So I’ve done a mock up of a new layout, for a new room, with a new piece of software (XTrackCad). I am having a LOT of trouble with flex track in this product, along with how it handles the height of objects within a layer, so bear with me.
This is what I have so far, but you can get an idea of the room size and constrains I’m working with. I felt like reversing my original intentions and putting the backboard on the inside of the layout and making it a walkaround made more sense.
the angled lines on the sides are where the backboard is going to hide a tunnel and the train disappears. The upper side of the layout is going to be an intermodal/truck shipping scene with (for whatever reason, I dunno why I picked this) some propane stuff. (It’s relatively small and uses tanker cars, which I’ve always liked). The south side is a city scene and yard. Left side is a shopping mall, with a passenger station.
Both yards have a sorting track and an entrance/exit section as recommended by the Sperandeo Freight Yards book.
Your thoughts?
(Edit: added crossovers for inner/outer main)
(Edit: Eliminated S-curves and completely changed up both yards.
If you are going to operate from the outside, have you considered a centreline backdrop, with 3 foor side tables, with more room for scenery between track and backdrop?
Where will you be standing? I can tell you from prior discussions that the 2’ at the bottom and the 2’4" aisle on the right isn’t going to attract a lot of positive comments. You won’t be able to invite Ashley Graham over for an op session.
Yeah, the 2’ aisles are tight, very tight. Can your mainline radius be reduced to gain some aisle space?
Consider a set of crossovers from the inner main to the outer in front of the passenger station at either end of the platform. That will give you more operating flexibility, as weoll as a way around a passenger train sitting at the platform, since you don’t really have staging for it to disappear into.
I’m not really having any issue with the 2’ aisles. The benchwork is already built and in place (minus the two 4’ sections in the center.) I’m not a big guy, and neither are any of the people that I know, at least currently. 2’4" is also very close to the room door width, and there is a short hallway that goes through which is maybe 4" wider.
I want to avoid the centerline backdrop so that I can make the goofiest-looking portions of the oval curves disappear on the left and right.
I’ll add the crossovers for the main, I had just forgotten about that. (now added to the pic above)
The crossovers are definitely a plus. If they could be spaced a little further apart to allow a longer train to sit, would be better, but you’ve got a lot going on right in there, so maybe one of those compromises you have to make.
If benchwork is up and you’re comfortable, things tend to be settled for now. But we don’t tend to get smaller. 25 years ago, I would’ve said the same thing – and now I realize I wished I had another six inches or so width EVERYWHERE[:O]
I did notice that things seems to be set back 4" to 6" from the edge on both long sides. If you could even gain 3" on both long sides, you’ll thank yourself in a decade or so…then again, people move and if this is meant to be a 10-year layout and not a lifetime one, then you’re good.
I’ve made some revisions, eliminating S-curves, and I added an intermodal destination yard and coach area. Yeah, it’s crowded, but I ran the simulation that XtrackCad provides There’s also plenty of room in the upper yard to run the switcher around for longer cars. Turning the A and hostling the B unit around to turn the passenger train is pretty fun. It’s always good when you can find an excuse to hostle a B unit under its own power
I left the turntable off the main because it’s pretty much the only place I could put it.
This layout is meant to be moved. I know I’ll have to pull some track up to do so. It’s no big deal. it’s also part of the reason I built it with all sectional track. It’s freestanding.
To make it even less goofy looking, I would put the tracks close together in the curves rather than separated like you have them now. Two tunnel portals over a double tracked main will look less goofy than 4 tunnel portals relatively close together. Tunnels are expensive. A real railroad would avoid drilling two separate tunnels, so the double track main line appearence will look more realistic, IMO.
You could also do the center backdrop thing and have the tunnels simply be smaller. The backdrop will add distance and depth to the tunnel scene on each side.
Also, you might want to consider something other than a propane industry. Propane cars tend to be longer. Corn syrup, clay slurry, or fertilizr tend to use shorter tank cars. And Cement cars are short if you wanted to introduce hoppers. With your tight radius curves, I would stay away from industries that require longish rolling stock.
Edit: I see you have container and passenger areas, so I can understand your desire to conceal the curves as much as possible.
My solution will be to introduce some city structure that looks like a tunnel, maybe even an elevated train crossing, or just some kind of concrete structure, that accomodates the passenger cars. The passenger cars are also the reason I didn’t put the tracks so close together on the curves - overhang. I’m sure I can kitbash some kind of prototypically ugly cement thing together.
You work with what you’ve got to work with, I guess.
You still have potentially troublesome S-curves where the end curve turnouts connect with the crossovers along the bottom of the drawing, depending on the frog number of the turnouts. They look sharp – like a SnapSwitch – but it’s hard to tell. If they are all #6s or #8s, much less of an issue.
The industry trackage seems more complex than needed to function with the extra crossings and the double-crossover.
There are likely more-efficient ways to connect the container and piggyback tracks to eliminate switchback moves.
The widely-displaced end curves use up a lot of layout space. They also indirectly make your yard shorter – and it could be arranged more efficiently overall.
I guess the width is due to trying to make use of existing benchwork, but overall it seems you’re not getting as much “bang for the buck” as you could from the width and the added length.
But if you’re happy with it, go for it. Good luck with your layout.
I haven’t followed any previous threads that you may have started where you may have dismissed the following suggestion, so I’ll mention the obvious anyway.
You’re giving up a lot of potential layout to provide walk-up access to the back window. Expanding the north and east sections so they abutt the walls would provide mush more space, much broader curves for the longish cars you want to run, and would solve a lot of the issues brought up so far. You would end up with a duckunder/liftout and a center pit for operations, if that doesn’t bother you.
The turnouts are in fact all #6. I wanted to make sure my DDA40X could get in everywhere. The only snap switches on the layout are on the upper section in the lower yard, but they are 22 degree and have a long stretch in between. No passenger cars should be going in there.
You probably mean 22" radius Snap-Switches. Note that the frog is pretty sharp (~#3), so it’s relatively sharper than the 22" radius curves. Switching requires shoving cars through that frog, so there might be issues with some combinations of locos and rolling stock.
If it were me, I’d simplify that area and use Atlas #4s (actually #4½) instead. I don’t think that you are actually gaining anything with that complex track arrangement.
Just FYI: Most would not term that section of layout a “yard”, rather “industrial trackage” or “industry spurs”. Doesn’t matter for layout building, of course.
I looked again at your plan, and maybe I didn’t explain it clearly the first time. The two turnouts marked with question marks still don’t look like #6s to me – maybe just my eyes.
If they are Snap-Switches, the path shown through them and the diverging leg of the crossover could be a bit unreliable. Note also that the effective minimum radius through the outer oval is reduced to less than you may be planning if those are sharper than #6s.
Yeah, those are also 22" snap switches. I forgot about them. Luckily, they’re attached to track I really don’t think is that essential, so they can be dropped. I just moved the turntable down one track.
A word of caution: Walthers RTR and Branchline (possibly the Atlas RTR versions of Branchline as well, but I have not confirmed this) 6 axle coaches do not like my nominal 24" radius (I suspect that some of my flex track laying was not perfect however the radius guage fits in between the rails, so its pretty close).
