Layout Plans - looking for input on a small 9 x 8 'round the walls

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Hi all,

I’m about to commence my second layout. Your great opinions and guidance are sought, considering the following givens and druthers:

Givens:

9ft x 8ft space,

HO scale, with code 100 hidden (including staging) and code 83 for exhibition,

2 x 6 axle diesels,

3 x 4 axle diesels,

minimum radius is 22inches,

maximum climb is 2.2%

Benchwork is to be moveable (moving house in the next 6 months, and this size will fit in the next house perfectly (I’m not hugely worried about weight, and will most likely make this module from a benchwork persepective)

Unless the benchwork is at 54+ inches, I will need to have a removable bridge

Druthers:

Ability to run continuously,

classification yard, with A/D tracks, yards and engine servicing - this will enable making/breaking train consists for delivery to local industries

Local industries to be coal(handling loads and empties from coal tipple to classification yard to hidden staging) and general freight house for some trailer on flat car and box wagon handling (freight yard to class. yard to hidden staging)

consist length to be 6ft long (unless double heading an exhibition drag for relatives/friends)

route of main to coal tipple and freight yards

Capacity to effectively handle 5 locos, up to 15 coal hoppers and 15 general freight cars. (like everyone, this collection is expanding)

The layout is DCC, and I have an interest in computer control, so detection and automation of certain things later appeals to me.

I am trying to keep bench width at or below 18 inches.

IF, and only IF, it’s feasable to construct this track plan with the same operation schematic, except running it as a dogbone so I can simulate a double mainline for part of the layout, I’d be quite k

2

With an 8x9 space - consider the HOG (Heart of Georgia): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HOGRR/

My previous layout was 8x12 built as 4 sections of 2x8. Dunno if I could have made it much smaller, but I did have a double track main. With a single track more would have fit. There’s some information in my “Old Stuff” section on my web site.

–Randy

3

I once built something similar in 8x10. Used the basic twice around concept, but at the time I was interested in coal railroading. So the way I worked it was a junction to a mining town. The “loop” was completed using a hidden connection between the coal mine and junction in a loads out - empties in configuration. At the junction end the main line entered a tunnel to staging which had two tracks to the mine (one loads, one empties). At the mine end the a flood loader disguised the entrance to staging.

Operations consisted of a pair of six axles working the coal mine turn (actually two train units dupicating each other) and a four axle leading a switching turn from staging to the town and back. The only other industries on the layout were a pulpwood yard, feed mill, and lumber yard. Train length was 12 hoppers on the coal trains and 4-6 on the freight. While I normally operated out and back, the plan allowed for a continuous run connection for those days I wanted to just railfan. Operations were fun, even though it was built in the pre-DCC days. Probably would work even better for two with DCC and adding a gas electric or short passenger to the mix.

There were some negatives with the plan. While the twice around provided good run in the small area, I did grow tired of the train going through the same scene. The other negative was the duckunder. I used a pair of bridges over a river, but still banged my head and scraped my back a lot. I’ve tried to avoid them ever since. You also mention wanting a class yard. I tried to fit one in, yet found that in the space I had a yard was just too big. It either took up too much room or I had to condense it so much that it wasn’t functional. For me, getting rid of the yard and using staging greatly simplified the track planning and improved the operations in the small space. Of course your goals may differ.

4

Yards take up a tremendous amount of space. So much so that I limit them on my layout in favor of staging areas. (And I have a small basement empire I’m working on.)

If you insist on a yard, you could do a split yard. There’s one yard on each side of the mainline. (Off the main split do a 3 way turnout, with each turnout going to a seperate yard) This would double the amount of turnouts for your yard.

The druthers with this plan is to shift cars from one yard to the next you’ll foul the main. Which is one of the golden no-nos whenever possible.

You can do a pinwheel turnout with #5’s. (Substitute radius of R24")

You can do a compound ladder. But I don’t think this would save you much space. Compound ladders are more effective when you have multiple yard tracks (at least 7)

5

Overall, you’re probably trying to do too much given the space you have. But your plan is really a good effort at fitting all of your druthers into that space. I haven’t calculated the grade, but I suspect it will have to be steeper than you want in order for you to have reasonable access to the staging tracks under the yard. Since there will be staging tracks along the wall, you’re going to want at least six inches, probably more, in between the top of the staging track rails and the bottom of the benchwork that supports the upper level. And you only have three walls to work with since your yard and staging tracks need to be level.

Assuming the grade/clearance is acceptable to you:

IMO, you have enough room to add another classification track as well as placing the freight yard on the south side of AD tracks. This would also eliminate the long black branch line track. That track, IMO, gives the layout a bit too much of a cluttered feel so eliminating it would be a benefit from my point of view.

At the least, I would switch the locations of the coal mine and freight yard, and conceal the mainline tracks with tunnels the best you can for a better scenic element.

But check the clearance of the staging tracks again. The result might ultimately kill this plan.

6

Stardust, you brought up a current concern of mine in the idea of movable bridges. When the bridge is up, how does one connect the hinges on the track and connect the tracks on the open end of the bridge when the bridge returns to the closed or down position, how do you prevent the train from derailing when the tracks reconnect? i.e Remember the Christmas move, “Twas a Better Life”, the scene of a draw bridge…

Train rails through mountains Henge Doorway Door Knob side Train rails entering city scene →

===========================!==================!===================================

Draw Bridge over (a ferryboat crossing) doorway entrance…

I want to construct a draw bridge electrically controlled (raised and lowered) for the bridge to be raised before the door is opened and closed to allow the train to cross the doorway when door is closed. Door mat sensor (or sensor on outside screen door) to raise the bridge before the door is opened for entrance. Sensors (garage door sensors to sense passage access before the door is opened) to raise bridge to allow door to be opened for exit. I need to be able to allow the 36" of rails to be hinged on the door henge side and to reconnect the rails on the door knob side when the bridge is back down. I can see the electrical connections of the rails around the doorway, but what I need to know to understand the mechanical design of the henge or would I simply leave the rails physically disconnected without the joint couplers and wire the rails to allow the train to continue to power across the bridge when it is down? Without the couplers, make sure the rails are inline for the engine to connect from one set of rails

7

entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. Or in a somewhat more modern form: KISS.

Want to prevent a door opening into a room from knocking down a bridge spanning the door opening? The most trivial solution is a device called a “key”. It can be used to lock doors, thus preventing them from opening when you don’t want them to be opened.

Another simple option in many cases involves taking out the door frame, turning it 180 degrees around the vertical axis and refastening it, now with the door opening out of the room instead of into the room.

My apologies to the original poster of this thread for the detour.

Smile,
Stein

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Stein,

Exactly what are you getting at? I was talking about building a draw bridge, not asking for advice on keeping people from opening the door into a room. I an planning on bringing my tracks from around the room and one area I need to cross is the entrance/exit door of my “Man Cave”. This door is the outside door to leave the building with a screen door outside. I have the electrical concept down, but only need the mechanical information for the henge and connection side of the tracks.

9

Hi Brett,

you presented a well thought out and well laid out plan of ideas rather than the "I have a space-help with a layout plan. If only everyone would take heed of your post when asking similar questions.

I have a concerns I thought I would mention that others may overlook:

24 " may be fine for you, beanstalk , but what about a more stout, portly second assistant?

Also, I’ll tell you a quick story: I graduated HS wearing 30 waist and 30 length jeans and weighed 130 lbs. I was “lithe and thin”{and short}. I wore 30-30’s for years right up until I turned 40. Then, suddenly, after 4 major surgeries in 3 years, age change, medications that may have done it, I have mushroomed up to over 200 lbs. and am lucky to find a pair of 44 waist pants to fit me and now struggle to keep weight down below 240. Any of the list could have done it, especially medications which can cause weight gain.

You never know, it could happen to you.

So plan for the future and/or for other guest who may not be a “beanstalk”. Keep to 36" wide or at least at minimum 30". You may thank me for it later on.

10

Randy, thanks for the ‘old layout’ heads up. I’ve been watching your work with latest incarnation. Having looked at HOGRR, it does offer some interest to me and gives a broad radius curve setup. the 6 axle diesels don’t like anything less than 22inches from experience, and this has been my single largest issue to now. The modular nature of this layout also makes it easier to move (part of me requirements), and ultimately less is more too.

cheers

Brett

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jmbjmb said:

Thanks for the input, and guide to your operations. I’d be keen to see some photos of this 8 x 10, or even a layout plan. At a pinch I could chance an 8 x 10, but feel safer with an 8 x 9. From this aspect, I would have 3 sides enclosed in walls with operations held fromthe ‘well’, so my opportunity to scenic the area to hide (in a tunnel) trackeage behind the current coal tipple and it’s continued journey on the eastern side is quite large. In this way, I may get out of seeing the same train on the same scenery du to this elevation change and possibility of hiding the track.

Also, thanks for the heads up on the scraped back and banged head. At the moment, I currently have a 36inch duck, and frankly don’t like it. Having either a single removal or 2 removable bridges would probably work.

Just thinking with my finger tips, what if I were to have a 2 foot long double track bridge, completely level, that the eastbound and westbount tracks enter from their respective climbs or descents. There will be transition issues with this, as well as making sure that my elevation requirements are met.

cheers and thanks,

Brett

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DigitalGriffin said:

I’d not thought of splitting the yard. Thank for you for opening my eyes to this. From a scenic perspective, the north area (classification yard) is at 4 inches of elevation. This means that I can scrap the engine servicing to at to the yard up here, as long as my exit points are enough to a). get me accross the lower level track and b). connect reasonably as they are to the main line run

With staging, I’ll certainly look at the pinwheel in my next draft of the plan, breaking it into elevations as well.

Cheers and thanks, Brett

13

Doughless raised:

Doughless,

Thanks for the warm feedback. I will admit to trying to get a little too much in, which is a good part of the reason for my questioning this layout here.

The grade is a stright 2.2% (per the AnyRail V4 design) but does not allow for transitions to this grade. My experience at the moment is with a steep and far from prototypical 4% grade, which my favourite RS-11 struggles pulling a string of 11 mixed freight cars up. Double-headed, this is not an issue. Realistically, I am looking 2 things in the grade, being </

14

galaxy,

Thanks for the warm compliment on the original posting. I feel it’s always a good thing to know what you want before you ask others . . I’ve never decided to buy a ‘blue’ car and feel that a ‘track plan to fit a space’ is just like deciding the only thing you care about when buying a car is that it’s . . . BLUE!

Great point you raise, as I am currently hovering above my normal weight and have started to find the years are making it more difficult to contain. I’ll certainly take this on board, and raise that to 30inch walk through at lease.

Finally, thanks for the feedback and I’ll be back with another draft of the plan in a few days once I consider these items. Later today, I’ll list out the proposed changes for you to comment on.

Cheers

15

My old layotu was 30 and 32" radius curves - we ran EVERYTHING on there, from 4 axle switchers to 4-8-4’s and GG1’s with full length 85’ passenger cars and it all worked well with absolutely no derailments, even at warp speed in reverse. Even throught he #6 crossovers from one main to the other. I only run 4 axle power and no passenger cars of any sort so the new layout has a pinch point of 22" as the closure rail radius in the #4 turnouts, but mostly it’s 24" radius. My big 4-8-4’s handle it just fine although I won;t be runnign them much, they never ran on the branch I’m modeling.

I’ve also thought about switching to N scale, but I have so much invested in HO that it would be painful to switch. But I sure could have a heck of a lot of railroad in my space, even after making the benchwork narrower for wider aisle.

—Randy

16

ON looking at this, I have allowed 4 inches of clearance, which I would be happy with ordinarily. However, you have lead me to find the short coming of rail-to-rail clearance under the yard needing to be substantially more, due to switch motors etc hanging down.

I’ll look at rotating the room through 90 degrees, meaning the classification yard would sit on an 8ft side, and possible place some staging (single ended) on either of the 2 9ft sides.

Without your thought provocation, I’d not have realised this till I was holding a bunch of lumber in one hand and a fistful of good intentions in the other.

I’m now back at the drawing board.

cheers and thanks,

Brett

17

This is the track plan as best I recall it. It’s been a few years and I don’t have a paper trackplan anymore. For the most part I only sketched out the overall plan and then developed the final plan by fitting pieces together before cutting out the roadbed (used cookie cutter homosote over plywood). It’s amazing how little will actually fit in the space when you use actual components compared to pencil lines on paper :slight_smile:

http://photo2.walgreens.com/walgreens/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=9954532006/a=1764306006_1764306006/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=walgreens/

http://photo2.walgreens.com/walgreens/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=9954532006/a=1764306006_1764306006/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=walgreens/:550:300]

18

hi

you did not get many comments on the design itself.

just a few

*too many tracks are way to close to the back wall; try to keep 4 inches between the back wall and your track

  • you could easily make a larger staging area

*the freight yard should be close to the station, i do not like it on a long branch; a different kind of industry would be possible here.

*you could use manual operated switches; 4 inches of clearance is tight…

have fun

Paul

19

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the ideas. I haven’t considered manual turnouts for the yard, as I see there may be some computer control possiblites last on.

I am looking at trying to get 5 to 6 inches of elevation now, which may push me to a 2.5% grade. This is feasible, and on looking, I am wondering if it’s possible that I can limit the depth required by the Peco PL10 snap switches. These snap switches can be mounted 'through the road bed" and directly to the turnouts, and if I route the wiring correctly, I may be able to get away with a depth of just 1 inch. Of course, as the snap switch is located by the ties, the road bed thickness can also be eliminated from the calculation of the required depth (so long as it’s not thicker than the allow for the switch).

In any case, I may look at putting the staging down the eastern side, and making it 3 x 5 foot staging tracks. And if worked properly, I can possibly wrap this staging around the southern end to the edge of the liftout, making it even longer. This option would alleviate much of the drama of having the only 4 inches of elevation under the yard.

Again thanks,

Brett

20

Hey jmbjmb,

thanks for this sketch out. I’m quite happy I’m using AnyRail for this, as I’ve been able to print a couple of 1:1 proportion plans portions, lay some cars out on it then ponder . . . . completely agreed, laying our some trackage, it’s scary how little will fit into an area.

Advantages of designing by computer . . when setting a radius, it’s not going to dreamily fudge it to fit . . almost as unforgiving as the real thing.

Cheers,

Brett