Hi I wanted to get your oppions on how this design is. This layout will be located in in upper California. HO scale, in a 11x10’ room some of the upper part goes under neath my bunk bed. I wanted this to be fun for running passenger trains and switching.
Era will be in the late 60’s to early 90’s.
The Lower Part.
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f232/amtrak514/lowercopy.jpg
The Upper half
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f232/amtrak514/uppercopy.jpg
Tell me what you think![:D]
You have BNSF and round houses?
I have 4 Athearn SD75M’s and I wasn’t sure what roundhouse would be better for my layout and have not bought it yet. The tracks connected to nothing on the lower photo shouldn’t be there.
No roundhouses go with SD75M’s.
That is three eras - diesel, 2nd generation diesel, & modern.
It has a some interesting switching areas but almost too much yard. In layout design I don’t consider yard work to be switching - just industrial areas.
The main problem I see is that from the yard a train can exit onto the main but then is stuck there unless it backs back into it. If you added a reversing loop the layout would become and out-and-back.
Is there a passenger station in there somewhere like on the long passing siding?
I don’t think that I’ll be running the SD75M’s because the engines always derail.
I’ll model the 2nd generation era with some modern cars/engines ex. My Coast Starlight.
I might be able to put a track that goes from the end of the yard to the two tracks that stick out of the board 2 feet.
The yard will be a staging yard also, on the right side tracks of the yard will be for my coast starlight, and the left will be staging, yard, industry sidning on the left 2 tracks.
The turn on the passing siding will have a station there.
Agree with Texas Zephyr here.
Is there a planned connection here or are you wanting a point-to-point, e.g. train leaves the yard/staging on right, traverses right to left across the bottom, up the left hand side and terminates on the top/north side ?
It is a small layout for a point-to-point plan. I don’t think you are going to get the feeling that your trains are going somewhere.
Are those 1 foot squares on the grid. If so, your entry way is way too narrow. It looks to be about 6 inches wide between the two sections of benchwork.
Your switch lead in the center peninsula is way too short. It looks like you would be lucky to even get a switcher engine into the two tracks on the right of the peninsula. There is no way you could even switch one car in and out of those tracks.
Yeah there is supposed to be a bridge right there. See the problem with this whole thing is that this is in my bedroom and the upper part is under neath my bunkbed. The two open purple areas on the very right of the picture are my door to get in and closet door. So the double track that sticks out about 2 feet goes right behind my door.
The squares are all 1 foot big. The lower door is my closet and it’s actually a little bit bigger than that I can get through. I’ll get some pictures of what it currently looks like later today.
Upper.
http://photobucket.com/albums/f232/amtrak514/?action=view¤t=uppercopy2.jpg
New lower
http://photobucket.com/albums/f232/amtrak514/?action=view¤t=lowercopy2.jpg
If I understand the latest diagrams, you are using some sort of liftout bridge to connect the peninsula with the engine terminal area. If that is so, that completes the mainline giving you a continuous run and also gives you the switch lead to the peninsula tracks.
However, I see it as a real problem to have a lift out bridge blocking access to the left half of your railroad. Lift out bridges have been used effectively for entry into a layout area but that only requires the bridge to be raised/removed at the beginning and end of your operatiing session. Having one cut you off from an operating aisle seems to me to be a major inconvenience. Every time you want to move to the left side of the layout, you will have to raise the bridge.
Doesn’t look like you have much going on in that trackplan. All the spurs seem to be close together which means you won’t go very far to switch the various industries. You need to have continous run on a small layout for sure. I recommend having industries at each corner of the layout and a yard and engine shop in the center.
First of all, your curves have to be PERFECT. A Geni will go around 18" but they can have trouble. What’s your min radius in this new design? If your track is good you have the famous Athearn warped trucks. There is a way to fix them and it’s been posted on the MR forum before. Or you can replace the trucks.
You’ll NEVER see a SD75 in a roundhouse. I suggest the Walthers Diesel House It would work for anything from the 1950s right up until modern-day.