I am new at this hobby,and i am in the construction of my first layout.As some of you may have seen in some other post of mine, i am trying to finish my plan.Until now i reached this plan below, which is still not ready,just the main concept.Where the tracks ends from both sides is going to the staging yard, and to the green area is going to build some industies.
BUT, it seems to me very simple at least on the paper.I see the plan from other people and seems to me very complex.I tried to make it more complex but then it seems to me not so realistic.If i make the lines with more curves then i must use smaler radious intead of bigger and better.From your expirience what do you think is better,simple and more realistic or complex and less realistic? And at the end are there some tips that i can use to make my plan “more” without lose realism?
Its personal for everyone. Some like it simple so they can run thier trains and superdetail yet some like the layout to be a puzzle. What do you realy think you will enjoy most once the trackwork is finished? Operating, including car forewarding, train watching, having multiple operators? There are many factors to consider, even some you may not think of straight away.
For me, sometimes less is more. I have been involved in some operating sessions and given what seems simple assignments yet there were challenges involved even in the simplist track arrangement.
If you think like a real RR you get the main down and the goods movin. As a hobbiest if you put the main down it gives you a better idea of what will and will not work as far as sidings, buildings and other ad ons. The advantage to this is you get to watch the trains go by as your adding that siding or building that building.
I don’t see that what you have is all that complex. Basically, you’ve got a double-track main line loop, assuming you plan to connect the tracks across the narrow “bridge” on the right side. If that’s a lift-off, or even if it’s not, you might consider making it single-track to add operational interest, maybe even with a real “bridge” to give your railroad a reason for the single track at that one point.
You could probably do with fewer crossovers between the mains, but it’s not really bad the way it is.
One thing you should think about is leaving room for your rail-served industries and their sidings. You’ve got some space to the inside, and you might want to pull the mains in a bit from the outer walls (assuming it’s an around-the-walls layout) to give you room for “background flat” buildings with rail sidings. These layout-edge structure add both scenic and operational interest without taking up a lot of real estate.
Railroads need a purpose to exist, in other words they move commodity from the supplier to the customer. To do this is very simple in concept; you need a place to pick up the goods, a place to sort and build trains, and a place to deliver the goods. The devil is in the details, if you have 6,000 customers your rail system would be massive, if you have 6 then it would be very small.
You have a small space to work with, relatively speaking. I would first conceptualize the industries the railroad will serve and then build a track plan around that. Logging lines are decidedly different from an urban industrial, but they all share the same basic traits. I prefer point to point operations, with industries at the end points and one or more sorting yards in the center. Interchanges can branch off the yards or the main, but better in the yards for small railroads. In a smaller railroad like yours I would think along the lines of not more than 5 industries on deck with interchanges for customers “off world” as needed. This will give you the ability to move things from A to B on the layout and make up as many trains as you like for the nether regions off board.
My suggestion for your application would be to leave the wye in place for turning the engines, and terminate the main line at an industrial camp of some type at the spur on the right side. Like wise at the lower right, I would construct another industrial area and terminate the main at that point as well. That is what I would do, you may want something different if you like to run trains around for “rail fanning” and not so much to recreate a miniature transportation system.
I don’t know what your operating style is like, so I am suggesting only what I would do in this application.
Our club went on a layout tour last Saturday [another club’s, not ours], and I found that the simple layouts looked a lot better. Some had too much track for the space, with not enough room for houses, roads, and open spaces. Some had too many buildings with no roads leading off-layout. Where did the people come from? One was just a loop with a single siding, but the scenery made it great. Nothing crowded. Roundy-round for two trains at most, but very realistic. Another had great scenery [campground, golf course, several industries] with a single main and just a few sidings. So often less is better.
Thank you all for your recommedations. Probably the choice is personal and what is good for me is bad for the others.In my second layout i would know better what i need from it.I am reading again the book of John Armstrong “Track planning for realistic operation” and it seems to me that i am in the right direction.I found that my plan follows the rules of the book.I will do some changes that i have in to my mind and i think is going to be ok.Of course i believe that it is not the better plan, but i have all ready done the most of the benchwork so i can only take the best possible from it.
