Just seeing if there is any errors anyone sees with my new layout im gonna be building in about 2 weeks. any constructive advise would be great.
Questions… Is this HO scale? If so what type of equipment do you plan to run? Lastly do you Really want it that crowded? I Think I get where you are going with the scheme but it would help if you explained a little about what you are after…
Jeff
IT has potential but like Jeff, I’d like to hear an explanation. What is the layout’s purpose?
i want to have a good size mainline with also a good amount of rail yard scenery isnt really my thing oh and its in ho sorry the inner of the three loop is 15" so i know the only thing im gonna run on that section is my switcher but other than that is sd 40 dash 8 and other big boys and the final thing the left side of the yard is passanger the right side it maintenence and the bottom yard is sorting
Thanks
Nick
How do you see your yards working? Wouldn’t one big yard serve you better?
yeah but i cant figure out how to make one big yard with the size restraints i have thats as big as i can go
Maybe I should ask another way… When I look at a track plan, Anybody’s track plan, I try to pick out Where a train would start out… Follow the route to see where it’s going and where it’ll end up. That is, is the train going from one yard to another? Out and back? Are the ladder areas actually Yards or are they Industries? That sort of thing…
Jeff
oh i see where u are coming from well i figure it can com from the right yard and around the trains i run a mostly boxcar or piggyback so i have a piggyback loader facility in the top right and then passanger just runs around no major destination i hope that helps a little.
Not that it may be hugely important, but you must always run your trains in one direction as you have your trackplan diagramed. Otherwise, you must reverse. If you would like to see your locos pulling in the other direction sometimes, continue the inner left curve out from a switch just before it crosses over and have the diverging track curve down to join the diagonal on the left yard…instant change of direction.
What I recommend is that you design for staging so that you can have trains coming and going on and off the layout. This would be a very simple thing to do on your layout if you wanted at least a single track staging. Place the top part of your outer loop in a tunnel. This is where you can make up trains and send them out. Keep the inside loop outside of the tunnel for your local line.
This makes the outer loop the mainline and the inner loop the local line.
Just my 2 cents.
cool thanks for all the suggestions guys.
Thanks
Nick
The design of your industry feeder tracks/sidings in the middle of the layout is rather unorthodox. Such an arrangement would probably never exist in real life. Likewise, you seem able to only conveniently work to the left or right at any given time in those areas. Much better would be to join them directly so that both sides can be logically switched at one time. Also, your only true runaround track (unless you plan to use one or two of your double-ended yard tracks for this, severely curtailing their use for storage) is out on the main, instead of in the yard or switching district. Are your plans for an operation particularly unique so that I am perhaps missing your actual concept?
CNJ831
On the left side of your layout, the two loops are too close together. Anytime you run a big engine or car car on the inside track, it will sideswipe the cars on the outside track.
Since you want to run passenger and pigs you need to look at a larger space as it will be very difficult to run them in a small area like that. You need to make a lists of “must haves” and “cannots have/do”. Once you do this and give us a good idea what size you are limited to, we could really give you a great idea where to go.
Also consider that the space you are taking up withthat layout is 8 x 12 when you condsider the space it takes to walk around it. INstead of filling the center of that space, which is inefficient, consider making a U or an O shapped layout that is 30 inches wide in that same area and run the trains from the center.
I don’t know if there’s anything WRONG there… but here’s MY OPINION… and it’s only an opinion. But first, a story:
When I was 12, my Dad and I built a model railroad. And did a great job! He figured out the blocks, wired 'em up, etc. The plan was from a track planning booklet- Kalmbach of some variety- and it was called The Great Eastern Trunk- it still pops up in different incarnations from time-to-time. It was a double track on a 4 X 8, with a third track at one end(the third track was actually a yard lead, I guess. There was a four-track yard, part of which was an engine terminal and a couple of industry spurs. Very sophisticated for the time.
This was 1962 and there were a few Athearn F7s, GP7s, etc. There was an Aristo C&NW 4-4-2 and a Mantua 4-6-2. It was a B&O/PRR railroad, making the multiple tracks justified. It was done in all Atlas track- there were a dozen turnouts- and there were a bunch of the then-new Revell structures, including Al Armitage’s masterpiece Engine House/Farm House, etc. I got my soldering chops when the Ol’ Man helped me do a Suydam “Black bart Mine”(one of the corrugated kits back then).
We dyed sawdust, even cast some rocks, etc. And it was Great! The local newspaper did a half-page one Sunday, of me drawing a PRR B6 0-6-0, with the railroad in the background. All my buddies were absolutely green! This was, far and away, the best that any kid back there or back then had.
And, within 2 months, I- a 12 year-old- was bored stiff! I had read a few articles on operation and all those tracks made everything too easy! A year later, I "squeezed the end down to one track- for just five cars- and it was a much better railroad!
Plus, I think you are doing what many of us do- trying to squeeze way too much into your space. I own a lot of models, but have little room. I am in the planning stages of an HO layout (and completed an ‘N’ last year) . And the first thing I had to do was figure out a roster.
ok will definetly have to take that into concideration
spacemouse thanks fo the advise the reason im doing it this way is cause its the biggest my wife will let me build im not to sure i understand what u meant in your design of a U, Im lookin to have a few continus train running and be able to do yard work at the same time dont know if that helps at all
Thanks
Nick
In the space you are taking up with the “footprint” of your layout, you could do more . Remember you have to walk around it to build it and operate it. The illusion is that your island it is a small efficient use of space.
You could build a smaller version of this. It can be operated from the center.
http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=2640&d=1136688417
This not a finished product rather someone else’s first draft.
Here is a article by a professional designer Byron Henderson, a regular here, about the the subject of layout “footprints”.
http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id28.html
Once you understand it, you can show your wife and maybe you can get a much better layout and still do what you want.