I am working on a railroad for a 12x22 foot shared room. The room
will be shared with a Craft center, Model railroad, and tread mill.
Givens:
Can not cross the window.
Tread mill needs a window view for me and a TV view for the wife.
The built in craft/work bench and shelf’s can not be moved.
Continuous run option. #5 minimum turnout.
HO Scale.
No double deck.
Druthers:
Double track main line.
Interchange type of railroad can make things interesting.
Railroads - B&O and something else.
Time period - 50’s, 60’s ? open to debate
Specific location - I would rather make up the location so I can fit scenery
as needed instead of trying to follow a prototype track and town
arrangement.
Note:
I forgot to add the crossover on the double track main near the
interchange.
What I have come up with is a modified track plan based on the Y2K
track plan published in the year 2000 Model Railroad Track Planning.
I added a double track loop for continuous running. Besides that the
interchange yard and 2 switching area’s are virtually identical to the
original
plan.
Similar sized room to my dream room, designated the “train room” 13 years ago, but almost exclusively otherwize occupied since. (Did have a 4x8 for grand kids to run, but son, mother-in-law and other sons storage have made it difficult to finish the room and start benchwork,)
Sounds like a fairly high layout with the craft center under it, many successful ones are, so that should not be a problem. Is the craft center already anchored in place or just not to be moveable when finished? Will you have a workspace under the layout?
You say you cannot cross the window. Do you mean no tracks in front of it, not to block the view or need access to open? Don’t forget that you can also use the TV, if you have a VCR/DVD player, to view instructional videos, etc, while you are on the treadmill. (I don’t have a window, so TV and attachments are the only way to make marching in place tolerable.) If it is just view, a simple section of table with grass and a few trees would work, no or very low backdrop. If it is for access, have the afore mentioned simple section at the front of the benchwork with a place to pop up behind it, should be high enough to duck under occasionally for access.
Your druthers should work fine as soon as you have established a benchwork footprint. Would it be possible/do you want a narrow penninsula in the center to give you a place to do some extra switching? A 2’ wide shelf around the room with a 2’ penninsula coming from the narrow end of the room would leave you two 3’ asiles.
The clearances you show and the twin overpasses suggest to me that you will have grades in the 3% range, although that is just a guess…it may be more. Have you worked it out? Otherwise, I think it is a good plan. I wonder, though, how the yard will sit…will it be level considering it is adjacent to a graded section of main track?
That grade is in question. I have the option of extending the track leading to the industrial area B back towards the throat of the yard. That should give me another 6 to 8 feet in length to make the grade.
How about a bridge across the window. I was able to get my spousal unit to agree to another wall above her sewing mess by using a narrow bridge. Doesn’t block much view at all and leads from the sceniced section to the staging yard over the sewing machine.
You have a double track oval with staging for railroad A; for long heavy main-liners. And a point to point railroad B; a switch-man’s paradise.
Interchange between the two is difficult however. I assume the trains on the mainline are spotting cuts of cars on the siding and picking up cars from this siding as well. Just to do so this siding and this part of the mainline has to be level. And you will need at least one crossover to make the siding accessible for east bound traffic. But switching on the mainline stops any other other traffic on it, you could add a long third track through the junction, accessible for east and west bound trains. This third track functions as a sort of arrival and departure track.
My impression is you want to have a lot of very small industries on railroad B, I would think about just a couple of big ones.
I also see a couple of reach in problems. Maybe you can put a bigger part of the loop at the left into the other room. Did you ever think about a donut-style footprint?
The yard body tracks seem pretty short. I would figure out how many cars RRB will be handling during a typical ops session, and make sure that the body tracks are long enough to handle your desired throughput, plus a little extra.
It looks like your switching areas have some switchbacks. These can be challenging or tedious or both, depending on what you want. The deal is that you’d need to make sure one “tail” of the switchback is clear in order to switch the other side. Without seeing where the industry spots are, it’s hard to tell if this will be a challenge or not. You may want to draw some rough rectangles for building/industry footprints, both to show where the spots are and to see what kind of space you’ll have for scenery
I’d also look at the clearance and access to your “underground” staging. It looks to be about 4", which is fine to clear HO cars, but may not be enough space for your 0-5-0 to work very well.
This is a major redesign. Flipping the interchange yard elininated the grad issues. I agree that the switching area’s should focus more on one or 2 large industries rather then a bunch of small ones. The switching area’s will be worked out after i have the interchange area nailed down.
Operation… A west bound train exits staging and use the crossover’s entering the arrival track. Back up (east) through the switch onto the 3rd main line and drop its caboose. Move forward (west) and drop cars for the interchange at the arrival track. Move forward through the switches, then reverse onto the departure track to pick up outbound cars. Continue to reverse and grab its caboose. Move forward (west) along the 3rd main line through the crossovers back onto the west bound tracks and into staging.
Hi guys,
