Once again I am here to bring out my track plan. It has taken many years (yes I take a very long time) and most of my patience to come up with this plan, but I feel I need to show it to you anyway. After reading many model railroaders, books, web pages, and forums, I have come up with my ‘final’ plan. I hope that you can critique it as best you can.
The North Wellington Union Passenger Terminal (NWUPT) is a fictitious railway set in , just north of . Serving the station was mainly the Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway, but a few NYC and Pennsy trains have made their way across the border. The only reason of this was my affinity with the two railways. Besides the CNR and the CPR, the NYC and the Pennsy are my two favourite railroads. Most trains will head in and have their consist turned by the terminal switchers.
I can’t read the text on the drawing, so I’m not sure what the intentions for all the tracks are, but it would be typical for there to be crossovers at the ends of the platform tracks for engines to escape. If not, you might want to consider a switcher pocket for the terminal switcher that will pull the consists off after arrivals. This pocket would be faced to avoid back-and-forth moves.
2" may not be adequate track-to-track spacing for 24"R curves and long equipment, if you ever plan to have one train passing another in the curves.
I also wonder if the hand sketched yard throat area could be built as drawn. It can be tricky with those sharp curves combined with curved turnouts to make sure that everything lines up squarely.
If you’ve mocked things up and checked all this out already, then ignore these comments. Otherwise, I think you may want to take another look.
Thanks for the tips. I do believe that I have drawn everything as close to perfect as I could get but I did leave a lot of room for changes and adjustments that may be needed when laying the track. I also used templates that I created for all of the turnouts. I like the idea of a switcher pocket and have factored that into my revised plan (along with a crossover that I now realize I omitted). I have also tested clearances on the curves and the 24" radius is just fine, but it’s a good thing you reminded me to check that [:)].
I like your concept. Always used to like coming into the city terminal in Sydney and seeing all sorts of cars parked in sidings. I know space is the problem, but how about a carriage siding or two?
It seems to me that your loco access is a bit restricted. The locos only seem to be able to come in from one of the tracks to/from the storage area, and “out the back door” can only go to part of the terminal yards.
The advice about needing to get your trains locos out after they bring in a string of carriages is important. Any big stations like this that I have seen (and that is not many, only Sydney & London) have had a third line to get locos out from the front of a terminating train. However, I don’t know what they do in Canada. I would lay money that they do not just leave the engine trapped until the train is pulled away by a shunter. The engine needs to go to loco for servicing, and the crew want to “put it to bed” and go off shift.
Anyway, I like your idea of a passenger oriented layout. Just hard to do in the space we always find limiting. Good luck.[^]
PS. Sorry I might be misinterpreting your plan. What I thought was a multiple platform terminus might be a carriage shed. Trouble is that I can’t read the labels you have written on the plan.
It would be a bit unusual to have a carriage shed right beside the platforms. More like where your storage yard is. Just an idea, why not use the carriage shed space for more platforms? You can leave trains standing at the platforms, so serves same purpose as a shed. My observation is that in Sydney they often leave a train standing at the platform for a long time, often without a loco attached. Should have used past tense. There is only one (maybe two) loco hauled train that operates out of Central these days. First I thought of was the Indian Pacific to Perth, but
Actually that was the plan. I hoped that it would keep operations a little more intricate and exiting by having the switchers turn the obs. cars on the t-t while road locomotives were being serviced.
To tell you the truth, I have tried such a thing, but I found that I had little room left for open air storage tracks. I guess if I wanted, I could omit the crossovers and the car shop in the coach yard. That way I could have at least 2 full storage tracks.
This was a little mistake of my own. On the top of the plan, (above the Engine Terminal) I forgot to place a double crossover. In my hard copy of the plan, I do have one, created form #8 turnouts. It fits in the area I have allowed for it. This way switchers and trains can get to any track in the terminal.
I would love to have longer station tracks, but when I tried
