So, as I’ve been talking about in previous posts both here in Layouts and Layout Building and in the General Discussion forum, I’m considering doing something new.
So, I’ve been sitting down with my drafting board and noodling out some parameters for a possible new layout. I need to get overly excited about a design, if I’m going to go to the work of tearing down my present HO layout that I’ve been working on for the last 25 years. One of the preliminary tasks of looking at maybe doing the above, would be to design a new layout on paper.
As stated earlier, the scale would be Sn3 and the line would be the Reo Grande Southern in Southwestern Colorado. I’ve sketched out the area I can use for a layout. It’s in the same location my HO layout is now; but, would better use the space I have available by going along the walls. My present layout is only along one wall and has walkways along the outer edges.
I like the RGS because it is a typical Colorado Narrow Gauge and was a part of the Narrow Gauge Circle., It linked with the Denver & Rio Grande, starting in Ridgway, then heading mostly south, then cutting back east to Durango, where linked with the D&RG, again.
Then Northern terminus that I would like to model would be Telluride, modeling it’s branch to Vance Junction, through the Ophir Loop, then by Trout lake and finally to my farthest south portion, Lizard Head pass. Both Telluride and Lizard Head Pass have “Y” for turning trains, making them good places to have on the ends. This ne
Last things first. Don’t do 4% just because the RGS did. They didn’t have any choice. 2.5%, maybe 3% max is much better. I have no experience with Sn3, but I suspect 10 cars on 3% is probably close to what one loco can handle. Another factor was that RGS crews often doubled trains over steep sections. So those pics of 10-car trains may be a bit misleading, as that really became two 5-car trains several times in getting over the line. Whether you want that operational headache reproduced is debateable. I could see once, but they’d have to pay me to handle trains that did it on every grade, doesn’t sound like fun at all.
Here’s my take on things. I think Lizard head Pass could work as one end. The facilities were pretty minimal and the only industry were the stock pens, but if the intent is mostly turning trains and staging, it could work pretty well.
Now Telluride. I guess I’ve never really seen it as a terminal, but I am not a RGS expert. But if it was, it was only briefly. Most frieght traffic stayed on the main and didn’t venture up the branch was my impression. Telluride/Pandora definltely had plenty of action at one time. But making Telluride a terminal would be difficult. What I would do instead would be to continue north from Vance Junction into a staging loop if you have room. That way Telluride won’t require additions to handle the needs of a terminal. Vance Junction to Telluride could be handled as a branch, with locals who had business venturing off the main. The Geese would also ply the branch.
Now for the line between Vance Junction and Lizard Head, Telluride is the only area of significant traffic. Ophir had a little, but other than that it was seasonal traffic like sheep, etc. Now, if it was me, I’d bring in industries from elsewhere and stick enough of them in to “correct” things, but things will be a little barren for wayfreights if you stick close to the prototype. North of Vance Junction, things were somewhat busier, but t
Thanks for the input, Mike! I was not considering a 4% ruling grade, either. Been there, done that, didn’t like it. As far as including Telluride, that is still up in the air. A must have LDE for me is the Ophir Loop. I included Telluride, as it is the next LDE that has some interest along the line and has a wye, next to Vance Junction. There is some difficulty with this choice, where you would think the track leaving Vance Junction would leave from the North end of Vance, it actually leaves from the south end and loops back, to gain altitude.
We’re fairly just starting on this design. I was thinking it was highly likely that one or possibly two of the LDE’s would need to be dropped, namely Trout Lake as my room in my basement is limited. It would be nice to have a few inches between LDEs.
Back to the drawing board: I’ve used a total length of 6,200 feet in full scale to link all five of the LDEs together. In S scale this works out to 1,160 feet. Now I need to selectively compress this length, as I certainly can’t pack 1,160 feet of railroad in my basement!
I’ve found that Sn3 30 foot narrow gauge cars are exactly the same length as 40 foot cars in HO. 10 of them, works out to around 45 inches in length. So, with a loco and caboose a train might be just a bit over 60 inches long.
All of this is just rough dimensions, which likely will need to be tweaked. A siding for a 60 inch train will likely need to be 80 inches long.
Given that information, I can make Telluride 180 inches long, including the yard and wye. &nbs
If the RGS had 4% grades, were there runaway tracks for the downgrade? The CPR had runaway tracks on the “big hill” that were manned. The engineer had to give a toot on the whistle to indicate all was well, or the guy would throw the switch into the runaway track. Having to signal at these points would add to the operation (any chance to blow the whistle) You could still add the runaways even if you go with 2% grades. That is if the RGS had them???
AFAIK, no runaway tracks on the RGS. There just wasn’t enough traffic, because if they ever had a problem like that, the whole RR would’ve been shut down until things were adjusted back to “normal.” Normal on the RGS included lots of mishaps and close calls, along with minor daily derailments.
Hey NP I was thinking of your plan to model the RGS and was thinking what if I were to do that and what would I model, just a dream mind you, just for fun.
I would start with Ridgway and model the engine facility and beautiful station there. Have that basically serve a short branch into pandora and model one or more of the mills there (very cool mills there). Kind of mash Telluride, Ridgway and Pandora togher, no worries about exact replication of specific track arrangement. Model the Ophir high line of course. Ricoh with the pro patria mill (also a beautiful mill). Passing siding at Ricoh. Wildcat canyon, with its neat looping bridge there and a coal mine. Then down to the Durango coke ovens and smelter. Cross the Animas into Durango. Again, not worrying about specific track arrangement at Durango. Put the station there and everyone will know its Durango!
I have always wanted to model the Durango smelter. (I have collected drawings and photos of it). Serving the smelter would really give the railroad I think some action and a complete self fulfilling purpose. But the size of things would probably mean HOn3. Add some other industries, sheep, cattle, logging, even a short fake farmington branch for oil. I dont think I would worry about staging, if so, minimal, or use a couple tracks as open staging at Ridgway and Durango. More important to me would be modelling the buildings, bridges, mills, and smelter to the originals as much as possible, at least in style.
But I think you were saying, modelling the rolling equipment was more to your liking so, just like everything else, everyone has their thing right?
We left for the weekend, it was my brother-in-law’s 53rd birthday and we had to visit the wife’s family and her mother, who is in a nursing home. On the way home from the nursing home, we followed the old N.P. Manitoba Junction tracks. I had noticed on previous trips that there were still “W” signs along the right of way. These were N.P. “Whistle” signs telling the engineer to whistle for a grade crossing. I thought one would look good in the layout room. However, the sign was about 7 feet off the ground and I could not even reach the bottom bolt on the sign. Oh, well, maybe some dark night I will bring a step ladder along!
No design work has been done, since Friday night. But, I will get after it this morning, along with doing some operation on my N.P. layout and working on a Gloor Craft Northern Pacific 24 foot Caboose.
Has everyone completely acclimated to the time change? I realize that the time change in Minnesota may not coincide with other states. I am not acclimated to the change, yet; however, I did manage to stay in bed until 5:00 am standard time.
Looking at the room I have available, it looks as though I may just have room enough for an Sn3 layout. However, it still doesn’t mean that it will happen.
I spent a few hours today looking at what I could put in the space I have available. It appears I would be able to run each of the five LDE right up against each other. However the broad 36 inch radius curves really eat up the available space very quickly. I’ve been told that I should look at 36" as the minimum for Sn3. Right now, I’m thinking this just really won’t work for the space I have availble and I don’t see tearing down my HO layout and going to HOn3, just because I have found I like Narrow Gauge. This isn’t over yet, however the fat lady has moved onto the stage.
Are the 36" min radius curves a operational limitation or an appearance one? Is it the sort of situation where it’s only a tight spot or two to make everything fit or is it one of those cases when even a diet won’t help the overall bloat?
I purused the PBL website to see what was said about minimum radius. It wasn’t listed for most locos. It was listed at 26" for a group of K-27s, though. Since the Rio Grande’s K-classes all had pretty close to the same driver wheelbase (about 12’) , the bigger power should be OK there, too, I would think.
So long as everything runs smoothly around it, a tight curve or two is just another design factor to be overcome. More than that it can get to be an overall problem. And bigger is better. I wish I could’ve spared more than a 24" r at several spots with HOn3, just didn’t have the room
Also keep in mind that nothing larger than a K-27 ever ran on the RGS - the trestles (and probably the right-of-way in general) couldn’t handle the larger K’s.
Oh yeah, just thinking out loud what’s the biggest thing that might ever get run on a layout in practical terms, not prototypical ones. Got no idea if NP2626 would fudge things in such a way, but I certainly would[;)]
I thought the 36 inch radius came from the Yahoos Groups Sn3 users. However, now I can’t find where that was stated.
Keith Hayes just stated the follorwing at the Yahoo groups, which changes things quite a bit and will cause me to do some further study.
“The bigger, the better. I would not go less than 30, especially with K-28s. 36” radius is nice. MRH published some interesting rules. You take the scale length of the car and convert it to actual feet:
- 2x the car length is the minimum radius - 3x the car length the car may couple and will need help - 3.5x the car length the car looks acceptable (I say, I say acceptable) on an inside curve - 4x the car length the car looks acceptable on an outside curve - 5x the car length the car will couple on a curve For a 30’ long car in S scale, these would correspond to 13", 20", 23", 26" and 33". I have not personally pushed the envelope on the shorter radii, but can say that the 3.5x, 4x and 5x rules are a good start".
When I work this formula I don’t get the same figures as Keith did.
I find this to be very helpful, and wish someone would have pointed this out earlier! I had asked about rail code and minimum radius on the Sn3 Users Group on Oct. 27th. The topic of the Code rail to use was soundly beaten to death; but, radius was lightly touched on.
Hey, I would become a total prototype snob, if I were to do this and only equipment which the RGS had, would ope
I guess P.B.L. would be the best source of info on the absulute minimum radius required for a K-27, so I’d contact them. Then with that info in hand, I’d try to design a layout where all the visible curves are as generous as possible; but tighter curves (within the K-27’s physical capabilities) would be used in less visible areas. These less visible areas could include cuts where the view of the train is at least partially obscured, but the equipment is still accessible in case of problems. Another possibility is to put the curve behind an easily removed large building. The visible operations should have curves that are more believable.
This problem came up when I helped a friend design his HO Appalachian shortline layout many years ago. He wanted to depict one long, relatively straight section of his prototype’s track, but had only a modest sized space. There were two significant scenic switching areas, and between them was a straight track through a cut; but there wasn’t enough space to put those scenes in line along a single wall. We had to place them along two adjacent walls, at 90 degree angles from one another. In the final design, the two scenic switching areas looked like the prototype areas with nice, gentle curves. Between them, the track went into the deep cut, made a sharp curve of about 21" radius, and emerged from the cut, coming into view on a straight alignment. Nobody ever saw those trains going around an extremely sharp curve. If operational problems occurred, which was rare because he built his track pretty well, you just leaned in to get a look from overhead.
Yeah, watch the K-28s, as that’s a familiar issue in HOn3, too. I think they actually had the longest wheelbase by some inches among the Rio Grande narrowgauge Ks. The design of the rear frame, ashbox and truck also presents less generous space than on the others K class locos in models, so somewhat more restrictive min radius in most cases.
Finally some concrete information of minimum radius for locomotives! From P-B-L, they stated that all their locomotives will handle a 28 inch radius. They will look better on larger radius; but, will handle 28 inhes.
That’s good to know. With the visual tricks that ACY mentioned, that gives you a little more flexibility if you need it. Tighter curves can also allow you to visually convey the line is passing through a more difficult, curvy piece of line, for instance, by contrasting with wider min radioius curves. I’ll bet 36" curves will really look great wherever you can work them in, though.
Yes, I’ve left most of the curves I’ve drawn so far, at 36". However, tighter radius at Ophir Loop allows me to get the highline and lowline more closely aligned as they really where. Even so, the five LDEs are still jammed up tight against each other. Other than the loop, there ain’t much running through the country side. So, Trout Lake is going to be dropped from the design. (Correction, I won’t drop trout lake, I might drop Telluride and switch to Ridgeway, per Mikes suggestion in post # 2 above).