A month or so ago I posted about figuring out a track plan for a 3.5 x 5 space in HO. With input from this forum and a few minor changes the track has been put together and things run pretty smooth. The turnouts in the top of the picture will have their switch machines removed like the other turnouts.
The thing I’m wondering about is operations. I’ve been running trains on this for a couple of weeks…how would you guys operate this setup? What kinds of industries? What track would work best as an interchange…etc?
Well you are obviously from the plan going to need a small engine like a switcher or industrial engine and probably limited to 40’ cars. I would make a large factory in the center with receiving cars at one yard and shipping cars at the other with various loading platforms on the sidings… maybe in the future you could extend one of the yard tracks to a bigger yard or even a bigger railroad
It is an interesting use of space. Understandably, because of the small size of the layout, there is no room to turn trains around in the opposite direction, so you can only run trains in one direction at a time.
My guess is that you are operating trains counterclockwise. If so, you are able to place rolling stock on those upper two tracks without trapping your locomotive. The same would apply to those three inner tracks toward the bottom of the layout. However, that lead track into the other two inner tracks is quite short, Could it be extended to allow a few more pieces of rolling stock for spotting purposes?
I am not sure of the purpose of the crossover track at the bottom of the layout. Is that an escape track for whatever the purpose?
In your earlier thread, speedybee offered an alternative track plan.
Hi there. I would have an industrial site in the South, using the South West area to store a few locos. I would put a “feeder” industry in the North, something like a coal mine. Hoppers could move from the mine to the industry site. Could also be a grain distributor providing wheat to a flour factory. A tiny passenger platform could fit in the North East to justify a mixed train.
One feature of the layout is that, in either direction, some turnouts are facing point and some are trailing point. And in most, but not all, cases, it looks like there is room to shove a car that has just been picked up so that a car that is being delivered can take its place. That is an important part of realistic operation.
Those features immediately makes me think that the primary train or trains to run would be “patrols” or locals or turns; various railroads had their own names. Starting perhaps from those short yard tracks one sees on the upper right of the layout picture, which we could regard as the home yard or visible staging, the day’s train makes its round, switching as many of the trailing point industries or businesses that it can, then using what looks like the run around track in the lower left corner of the photo, the locomotive, and perhaps there is a caboose involved, swaps ends and starts back, but this time picking up and setting out in the opposite direction, now serving the trailing point switches that were of course facing point before.
A refinement on that, and one that I actually saw when watching the local switcher do its work in my home town (which also had facing point and trailing point switches to work) is that cars newly picked up might not need to be behind the locomotive until it is heading back to its point of origin; they can be tucked away here or there on sidings to be picked up on the return.
The main things to remember in setting up for operations are that not every industry has to be (or would be) switched every day, and that sometimes such patrols or locals are very short trains – there were days when locomotive and caboose would run light, or have one freight car to set out, perhaps an empty, and head back to the yard with no cars, or just a handful of cars.
To keep operations on a small layout interesting avoid that sense that every train is the same, every op session is the same.
Copper was a multi-billion dollar industry in Northern Arizona. If you made the two tracks in the center parallel, you could have a nice copper mine as the center piece of the layout. Ore can be shipped to a refinery and the copper could be delivered to an exchange track.
The Copper Basin RR. operated in this area and the SP also ran short line services in the area.
As a side note–the Camp Navjo Railroad existed in during the 40’s and it’s main industry was storing and transporting munitions for the WWII war effort.
I’m happy with what I have for the most part. At first I had a bit of an S curve issue , but I put in some straight easments as suggested in the other thread and it’s been pretty smooth since. I like the amount of track to stash rolling stock or locomotives on. I feel it’s the most action I can come up with in the small space I have. Just trying to figure out the best way to operate it at this point. However, I’m not totally against small changes that may streamline things.
The idea is to show that you can get pretty much everything I’ve got (minus the turntable) into your space. The mine can go in the center as can the refinery. The cattle can go on your single spur to the lower right. The top tracks can be interchange. The negine house and service can go in the lower left.
You still have to make your center double track parallel, which ytou can do simply by bending it around.
That lead track into the other two inner tracks is quite short (see blue arrow), Could it be extended to allow a few more pieces of rolling stock for spotting purposes?
I have an industry planned for that lead track (is this even proper?) Also to extend the lead I’d have to curve it towards the north making coupling difficult in that area.
OK, just a thought. Yes, you would have to curve the lead track up north, but it would allow more rolling stock to be pulled onto the lead track and then spotted onto those two industry tracks. The problem that I see with placing an industry on that lead track is that the locomotive gets trapped.
You put the curve between the turnout and the straight. That doesn’t change the uncoupling of a car on the straight track. Not sure if you have enough room but if you do then you can have a curved piece of locomotive escape track with enough room on the straight end of the siding to include a car for switching.
