After I started construction on my N-pire, I realized some things that look good on paper don’t translate so well to reality.
Anyhow, I made a few mods and the track gang is at it again. Hope to get some progress photos posted this weekend
That happens to me too.
I make a plan and then when I lay the track, it takes up more space than I figured or the building is bigger, stuff like that.
Craig
I am actually using an “iterative” approach to my track planning. In other words, I have only planned the track layout to a general level of detail so far but I am already beginning construction of my benchwork. Once I get the benchwork to a certain level of completeness, I will begin detailing the track plan on areas I intend to build first. This cycle will continue throughout construction. I have seen this approach work great before; it keeps you from getting bogged down or bored with one phase but there is always the possibility that you may have to go back and make changes (which seems to happen anyway).
Looking forward to seeing your layout come together!
Jamie
I’ve never made a track plan until after the track laying was finished. You can spend your whole life drawing track plans and never lay a single piece of track, of course that can be a hobby in it’s own right.
Yep, I have constantly adjusted my track plan as I have been building my layout. Certain parts of the plan were essential to start the building process, but many of the details looked much different in the actual space than on the paper and had to be adjusted. Here’s a description from a report on my layout construction:
The main issue would be that of reality colliding with the layout design as it exists on paper and in the mind of the designer. Yup, all those illusions about the brilliant railroad track plan soon vanished in the cold light of how things looked full sized in the actual space. The “parking lot of track” syndrome was the most common problem. The true test of the experienced model train nut is the “dogged determination” to fix and adapt that plan to the space. Sometimes all you get is “dogged” and other times you pull the "fat from the fire… " (or the cliché from the drawer)
You need a plan especially if you have complex technical issues such as multiple levels, helixes, reversing loops etc. I had to work all of these details out very carefully as my layout design borders on the overly complicated. When it comes to the individual scenes and how they look, the eye trumps the paper and I have gone through and simplified many scenes as I built them. Some areas present a design puzzle and I find that some of the time I come up with a great solution and other times I just come up with a solution .
My Two cents,
Guy
Guy et al -
In retrospect - I wish I’d paid adopted the ‘iterative approach’ and recognized that 'the eye trumps ’ … cuz I’ve been in a self-inflicted ‘overanalysis paralysis’ morass for too long.
I certainly expect things to change as construction moves along - just maybe not this much and this soon. What this does is help push to get me going with the ‘track gang’ again and letting things develop in the real space.
What you say here can be true. Unfortunately without at least some planning its rather easy to paint yourself into a corner so to speak. As in discover that you can’t reach the place over there without having a sub-standard radius curve or a grade that’s too steep because you didn’t have a master plan in place before you built the last 16’ of benchwork and roadbed.
I plan a lot (but then I’ve got a relatively complicated design occupying multiple levels) but I try not to obsess about those things that don’t need to obsessed over. For example, I’ll draw in off-the-top-of-my-head spur tracks in a town to try to under stand the space there and how much can be added before it gets that ‘crammed-in’ look. But when I actually build that space I find that looking at the benchwork in full-size 3d, I often see other ways of putting in those spurs that make more sense.
But when dealing with yard throats or the location of a turnback curve, or is it possible to keep an S curve out of the track while snaking it past a support column, I find that CAD programs and planning a quite valuable to prove that it can all fit there.
Regards,
Charlie Comstock
Hi! My name is Loathar and I can’t do a track plan on paper either…[:I]
I’ve tried, and tried, and tried, but I just can’t help myself![:(] I just can’t fight the urge to start gluing and nailing track to wood and cork!
Hey BCSJ / Charlie - I’m a long-time Beaverton-ite… Any chance of a layout visit sometime when I’m in town?
Rick
Hi Frisco-Kid
it is not unusual to draw a plan of what you want.
Then as construction progresses the finished product is not the same as the orriginal plan.
This is because what looks good on paper doesn’t allways work out in the field.
So the plan changes so it works?? or fits the space with out looking crammed in.
regards John Busby
I made a general plan as Charlie describes. I know where each major item will be going, the turn backs and the helix entrances. But where the exact position of a small spur gets placed is not important to me. 2 inches here and there I do not care about.
But the general plan have been quite firm for quite a while. Something that is necessary with a three level layout.
Magnus
But isn’t that a good thing? I think it’s certainly inevitable. Unless you happen to have every structure you ever intend to install on the layout available at the beginning. Otherwise you are going to have to make track adjustments here and there to resolve clearance and access problems. Plus all the adjustments you decide to make for aesthetic reasons.
In my own case I was working on a small diorama, 18" x 48", and laid my track according a plan developed from the prototype. I left one corner of the diorama open because I knew it was going to contain an enginehouse, but I had not yet found the appropriate structure. When I finally did select a structure kit, and began to construct it, I discovered the building’s footprint was about 10% larger than the space I had allocated for it. That necessitated relocating the approach tracks and moving an adjacent storage track about an inch to the left.
The topic reminded me of how my trackplan changed as I believe it does in the real world. I feel like putting a building or a hill here but there is track in the way. No problem; I move the track to another place (doesn’t happen often, but subtle changes here and there). Fairly common problem I think, everyone wants the same real estate.
Oboy, do I know THAT one! [:-^] I traced out a full-sized track plan on the garage floor using butcher paper when I built the Yuba River Sub. Everything I’d ever wanted as far as what I wanted the layout to be. Then I started construction. The detailed track plan on butcher paper ended up wadded up in the “Recycle” garbage can, because as I installed track, I kept thinking to myself “Wait a minute, I think it would look better over HERE–”
Kept largely to the IDEA of the track plan, but nothing like I started out with. I’m a musician, and in musical terms, it’s called a “Variation on a Theme”. Somehow it all worked out–at least mostly–but any SERIOUS relationship to the original plan turned out to be purely accidental. [%-)]
Tom [:P]
Well, yal’ are doin’ it right!! [:D]
I certainly had a concept plan and general sketches of where the mountains/towns/harbour were going to go. I also worked out the benchwork requirements and helix, (the layout is 2x 12x23 around the room w/center peninsula, helix is in the adjacent furnace room). But the actual trackwork was planned/laid organically.
My track plan is still just a set of ideas. I don’t dare put it on paper yet. If I do, someone will find it after the layout is built and then I’ll look like I can’t even follow my own instructions! Actually, the Plywood Atlantic was exactly the same on paper as it was on the table. Amazing what happens when you have to keep it small. I’ve seen alot of modified track in the real world. The line through Wernersville is nearly three feet higher than it was when the Reading first built it 150 years ago. Sidings going to nowhere. Things change. No big deal. It is kinda sad tho when some structure that you love suddenly hasn’t got a home on the new layout. I wanted to keep my layout to 1% grades and then found that if I do, there isn’t a level spot for the passenger station AND a local industry on the main AND a proper steam service and roundhouse without shortening the grades making them at minimum 1.25%.
I’ve always wondered how they manage to get the track plans in MR to NOT match the photos of the layout(ok, they do a great job, just not perfect) but I guess they may be going by plans drawn by the owner/builder and the photos might on occaision be of a modified location. Details details details. If anything goes exactly as planned, it wasn’t complicated enough!