I am on the final stages of designing a layout based on the Southern Pacific from the mid 80’s to the mid 90’s that follows the SP from Dunsmuir to eugene on both the shasta and cascade lines with focus on mainline and industry switch operations. I designed the layout to accomodate one route on one level with the other route on the other level. I designed the Dunsmuir and eugene yards to be hidden staging yards with helixes serving as a bridge to carry trains from staging to the lower level staging to the upper operating levels. I planned my design to incorporate a staging yard for both levels with Dunsmuir being the lowest yard and Eugene being the highest yard. Each yards serve as a termination point as well as the incorporation of a balloon track to carry trains back around to be recirculated and blocked or to disolve the train and rebuild a new manifest. I plan on having 10 trains running on a typical operating session with about a 40-50 car limit on each train. The layout so far prototypically follows the design of the real routes with focus on mostly single track operation with run around sidings and some double track operation were permitted. There are 8 towns on the lower and 6 towns on the upper with half of the towns on each level containing switching and yard operations. No yard on the operation level will be longer than 36 feet and no more than a total of 12 classification, storage, inbound-outbound tracks each. The industries are all prototypically correct with anywhere from 12-30 cars of freight generated and terminated in those towns.
Thats the rundown on what I have planned and to me I think I have achieved a combination of operation and realism without overkill on either account. I will have actual plans posted soon once I have completed the design on CAD software.
My question is what have you guys done to achieve a prototypic level of realism, operations or both and would there be anything that you could do to improve more of one or both in your own designs
I think that most of have more space considerations than you do so we must compromise a little more. I try to get as real as I can in terms of looks, but often I have to compress more into a space than what is logical. Sometimes I pull it off, other times I don’t.
As far as operations go, in the layout I am currently designing and getting ready to start, I have staging for 8 trains of 6-8 cars each. I model 1885 and that’s about what the little engines can pull up the 2% grade. I have a small classification 3-track yard and and 8 industries that will take between 1-3 cars. No where near the scale you have, but if we get cozy, 3 guys can operate for a couple hours.
The reason why i was able to put such a layout together was I sacrificed my two car garage. I own a house that was built in 1959 so I have a little more room then with newer two car garages. Plus I added ten feet to the west and south walls to give me a 35x25 size operating room. All the yards have been designed to be on the side walls on anyside of the garage and with the design of a multilevel layout I can have more operating space without adding roomsize. I was greatly inspired by Joe Fugate’s SP siskiyou line where he uses the multilevel to add operation space without increasing roomsize. The way I am designing the layout I will have 4 levels all together with the bottom and top levels incorporating Dunsmuir staging yard at the end of the lower level then two main operation levels one level the shasta route the other the cascade line. The levels will both terminate at the top level which is the Eugene yard also a staging yard. This design gives me plently of storage for trains at either end of layout as well as room to have a fairly good representation of both lines having there own levels. Weed is the beginning where the layout splits into 2 levels one the shasta and the other the cascade routes. The Shasta route will have the Azalea loop, Medford, Grants Pass, Roseburg, Sutherlin/Oakland, Cottage Grove. While the Cascade route will have Macodel, Klammath Falls, Chiloquin, Oakdale, Springfield. Both of these levels then meet up and continue to Eugene. Eugene and Dunsmuir have 12 track parrallelogram yards with a balloon track at the end of each yard to run trains around and back into the yard to be blocked or terminated to be resorted for future runs. All I plan on running is 40-50 car trains and at a maximum of 12 trains in one operation. I am almost done in the planning stage and will soon have a layout designed on CAD software. Then I am about 2 years out to have an up and running layout. I figure one year to finish getting the fleet built up and a year to built.
Industries on my layout are all based on real industries served by the railroad I model, based on a company document listing current freight customers available at a local railroad museum. While I haven’t completed all of my operations plans yet, operational frequencies will be based on surveys of operation conducted by the city I model to resemble actual levels of traffic. Train assignments are based on the actual schedules used by the railroad. Track plans are based on actual track layouts, although most are simplified or selectively compressed, using a basically “Layout Design Element” oriented approach to track planning.
Goals of design: The layout is built as a series of sections, each of which models a specific real-world location and has a specific function or set of functions. The layout models a real-world railroad in a rather unique location (the Sacramento Northern industrial belt line) and seeks to model operations in this region. While I want to maintain accuracy to the subject, and find that accurate research is a benefit to the planning process, I don’t insist on it and have several “non-prototypical” elements on the layout.
What would I do different: My layout is still mostly under construction, although I am already having second thoughts about using foamcore and styrene for streets and in-street trackage instead of a product like Durham’s Water Putty, which is more permanent in application but less sensitive to temperature fluctuations and buckling.
Where are you located? That size room would definitely allow a long central peninsula still allowing for generous aisles. If it were mine I would definitely do a mushroom configuration like Joe’s Siskiyou Line. I think the addition of Dunsmuir to Black Butte on the south end is a great idea, as well as the Natron Cutoff to the Cascades. Klamath Falls up to Chemult, Oakridge, and Springfield Junction. Likewise on the Siskiyou Line, from the Junction at Black Butte, adding Cantarra Loop, Weed, Yreka, Ashland Medford and Grant’s Pass, gives a whole new approach to what Joe has accomplished. Depending on one’s ability to concentrate on the level at hand that you are working a multi-level approach is fine, using the mushroom removes that distraction of peripheral motion. As Joe has shown, the mushroom allows the two different operations simultaneously. It might also be wise to allow for a large diameter helix if you want to connect the two staging yards, though I don’t see why you would want to. Cars could be routed one trip north on one branch south on the other, then the opposite branches next time through the system. It sounds like a great project. Keep me posted on progress, eh? jc5729
Any thoughts on choosing one mainline and modeling more of it rather than two parallel mainlines? Then your trains will have longer runs.
I have a basement space approximately the same size except I lose area to the stairs and the utility room. I have plans drawn up for a multiple deck layout as well.
I did this not to model more of the mainline, but to have more space between towns. I will have 15 feet of mainline for every real mile of mainline. I want to be able to run 35 car trains without the tail end of a train in one town when the front has reached the next. Another side benefit is I could use historical timetables with a 4x fast clock.
The design is a no-lix style, much like Tony Koester’s new NKP layout. The one drawback to the plan, like his, is my upper level yard is really higher than I would like, forcing me to build a raised platform to ease switching operations. Since my upper yard is on the center penisula, I can not build the raised platform seperate from the main aisle like Tony did though.
Well for starters I am situated in good ol Bakersfield CA. I wanted to originally design a tehachapi loop/bakersfield/fresno/stockton/davis layout. But with the room I have and the fact that almost all the san joaquin valley railroads and towns are linear to each other would make it harder to achieve the same realism I would get out of a curvy mountainous layout. That is why I ultimately chose this region of the SP. Plus the fact that weight and length restrictions on both routes call for lighter and shorter trains than the san joaquin valley or other areas I was looking into modeling. So with the sorter and lighter trains being run on the real SP I could easily and realistically model trains of shorter lengths on my layout without being unprototypical with the space I have. I will have train orders as well as car orders for every train and car that way I can have a train with real runctions and the cars with real purpose and destinations. I plan on getting some software to help generate way bills and keep track of train orders that way I minimize the amount of paper work that will follow the trains. I have seen a lot of people use some sort of card system that follows the cars and trains around on the layouts. Where I plan to put everything on computer and have a printout follow the train instead. And if I need to know where a car or train is I will pull up where its being held at and go from there. What I plan on doing is having a chart for the trains that are running that day, the industries to be served and the cars for them, and the status of the car whether it be loaded unloaded or run through freight. The program will most likely be an excell application to keep it simple. Although I am looking for something that would be able to house a working schematic of the layout with icons or thumbnails of where the cars and trains are/going with some sort of pull up screen that could be highlighted once the cursor is over it that would give a detailed desription of the train or car. I figure this way t
Oh just to aviod any confusions he he the lowest level is Dunsmuir yard with a helix going up to weed where trains will either go the Shasta or the Casade route. The Cascade line will be on the 2nd level while the Shasta route will be on the 3rd. The canterra or azalea loop will be where the shasta route will climb up to the 3rd level. The second level will have a helix going up to the 3rd level into Springfield via tunnel 24 where the helix will be enclosed in moutain form which is compass north of lookout siding. The Cascade line will run out of tunnel 24 and continue to Springfield. Both lines will meet just west of Springfield where there will be a helix to carry the trains to the 4th and final level at Eugene. I only plan on having scenery on the Shasta and Cascade lines. With the 1st and 4th levels only being used for staging purposes. There is a planned separation of 15-18 inches from the 2nd and 3rd main levels and only 10-12 inches from the 1st and 4th levels. Although there has been a lot of consideration of changing the helix at tunnel 24 to a loop that would turn the train around and run it in the opposite direction behind scenes going up and then curving around to run back in the opposite direction again to then pop out of the far end of tunnel 24 on the 3rd level. The other solution that would get rid of the tunnel 24 schematic is I would design the Cascade route to have the Wicopee loop have the same function as the Azalea/canterra loop on the Shasta route in where this would be the point where it climbs up from 2nd to 3rd levels then continuing on into Springfield. And at this point is where the layout is almost complete. I just have to decide on how I would reconfigure the 2nd level to incorporate the Wicopee loop and where to add it without redrawing everything already planned. I will have the decision shortly and fill yall in on whats going on and hopefully soon have a drawing up of everything completed
I might suggest doing a little research on Godfrey Humann’s “South Shasta Lines,” a basement-spanning O scale empire (using two-rail O) that models the same territory. Obviously this is an older-school type layout, but considering the similarity of territory it might provide some inspiration. Unfortunately the Humann family no longer puts on their bi-annual open house tours of South Shasta Lines but MR did several articles about the layout and back issues would have the track plans.
Ah, Bakersfield. I remember it well. I was stationed at Miller Field U.S.A.C. air field during WWII. Hot summers, but like sunny Scottsdale,AZ where I now reside, it’s a dry heat. The field was NW of town past the Kern County airport. I could see the water tower off to the left on the way up to Fresno and Yosemite in the spring of 1995, 50 years later.
The SP/UP line to Tehachapi was a favorite rail fanning site with huge trains hauled by cab forwards and big boys. The view from the hillside over looking the loop was a favorite Sunday viewing ground.
You seem to have really done your homework. I have often said that the research is the hard part, especially being over 2,000 miles and 50 years away from both the location and era I am modeling.
Since this will be my last, and most ambitious model railroad, I plan it to be as near a prototypical replica as is reasonably possible. I have obtained consist books listing every passenger car on the roster and every locomotive and caboose, and the consist of every train by train number and time table. Every passenger train will run on the same time table with the same consist and motive power as occured in the 1936-1956 transition era. As a Connecticut resident I was eye witness to all of it, so nostalgia is playing a huge part in what I am trying to replicate.
THe track plans are from the actual railroad diagrams, the catenary towers from the original 1908 NHRR blueprints, etc. All buildings will be either from kits of the prototype or scratch built. I have even obtained a kit to construct an actual scale size model of the New Haven Union Station which measures over 4 feet by 2 feet. It will be the centerpiece of the entire layout.
The only differance I have in my concept from yours, is that in the case of the New Haven Station area, the trains arrived from the West (NYC) and departed to the East (Boston) changing engines from electrics to steam or diesels at New Haven. The hidden staging yard/return loops will be at both e
My club’s design goal was way freight operations and given our space, scenery realism was thrown out the window. It is a multi-level design. We have tons of vertical scenery that really makes no sense at all but there isn’t too much else we can do with it.
What we learned very quickly when we actually started operating was that in two places we had put the main operating areas directly over one another. That means it is very crowded and confusing when two trains happen to be switching each of those towns simultaniously. Lesson, stagger switching areas so they are not directly over one another.
Or second lesson was similar. We have two switching areas directly across a 3’ isle from each other. Once again two or four (two per train) people trying to work that area is sometimes exasperating not only for the people with the trains but also for the other people just trying to get past that point.
One of the hardest aspects of multi-level layout design is getting from one level to another level with functional helix and/or nolix that maintains a grade that is near-level to no greater than 2%, let alone staging and interchanging that fits.
I know… because my time-consuming design-task is combining two layouts (interurban/traction & Pennsy mainline) on two levels, and I’ll continue to take my good old time planning until I get it right.
The best and most thorough helix planning article I’ve seen is Doug Gurin’s 6-page, 1997 Model Railroad Planning, “A primer on helix design.” There are also many other articles on staging and yard design including two by David Barrow…