First, a little background. In case it isn’t obvious, I model the Reading Railroad in the mid 19050’s. This is fixed - so under John Armstrong’s planning system this is one of the Givens. My previous large layout plan was designed with the idea of approximating the East Penn branch of the Reading, 2 tracks of heavy use mainline from Allentown to Reading. It also had to accomodate more than just my desires. As such, the plan included another branch that would have had heavy switching and single track operation. It was loosely based on the C&F branch of the Reading, joining the East Penn at Alburtis and heading towards Catasauqua via Fogelsville.
After a major life change, which I mentioned when I first started posting ehre again, I no longer have thae house and space to buuild that plan. Nor do I have much desire to build it. I have realized that I much prefer single track oepration. Double track mains are great for letting them roll, but I prefer switching. As of right now I am living in an apartment but have room for about a 12 x 6 L shaped shelf in my dining room. Maximum of 2’ wide. So there’s another Given.
The question is, what to model? All of the major Reading main lines were at least double tracked. I originally had a “what if” moment and thought about moving off into proto-lancing - what if the Reading actually did aquire full control over the LNE, sometime after WWII? Lots of single track. After talkign about it here, a better idea came forth - what about the various branch lines on the Reading? Back to the good old C&F - at the Catasaqua (around here we usually say Catty) end, there was interchange with multipel roads, including the LNE. Some more thought brought forth my ‘grand scheme’ for when I eventually have the space for a room-filling layout again. The main focus will be the C&F, with a short section of the East Penn to either side of Alburtis. Probably east to Macun
If you like the idea, flip the directions - I mean north vs south - who cares? You’re limited by your space and it sounds like you’ve found something you really like the idea of - the only thing holding you back is the fact that your L shape is “facing the wrong direction”. Bend reality, re-allign the magnetic poles and voila - you’re off and running.
Just my $0.02. You can get too caught up in “it’s not exactly the same” that you never build anything…
Some other thoughts as I attempt to draw a track plan. Obviously the cement plant needs to be highly compressed. The actual plant covered 20 acres, plus another 12 for the quarry. The finished cement storage and loading area had 16 silos plus a long covered area for loading bagged cement into box cars - just guessing from photos, the covered loading dock was about 6x as long as the 16 silos. HUGE. And then there’s the coal area, hard to tell what they did there but the pictures show a large area with about 3 tracks that looks like it’s just covered with coal. I haven’t found any pictures that show if the tracks were elevated to dump coal or they just had pits below the rails and used conveyors to pile it alongside the tracks
I’ve tried drawing it up with the plant on the 6’ side (thus backwards), sutting it down to 8 silos and a much shorter loading dock, plus 2 tracks for coal. If for the purposes of this stage I model ONLY the load out and coal in parts of the facility, it sort of fits. The alternative is to model much more of the plant complex on the 12 foot side, might even have room to put the edge of the quarry in. Upside is the orientation would be right. Downside here is there would be practically no operation, because there wouldn’t be room on the 6’ side to extend the spur to the start of the yard in Chapman. I could have a fairly complete cement facility, but it would end up being mostly a large static model. I’d probably also need more than a 2’ width to make the model have the right feel. Not a huge problem, at the end of the 12’ side I can come out from the wall 3’ with no issues.
Decisions decisions… A key scenic element - where the spur from the cement plant joins the main, the progress south to north goes like this: double track (siding that starts just south of this area), road overpass, turnout from the spur joining to the west-most track of the siding, turnout joining the siding and main. Very easy to duplicate in
Well an obvious solution is to have the lion’s share of the cenment plant/quarry off layout and have most important operations represented on the layout. You could use a backdrop photo or painting to represent the rest of the operation.
Well, an obvious solution is to model only the most important operations and have the bulk of the cememt plan/qarry off layout (as if you had a choice). The lion’s sahre of hte layout could be a photo or painting.
Here’s a shot of a rough track plan. Left to right, it fills the entire 12 feet. And is 2 feet wide at all parts,. The diagonal turnouts for the cement plant just barely fit on the table.
I’m not a trackplanner by any means, however, I wonder if you reduced the SW to NE angle of your interchange/runaround track, it might not give you both a little more room for scenery and/or structures and also some more flexibility down the road when its time to go to the next phase of the layout. Although, you can also adjust this at the time yoiu need to connect it, if need be.
I like the cement/quarry idea, as those always just look like a very model-able industry.
For future expansion, the passing track would be extended sw and curved slightly, witht he turnout moved well south of where it is. The ne side would also be extended, in the real world there’s more room past the end of the cement spur before the siding ends. And then immediately opens to a small 4 track yard, pyramid style.
Seems like a lot of work to reuse these sections - especially since if I had room I’d flip the cement plant to point north liek it really does.
Hmm, I’m workign up an alternate that is basically JUST the cement plant, with the plant and north being off to the right side. That would probably allow me to build the plant to somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 actual size, although any train running would be restricted to in the plant switching. And I haven’t yet found any information as to whether or not they had a switcher stationed at the plant or what.
This is why I started this thread. With more feedback I’m finding that my idea may not be doable for now and I might have to pick a different part of the C&F for my modules.
Some other thoughts as I attempt to draw a track plan. Obviously the cement plant needs to be highly compressed. The actual plant covered 20 acres, plus another 12 for the quarry. The finished cement storage and loading area had 16 silos plus a long covered area for loading bagged cement into box cars - just guessing from photos, the covered loading dock was about 6x as long as the 16 silos. HUGE. And then there’s the coal area, hard to tell what they did there but the pictures show a large area with about 3 tracks that looks like it’s just covered with coal. I haven’t found any pictures that show if the tracks were elevated to dump coal or they just had pits below the rails and used conveyors to pile it alongside the tracks
I’ve tried drawing it up with the plant on the 6’ side (thus backwards), sutting it down to 8 silos and a much shorter loading dock, plus 2 tracks for coal. If for the purposes of this stage I model ONLY the load out and coal in parts of the facility, it sort of fits. The alternative is to model much more of the plant complex on the 12 foot side, might even have room to put the edge of the quarry in. Upside is the orientation would be right. Downside here is there would be practically no operation, because there wouldn’t be room on the 6’ side to extend the spur to the start of the yard in Chapman. I could have a fairly complete cement facility, but it would end up being mostly a large static model. I’d probably also need more than a 2’ width to make the model have the right feel. Not a huge problem, at the end of the 12’ side I can come out from the wall 3’ with no issues.
Decisions decisions… A key scenic element - where the spur from the cement plant joins the main, the progress south to north goes like this: double track (siding that starts just south of this area), road overpass, turnout from the spur joining to the west-most track of the siding, turnout joining the siding and main. Very easy to duplicate in a fashion so
Yes, you are in the right place on the maps. The long siding that serves the industial park is as far as I know part of the old spur that served the cement plant. At the time, that industrial park was mostly fields. The small pond below the larger quarry hole appears to be some sort of secondary quarry they started, if you look on the modern satellite views there are still access roads, or what appear to be access roads - I’ve driven past there many times and never noticed them.
As for the ‘plan’ for the plant, I found a book on local cement operations that has several views of the plant in Fogelsville. The difference between what I essentially sketched up in a few minutes and the real plant, besides the direction relative to the main, is that the real plant has more tracks, and in two distinct groups. I was going to remove the center turnout and leave a gap instead of having that center track between the buildings. One group of tracks went to the silos and loading docks for bulk and bagged product, the other set of tracks on the east side was as far as I can tell the coal receiving area. The pictures unfortunately are taken from some distance away, probably fromt he far wall of the quarry, and details don’t show very well. Also, some of the track arrangement can be seen in the historical topo maps
I had one of those a ha moments last night (no, not the band!) and thought about trying somethign almost exactly liek what you’ve shown, only shifting it all to the right. Put the yard to the right, with maybe enough clearance on the main for the loco to get past the turnouts, then curve it down onto the leg of the L and start the siding and have the cement spur head against the backdrop. Since I see no real reason for a passing track where that siding is, other than to run around cars to push them back to the cement plant, cement cars would be parked ont he sidien and others switched around in the y
Mmm -not sure I understand what you mean now. You certainly can imply a big industry without actually modelling it.But I don’t quite get the thing about moving the yard right. What would be the advantage to doing that?
You certainly could wrap one group of industry spurs around the corner and down the left wall, in effect creating either the coal tracks or the concrete silo loading area down along the left wall.
The main advantage of having the yard parallell to the industry is that both the yard and the industry gets a reasonable “switching lead” on the main to the right, so you can move cuts of 5-6 cars fairly easy between yard and the industry spur.
Stein, here is what I meant. It keeps everythign in proper relation. No cement plant, but that would be ok at this point. The spur is there, and the siding, and then Chapman yard. Only problem I see with this is that on the real thing, the bottom yard track extends along to main for a short distance to act as a switching lead, and that won’t fit in the space I have. My alternative is to make the lead on the left and make the yard single-ended, which would save a ton of space. I need to pull in my old plan for my previous layout, that was 8x12 with 30" radius curves and #6 turnouts on the main, 4(4.5) in the yard, and it seemed like more fit. I guess because the yard on that one wa single-ended, saving that second ladder.
I’m not adverse to a single ended yard - fututre expansion could include building the other half of the yard then. But without closing at least one track on the ladder, there’d be no runaround
I see. Well, selective compression can be done in many ways, Iif keeping everything in “proper relation” (or more correctly - in prototypical order along the main) is the most important design factor to you when you do the selective compression of this scene, you certainly can do it the way you are sketching.
To me, it certainly seemed like the most important design goal in your original description was something like “I want a big, visually impressive industry that I can switch”. Will you be getting that with your solution ?
What I suggested was something that had about 14 industry spots and a yard with a capacity of about 20-22 cars, which should have been easy to switch, even with a bit of sorting of cars to get the right car to the right industry spot, since both the industry and the yard could have been switched from the right. Ie I focused on the switching large industry part, while trying to leave in a fairly big (for H0) yard.
But by all means - it is perfectly good solution to not model the industry at all, just leaving cars for the industry in the yard, and have the spur leading to the industry just be a track long enough to hold e.g. 12 cars. That way a switching job on your 6x12 foot layout would be something like this:
Start scenario with 12 new cars for the industry “arriving” from the left on the main
Btw - I found a copy of the book I assume you are referring to at google books:
“The Lehigh Valley Cement Industry”
By Carol M. Front, Joan Minton Christopher, Capwell Fox, Martha Capwell Fox
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing, 2006
ISBN 0738538558, 9780738538556
Yup, that’s the book. Lots of interesting info even if it ended up have about 5 useful pictures in it - those three, plus 2 more that show the little company town of East Fogelsville they build which I can use at least a little bit as a guide to build similar houses. Amazingly enough it didn’t have any pictures of the plant I most remember as a kid, one served by the LNE in Nazareth. There’s a listing of all plants in the area in the back of the book and they indicate the one I’m talking about shut down in 1969 but I know that’s not true - I distinctly remember dusty trucks pulling out of the loading chute area well prior to the 1977 rebuilding - that later rebuilding IS shown in the book.
Anyway, since I gave up on the idea of a Reading-controlled LNE, that’s of little consequence. As a plan with plenty of switchign fun, I’m really liking your design. I think if I bring the descending part of the L to the full 2’ width I can probably squeeze in a 3rd track in the yard even.
OK, here’s what I came up with, taking Stein’s version and adding a third track in the yard, since it fit. This plan uses #4 turnouts (real #4, not Atlas #4.5) and 22" minimum radius. This should be plenty for the expected equipment - 4 axle diesels, none bigger than a GP-7, 55T hoppers, covered hoppers, 40’ boxcars, and maybe an odd 50’ box here and there. There was no passenger service on this branch - although in all honesty it’s lookign more and more liek I would not just link in a future larger layout, rather I’d probably pull up a good portion of the track and just reuse the module bases. I’m dropping that requirement from my list. If I end up with a larger space there may be a time when I add an extra module or two to one end or another just to make it a little larger but as for incorporating whatever I build now as-is in a future room-size layout, that’s not that important.
