So after all of the good input I got from you guys about using my space I decided to try and use a modular 10’ x 8’ donut layout, leaving enough bedroom for the Mrs. What I’ve come up with so far after a lot of research is linked below. Its designed as a mid sized passenger terminal with a few industry spurs to balance them with freight. I also included a crossover to effectively create a continuous twice around so I have a long running mainline. Let me know what you guys think and as always suggestions are always welcome. Also, I’m not quite sure what industries I should model, so suggestions for them are welcome.
The first thing to determine is whether the track spacing on your curves is going to be sufficient to keep long equipment from sideswiping when trains pass one another. You may want to set up a quarter circle of your selected radii and experiment with your actual equipment. You may find it necessary to increase the track spacing on the curves. My modular club uses 42" and 44" curves, and we have found the 2" on center track spacing we use on straight sections isn’t adequate on curves for our 85’ scale-length passenger cars.
Also, you have differences in elevations on the curves on the left side of your plan. Overhanging equipment can also conflict with scenery placed between the tracks, so that’s also an ssue.
I wouldn’t try to cram a freight operation into your passenger-oriented layout. Where would the freight cars come from and where would they go to when they’re not spotted at the 2 industries?
You would be better off using the tracks at “large industry” as a coach yard, where the equipment is cleaned and serviced between trips. This will also facilitate changing out equipment and add switching opportunities. In the alternative, you could move the engine servicing facility to “large industry”, and create a coach yard in the location you currently show for “engine servicing facility”.
If you replace the crossing with a double crossover, you could add a little variety by having the option of running two separate loops or a twice-around.
I’d also put a turntable in your steam service area. You need to be able to turn those steam locomotives. You don’t necessarily need a roundhouse to go with it.
An engine escape track at the end of your terminal tracks would be a useful addition.
I like John’s suggestion of a coach yard instead of the large industry. It could make for interesting operation and fits better with the theme of the layout.
Agree’d, even John Armstrongs “long in the tooth” Track Planning for Realistic Operation book only recommends 2-inch track centers for straight tangents. Curves should have track centers larger than 2 inches for sure - and generally the tighter the curves, the larger the distance. 2.5 inches is a good idea if you are going with curves like 22 inches for example. I think 30-inch radius and you can get away with closer to 2 1/4 inch centers or maybe a bit less, but as others mentioned test to be sure.
John,
you make a good point about the clearances between track on curves, but the smallest radius right now is 32” so it shouldn’t be a problem to shrink that to 30” to get about 2.5” of clearance between tracks. I also like your idea of changing the large industry to a coach yard but what kind of facilities/buildings would be needed there? And wouldn’t you need more tracks to store cars on?
Carl425,
I see what you mean about the turn table and escape track but the layout was designed as back in station to save on cost/simplify operations. I’m not sure if that makes the layout more clear or not?
Thanks - Josh
Freight and passenger don’t really mix. Yeah, they use the same mains through a station sometimes, but in general terms, the one is over here and the other one is over there.
Now, if you’re in the right era for such things, your “freight” to change it up gets to be mail, express, and other “passenger” cars that need special handling. Those get cut off from the train and switched like “freight.”
If I had the space and financial capability to do so, I’d consider doing a modern passenger station. Amtrak’s got entire species of locomotives that never leave the station.
Station switchers at smaller stations were much more common in the past, than they are now. On today’s Amtrak, a typical train is not switched at all at intermediate stations. If this does happen, every possible measure is taken to ensure that there will be no reason for a specially assigned switcher. The reason is simple: Most Amtrak long distance lines feature only one train per day. A switcher crew would probably have to be paid for a full day’s work, even if the crew works only an hour or two. This would also tie up a fairly expensivre locomotive for minimal use.
In the days before Amtrak, many lines featured three or more major passenger trains in each direction every day, plus locals. Intermediate stations, even smaller ones, might be able to justify a station switcher to cut diners, mail cars, express cars, sleepers, etc. in or out of trains.
According to Harry Stegmaier’s PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD PASSENGER TRAINS, CONSISTS, AND CARS — 1952, Vol. 1, (TLC Publishing 2003) the PRR west of Pittsburgh featured 8 major trains running from Pittsburgh to Chicago, plus 6 more from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, plus 4 more to Akron, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Detroit. Since these trains all had eastbound and westbound counterparts, you can double all these numbers.
Intermediate switching of cars was routinely done at such stations as Columbus, Dayton, and Indianapolis. A PRR station switcher would be very appropriate to add operating interest to your PRR-themed layout.
I think that it is extremely difficult to realistically model passenger train operations in HO scale on smaller layouts, especially “downtown” passenger operations. It just requires too much space for the station, station tracks, coach yard, engine servicing facilities, and a sense of “distant” destinations.
In his original post under “Shelf Layout Turnarounds”, Josh said the equipment he has, and wants to operate, is passenger equipment with a PRR theme. It’s true that freight equipment tends to be smaller and possibly more adaptable for many of us, but it seems like a better idea to accommodate the O.P.'s preferences as much as possible.
A passenger terminal can provide fascinating and varied operations, as proved by Chuck Hitchcock in his article “Twelve Hours at Argentine” (Model Railroad Planning, 1997, page 10-17). The O.P. obviously doesn’t have nearly as much space as Mr. Hitchcock had, but he could build a small intermediate mainline terminal with somewhat abbreviated facilities, and he could have a very interesting passenger-oriented operating layout.
At that radius (30 and 32.5 inches) you should have no problem with passenger cars clearing each other on curves.
Having some sort of passenger switching etc. will help add some interesting operation to the layout. A problem with a simple oval of course is you can only watch a train go around so many times before losing interest. At least having some switching operations helps to give you something of purpose to do too. Here is a Walthers kit that might be something toward that which I found when I was looking for background kits to add to my layout:
So after taking in everyones comments, I’ve modified the layout to remove freight and make it passenger focused only. I have a few concerns with this one that I was hoping you guys could help with or maybe provide better solutions for.
Since there is no turnaround, every siding is designed to be backed into which gives me that combersome z type switching layout to get to the engine service area and Dining/Mail facility and I’m not sure I like it, but my intent was to keep the “yard” separate from the “mainline”.
I’m worried that my third station leg might now be too short to be worthwhile
I left a stub track for the switching engine to sit on when not working the yard. Is this a good place for it? I couldn’t find much info on this because when in the yard the switch engine was always being used to not waste resources, but for me operating alone I’ll need some place to keep it out of the way.
Maybe it is just my computer & monitor combination but I cannot make out the track arrangement due to the dark brown background. If others are having this problem you may want to lighten up the background color. If it is only me there is little lost. [*-)]
I can,t see the plan iether try sticking with good old black on a white background.
Most of my thoughts seem to have been covered in other posts.
However you asked about industries the ones I can think of that would be compatable with a passeger only layout.
express freight the depot would be at or near the station so the express cars could quickly and effiecently be added to the train.
Dairy milk cans and milk tankers or box cars designed for milk traffic where once atached to passenger trains or caried in the baggage car.
Bachmann do a very nice low relief dairy that could be used as a small on layout portion of what would be a much larger complex
Fish again cars designed to carry fish where often in the past attached to passenger trains and also ran as fish only fast trains to get it to the fish markets before it could spoil.
And last but not least a railroad maintainace yard this would have all sorts of interesting things in it. Things like icicle breakers tunnel inspection cars and all sorts of other things the two cars mentioned have been explained in MRR at some point.
The maintainance cars have the bonus of being both scenery and a usable train movement.
sorry about spelling eyes no good at the moment waiting for corrective surgery.
Many folks miss the opportunity with donut-style layouts of using both the inside and the outside of the donut.
Depending on the location of the walls (always a helpful thing to include with any track plan posted for comment) the outside might be useful for staging or for another visible scene (using two-sided backdrops).
This not-to-scale rough conceptual sketch shows both of these ideas.
I, too, am working on a passenger layout. Not easy. The cars need too much room for everything. However, I’m working through that.
I think you should consider a few options based on the most recent plan.
Use a curved turnout to reach the mail/commissary tracks without the backing move. That will become very cumbersome very quickly.
While watching varnish role is an admirable goal, what if you eliminated one of the two loops? That would free up enough room to do some interesting things. It also eliminates some of the worry about overhang and side swipes. While 3 inches between track centers on curves might be enough, it might not. I’ve got a few cars that hang over enough that they might never make it to the layout. Disappointing…
Could you position your station to allow for some run through tracks? That would give you options too. If not, you’ll want escape options for engines pulling in to the station. Also, the appearance of a midpoint station (not a terminal) will minimize the space needed for support. You can still have 1-2 trains terminate there and require some basic support and service facilities, but nothing that requires more than you have room to model. You can always have a diner or cafe switched out, a sleeper set out, or a train split to add interest from run-throughs. You also have all the head end cars that might need switched out. This also eliminates the need for turning equipment and/or trains. On a passenger layout, this requirement can easily eat up more space than the station itself.
if you can, lengthen the station tracks. A simple and dirty rule I use is that each passenger car takes up a foot. This is overly simplified and individual equipment varies, but you can use it to guesstimate the capacity of your station tracks. You’ll see that you can’t run long trains which minimizes the support switching needed.
Tom was kind enough to send me an old issue of MR that had a huge writeup on passenger operations and really helped me nail down what I think is a good mid sized yard. Also, as was suggested, a lot of the turnouts were changed to double curves to increase my options. Also, I re-introduced (if you’ve read the whole thread) the coal mine on the opposite side of the layout. I know it’s not necessarily “realistic” as the freight has no destination, but I wanted to be able to model the two different scene types as a learning experience so that down the road (several decades) when I do have the room to make a big layout I’m better prepared. It also gives me some running options, which is more important to me than ultra realistic operation and I think that by using the built up terrain to break the two scenes apart I’ll hvae enough separation between the busy city/yard on one side and the rolling hill/freight route on the other side. Let me know what you think, but I think I’m almost there.
I wanted to give this thread a bump to see what folks think of the latest revisions to this track plan. The new plan shows significant changes.
My first thought was that a double track plan would be best for the big passenger trains envisioned by the O.P. On furher thought, I think the single track plan with crossing is probably a good idea, considering the space limitations of a 6 x 10 layout and the broad curves needed for those passenger cars.
I wonder about the routing of the inner loop. It could follow a path that’s not so close to the outer tracks, and have a look that separates it from the outer track. Of course, this could impinge on the center operating space.
