Building an aroudn the walls shelf layout, I can do one of two things:
Choice 1: Viewer is standing to the east of what is mostly a north-south track alignment, looking west.
Pros: curve around the room would be in the same general direction the actual railroad curves, operators can follow their trains uninterrupted from start to finish or any in-between station.
Cons: highlited industry would branch off towards the wall puttign it far away from any viewer or oeprator (although if I kept that side away from the wall, an operator for the plant switchign could duck under and stand there.
Choice 2: Viewer is to the west, looking east towards the railroad
Pros: highlighted industy would be on a penninsula facing into the center of the room, easily viewed and operated from 3 sides.
Cons: curve of room would eb opposite how the real railroad curves
operators would have to dodge the industry penninsula to follow their trains along the main line
I’m leaning towards #2. I have no problem with the ‘wrong way’ curve. My biggest issue is the penninsula dodge. Am I just being nuts about this, or is this goign to end up beign one of those “I wish I did it the other way” things? Hiding the industry in the back is not really what I want to do.
No dimensions on the room yet, so nothign specific, just trying to resol
Apply the KISS principle when designing your layout - make everything easily accessible, no duck-unders, bend-overs or whatsoever you have to consider during operation - this takes the fun out of the game!
With your main up front the difference is about 4". You call this far away and hiding? I am feeling you’r seeing bears …
Have a good look at Steinjr’s plan; a donut with buildings up front or along the back wall. Can you reach in?, that’s the question; you intend using narrow shelves, problem solved allready.
The penninsula adds even more operating possibility’s. Stop thinking about the bears, don’t waste your time and start measuring the room (it’ll cost you less then 10 minutes) and start thinking about your operating goals. Do you want a mainline as well? Do you want to model the interchange between the main and the “branch”? etc, etc.
I would try #1 and build the Ironton as an operator pit behind the layout with access to the Catasagua yard. The benefit of that is that person could also be the LV operator too.
Imagine RDG Catasagua yard running left to right infront of you. On the right is the LNE connection and on the left is tha Ironton connenection. Behind the yard is a one person operating pit. The ironton curves around the pit clockwise with Coplay exactly opposite the RDG yard. On the right end the LV yard runs at a shallow angle towards the back of the of the pit and runs behind/under Coplay. The LNE is at the extreme right end of the RDG yard and has the distinctive minimum radius curve on the connection (ultimately curling around and running beside the LV yard.
The operator in the pit can then run transfers from the Ironton to either the RDG or the LV. The operator can be the LV and transfer to and from the RDG or can also run the LNE into the RDG. That should keep that position busy during the entire session. In the meantime the RDG operators operate on the outside in the aisle.
Dave - that would be version 2 when I have a full basement to build in, don’t think I could get all that in an approximately 11x15 room (guessing on sizes until next weekend when I move in). Awesome idea though - pending enough room I was also planning to go all the way to Alburtis and have a brief section of the East Penn, mostly just staging to staging. With REALLY enough room I considered extending that at least as far as Topton and even including the Allentown RR. Dreams. There is a potential operator pit in the form of a doorless closet, a walk-in sort of thing with a wide opening, not just a 30" door, but I was thinking that if I do the layout with ALburtis to the left and Catty to the right, the cement plant will go in the closet.
As for various other questions - without detailed analysis, I would guess the total of all other sidings and industries might about equal the one large industry (cement plant). That one industry would probably be 1/4 to 1/3 of the total traffic. Benchwork will not be wide, however I am building it fairly high (to fit me - previous layout was built to accomodate someone who was 5’6" and it was too low for me at 6’). Reachover is no problem for me, but then extending a large industry back another couple of feet will make it hard to switch cars there. Magnets and remote control turnouts would work, but I prefer a more hands-on switching with skewers to uncouple.
Duckunders - I prefer to avoid. There are 2 doors to the room, at least one of which will be blocked, but with a liftgate, no duckunder. I will probably block both doors for a continuous run connection, another liftgate or bridge of some sort.
I “assume” you have the options laid out on paper, and if not, that would be a first step.
If still in doubt, perhaps you could mock up the benchwork or at least the outline of the benchwork and walk around and study it for a couple of days or so.
Then, once you’ve made up your mind - and slept on it a bit - then just do it and don’t look back!
No earth shattering advice here, but I’ve found the above does work for me.
Like I said, I’ll have exact dimensions of the space after I move starting next weekend, but I can tell this for sure - there is NOT sufficient room to have the main continue around the pennisula with a viewblock down the center - there’s not enougfh width for a turnback curve. And I cna also say that would definitely be a ‘druther not’ even if I did have a wide enough space, having the main run around the outside of the cement plant woudl totally spoil the flavor of the prototype.
What it all comes down to is - from an operation standpoint - is it a pain and/or does it spoil the operations experience to abandon following your train to dodge around a penninsula and pick it up again on the other side? I will certainly have enough boxes to mock it up and walk around it. The design would involve a main line runnign along 1 wall, turning on to the penninsula wall, and then the penninsula. On the opposite side of the penninsula would be a small flat switching yard. It is entirely posisble that an operator could run their train into the yard from the other side of the penninsula, there aren’t any high viewblocks in the way.