After doing some revisions to my track plan which I had posted sometime ago and gotten some useful ideas I finally think I came up with a plan that fills my needs.
The inspiration came from an article MR ran in June 2002 about Progressive Rails operation.The track in the upper right is for cars coming in from the main line and for cars that are empty and ready for pickup. In Progressive Rails operation if I remember correctly the industrial park had no sidings to put incoming cars so they were put where ever there was room. I have tried to capture the same thing. The cars are broken down,spotted on empty tracks or in small yard and them delivered to either industries or team track.Then cars ready for pickup are put on upper track ready to be put back on main for pickup.
The plan still needs a little messing with because there are kinks in some of the tracks but this will be corrected when I put down the track. I’m planning on using code 100 ns track. Bob
Looks like some SERIOUS switching! When you get the final plan ready, post it again so we can imagineer some deliverys to those industries on the bottom!
Is this HO or N scale? If it is HO then I reckon you have far too much track in a small space, and most of your sidings are far too short. There’s no apparent rhyme or reason for the way the tracks are laid out.
Space Mouse-if you have any suggestions I’m open to them. I found one bottleneck-track on lower left conflicts with team track. What if I add another switch on that track,extend it towards team track and relocate industry there?I’ll repost layout with that change. .
Building placement except those on lower left are not final-but they will be served from team track-lower right track.
Actually there is less track now then when I first designed the plan. I think the siding lengths are fine.The two lower left ones only need space for one car each. The team track will hold three cars. The two small yard tracks-upper left will hold 4-5 cars. The other tracks will be used to take inbound card in,break them down and spot them or to put outbound cars out for pick up.
Again I am open to any suggestions that you may have to improve operation. Bob
Mmm - it isn’t too far off the way the real thing looks. Here is the adress: 21778 Highview Avenue, Lakeville, MN 55044. Look it up in Microsoft Live or google earth or one of those.
Looks like they are generally switching single cars, or at most cuts of three-four cars.
That’s the main one. I suggest putting a car in front of each switchable industry and try to change those cars out one at a time. Try not to move cars you’ve already placed.
Stein- you’re correct-one car at a time from 4 car cuts. As a matter of fact I have the article that MR ran on Progressive Rail.
Space Mouse- I made this revision- added a turnout to lower left and relocated industry off that turnout.As I said other structure placement not final yet but they will be served from team track
Also I am planning on putting a Rix Products highway overpass on the layout from top to bottom to break up the view.
Something happen to your original plan image ? Just shows up as a red X in my browser now. Would be nice to be able to compare original and modified plan.
I see the revised plan, but for some reason I don’t see the plan in the initial post - the one that links to http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u234/foulrift/tp3.jpg - if I try to go directly to that one on photobucket, I get “not found”.
Oh well, not that important, I just wanted to compare the original and what you had done in the revision.
Here is a link to FlashEarth showing the tracks in the industrial park - just click on the text box to remove it and use mouse click and drag to grab images and move it left and right to see more:
Edit: tried my hand at designing a 7’x2’ shelf layout based on my interpretation of the same area as you have modelled. This is how I did it:
I have used Peco code 75 turnouts, short turnouts, short crossing and short Y.
A-M is the progressive rail “mainline” down the park, with A being the line to the interchange with Soo line.
I am planning to use A and M just for runaround moves. Can fit one short diesel (a 44-tonner) and two 40’ cars. Or a short diesel and one longer car, if you want
Stein-your track plan looks good to me. The only reason that I’m going to use code100 rail is that some of my rolling stock I have had since the 70’s and I’m not sure if I would have any problems with code83. As far as the revision goes- all I did was remove the industry from the lower left,add another switch and relocate the industry on the track coming off that switch doiung away with a bottleneck.Bob
FoulRift- I have the Progressive article in front of me, is there any space for a long track at a 90 degree angle to your plan- a north south track to your east west plan? If you add a 6-8 car feeder track along a wall, it could take away the jams spacemouse mentioned.
Either put it along a wall, assuming your layout is in the corner f a room, or maybe a peninsula off of the east end.
Philnrunt- I’m not exactly sure what you are suggesting. It was my idea to use the upper right track for cars coming in or going out. As far as other bottlenecks-the only other possible ones look to be the two short tracks on the left upper end. Actually I was thinking of eliminating one of them. As for your idea of a long feeder track if you could provide me with a diagram I’ll see what I can do with it.
Foul Rift- I don’t have access to any track planning stuff on this computer, it’s at work.
I went back and looked more closely at your revised plan, and I see what you are doing with the upper right track.
Maybe you already answered this, I’ll check through again, but -How many cars are you planning on being brought in at one time, and how many will be spotted at industries, waiting to be switched out?
OK, now that was weird, as I was typing that, on the TV there is a show about new planets being discovered, and suddenly the astronomer was riding behind a steam engine and said we might find planets with “forests and steam trains”- good to know even rocket scientists like trains!
Sorry, back to you- the Progressive Rail plan had that long center line that comes off of the CP main line to shunt cars back and forth from, and I didn’t see that “safety valve” on yours. But as long as you can shuffle a car onto another factory’s siding, it looks like a workable industrial park.
As for eliminating one of the upper left tracks, I guess you mean the second and third track counting down from the top left. I would keep them both, you have a small runaround track they connect to, and being able to shove a few cars into both of those sidings could come in handy.
OK, went back to top and re-read it all, and with a 44Tonner or even an SW, and one or two cars, looks like you shouldn’t have too many problems.
You are thinking of modelling what in real life is the interchange track with Soo line ? On the left side of the figure ?
Depends on what aspects of the Progressive rail site FoulRift want to model - setting out and picking up cuts of cars from an interchange track, or local industrial switching under cramped conditions.
You could fairly easily simulate cars arriving from interchange or going to interchange by starting your operating session slightly later (after the cars have already been pulled from the interchange track and stashed in storage/yard tracks by the progressive rail warehouse) and ending the session a little earlier (after the cars for interchange out has been collected in the storage/yard tracks by the progressive rail warehouse, before the cuts are transferred to interchange).
The operation of transfering slightly longer cuts of cars between interchange and yard tracks isn’t all that different from transfering shorter cuts of cars between yard tracks and industries.
And modelling the interchange track does eats up space - either length of module or depth of module.
A 30" wide by 7’ foot long shelf (I assume) layout is not a huge amount of space in H0. The shelf should maybe even be a little narrower - say 24" inches instead of 30", with a reach of max 20" or so to the innermost place where you handle cars. Especially if you plan to place the layout at face height a
Stein-I feel my layout is as tight as I want it to be. If you look at it again there are only 4 industrial tracks that I actually have to worry about. Any other industries that I put on the layout will be serviced from the team tracks. I am thinking of removing one of the short yard tracks in order to remove the bottleneck. Also by doing that I can put a structure there. If you have any other suggestions let me know.
Certainly. Your layout, you decide how you want it - I wasn’t trying to pressure you about you “should” do it - I was just offering some alternative ideas - like using crossovers and Y turnouts to pack more action into a small space.
Okay.
Looks to me like you can fit 6, maybe 7 cars on the interchange track at the top of the layout. You probably can’t switch in or out more than max two cars at a time by way of the switchback at the upper left hand side of the layout, but if you like repetitive switching movements, it should be okay that you need to switch this three or four times to empty or fill the interchange track.
And that you will need to do runaround moves every time if you want to move cars between interchange and yard, since the yard tracks branch off in the opposite direction of the interchange tracks.
You have an industry above the second track from the top at the right side of the layout. You can’t use that space at all for setting out cars without blocking access to the yard tracks and the interchange track. Looks like the track there might be long enough to switch 2 cars plus a short diesel switcher.
Runaround looks good. Two storage yard tracks on the left look good. I would branch them off the track going up to the switchback with interchange, not directly from the runaround, that creates a little room for you t
I had a look at the article in the 2002 MR rather than the various map sites - they all seem to require the use of a PC and broadband. I’d say that FoulRift’s trackplan is at best “inspired” by Progressive Rail, and in condensing and altering it he has lost some important elements of the original. I think that by having a number of short switchbacks, and a minimal runround, he’s making a rod for his own back. But to each their own, I appreciate that some blokes enjoy switching puzzles.
If I had to shunt such a location in real life, I’d book off and go home! [:)]
