Layout Critique in On30

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
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Layout critique OK I might regret this[;)]…

… but I figure I better post this and make sure I’m not missing something dreadfull planning my new layout. I’m pretty satisfied with the overall layout given my extreme space constrictions but I’m mostly in need of review of my yard layout. Bear in mind I am terribly cramped for space, this layout area is ALL I will ever have to work with, so think sideways, dont recommend a roundy-room layout, cuz it aint happening at this house. Its on castors so its easily movable around the garage/train room.

The planned layout is On30, 4’6x6’6 imagined as a tourist scenic railroad line running preserved and restored equipment from out of the old Yosemite Valley railroad depot of El Portal up into the Yosemite Valley. This premise is based on a real proposed plan for the Grand Canyon National Park where there was serious talk about banning all autos and requiring visitors to either come in on shuttle bus or via Grand Canyon RR. So OK what if this happened at Yosemite?, and someone built a tourist line to carry passengers into the park. Hey, could happen.

As I said, I’m pretty satisfied with the overall design given my extreme space constraints, my trains will be short, 2 to 3 short cars long, I’m not much for long trains myself but I should be able to really go nuts on the scenery. But as I said I need some feedback on my yard layout. Here is my layout plan.

http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/vsmith/Yosemite%20Central%20On30.pdf

the yard consist of 4 track areas, a passenger car siding with passing track, freight car siding with passing track, a staging track, and an engine storage area with turntable (hopefully) Power will be DC to start until I can cough up an NCE setup.

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Interesting layout. Very different from what I am normally thinking about, but cool.

I am assuming you have checked your grades and that your On30 rolling stock will handle your curves and climbs just fine, and I am assuming that your passing sidings on level 2 and 3 are long enough for your consists.

Just curious about your yard (in front of El Portal). There is some kind of text next to the tracks in the yard, but it is too small for me to read.

But it seems to me like you have a lot of crossovers in the yard. Do you need all those crossovers?

You are probably aware of this, but a classical Yosemite model railroad layout is Jack Burgess’ Yosemite Valley RR (http://www.yosemitevalleyrr.com/).

If I compare Burgess’ El Portal Yard and yours (and add a proposed modification of your yard), it looks like this:

Jack Burgess is using 10 turnouts, you are using 13. Not sure if you are getting any more flexibility than he has, though.

In the Burgess track plan, the core runaround track is no 3 from the top - as long as that is kept clear, you can run around cars on track 1, 2 and 4. In your plan it seems like both track 2 and track 4 will have to be kept clear to do runarounds of cars on track 1, 3 and 5.

Not sure if this will work for your intended usage and scale - I just did a quick sketch using my favorite scale and turnouts (H0/Peco medium turnouts).

Edit: you could always extend that bottom track all the way to the right end of the yard, and have room for a few extra cars on that track, and maybe stick in a turnout on the way to the turntable for a short spur with room for a caboose or two, if your

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I agree, the yard is way overcomplicated, you don’t need all those crossovers. Have one or two double ended tracks and make the rest stub ended.

How are you going to get between levels? You will need about 12" vertical clearance minimum to see and reach into a level plus the thickness of the benchwork. So for 14" deck separation at 4% grade, you will need 350" of run, a grade almost 30 ft long, to get from one level to the other. The absolute minimum vertical clearance is 8" in the scene (any less and you won’t be able to pick up a car on a back track and lift it over a front track) plus 2" benchwork thickness, give you 10" separation, at 4% that is 250" of run or a grade 21 ft long.

Lets be generous and say the layout is 5 ft square and the main is 6" in from the edges. That basically gives you a loop of about 24" radius, which is about 12 feet long. In order to gain 4" clearance (which will be tight in O scale) you will have to have 4% grade on the ENTIRE visible layout. That means you don’t need any spurs because if you uncouple from any thing it will roll away immediately.

Based on that, I don’t think is can be built as designed, I don’t think you have enough separation between levels. The only way I can see you putting 3 levels in that space is to lose the grades and install a train elevator.

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If I’m interpreting it correctly, the layout is tiered, so that you basically have the tracks running up a “wedding cake” in a spiral. It looks like the clearances are correct where they need to be, which is where the tracks on one tier cross over the previous tier (i.e. the +12.5" in the upper-left corner of the second level. ) I did not do the math on the grades, so I don’t know if they are doable or not (too early here for that [:)])

Edit: after reading Dave H’s edits, it does seem like the grades would be a problem.

It’s also an island layout on castors, so primary access would be from the outside, all 4 sides.

I don’t see a way to turn a locomotive at Yosemite, so I’m assuming that they will be backing down to El Portal.

It’s a personal thing for me, but I would scoot Yosemite station to the left a bit to get the platform away from the points of the 3-way. Or maybe flip the station’s location with the water tower.

You’ve got a switchback industry in El Portal, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just remember the limitations & requirements of switchbacks.

That’s it for now.

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Thanks guys

Stien, THANKS I like that plan, I’ll work those mods into the track plan, I have alot of crossovers just becuase I was concerned about trapping a loco inside and having plenty of storage space hence the stub endings. I thinking of using an unballasted Dave Barrow approach in the yard, with the ability to pull up and adjust the yard as needed until I find a best solution, then fix it permantly and ballast it in place.

Dave, Odave, Yeah its steep aint it, The grades are based on an average rise of 1/2 inch per foot or 4.16% but it may end up being closer to 5%, and they do run almost the whole lenth of the trackage. I am think of building this layout twice, once using foamcore just to test the track plan in operation, I can temporarily tack or wire the track down. With 1/4" foam core, its extremly easy to cut, trim and adjust the track plan elevations till I can find a working solution, if it works then to take carefull notes and then rebuilding the whole thing permanently with blue foam. It will also give me a chance to test run new rolling stock. The maximim vertical clearance I need is only about 4 inches between track If I use 1/4 inch masonite where tracks cross each other I could get it pretty tight but I’m hopefull my grades will work out.

The layout is indeed a tiered wedding cake and its designed so that there is some leeway if I need to adjust or lower the layout, we’ll see once I start building the torture test layout. I’m also thinking that I’ll forgo anything big like the Connie and instead focus on picking up a Climax which I think would be perfect for this concept. There is access from the inside as well from under the layout, but it is designed mostly for access from the sides. The Engines do indeed have to back down, thats part of the fun, but also why I’m considering the Climax, its good in either direction.

OK g

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Guess it depends on how many cars you have a need for holding in the yard - I figured four passenger cars for two trains, plus maybe half a dozen freight cars - you don’t have that many industry spots on the layout, and train lengths are probably limited to 4-5 freight cars anyways.

Of course, you can get more yard capacity (at the expense of making the yard look less like El Portal), and still have the capability of running around two cuts of cars before engines start getting trapped, by adding longer tails to a couple of the tracks

I’ve also made tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 a little longer by moving the left end turnouts all the way out to the yard ladder. But this may be overkill for your traffic needs during a running session.

El Portal (the way it is described by Burgess) looks both pretty functional, and it has plenty of character.

Btw - Stein, not Stien. I realize that is is probably a lost battle, since for some reason quite a few Americans seems to prefer “Stien” to Stein, but still … [:D]

Edit: had another look at your plan - 6 foot 6 inches for the whole yard - including yard lead curving around the corner at a minimum 15" radius curve. What I have drawn takes about 9 feet as drawn. Ouch!

You will have to drop even more crossovers/runarounds in the yar

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I have a couple problems with the layout’s premise.

If the idea was to extend rail service into Yosemite National Park, the railroad would continue following the water-grade up Merced River. However, your plan calls for the railroad to climb a mountain. Now if the point was to climb the south side of Yosemite Valley to Glacier Point, the premise would be consistent with the plan (except you’re on the wrong side of the river). Or perhaps you could model something like the tourist line from Mill Valley to Mt. Tamalpias, CA (the crookedest railroad in the world).

For a tourist railroad, there sure are a lot of industries. Also, passenger facilities are de-emphasized by small and absent depots.

As mentioned before, the staging yard is overly complex, and good suggestions have been made to improve it. However, I suggest that the yard be renamed El Portal and be a primary focal point of the layout. It would be worthwhile to eliminate a track to fit in at least a suggestion of a passenger depot. Also, the area now labeled El Portal shows a substantial town. I would eliminate/reduce the real estate improvements. place a flagstop station there and include just a single spur instead of the switchback arrangement.

To reduce grades, I’d suggest the line going to the second level be started in the upper-right-hand-corner of the first level oval.

The oval at the third level is unnecessary for operations. I suggest removing the upper portion of the oval’s track as well as putting in a more substantial depot. Use one or more of the tails of the remaining portion of the former oval to serve as points for the railroad to drop off supplies (mostly food and drink), and eliminate the internal freight spurs to make room for passenger service.

Except for scenic value, the turntable is un

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Hi Mark,

Given the small footprint I’ve been delt I’m forced to take a little "Artistic License:…OK ALOT of “artisitic license”[;)]

I’ve never been a stickler for rigid aderence to prototype, If I can get the spirit of it then I’m fine with it, remember this is a freelanced layout so I’m not going to get real sticky about prototype as there really isnt one that exists today. If I had a spare room or basement I could indeed stretch things out a bit and be adherent to the real world in-situ of the line, but I’m just trying to create something that grabs my interest and lets me be creative. remember, one of my heroes in Malcomn Furlow [oX)]

I’ve been thinking about it tonight and I’m more conviced than ever that I need to build up this trackplan either as foamcore or bracket/stringer style using thin plywood or masonite, filling the gaps and building up with foam scenery after I get the track plan working instead of building it up on blue foam base as it rises, this way I can be sure to get the track plan working making any changes I need to do before I start worrying about any scenery. As for the scenery, ever seen “Close Encounters?” at least I dont have a ceiling to worry about hitting.[:P]

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Stein, sorry about that, slight dyslexia and all that[D)]

I’m check the second proposal out when I can mess with the com’fuser again , I still prefer the first suggestion only with the stub ends attached. I’m only planning on a total of about 6 passenger cars and my trains may only be two or three cars long, minimal freight cars only for photo op runs and supply runs. After going a tad overboard in large scale, I really want to focus on shall me say a Minimalist approach to model railroading, small roster, small layout, less hastles. So my yard shouldnt get too full anytime soon, Oh and its 18"R coming out of the yard onto the mainline, I placed the only 15" R track on the top level.

this experiment will be interesting once it gets going, on many different levels[swg]

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hi,

to me you seem to be rather defensive; You are very able to stretch things out a lot in your space, you just want to avoid any discussion about it.

You brought up the YV, the moment Mark explained why, from his POV, you did not very well captured the YV looks, you became just a freelancer.

You were afraid to trapp engines in your yard, but on a one train at a time pike, you need a very clever dispatcher to get that done.

Modelrailroading is about dreams, But as long as you do not tell us what specificaly grabbed your fancy, you are avoiding the discussion again.

Being not the best designer is no problem at all, most people are very helpful and even willing to do design work for you. Malcolm Furlow was a clever designer; he used the dogbone a lot; for a reason. And he had the “eye”, just like David Barrow. Some people can see how scenes will work out before starting the built. Most of us can’t, we all start questioning why it didn’t look so right after we have built it? And looking back the answer was often obvious, we just wouldn’t hear it earlier on.

Paul

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I dont think I’m being defensive, if I was, wouldnt I have shut Steins recommendations down? Instead I’m actively looking at them… and when I rework the yard area on CAD both the two Dave’s comments and Marks will be considered and looked at on the overall layout. I’m still designing this so everything is open to suggestion but until I physically start laying this thing down or build a scale mock up of it may be the only way of determining if it actually will work, that was all I was trying to say. If as I continue to i design this if it turns out it IS unbuildable, so be it, I’ll design something new, I’m not married to this plan.

OK some goals…

Two interconnected loops

Small workable yard

Ability to run two trains at once

Towering Sierra scenery

What I dont want:

Point to point layout

Reverse loops

Rigid adherance to a single prototype compromising an otherwise fun layout

All of which has to fit on an already existing 4’6 x 6’6 base mobile table. That table is an absolute, it all must fit, I get smudge it a few inches here or there but it has to fit in its aloted space, something I’m sure others have had to deal with.

BTW I never said this was THE historic Yosemite Valley RR from Merced to El Portal, I said it is Inspired by the YV RR and the GC RR, so Marks comments are correct, but then I wasnt trying to recreate the YV. The YV never made it past El Portal and was gone by 1960. Mine is a Freelance MODERN tourist line “What if” from El Portal up to the Yosemite lodges, it is limited in area I have to work with and as such I have to take some liberties with little things like which side of the river, or climbing cliff faces, or t

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What you’re fighting is the old spelling rule many of us were taught in our early years: “I” before “E” except after “C”. Which is followed by a long list of other exceptions to remember, the latest of which is now “except if it’s the name of a Norwegian model railroader”. [:)]

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LOL - that explains the many American posters who spell “freight” as “frieght”, I guess. But what would be the explanation for those that that go in the opposite direction, and spell “diesel” as “deisel” ? [:D]

Oh well - I fairly quickly gave up on finding general spelling rules in English. A language that absorbs words from all over the planet (like say kow-tow, laager, robot, bungalow, slalom, cul-de-sac, Stakhanovite, flak and thousands upon thousands of other words from all over the world) doesn’t really seem (to me) to have any sensible general spelling rules.

Grin,
The German Beer Mug … aka Stein :slight_smile:

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This is a joke, no?

Mark, aware of differences in spelling rules among languages

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I don’t see the yard as that workable since everything will have to be on a steep grade to keep it from rolling away…

If you want two interconnected loops, build two nearly flat loops and connect them. Waaaaaay easier to design and build Lose the middle level.

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I’m concerned how you’re going to have “towering” mountain scenery if each level is only about 12" high?? That less than 50 ft in O scale. I’d also think about heights of the three decks, the upper one is going to have to be pretty high (like at eye level) and the lowest one pretty low.

Remember too that even though the track is (in effect) HO track, everything else is still O scale. The cars are engines are still going to be pretty big, the buildings are going to be roughly twice as big as their HO counterparts.

I’d lean more towards doing a much simpler one-deck layout, and have vertical space for mountainous scenery and a few well-detailed buildings. Remember one of the charms of narrow-gauge is it’s uncroweded simplicity - little trains rolling thru vast mountains.

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Stein, since you’re Norwegian (I presume), I “picture” you as a stone, not a mug.

The word “stein” in English (meaning an earthernware mug especially for beer commonly holding about a pint) comes from the German “steingut” meaning “stoneware” (“stone goods”). In Norwegian, “stein” means “stone.”

Mark

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Hey Victor, An interesting plan however I agree with some of the others. 2 levels would be more apprioprate unless you can stretch the layout several + feet. You did cram alot of operating action into a smaller layout, kudos to you! I missed what layout software you used.

On30 is supposed to be the fun scale, not to upset the more serious operatative types. Try Yahoo Groups and check out On30 conspiracy group, it takes a few hours or a day to become a member. There are a couple of thousand people that belong try the website below. Some layouts and members are very whimisical in their approach others are more into operation, its free and very informative.

groups.yahoo.com/group/On30conspiracy

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The yard is flat, I dont know how you thought it was graded, only the approach line have any grade once it leaves the yard, the upper loop is also flat, as is the passing siding on the middle level, that section exists as the connector track between the two track levels. Maybe the drawing is a little confusing due to the stacking effect of the track.

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Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out. I draw using Autocad