I am having trouble making up my mind about inclines in the lower left hand corner of my layout. I definitely want some elevation changes, but I don’t want to make changes that look good, but operate more poorly.
My original idea for the lower left hand corner of my layout (area A and B) is below:
Then it dawned upon me that by redesignating those two tracks closest to the wall at the bottom left from hidden staging to be a visible support yard/visible staging, I could change the yard area along the aisle on the top wall (area C-D in the plan) to another industry. There even would be room for a crossover from the main at the right end of the new yard area along the bottom wall.
Problem is that I am torn about how to deal with the mainline past the river barge terminal and the two yard tracks along the wall in the lower left hand corner now. I have at least three options I can see myself (see figure below), and maybe more you guys can see:
Make the area under all three tracks stay flat at elevation +0.5". Gives the longest usable yard tracks along the lower wall - no inclines or roll-away areas for cars, possibility of crossover from main to double ended yard track.
Make just the main rise around the lower left hand corner, leave main on “causeway” at elevation +1", making it a more pronounced scenic difference between the harbor scene below and the main above, but leave the two yard tracks closest to the wall at elevation +0.5". Costs me the crossover from the main to track no 2
Forgot to add that I tried out another possibility too - doing a steeper (1", 4%) climb of the main in the upper left hand corner and leaving the entire area along the left wall and the three tracks closes to the wall at the bottom at elevation +1", with a steeper downhill (also 1", 4%) from the left wall to the barge terminal.
Not a problem for the barge terminal area, where there will be shorter cuts of cars and where cars will be pushed downhill and pulled uphill, but would be too steep for a 22" radius curve on the main/yard lead around the upper right hand curve.
Hmmm - it is a 1" height difference I want between the barge terminal and the main. Could I leave the main/yard tracks at a level elevation of +0.5" and take the barge terminal area down 0.5" instead ?
I’ll ponder that for a little while before I possibly grab a knife and start slashing away at the foam. If I had built cookie cutter plywood there would have been no problem - but I used blue foam, and can only get 2" insulation foam here, not 1" foam.
Otherwise I would just have cut out the barge terminal area and replaced it with not so thick foam and built it up again from there. But can I get it reasonably flat if I try to cut away 0.5" of foam along the whole barge terminal scene ?
Edit: after pondering it for a while, the obvious solution struck me - why try to cut down the thickness of the existing foam layer ? I just cut the whole foam over the barge terminal area away and built up from the 1/4" plywood under the foam. Looks like this now:
I don’t think you’re being too worried about looks. The height difference does look dramatic to me, and I’d try to keep it if possible. It would be a really cool looking scene.
If the new yard tracks in the back are lower than the main on a causeway, would coupling/uncoupling back there be a little more difficult with the reachover? That would be a good argument for keeping those yard tracks on the same level as the main.
Splitting the height difference between riverside and the main would probably be the way I’d do it, but I’d hate to try to carve that riverside foam flat. Maybe you could build some kind of guide board and clamp it up against that area, then push a hot knife down flat against it as you move it horizontally to cut the foam. It would help keep the knife fairly level. Not sure if that made sense or not [:)]
Edit: just saw your edit, so nevermind the above paragraph [:)]
One thing I’m not sure about is eliminating the hidden staging and going to all onboard staging. You’d lose the physical appearance of a train coming into your world from somewhere, and then going back to somewhere. It would still be implied, of course, but you’d lose the actual move. I guess coming across the Mississippi bridge could be that move, but then you’d have to pay no attention to tail end of the train at E-F.
I think the current yard at CD serves a logical purpose in that area. What kind of industry would you be replacing it with? Would modeling that industry and its operations be worth the loss of the physical onboard-offboard move to you?
I think if it were me considering the tradeoffs, I think I’d elevate the main, sink the docks, but keep the hidden staging tracks and the yard at CD.
You put your finger right on the sticky point (umm - possibly a bad analogy [:D]).
I guess I feel that the yard along the top quickly got way too cramped, while a yard around the curve at the lower left hand corner can be a bit bigger. Also, having a yard in the lower left hand corner creates a yard/barge terminal job that can be switched pretty independently of the milling/warehouse job.
I’ll think about it some more before gluing stuff down
A difficult question. Your initial plan was to have two trains from two different companies (e.g. the Q and the Milw. road) in staging. Both were allowed to switch dedicated industries only. So the Q-wayfreight might have cars for the other industries but had to put them on a holding track in the yard, till the Milw-turn could spot them. With this scheme you really need the small CD-yard. But has it to be there?
If I remember well you like some big industry in the foreground so trains disappear behind them for a brief moment. If the yard switching could be done near the barge terminal, you would have earned a brownie or two and a big plant at CD.
What I do not know is your vision about staging. Did you intended to stage the two trains with fresh cars from drawers nearby, during an ante session, or did you envision a closed system with the very same cars re-appearing all the time?
What I did not see either a couple of month’s ago was the Mississippi bridge; I just saw a drop-in. Building the bridge with grades at both sides is pulling the two banks together, while I imagined them miles apart. For a brief moment I considered using the drop-in (not the bridge) for cassette staging.
So, what to do? When you shift the road between Security Warehouse and Lindney Brothers a foot to the left, and shift all tracks in front of the warehouse-wall two inches to the northern wall, you will gain just the space for a “very” truncated building at CD. You can use the bridge-lead to hold the cars for the other RR. The Q-wayfreight first switches between Bridge 2 and 3, to set out the cars for the next Milw.-turn, and picks up the cars left by the previous Milw.-turn. The remainder goes as usual.
Doing so would mean that the (staging) yard has to be be level and the barge-turn has to drop down a lot. You have about 3.5 feet betwe
Thanks for reminding me about that! In my preoccupation with the barge terminal scene, I had lost sight of my main operating plan.
Yes, I would like to set up new cars to be switched between running sessions (instead of switching the same cars over and over again), and I would like to have trains from from other railroads make appearances on the layout as part of operations.
First question YES and for the second question NO, I love bridges, besides emphasizing the difference in heigth.
In Holland we catch two flies in one blow.
Why counter clockwise? From the cassette to the “Upper Barge Yard” for classification and then to the small CD-yard. Outbound cars can be stored here as well and when space becomes scarce shove them to the Upper yard and pick them up later. The crossover is an asset now.
Back to CD-yard. I liked the inch additional space between the warehouse yard and the CD-yard. When coming from the barge area a direct crossover between the two yards ( in front of Robison Produce) would create a extra run-around-route, so you can use the track next to the team track for enhancing yard capacity.
Getting my mind working on a sunday “morning” isn’t always easy. With a switch on the cassette you can make it two feet longer, I need some sleep, I guess.
Stein, on a more serious note, I’m amazed by your insights into operations as a way of doing railway business. You have a real gift of discernment here, as seen in your sincere responses to others here on the forum, and; I think you are headed in the right direction to realistically model what you wish to achieve with your personal model railroading within the available space.
Abbreviation-speak for “On The Other Hand”. Must be due to me spending far too much time on the Usenet newsgroups instead of spending it reading my university textbooks back in the late 80s and early 90s
In Norway too. “To fluer i en smekk” - “two flies in one slap”. I guess the proper saying in English would be “killing two birds with one stone” - I was just playing with the saying.
Well, it could be done either way. But I think it would be fairly fun to have an arriving train drive 3/4s of the way around the layout on it’s way in or out.
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Back to CD-yard. I liked the inch additional space between the warehouse yard and the CD-yard. When coming from the barge area a direct crossover between the
On the team track, I would put some more space between it and the siding. That would enable those tracks to be loaded or unloaded from either side. Maybe have a raised dock on one side and a ramp off the end for circus style loading/unloading.
Sounds like a good idea - I’ll certainly keep that in mind when I get to that point.
At the moment I am still messing around with the barge terminal area - did a few quick test runs with various engines to check whether that ramp up from the barge terminal will work okay.
My tiny little 44-tonner can haul itself up and down the hill, but can stall out with just one car. Not surprised - it is pretty light weight, and that ramp is pretty tough - 24" of 4% incline at 19" radius.
My Athearn RS-3s seems to eat such inclines for breakfast and still come back for more - they can both pull 3 average cars uphill and push 3 cars uphill, without breaking into a bad sweat. So I guess the incline is doable, but there will be some restrictions on what engines can switch the barge terminal.
I can live pretty well with that. I’ll see if I can work in a little more curve radius when I get things glued down in that corner.
Probably not until after Christmas Eve - next couple of nights will be 100% spent getting the house ready for Christmas Eve, which is the big day over here in Norway.
Today the wife, I and the kids got a pile of boxes with Christmas decorations down from the attic, put on a home made mix of American and Norwegian Christmas music on the CD player and started decorating the house. We’ll do the Christmas Tree on Wednesday night - the night before Christmas over here.
And tomorrow we start heading for brighter days again - yihaa! 6 hours of sunlight gets old pretty fast
If it is any consolation, Stein, the sun has been setting about a full minute later each day for nearly a week already. Unfortunately, it was also rising later during that period, but it will slow in that respect over the next week. By the 8th of January, it will be broadening our day on both ends by a full 80 or 90 seconds, for a total of nearly 3 minutes.
Change the turnout for the Dock / Tank terminal from a righty to a lefty. It will blend with the lead track avoiding the double “S” curve and probably gain a capacity of one car on each side.
Then remind me once again why you are using the main line track for the staging cassette instead of leaving it alone and making a double track cassette for use with the two industrial support yard tracks?
Originally I made a cassette for the main because it killed two birds with one stone - it gave me a capability to turn my point-to-point layout into a continuous run on the main line when I wanted to (for kid running, display running, breaking in engine) plus a way to get short trains in and out of the layout. Removing the cassette doesn’t break the point-to-point operations, it just removes staging and continuous run.
If I instead added a double track staging cassette that feeds into the two yard tracks closest to the wall in the lower left hand corner, that essentially extends the length of those two tracks. Main advantage is that it makes it possible to transfer more cars into or out of the layout in one operation, but that demands that there isn’t much of anything else on those two tracks along the bottom wall while cars or trains move in or out of the staging tracks. It obviously can be done, but right now I don’t feel that it adds much more to operational possibilities.
I’ll keep it in mind, though - thanks for the suggestions !
Enjoying the thread, which is about trying to find ways to improve your already great layout. I think the yard at the top was probably too small. Good change.
I love the layout, but somehow, always thought there could be more done along the south wall. Don’t know what or how, but if discussed, perhaps ideas would surface. I know the door opening eats up space.
What about relocating your staging area to the southeast corner of the layout? Maybe relocating Williams Hardware from the milling district to the spot in between the team track and overpass would allow you to pull North Star to the left, along with the main line and building flat, and tuck two staging tracks behind the pulled out flat. That would require a three track cassette or bridge, which, it sounds like, you’ve partially considered. Perhaps some of the structures are too set in their place, but I thought maybe that would open up the area for maybe an industry or two to switch where the staging/yard is now. If you relocated Williams Hardware to the space suggested, I would put the switch somewhere near the green car on the lead track, and having the Williams spur cross the team track and diving at an angle towards the overpass, terminating there.
I haven’t been able to follow your prototype or operating plan real closely, so that suggestion might be too extreme. Its a great small layout either way.
Yes, I think moving that yard from the middle of the layout to the end probably makes the most sense both scenically and operationally. Now it looks like this (conceptually):
Move it left ? Oh, now I see what you mean - pull it closer to the aisle, not counterclockwise along the mainline. And then have the main run in front of the pulled out flat while two staging tracks run behind the pulled out flat, all three tracks crossing the door on bridges and/or cassettes.
Mmm - flip the turnout from the main to the warehouse district from a RH to a LH to get a steeper angle, use a double slip to let the right end of the double ended siding join the main at the same point where a track goes out towards the back.
Mmm - could get a 20" radius curve at least, maybe 21" radius.
I’ve copied your schematic and tried to figure out train movements. I added some colours to get a better image; not intended to be a “proposal”.
A train from the cassette is first going to River Yard. Here cars for the other road are dropped and cars for our "home"road picked up. Eventually cars for the barge terminal can be left behind as well. A nice bit of drilling is done here.
Then down to the mill siding, serving the proper ware house district. After pulling outbound cars I found all tracks filled; to create a needed runaround, I added the new crossover. The number of tracks before the row of warehouses is kept to 5; you could keep a small access road between the two yards and still find space for a teamtrack scene.
More fundamental however is trainlength. I still envision 7 or 9 car trains, half of the cars for the other RR-company and the barge terminal. When your trains from the cassette are much shorter, this suggests the drilling has been done elsewhere.
You could, using two cassettes, put half the train on your pike first and with a second cassette the other half. Or a two track-cassette or …?
A nice dilemma; if you like Lance Mindheim’s solution you can omit all yardwork and add some extra warehouses along the south side of your layout. I would love to keep some drilling in. You still have some good thinking to do.
Just a quick answer - don’t have time to think it through extremely well right now, due to last minute Christmas preparations. I think you are making it more complicated than it needs to be.
Think about it e.g. this way:
Session starts
11 “inbound” cars are prestaged on yard track 1 (closest to south wall)
5 “outbound” interchange cars are prestaged on yard track 2
A foreign transfer run with 5 inbound cars for industries on layout is on the staging cassette, facing counterclockwise
Transfer run moves to double ended mill siding, drops off inbound cars, picks up outbound interchange cars from yard track 2, takes them to staging
Home road engine will first deliver 5 inbound cars for mill, at the same picking up outbound cars.
Grabs five first cars from track 3,
moves over to the warehouse district runaround,
leave inbound cars there,
pick up outbound cars,
leave on track next to runaround,
push inbound cars into position at industry,
push outbound cars back onto main
pull outbound 5 cars up to yard track 2,
cuts off engine, run around on yard track 3/main
We now have 7 inbound cars on yard track 3, 5 outbound cars on yard track 2, 5 inbound cars on double ended siding by mill
Pick next group of cars to swap out - e.g River Barge terminal,
Pull cars from barge terminal, push into yard track 1 or 2,
deliver new cars to barge terminal
And so on and so forth.
As long as each switching job isn’t trying to deliver or pull too many cars, it should be possible to swap out all 16 cars in a session
If desired, one could of course start the switching by sorting the 11 inbound cars from track 1 and the 5 inbound cars from the double ended siding in the yard.
The yard has three tracks, each capable of holding 10+ cars. Sorting 16 cars using three
