Alright everybody, here is what I hope is my final redesign of the Put. I am sure I will add or delete a few things and change some things around but I hope this is the basic final plan. My little one-track short commuter railroad has turned into a bit of a behemoth. LOL! Just kidding.
For those of you who’ve been following the development of this layout, the latest changes incorporate the staging yard (which I always planned on having but had not been able to depict graphically until now). Also the coal loading track for the coal tower has been turned around for more protoypical operation. Dayton Machine Co. has been added to Brewster. The track around Eastview has been turned away from the edge to be more pleasing to the eye. The leading track from Brewster station to the TT has been eliminated. And there have been all around general improvements to the track design behind the roundhouse and near Yorktown. These have all been results of your suggestions. There has been a slight trade-off - I have had to use one or two #4 turnouts on the mainline and track radius on sidings has been reduced to 18" from the original 22" I had in my very first design. But I have maintained my 22" radius on the mainline which will be required for the 4-8-4 Niagras that sometimes must use the Put as a by-pass for the Hudson Division. This was rare but will sure be fun to model!!
You can now see the whole room rather than just the layout. This might help some of you see the restrictions I am dealing with. The Rec Room will hold another staging track someday or even a complete expansion depicting the Hudson Division (famous ‘Water Level Route’). I may be able to expand to storage room someday but that’s another story for another time.
Please check it out and enjoy (I enlarged pic for easier viewing). Let me know what you think (be honest). For those of you who’d like to see some pics of the old Put, you can check them out at: http://mysite.verizon.net/vze2vj37/ No comments on the site, I b
Great improvement. You’ll grow to appreciate your new staging. I think you’ll find you need runarounds Yonkers and the right side of Brewsters–easy fix.
Well surfstud, this is a big improvement over the previous plans. As my brother would say, “Now you’re cookin’ with gas!”
I’d go along with Chip and his comments. The siding at Yonkers is long and could benefit from a crossover about midway so that you don’t have to go so far to do a runaround. The right side of Brewster could also use a runaround, but like Chip said, that’s an easy one.
The only thing I notice now that may be a concern is the crossovers at each end of the yard. If you try to move from either side of the top track and then try to access the yard, you get an “S” turn through the two turnouts. If those crossovers could be moved out a little, or maybe cut the turnouts short, it would ease the situation. “S” turns need to be either far apart or really close together. Fixing this is easy to do on the right as you’ve got plenty of straight track to work with. Just spread out the turnouts with some straight track between them. The left is a little different story. A curved turnout might be the answer here, I don’t know. You might also be able to snip the rails short on a turnout so that you can shorten the “S” turn and make it as straight through as possible. Thats something you can’t really do with planning software, you sort of have to do that “on site” so to speak.
It’s not a huge thing and you may not even need to do anything at all. I don’t know why it escaped my eye earlier. I just thought I’d point it out.
Overall this is a MUCH more workable layout then the original one. This layout should provide years of enjoyment.
First, I never did nothing in model railroading so my adivce can be useless. However I’m thinking about some modification in Brewster Yard (in red) to have more room for more freight cars. In my variation the first and second track is the mainline, the third track for arrivals and departures, the fourth and fifth track is for car classification and storage. I add a yard lead on the Yorktown Heights side that can be useful when switching the yard to avoid to enter in Yorktown Heights scenery. It can be interesting to add a connection from Yorktown Heights and the staging in the Rec Room to run the railroad from point to point. And speaking of staging, why not to replace that space and money eating switch ladder in the Harlem Division staging yard with a train-lenght traverser? I think is it not necessary to add more runaround. Yes, switching Dayton Machine can be a little tricky as its spur is on a switchback but I think it adds more fun to the operation.
By the way, how will be the operation pattern in this layout?
Thanks guys! Ivan, that’s an interesting thought about a yard in Yorktown. There really was a small yard in Yorktown on the prototype. I’ll have to seriously consider that. One idea that CN had (he knows the protoype) was to just double track the mainline rather than have a single track go around as I do now. The prototype is a single track mainline with sidings (as setup now) but I do see CN’s point that the way I have it setup now, the stations are out of order but I was afraid a double track mainiline will seem even less like the prototype. You guys have any thoughts on that?
Ivan, what is a train length traverser? (don’t mean to be ignorant but the only stupid question is the one not asked).
I’d stick with the single line myself. Not only does it add to the fun of making the traffic flow work, but if you go to double track those 18 inch curves are going to have to shrink again. That would be a bad thing!
I know you asked this of Ivan, but I’d like to take a crack at it if you don’t mind.
What he’s suggesting is a really good idea. Think of it like a giant transfer table with several tracks on the table. It’s basically like a turntable except that it goes side to side to select the tracks it needs. They use them in europe more that this side of the pond. Now for your transfer table you would have several tracks on the “bridge”. Maybe 5 or 6 would work well. Then to access a train you would move the bridge to line up the train (on the bridge) with the track leading to your layout, then pull off the bridge and move out to the sceniced portion of the layout. The bridge could be automated or manual.
Here’s a couple of pics to give you the idea;
These pics came from carendt.com. They show how this works. You just slide the table back and forth to select the track you want. The top one shows how several could be used tog
OK I get it. Transfer tables. I’ve seen them. Great idea but I think I’ll stick with the ladder yard for now. My trains aren’t going to be that long. Around 6’-7’ max and I have that covered in my present setup. I might, however, try to make at least one long track somewhere in the staging yard. Thanks guys for the ideas. I think I’m almost there and ready to start building [:)]
