I’ve been thinking about my plan and something just doesn’t look right about it, maybe too much track or too much departure from the prototype for my liking. I decided to look at this south to north running line from the east rather than the west, with a sparser arrangement befitting the lower traffic and shipments via rail in 1961.
A new feature is using an intermediate scenic divider to hide my lead-in/staging track at the bottom.
Anything jump out at anyone as a possible “uh-oh”? What do people think about the location of the bulk oil plant: Would the alternate location be better?
Well, it’s physically possible, but probably not. The real RR was sort of like a T, with the crossbar about 2-1/2 miles long, 2 miles to one side and 1/2 mile to the other. The long end terminated at a P&LE yard while the short one terminated in a “turkeyfoot”, one toe of which went into and through the Union Drawn Steel building. A P&LE spur connected at the other side and the plant was listed as an interchange point point for both RRs. The stem was about a 1/4 mile long and connected to the PRR mainline between Pittsburgh and Chicago.
If I had a dream layout I’d have the PRR mainline on one side, the P&LE mainline on the other, and the industrial tracks of the two roads in between.
I think that is one of the best looking plans I’ve seen posted here for comments in a long time. I don’t think I would change a thing. I like the bulk oil on the inside. It hides the entrance of the PRR from behind the scenic divider. Of course for scenery nothing says the tanks for the bulk oil facility (or perhaps a competitors oil facility) couldn’t be on both sides of the track.
Actually I agree. IT is nice. If anything the PRR track is a two edged sword. While it is a hidden interchange, it is impossible as a fiddle track. Usually there’s several inches behind the door. Could you extend the track to the wall and put in a floor door stop. It won’t cut down access to the room with your layout the way it is. Then you could fiddle. You could even put a view break on the end cap of the layout so you never see it while operating.
I’m a big fan of staging, especially with layouts such as yours. It would increase your operations by magnitudes. I’m assuming the right wall with the door contains a window. Any chance of putting a few tracks there. Maybe even flipping the layout and connecting the PRR to staging. (I know that would mean a total rework.)
Very nice I like it, I’ve been fiddling on what I want to do with something similar. I also would like a continuous loop and will try to fit it in, I’m using the Mantua 0-6-0 in my avatar. I could cut into the burner room at the top for an 18" radius tops and come back out.
If I get rid of the sheetrock and left over panelling out the burner room I can put in a small shelf maybe 12" wide tops.
What track program did you use I like it, I downloaded rts but dont care for it.
Nice basic plan. (Don’t recall ever posting that before)!
The only change I would make to what you have would be to stretch the run round loop as long as possible/looks right.
Can the door be put to open outwards… or a sliding door? maybe extreme but it would open up possibilities.
I would certainly try to arrange it so that you can run right round… even if the door has to be open for a drop-in section and there is only a single track across the right wall (window?).
Either in a single track location here or a track with a spur could you arrange to plug in cassettes carrying made-up-trains in front of this (?) window… departure in both directions would be ideal… either one or the other direction as to your preference.
Have fun!
PS OOPS! I’ve assumed that the P&LE tracks marked at top right goes out / next door to a storage track…
If the branch your modeling was “T” shaped would it be possible for a center peninsula? You could then use the shorter side of the room for staging and an industry.
Thanks TZ, Mr. Mouse, Mr. mincemoyer, and Mr. TheTrain. . . I think I’m gonna tear up. . .
I was going to see if I could put a second track behind the scenic divideder for extra staging or storage. Failing that, I’ll use cassettes attached at the end for fiddlin’.
I thought about a peninsula, but the real thing was pretty much point to point with spurs and switching leads. - and only one track that looks like it is specifically a runaround. Plus I want to keep some space in the room.
I was looking for ways to extend the runaround, but my operations will involve trains of switcher + six cars + cabin car, at most, so I thought a three to four car runaround would suffice.
To lay these out I used AutoCad, which involved drawing up standard track items from measurements then assembling them how I wanted and connecting them with lines. Id gives some flexibility and better accuracy but takes longer than something like RTS.
Here’s an annotated 1905 map of what I’m modeling:
The Marginal Branch comes off the PRR at A, then either goes north to P&LE COLLEGE yard or south to the lower end of town. Just to give you an idea of the size I’m talking about, these are the mileposts at various locations:
Point A - 30.0
Green dot - 30.3
S (Union Drawn Steel) - 30.7
N (P&LE RR connection) - 31.4
So, we’re looking at a run from one end to the other of 1.8 miles with a lead track to the PRR that is .3 miles long. I doubt there were ever trains running through on this track, let alone in 1961. There was (and is) a good deal of traffic on the PRR four track mainline and P&LE’s three track mainline but there’s just no practical way to model them in the space I have. There’s no real operating interest either as switch jobs came up from Conway to just service
You track plan looks interesting: it is simple, linear and with good switching opportunities. I’ve never built a model railroad, so my advices are perhaps not so indicative. However, I think a spur track paralleling the passing siding can help in switching the railroad: it can be used to store all the outbound cars before to shove at the proper location the inbound cars. As a second advice, you can extend the P&LE interchange track on the right wall out of the layout creating a second staging track; an overpass or a tall building can hide the transition between the sceniced layout and the staging.
Yes. Now that I see the prototype, I like it even more. Your #37 was way too dense. The small ones weren’t actually too bad for that tiny of space.
Is there any chance there is an accessible area on the other side of the south wall (like a hall way or closet)? Perhaps you could open the wall up and fiddle it from the other side.
There’s really no need to run around all of them, as far as I can tell. I can always split the train and drop cars on the PRR lead or the tracks on either side of the runaround, in essence making it a three car train. That being said, I am still looking at increasing the length as much as possible. I’m open to ideas on how best to accomplish this.
Here’s today’s scribbling:
One thing new is the PRR tracks on an embankment in the lower left corner. This will help fill that space plus act as a scenic backdrop. Although the building supply actually had three tracks (seen under a different owner in the 1921 map below) I reduced their spur to just one track to give space for vehicles, coal piles, and so forth.
Is that a Sanborn Insurance Fire Map? Who would have thought that 100 years ago an insurance company was producing great Model Railroad reference material!
Yup, I have copies of the 1913 and 1921 editions. I’m going to go up to Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh one of these days as they have later editions as well as more locations.
Here’s the lower part of town, which is the bottom leg of my plan.
Regarding the runaround, I found that what I have will actually hold five 40-foot cars, plus I was able to move the switch so that it will hold six while keeping the same adjacent curve radii and only a 7/8 increase in the length of that leg. It also looks like there might have been something of a S-curve exiting the siding before which isn’t there now.
