edit: Slightly altered plan included four posts down.
After spending the past month or so establishing my givens and druthers, realizing my previous plans looked too spaghetti bowl-ish, reading John A.'s Trackplans for Realistic Operations, 102 Track Plans, and getting feedback from these forums I’ve settled on a final plan.
If I could get some feedback on potential derails or oversights on my part I would appreciate it. I may also switch the “mainline” to the closest to the wall track and create a “dummy” heading straight off the track for future expansion and “modeling look.” This would also shift the lumberyard track off of the mainline.
This layout will be part of a larger layout when we move to a new home over the next year or so. This section will essentially be a peninsula as part of an around the walls layout. With only minor alterations…swapping a couple of turnouts and the runaround on the main at the bottom of the plan the loop will become a point-to-point. The mainline will then extend to other areas.
Thanks for looking and commenting with suggestions.
Nice,I agree.However,this plan is missing one important feature (at least to me),and it is that you have no turnaround possibility.You’ll likely find that having trains always in one direction or having to turn them with the good old 0-5-0 may get boring in no time.One suggestion is that you could rework your bakery track to join with the other side of your layout.You’d have to control polarity but you could turn your trains around…
Wm–it is built on a hardcore door and 2" foam but I could not use 36". Instead I went with 32". I did manage a full 7 foot in length and a 15" x 2 ft… Thanks for the response.
Jacktal- Since this is loosely based on a very small part of Albuquerque just along the mainline I wasn’t too concerned about a turnaround. I’m not much of a “roundy roundy” person so a reverse loop wasn’t a large priority in my givens and druthers process. However, once I expand the layout it will definitely be present.
I really like the idea of a wye in the future since it is used on the prototype here in New Mexico. In fact, there is a wyw within a couple of miles of most of the industries I’ve chosen to depict on the current layout. My future plans will make that very possible and is already sketched out for my future reference. I also will likely run a point to loop at the very least when the new layout possibilites come.
I went ahead with a couple of changes that I think will help me looking forward while still keeping with givens and druthers for this section. Again, any comments on obvious design errors leading to derailments etc would be appreciated.
Benchwork is complete, homasote roadbed is in hand and ordering track tomorrow or the next day. Excited to see things moving along a bit. I feel I have a much better layout than I had a month and a half ago.
I think it looks good and your plan does leave it open to expansion down the road. One thing I did as I expanded my HO layout was a double main line and that is something I wish I had done in the first part of my layout. If you are running DCC, it is nice to see two trains passing in opposite directions.
It seems to me that with your configuration that staging is critical to your operations. That said, you don’t make use of the space you have and end up with very short tracks. Start your staging ladder more back in the lower left corner. Short tracks don’t help you much with staging.
Another point, you say you are thinking about Peco and Fast Tracks turnouts. They have a very different geometry. For Fast Track use the NMRA parameter file. Fast Tracks are right on NMRA standards.
And a question, why did you design using sectional track?
@Space…I tried to move the staging as far as possible in that direction. I’m not sure what else I can do in the limited area that I currently have. That lower left arc is 15" radius…I could take it to 13 or so, but that would only give me a bit more staging wouldn’t it?
The sectional track is a result of my inexperience with Xtrkcad. I couldn’t figure out how to prevent it from drawing it in sectional track except in a few places. Any idea?
Oh, and my Xtrkcad had a parameter file for Fast Track turnouts and crossovers. The “radius” seems to be very similar to Peco when laying it out.
