Here’s my 9x11’ plan for SD&AE for the contest in MR - Still have to finish the right side - Staging or something. This looks like it will work w/ 20" radius and commercial Atlas #6 turnouts. Let me know what you think. The trestle is going to be a bitch to build. Will post finished plan this weekend.
Hi Chuck. I like your general plan and looks like you put a great effert in it. You will get tons of, what I would do if I was you, on this, take what fits and toss the rest as its your railroad.
If your asking if it was mine, trying to keep the same theme in your track plan.,here is what I would consider. I would somehow design my track work, so that I could use a swing up entering the room. If you and your friends dont mind ducking, leave it as is, At my age I dont duck,… just waddle like one!!!
The road (upper right0 looks better if you cant see it dead ending in the wall, perhaps relocating it a tad to disapear around the scenery, perhaps going into a tunnel. I read somewhere that one should set track back 6 in from the front edge, I redid mine and the scenery really brings it to life.
The area at the upper left, looks hard to reach. need information on the open area on the right, why?.I would relocate your trestle back into the upper left corner with a very large rad curve, to align with the swing up, that to me would be a fantastic photo shot.
Just my 2 Cents…John
John:
That’s a great idea for the trestle…also right area will be future staging. The weird thing about this, I’m now in N scale (armchairing) for a while, just planning these for grins. I have no intention at this point, nor the room to build this.
Chuck - Assuming this is an HO layout, as called for in the MR article, and that your grid is in 1 foot squares, then I’d have to say that, as drawn, a number of your turnouts are dramatically compressed in size from what is actually available commercially. This is particularly true of the semi-curved (?) one near the bottom of your drawing and the back-to-back pair at the lower right. Likewise, with regard to the first turnout I mentioned, the curvature radius of the trackage seems to be well below the minimum acceptable figure of 18".
CNJ831
CNJ831:
Thanks for the pointers. Back to the drawing board on the turnouts and the curves. That’s why I posted it.
How’s this - still tight curves, but #4 switches work. This wasn’t a class1 line. It was called the “impossible line”. Check out the info sheet so far:
and Eastern
PROTOTYPE
My prototype influence for this plan started in 1964 when I was growing up in along the mainline of the SD&AE. Many a summer day was spent sneaking around the PFE (Pacific Fruit Express) refers being iced at L St. The warm summer ambience would be shattered by an SD&AE freight rolling through with a mixed lash-up of motive po