Track Plan Review

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
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Good day everyone. While I’m not exactly a newbie to model railroading (if you count the 4 x 8 oval with sidings I had as a teenager 20 something years ago) I am new to this whole concept of building a model railroad based on a concept, and a plan.

So, in a fit of self-flagellation (perhaps) I am presenting that vision, along with the track plan that I am currently pursuing. Throwing it to the wolves, so to speak. [:)]

First, some limitations. I’m building this in the negotiated space allowed to me by the railroad zoning commission in our 960 square foot apartment (the wife was, for one reason or another, against me using the entire bedroom. I’m sure she has her reasons.) Due to this, I am limited to an around the walls layout that is 6 feet down one wall, 15 feet down another side of the room, and maxes out at 24" wide in one corner.

The Concept

Given that I am a Virginia boy living in the Midwest, I really wanted to get back to my roots, and also sort of pay tribute to my grandfather, who worked on, and retired from, the C&O railroad before it became CSX. So it was probably a given that I would model an Eastern railroad. But I wanted something with a lot of traffic and variety, as well as some operation. So I hit upon the idea of modelling a part of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac. As a bridge line, the RF&P runs a lot of traffic through for the other railroads in the area, and the interchange yards would see heavy use.

I also chose to model in 1963, just before the mergers that lead to the eventual demise of most of the Eatern railroads (at least in terms of them being separate entities) so that I could model locomotives from the ACL, SCL, N&W, the B&O, and the C&O, and still keep with the theme of the railroad.

I eventually decided on modelling a fictional area of the RF&P - a western division that w

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In my limited knowledge of operation- overall it appears well thought out and planned. Only 2 “concerns” I can offer is (1) you have a few buildings (mainly servicing bldgs) indicated along the front edge…this “may” cause issues for reaching behind to the tracks in the back. However, at 54" this should not be a major concern. Number 2 “concern” is all the tracks run extremely parallel to the edge of the layout. This might distract from the layout itself. Perhaps consider placing a few slight curves here and there to break up the monotony (sp?)?

Like I said, looks well planned!

[edit] You commented about not getting the whole room…regardless of the project at hand it seems as though the CEO/CFO/President Of The Residence allwys needs to have some leverage…LOL

Additionally, you may wish to reconsider the canterlevered approach unless you get specific approval from the landlord/bldg owner. I say this because you will need more than a few screws into the wall to hold the layout.

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Tried to sketch out part of your track plan in XtrakCad to see how it worked.

At least a couple of things you might want to have a second look at:

  1. Length of industrial sidings.
    Especially those that branch out into two tracks (industries 11, 12, 13)
    These sidings will be very short - your sketch might make them look longer than they are
    Check this corner (I have used 40 foot cars as illustrations):

  1. You haven’t left yourself much space for buildings or structures of various kinds.
    How much space will e.g. your engine house take ?
    How much space for a car repair shop ?
    How much space for a sand house ?
    How do you plan to shoehorn in your warehouse, oil dealer etc ?

Some things to consider:

  • fewer double tracks for industries (e.g. 11, 12, 13),
  • industries along backdrop instead of in the middle of layout
  • drop some of the special tracks (car shop, sand delivery),
  • cross over in the other direction by the yard lead (labelled 7)
  • drop the turntable - they are space hogs, and 1963 is mostly diesels, right ?

Your layout, your decisions. These are only a couple of suggestions.

Smile,
Stein

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Not only that, but a turntable with two tracks going to it, and really no room for any more, is a bit extraneous.

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Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate the time and effort (especially Stein - you actually put it into a CAD program? LOL. I wish I had a good one.)

In order of response then:

Ken (aka CL): Actually, the way I’m ataching this to the wall is with cleats - I screw a 1 x 2" block into the wall at the stud point using three inch screws. The table sits on those directly at the back edge. At the front, the angled legs go back to a second set of cleats using a sort of notch approach - basically the cleat has a notch cut in it to accomodate the leg. Trust me, I already have part of the bench work up, and it’s solid enough that I can lean on it (I know, because I have seen me do it.)

SteinJ: Again, I can’t believe you actually poked this into a railcad program. :slight_smile: But I think you may have some of my trackage reversed. Some of the tracks you have labelled there are actually the yard tracks. #11, 12, and 13 respectively are the Caboose tracks, The carshop, and the oil company (which is deliberatly small - but all my oil tankers are of the 10,000 gallon 30’ variety, so I can actually get three of them into the space alloted, which is plenty for me.)

To your other considerations, and this is also in response to Jeff’s comment, about the turntable. I actually included the TT for a specific reason. I plan to include at least two F7 Locos (in fact I already have one) and it’s really rather difficult to run those in reverse (at least and see where you’re going). I could use a fictional (i.e. off layout) wye, and have the F7’s either back in, or back out - that would free up some space for industrial buildings - but I didn’t think the railroads normally ran the A units backwards, unless it was an A-B-B-A configuration - am I wrong about this?

As for the buildings, the drawing actually makes things a little closer to the table edge than they really are. I have part

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I use XtrakCad. Freeware. Takes a while to learn to use properly, but once you know how to use it, it is very easy to work with. That corner drawing took about 4-5 minutes for me.

An installable executable of XtrakCad for Microsoft Windows can be downloaded from XtrakCad project’s web pages on sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=151737&package_id=167813

Did not claim that the tracks going down along the left wall was anything but yard tracks (arrival, departure and three yard tracks - called “storage” in your description). I only tried to draw in two of the three two-track “industries” - car shop and caboose track, if I remember correctly - caboose track in upper left hand corner, car shop inside curve of yard tracks.

[quote]

To your other considerations, and this is also in response to Jeff’s comment, about the turntable. I actually included the TT for a specific reason. I plan to include at least two F7 Locos (in fact I already have one) and it’s really rather difficult to run those in reverse (at least and see where you’re going). I

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GK,

I think you need to move the entrance to the engine service area further East, perhaps reversing it to enter from East to West. Here is why I say this:

There is a arrival of 10 cars on the arrival track (9). The yard switcher latches on to those cars and moves East until the cars clear the crossover. Then the switcher moves West and starts pushing cars into the classification tracks (10).

At the same time a loco has finished being serviced and is wanting to get to an outbound train on track 8. It can’t get there because track 10 is blocked with the cut of cars being classified.

If the entrance to the engine service area was further East, say with a lefthanded crossover at about the location of the number 7 in your drawing, then engines could arrive/depart from the servicing area without interfering with the classification actions going on West of that location.

Second, the feeder to the fuel/sand deliver track (6) seems overly complex. You might consider removing the leftmost switch on this track and then you could move the right switch further West. OR: Remove the right switch and have the track that is next to the edge of the layout in this area also feed the turntable. This would give you more flexibility in turntable arrival/departure.

Finally, you might consider switching the functionality of track groups 11 and 13. This would put the caboose storage closer to the engine service/shop (on RR property) and have the fuel oil company in the corner where there will be more space for structure/scenery.

General Comments:

I can’t tell turnout angles from the drawing. You noted a #4 minimum. I would make sure that your crossovers are #6 since a lot of them will have strings of cars being pushed through them. You might get away with Atlas #4.5 if you keep all your rolling stock short.

If you are planning to use Atlas track then it is definately worthwile to

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Hi -

Your post set me thinking about how I would put a yard and local industries in the space you have available (ie 6 feet along one wall, 15 feet along the neighbouring wall).

Here is one possible way - I am not saying this is the only or the best, just one of many possible ways.

Main features:

  • Industries are along upper wall, across the main from the yard. That allows you to build large industries as flats and have fairly long industry tracks. There are several crossovers between the industry track and the main - two of the three are located so you can move cars between the industry track and the yard without “sawing” back and forth

  • It should be possible to take trains in and out of the yard without disturbing the classification.

  • Double ended caboose track, double ended engine service track (refueling/sanding)

  • I have planned for train lengths 8 40’ cars, one caboose, one GP-7 engine. Decide on what train lengths and consists you want to plan your yard for, and take it from there.

If you want to run A-A pairs of F7’s, then you need to plan for longer engine units.

But if need be, you can just let an A-A pair of engines get trapped on the arrival track until the yard switcher has pulled away the cars

Some possible moves (drawings below are earlier version of track plan - I made some adjustments here and there after testing some moves - plan above is the adjusted version):

  • a GP7 pulling 8 40’ cars and a caboose pulls off the mainline into the arrival track

  • Yard switcher brings in cars from industries

  • Road engine hooks up
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I wouldn’t worry about location (i.e. Virginia) too much and concentrate on the track plan. When you get into these compact shelf plans it really doesn’t matter what city you say they are in, you can use the same trackplan anywhere just change the name of theindustries and the architecture of the buildings (a 3 story brick “Blue Ridge Warehouse co.” vs. a one story mission style “San Jacinto Storage Co.”).

As many people have pointed out the original layout had too many switchbacks and too short tracks for industries. the variation proposed by Stein was good if you can stand the 24’ wide bench.

Unless you are actually going to terminate and originate mainline trains, I would lose the turntable, it eats up space and is totally unecessary.

Dave H.

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Ok, given that what I really have is a shelf, and what I really want is a switching style yard/industry layout, I’m definately taking the advice to drop the turntable. Since i am not, as DH mentioned, actually running mainline trains, just running some in, and then back out, I could run staging down the short wall, and then run the yard/industries down the long one. After looking at the sample plan that Stein posted, I am even more inclined to that mode of thinking. It will give me more of what I want (operation) and less of what I don’t (frustration).

So I am back to the drawing board (the electronic one this time) with many thanks to all of you who helped guide a relative newcomer.

One question…how long is an HO-scale GP7/9? (in terms of inches)?

You know, far from being the excrutiatingly painful experience I thought this would be, this was actually a great experience. Thanks to all of you.

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About 7.2 inches.

Smile,
Stein

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Regarding the Turntable Issue:

I too was faced with adding a turntable in a relatively small space and my brother (Also a model railroader) came up with a plan that is working for me. He took an Atlas N-Scale 7 1/2" Turntable and modified it for my HO scale layout. The rotating track provides room for a 55’- 60’ locomotive which meets my needs. The turntable will be motorized, inserted into a hole cut in blue foam and secured to a plywood base.

I’ve attached 2 photos to give you a rough idea of what he did. Good Luck with your layout, it looks very interesting and you’ve done an excellent job of planning.

Wayne

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Ok, after reading the replies here, and thinking long and hard about what I really want to be able to do with this shelf, I went back to the drawing board and came up with a new layout plan (this time using Atlas’ RTS - since I am using their track, it seemed the thing to do.)

I’ve put the results into a PDF file, and I borrowed heavily from Stein’s suggestions. I’ve found that I have a lot more room for actually running trains than I did before, which is a good thing. But what I raelly lack at this point is some kind of multitrack staging. However, with the limited space I have, that may be an unrealistic desire.

At any rate, I put the results of my fiddling into a PDF file, so you can zoom in and see them better. Any comments would be great!

Updated Trackplan

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Hi gk -

General comment : it is a little hard to read the plan - contrast between the track (which is black and dark grey) and the background (which is light gray). If you can adjust colors, I would pick two colors that give better contrast.

Overall - I like it.

Here are some comments/suggestions:

  1. RIP track/car shop - works. But try to take the two tracks off the end of the ladder, not off classification track no 3 - the way you have drawn it out now, you lose the use of almost 50% of classfication track 3 - for two reasons: you need to keep half of track 3 empty to be able to get to the car shop/RIP track and you need to keep half of track 3 empty to be able to use the runaround and caboose track. See the area marked in pink in my drawing below.

On the other end - having fewer tracks fewer tracks in this area makes the shelf less wide. But if you want to axe one track, I would instead recommend axing the car shop track (and the car shop building) - gives you the same reductio

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I appreciate all of the suggestions Stein. Really, I had wanted to at some point pull this down (once the wife and I buy a house) and add on to it to make it part of a larger layout, so it would really help to be able to get it right (or at least as right as possible) the first time. I like your idea for the staging track - if I cut out one track for the oil dealer I can add in two additional track, looking at your plan - I’m not sure I need quite that much, but I would like to be able to add one additional stagung track, just so I can play some - plus in the concept of the larger layout, it could make a good “interchange” track coming in from points west and south.

I’m going to spend some time looking at what you have drawn up, and then go back and look at my design.

One question. I’m not planning on having that many cabooses on this layout - no more than two or three actually parked at any one time. Can I use one end of the caboose track (probably the end closest to the RIP track) to store MOW equipment? Well, I mean I know I can, but I think the question is should I?

Again, thanks for all your help. This is rapidly becoming a far more functional shelf layout, and I truly appreciate all the help.

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I spent the summer of '77 living in a dorm with only a soccer field between dorm and RFP. There was an orange juice train just about everyday. Amtrak(ok, they didn’t exist in '63) had two trains each way and a few strings of box cars daily. I don’t recall any coal drags, hoppers, covered hoppers, gondolas, tank cars, flat cars, or other freight on the line. For whatever that might be worth. I’ve always thought there should be more models of this busy line, especially since it managed to hang on so long into the mergermania era.

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Mmm - why not ? You wouldn’t automatically get a queue where new arrivals are added at one end of the queue and new departures are picked from the other end of the queue. But it ought to be easy enough to pull one or two cars extra to get the one you really want, drop that one off and then put the other car or cars back on the caboose track for now. Caboose track, as drawn in last drawing above, is would fit about six 40’ car equivalents.

Btw - I would really encourage you to consider dropping one of the two car repair tracks at the right hand bottom end of the yard - you could probably save yourself maybe 4" of width here and dramatically improve reach at the industry tracks across the main from the A/D tracks.

Now:

Narrower shelf:

Smile,
Stein

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Well, after much debate, both here and intenally, I finally have what I think is the final rendition of the Roanoke Yards for the RF&P Western Division.

Here’s a link to the plan (be warned, this is a very large image).

Features:

  1. Two track staging. This actually became more important to me as I went along. I realized that if I planned to stay at all interested in this layout for any period of time, I needed to be able to run multiple trains in and then back out of the yard in a realistic fashion. So I cut off one track from the former double tracked oil dealer, and expanded the mainline/staging area to accomodate two tracks.

  2. Narrow Shelves. Since this layout sits pretty high off the floor, I needed to be able to reach all the way to the back, as Stein very patiently pointed out to me on multiple occasions. After doing some mockups with cardboard, I realized exactly what he was talking about. I managed to shave enough off to reduce the width of the largest shelf from 24" to 18". This should keep me from knocking over cars on the classification tracks trying to reach past them.

  3. Industrial switching. By rearranging some of my switches, and laying out some things a little better, again thanks to the advice from a variety of posters on this forum, I ended up with far more industries than in my original plan. Counting the car shop, and the fuel and sand house area, I have a total of 7 industries, accepting a wide variety of flats, boxes, tanks, reefers, and even the occasional gondola.

  4. Functional. Perhaps the one thing that took the longest to sink into my admittedly thick skull was the idea that the parts of the yard needed to be collectively functional, not just individually. IOW, classification shouldn’t block the main, mainline trains inbound or outbound shouldn’t tie up the yard lead (aside from the occasinal

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Looks good to me, Greg.

I like the addition of the supply track for the engine service area - it creates an extra industry at very low cost.

I like the way you put in the staging - good balance between keeping the oil dealer as a viable industry and yet having (open/visibile, right?) staging.

And I like the way you moved the middle industry crossover left - it gains more space for switchback moves when setting out cars for the REA warehouse.

I also like what you did with the shelf widths. You went even narrower than I drew in, and it made the plan better. Good call to do the cardboard mockups to test reach at the shelf elevation you wanted.

Also, moving that leftmost crossover from the yard lead even further left than I had drawn it in seems like a good judgement call. The drawback is that it does the functional length of the yard lead when taking cars from the yard to the industries or when bringing cars from the industries to the yard a little.

But on the other hand it gains you a longer runaround between the yard lead and the main, which gains you flexibility when switching industries with right facing tracks (ie the oil dealer and the warehouse) - as long as you have room for an engine at the left end of either of the two A/D tracks, you can use this runaround when switching industries - so you won’t have to use the diagonal

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Stein,

Again, I want to thank you, as well as the other members who chimed in on this thread with suggestions, ideas, and memories. This shelf layout is now far better than it was in my original incarnation. Another thanks for making me (unintentionally, I’m sure) put down the pencil and start using some CAD software to design this with. I ended up switching from RTS to XTrk. I didn’t like the limitations of RTS, and XTrk actually lets me put in railroad equipment, which was an enormous help during the redesign. Of course, the software also makes revisions much easier. [:D]

As for the staging, I think that will only be partially visible, at least from the front of the layout. I don’t want to have several trains just sitting there not doing anything for long periods of time, so I’ll probably play with some kind of viewblock. It shouldn’t impact accessibility in any way, since I can also reach the short end of that side of the shelf very comfortably. I do want the oil dealer to be a visible industry, so I’ll probably make the trains visible as they come around the corner and into the yard.

After reading your last post, I went back and looked at the yard lead. I really hadn’t realized how short it was after I moved those switches around. I will probably add another 12" or so of track to the end of it, just to help eliminate any problems like the ones you mentioned.

Finally, for the interested, I’ll be posting updates and pictures as construction progresses. You can see them on my website at http://www.aelfen.net/train_main.asp .

Greg H