Mark's track schematic

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I want to share with you the track schematic for my proposed bedroom-sized layout.

It is simply a continuous mainline with four tracks of staging (A-A) and a point-to-point branchline (B-D). The bedroom is about 10x12 feet extended 3 feet (making it a 10x15). The shape is “donut” requiring an on-the-knees crawl under which I am resigned but willing to accept. It is designed in HO scale, with a minimum radius of 30 inches and #6 turnouts except for #8s for mainline cross-overs and #5s for some industrial spurs.

The only visible portion on the mainline is the town of Hammil. It includes a passing track (track 2), a couple of double-ended spurs (track 3 and house track), and four single-ended spurs (team track, industry spur, corral [stock pen]), and engine service supply track (primarily for fuel and sand deliveries). There are also two tracks leading to a turntable, one of which also serves as the switching lead.

I didn’t take the pedestrian choice of having the branch take off from Hammil. Instead, the branch starts in the staging area. Since Hammil has a turntable, and with an additional track or two, it could serve as the source of the branch. I chose not to because it would create undesired crowding and shorten the distance traveled by branchline trains which originate in staging and pass through Hammil on the way to the branch. It was a very common practice for branchline trains to originate at a point away from where the branchline left the mainline (like the SP San Ramon branch which left the mainline at Avon but with branchline trains originating from Oakland or Port Costa.)

The purpose of the turntable is to simulate helper service on the mainline. It is imagined t

2

Hi Mark. Looks like you have nailed it at first glance. A couple of comments / questions though.

1- The track schematic is too small to read the details, but the basic track arrangement looks good to me.

2- Have you laid this out on any kind of a track plan scale drawing or in a cad program? The reason I ask is, it looks like an ambitious plan that may be cramped for space. Things have a way of not always working out as we plan them. I should know, because I am guilty of that myself.

3

Earlier versions of the track plan were laid out in CAD (professional civil engineering version) by a friend, but he is sick and tired of making changes. (I have largely given up using CAD because I can’t seem to make it do what I want.) It is rather complicated because one needs at least three layers to distinguish among the various levels of track. I have laid out the critical trackwork using full-size paper turnout templates to make sure things will fit and checked out track lengths and grades.

Thanks,

Mark