I’d love to see construction or old pics of this completed layout if anyone knows of or has any.
I’m trying to figure out (in addition) how to move this layout into two adjacent 8’X8’ rooms. Unfortunately
the 5’X10 table portion has to be at 90 degrees to the panhandle yard in the next room.
I can cut some tunnel holes in the connecting wall to get to 10’ length on the L. end of the table.
(bring the mainline and branchline curves into the next room 2’). BUT, the long panhandle yard
will end up a paralell to the rest of the layout (in the next room) with the bottom of the yard pointing
from the original entry points but becoming a U shaped run into the next room/yard.
If anyone has a copy of the track plan/book and could glance at it for ideas that would be wonderful.
The doorway is at the right hand corner of the room as you enter. The table’s nearest edge would be
directly on your left. The original leads/switches to the yard ends abruptly on right hand wall 90degrees to the main table. The new yard leads and all of those switches would be headed right for ya!
I know this is incredibly convoluted for a lst post but got all of the benchwork built and track laid
in a now continually flooding cellar and need to see if it’s at all possible to move it all upstairs.
Thanks a million if anyone can advise.
Plan B is to build the “Rancocas and Harbor Belt” all in the 8’X’8’ room and bring something off of that layout into a double track and on into the panhandle yard. If anyone knows that plan or has pics that
would be great.
Whew, well if all of that’s too crazy, at leas I want to say in my lst post that I’m glad to be trying to
dabble at least in this great hobby after a many year absence. In fact I’m going to visit my local
club’s layout and evesdrop on a meeting tonight.
Cheers, The Good Capt.
If anyone has any idea of how to connect the table layout to the yard
Nothing says you have to build the layouts exactly as presented in the book. They are mostly for ideas.
I don’t understand how you could get the 5x10 portion into an 8x8 room unless you tear the wall out between them and make it a 16x8 room. Is that what you are talking about? Even at that I don’t see how one could curve the yard into a “U” as there would only be 1 foot to do it and still have a center of a “U”.
Humm, the Big Panhandle, haven’t thought about that in awhile. Actually that was my second layout. I built it in a spare bedroom in my quarters in England. The bedroom was long and narrow but I still ended up shortening the yard by about three feet and taking off the closet doors to gain some room. I did modify the yard, using the plan from page 86 of Track planning for realistic operation.
Now that I get out the track plan, I noticed one of my yards is somewhat similiar to the Big Panhandle’s, and I didn’t even look at that plan when designing my current layout.
As for pictures. Those were pre digital days and while some surely exist, they might be a bit hard to dig up and psoting them would cause another problem.
As mentioned, you can change/modify these plans. They do make good starting points as they are “operationally sound”, but the location of specific tracks can be modified.
Hi Guys,
Thanks so much for your responses! I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I’m an “on call” recording studio session bassist (hence my avatar) and had to work.
I’ve got to keep that dividing wall, so I was trying to figure our a way to adapt the original
benchwork and trackplan to come through the doorway with a removable section (lift up/out) and just come through the wall with some small tunnel portals that could have acoustically sealed plugs made for them when recording. This was an extremely expensive double acoustically sealed wall and it has to stay mostly in it’s entirety…bummer.
I’ve got no experience track planning on my own and I’ve proven to be hopeless with every
free downloaded computer program I’ve tried. I’m more of a tape out/lay out track on the
floor “material world” kind of planner. I’ve had some of the Atlas plan’s lft. squares printed out by my local blueprint printing house which has worked great, but I just can’t seem to
get anything workable. I’d certainly be willing to shorten the yard some…
Anyway, there’s another thread by O’Dave entitiled “My Turn…” His plan is exaxtly 8’ wide and as is, only one and a half feet “too” long. I’ve posted some questions there tonight, asking what would be involved with adapting his plan. It looks workable for my
weird space requirements. I’m too inexperienced to know if it would be as simple as removing one and a half feet of straight track on the sides or if that throws many other
elements (radius of curves, turnouts, etc.) out of kilter further down the line…
I’ll keep playing around and torturing myself but I’m beginning to think it’s best to abandon the Big Panhandle and start over. O’Dave’s plan looks like it might have more realistic overall operation anyway, but I’m scared to leave the security of the snap track, cook book, idiot’s plan! I went to my lst operating session on someone elses layout yesterday and maybe I’ll finally know some folk
Tilden,
I’ve got my email address in my profile now. If you find a way to scan and send your old photos in jpeg form via email I’d be able to view them. Only if it’s relatively easy and you feel inspired enough by nostalgia to go to the trouble
I always will wonder what the layout would have looked like sceniced, etc.
