Jesse,
There was once a Kalmbach book: Track Plans for Sectional Track. It might help you a bunch. My guess is that you can find one on eBay, cheap.
The reversing loops is a challenge both in wiring and operation:
In wiring you have to electrically isolate a portion of the loop from your layout and give it a reversing switch, and you need a separate reversing switch for the layout (separate from the controller).
In operation, you have to set the polarity of the loop the same as the polarity of the layout. Once the engine is in the isolated section, you reverse the layout polarity. It works OK, but I have only one reversing loop and I sometimes forget. In your track plan there are 4 reversing loops and 4 wyes. I can’t imagine how to wire it and operation would be stressful (throwing switches like you are playing a piano).
I have some ideas for alternatives, I’ll sketch them out when I have a little more time.
Wow, I went and read a lot on reverse loops and you know what…I’m just not that good at this yet to attempt something like that.
I enjoyed Space mouses beginners pages very much and it gave me some direction and helped me define what it is that I want to do with these trains once the layout is up and running and just watching a train go round and round does sound like it can get boring real fast.
I’m thinking I want to be able to use staging areas to hook and unhook cars, loading docks to load stuff and I’ve just finished the paint job on my “Villian train”, hey the bad guys need a ride too!
I started out by “mapping” my layout on very big card board first (1:1 scale) so that I can see where everything should go before putting it to plywood, this gives me a chance to see how things fit and flow.
I took on some extra shifts at work to be able to buy the better locomotives that were suggested in another thread that I posted on…thanks everyone!!!
I was sad to read a reply that stated that some new comers ask questions, get advice, get set up and then “forget” about those who have helped them, that is a shamful thing to do to some one else.
Now back to my plans, I’ve learned to balance what I want and what I can realistically do on my layout and since most of my layout will have to do with a military base there will be lots of activities on my layout to keep me busy, as it stands now I have enough military stuff to make up two good size trains (military) and one good size freight train, some day I hope to have a passenger train put together also.
It is late so I can’t down load and down size the pics I took today of my progress but I will after I return home from work after my 36 hour shift at the EMT base.
This is a great site with some of the nicest and smartest folks I could ever want to learn this hobby from and I’m so grateful that this site is here because it is a lot more exciting to see what others a
A note on passenger cars-Most are very long and require wide turns and high # turnouts. (24" radius turns or bigger and #6 or larger turnouts) Either plan for this in your track plan now, or only buy the shorter 60’ passenger cars. They work better on tighter layouts.
Thanks Loather,
Good advice, I do have one long car that carries a very big gun on it and the thing has 4 trucks with 16 wheels and that is what I’ve been using as a guide, in real life this thing must be as long as 5 school buses.