crossing wise in Z scale. The yard has stayed the same size, but both the interchange and the run around are longer. The interchange, run around, tail track, and longest yard track are all basically the same length. Any more thoughts?
If you put the turnout to Industry C on the other side of the right end run-around turnout, you'll eliminate the S-curve into the Industry C siding and maybe gain a little "wiggle room" around the crossing. The downside is that you will be crowding the team track a little if you put it on the near side of the road. If you run the team track straight after the crossing instead of curving it to run parallel with the backdrop, and if you run the road from the backdrop to Industry C parallel to the team track on the left hand side of the team track so it could curve a little toward the team track into the backdrop at an angle behind a few trees or maybe a very thin building flat extending from the left side of Industry F, then you might be able to avoid the crowded look that might occur from moving the Industry C turnout to the outside of the runaround. Another nice side-effect of such an adjustment is that you have fewer lines runing parallel with your backdrop. I've always felt there was a little less boredom in layouts without lots of tracks, roads, buildings, and tree lines running parallel to the front or back edge of the shelf. It also seems to me that by passing 2 sides of a building instead of just 1, that there is a sense that the train has covered a greater distance. ...$0.02...others may see it differently. Ya know...not to rain on your parade...but, a caveat: If your plan is drawn with N-scale software on a shelf with suitably adjusted dimensions so that it reflects a 12" x 48" z-scale layout, and Harry's beautiful drawing of mine is produced with Z-scale software on a 70" x 19" surface, then it might be really hard to fit everything into the 4 foot by 1 foot space, as you're hoping. Have you had a chance to play with actual Z-scale components on a 1x4 foot surface to see if the virtual angles and lengths turn out the same way when using actual track pieces? I really like your plan, and I'm confident you'll ultimately figure out something pretty close to your current dream, but there will probably be fewer disappointments bringing your dream to reality if you complete your fine-tuning with actual turnouts and pieces of track (and maybe even some cardboard or foamboard mock-ups of buildings like these).
Actual track pieces is the next step. There is a big train show near by in October. I plan to go get a few things and then make templates of the track pieces. I'll then know for sure what will fit. I'm working on an alternate track plan. I'll post it for comments in a day or so.
For comparison sake, here is another plan I'm considering as a back up - in case the one we've been discussing won't fit. This one has less track. There are 4 industries, a smaller yard and a bigger interchange. My thought with this plan is that the runaround wouldn't be a storage yard. It would be more for switching use. To start, there would be a string of cars on both interchange tracks. One string would be pulled and switched. When the cars departing industries are taken to the now vacant interchange track, the cars from the opposite interchange track would be pulled for switching. It doesn't provide as much in terms of operations, but I think it would be feasible if the other plan just won't work. Any thoughts on this second plan?
Here Märklin Z-Scale plan on crossing is only this, otherwise you must build themselves:tb-err::tb-wacky: PS: 8506 > 108,6 mm , 8507 > 112,8 = Straight Adjustment Section
