Track plan for comment please

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I would like to ask any and all of you for your comments. This will be my first layout, and for some background, here are a few points.

  1. I’m 33 years old (still nimble!)
  2. I want to start building this fall / winter.
  3. This is a rough DRAFT.
    a. The roads that go at angles instead of gentle curves are because I am frustrated by xtrackcad. I’d rather not take the time to smooth them out on the computer.
    b. I know the yard in the southwest corner is goofy, it’s just representative. But comments are still very welcome!
    c. I will draw out the layout in 1:1 (for HO) scale later to smooth out the rough spots. Unless you all plan to come to my house to give me comments on what’s drawn on my floor, xtrackcad was my other good option. (BTW my wife makes great desserts, just give me a few hours notice.)
  4. Solid black = roads for cars.
  5. Solid tan = dirt road for cars.
  6. Orange squares = trap doors.
  7. Pink squares = roughed-in buildings.
  8. All one level.

Now to the important stuff:

Givens:

  1. Room is 8.5’ “tall.” Width is a druther (room opens up to an “L” shape to the east), but a rough estimate is 9’ to 9.5’.
  2. Storage area (behind south wall) is available for staging, but cannot be completely staging. A hole must be cut in the wall for this. North and west walls are immoveable.
  3. Layout will be built with expansion (to the east) in mind.
  4. Initial layout built for the experience of it and viewing it, not for operations-intensive use. Ability for continuous running is a primary goal.
  5. No prototype railroad, however blatant anachronisms will be avoided where “convenient.” I make no promises.
  6. HO scale.
  7. Ease of op
2

Clickable http://www.flickr.com/photos/10910181@N05/1399940126/

With your givens and druthers and pre-comments, I guess what I would say is that I think the pop-up will be a pain in the back. I can’t imagine, even in my nimble days, building that layout from those little holes. I spent a long time in construction, and even with the best of planning, there always seems to be that one thing you forgot. Every time you forget a tool or piece of scenery, crawl in crawl out crawl in crawl out.

Right now you seem to be running only in a clockwise manner. I think if I were going to have a railfan layout, I’d at least want bi-directional running and be able to run trains in opposite directions.

3

The first thing I noticed was the run arounds at the barley plant and lumber yard. That configuration is just too small to get a locomotive around even a single small car.

Why no rail service to the limestone mine? Seems like a major industry that in real life would demand rail service.

The outside loop “cut off” crosses over the inside ‘loop’ twice. I would consider reversing the position of those two features to eliminate the crossovers.

4

I know you say that one of your givens is HO scale, but for that size room I would strongly suggest at least investigating N scale.

5

Putting your picture in the message:

Umm - just to make sure I understand your setup - you want to fill an entire corner of your room with a 9x9 foot square massive layout - ie, having three sides of your layout (up, left and down in the image) right up against the walls of the room, so your normal viewing/operating position will be from the eastern (right side ?) edge, with some of the action happening 9 feet away from you, on the other side of the layout ?

What is the rest of the L-shaped room (to the east of this corner) like ?

Stein

6

I think you’ll regret filling up that much of your room with this layout. Even with the pop-ups (I assume that’s what you meant by “drop downs”), there’s going to be a fair amount of your layout that’s going to be hard to reach. No matter how carefully you plan those pop-ups, they will get slowly destroyed if you have to use them frequently. I would look at a plan that was maybe two feet deep on the running walls with a four foot square section on each end for your loop. This will eliminate the pop-ups and also give you more mainline running room. This also makes it easier to place industries with sufficient runaround track or yard to make operations interesting even if that’s not your main goal. The around the room layout also gives you more room to work and, when it’s done, tends not to overwhelm the room.

7

It’s too late at noght to analyze trackplans…

[:o)]

I will say that you should make your pop-ups under the town, through the center instead of where the pond and mine are. Maybe even open that up permanently. Either a pond or a mine will be difficult to blend in convincingly, whereas streets, etc help with that in a town.

My [2c]

8

You are going to be regretting that plan in a few years. I am pretty nimble but have a progressively bad back that will never get better. That plan is a no go for me. You feel young and strong now but I think this is not the way to go in your planning.

Serious thought need to be heeded towards two to three foot wide around the room shelf or perhaps a island.

Or a smaller scale.

One very good thing about planning is paper and pencil does not make waste.

9

I think, first of all, the “trap door” in front of the lumber yard and the “farmer’s field” are both going to be too small to be useful. I see the other 2 are about 18 x 24 inches, which is pretty small considering you’ll end up carrying tools, track, scenery, structures, and who knows what else under, up and through those doors. I’d suggest scrapping all 4, and, if you insist on trap door access, try to use just one (say, 24" square, or 24 x 30") in the center of the layout, and rearrange the town a little. Remember, you have roughly a 30" reach from your body, 36 to 42 if you stretch it. You could also consider a “drop down” center section of the layout, where the entire center 36" (about 5-6 feet into the layout) or so drops down to one side, similar to a drop leaf table. In this fashion, with the section dropped, you would have a “U” shaped layout, until you raised the center back into place.

One of the recent MR issues featured scenery on roll away drawer slides. This could be another way to go for you, building a valley down the center of the layout, having the lower tracks go over bridges, and being able to slide the scenery to one side when you need access to the rear of the layout. All you would have to do is crawl under the bridges (which could be made lift out or tilt up, if desired. Uh, make that, strongly suggested).

Another idea would be some sort of drop down, slide aside type of hardware, if any exists somewhere, and whether it could be found. This would function something like allowing the center section (or 2) to drop down about 6-9 inches, then sliding or swinging under each side. I wish I had a picture to show what I meant.

Anyway, give these some thought.

Brad

10

While your layout looks interesting on paper I think in practice you’ll be disappointed. The yard tracks are very short and the access holes are small. You apparently plan to operate from the east end, but I think you’ll find trying to switch cars in the yard and upper left corner from 9 1/2 ft away very frustrating. You can run only one train on this layout - you have one passing track but it is cut twice and thus can’t hold one train while another is running.

I would do the benchwork as 30" deep on all sides except the east where you say the room opens up into an L. There I would make it 48". This leaves a single opening of 42"x42". Then I would make the mainline a double track oval and have it run down the middle of the east side with town on either side. Place the yard on the south side outside the mainline oval with 3 yard tracks to the east so the tracks can be expanded east when you expand the layout. I would run the branch line off the yard and through the town and end it in the northwest corner with several industries off of it. Make the mainline 22" radius and the branch 18".

This would allow you to run two trains at once on the main while switching the branch and yard. The yard would serve as the interchange with the main where mainline trains could drop off and pickup cars for the branchline. You could sort the cars in the yard for the branchline train and then switch the branch.

If you set the track at 50" off the floor you’ll ease the duckunder into the center of the layout.

I recommend that you get the book “Track Planning for Realistic Operation” by John Armstrong.

Enjoy

Paul

11

Runarounds: were not drawn correctly and took too long to correct in the CAD file.

Limestone mine service: there will probably be truck service between the mine and the processing plant. But research is needed here and noted.

The outside loop “cut off” crosses over the inside ‘loop’ twice. I would consider reversing the
position of those two features to eliminate the crossovers.

I don’t understand, please explain.

12

A good point I should have explained, also for the person who suggested N scale. The War Department (wife) and I made an agreement when we bought the house: the basement and garage are mine, you get everything else.

The basement is an “L” shape, and this drawing is the short stub of the L. The total basement is about 25 feet long and 20 feet wide. The long-term plan is to build a 2’ deep wall unit across the rest of the basement to the east (along the 20 foot wall), hang a right, and continue along the long part of the L (about 25 feet). It would stop there, requiring a way to reverse the engines, probably with a tear-drop shape at that end.

So, the elements below represent only the starting point of what I hope to expand into a much larger space. But in the mean time I’d like to learn and enjoy on this section.

13

I think, first of all, the “trap door” in front of the lumber yard and the “farmer’s field” are
both going to be too small to be useful.

Good point, I should have noticed that. I’m 6’1" and 160 pounds so I don’t need much, but more than that.

I read that article in last month’s MR and was fascinated. I hadn’t thought about that sort of opening but I can see how it would work here.

FWIW, the goal was to keep the trap doors open most of the time and only close them for visitors.

14

There is just so daggon much to remember. All of these suggestions are things I have read over the last couple of years but it’s so hard to keep it straight in my head until I have laid my first set of mistakes!

I have heard all of your suggestions and head humbly back to the drawing board. Thank you.

15

As others have said, I would strongly suggest that you take a step back and consider the whole space, not just this “alcove”. Not that you want to fill it all at once, but this “prairie dog village” style of layout died out a long time ago for good reasons. A different configuration could give you all of these elements with better access (and would probably look better, too).

I may be in the minority here, but I would also very strongly suggest that you leave the CAD alone for a while. During that time, it would be a good idea to study up a bit on layout design concepts. John Armstrong’s Track Planning for Realistic Operation is the best investment in time and money you will ever make, if your goal is to design your own layout.

But you should be aware that a layout design that will satisfy in the long term will take some time to develop. And the best way to develop the general concept is not with CAD … too much precision and frustration too soon in the process, IMHO. (And I use model railraod CAD twenty hours a week or more). Layout design should be more than just plugging track components together, it’s developing an overall vision for what you want to accomplish, thinking about how scenes will appear, and considering the access for construction, viewing, operation, and access (among many other elements). CAD tempts us to skip the thinkin’ and go straight to the drawin’. Often with disastrous, but well-rendered, results.

And if, on the other hand, you just want to get to building something quickly, a quality published plan may be a better choice.

Good luck and have fun,

Byron

16

While Byron and I disagree on the CAD thing–I think that CAD is a useful tool in helping the newbie learn what can fit where–we agree that you should take your time in designing your layout. Even if you think that you are just throwing something together to get your feet wet, the time and money you are going to invest here is not unsubstancial. If you plan on learning from your mistakes, take the time to eliminate as many of your mistakes ahead of time. That means studying Armstrong and taking the time to develop a vision.

You may not like or want do do operations. If so take a look at some of the great sceneic railroads. You’ll notice that they do not wander around over and through themselves rather they pass though well-developed scenes.

Most importantly you will grow as a model railroader. You want to plan for your growth and give yourself as much challenge as you can handle. At the same time you you need to plan on keeping your interest build and run your layout. Think back to the layouts you’ve seen in store window layouts where the trains ran continously over and around and through the layout. How long did you stand and watch the trains before it was time to move on?

17

Ok. On the left side of your plan the two outside tracks circle in on each other and cross to make the inside loop. Sort of like a folded over figure 8 shape. Before each of these tracks begin to curve inward, you have a turnout that turns off sooner. The tracks from both the top and bottom early turnoff then cut straight across the board connecting to each other. They basically make a “cut off” to short cut the train from going through the inside part of the figure 8 shape described above.

That cut off crosses the inside part of the figure 8 track twice. If you would use those tracks (the ones on the curved branch of the two turnouts) for the turn into the figure 8, and the straight part of the turnouts as the “short cut line” the crossings would be eliminated.