Updated first timer N scale layout design

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I have incorporated numerous suggestions made here, pushed the staging area through a wall (and thus avoided a short radius helix) and posted photos taken last week from the Burns, Malheur, Steens and Alvord area.

Plans, photos, and descriptions can be found here:

http://www.whiteweasel.net/leonard/rail/index.html

Leonard

2

A very nice plan. I think it could be built into a very impressive layout. I enjoyed the history. I have but 1 question/comment:

  • Since there is no runaround at either end of the mine branch, the yard will have to be used to get the train in proper switching order before going up to the mine. The mine branch will be strictly a push/pull operation with no option to do differently. Is this your intent?

I assume the dead-end yard tail (at the far left) is sized to allow locomotives pulling a train in to escape to the servicing facilities, and is also long enough for a switcher to pull the desired cut of cars from one yard track to another to make up the mine train.

I’m not sure how practical the spurs on the reverse loops are.

my thoughts, your choices

Fred W

3

Thanks for the comments.

Yes, the operation on the mining spur is intended to be a push/pull service, with the locomotive being a 2 truck shay. I should have mentioned the push/pull mode in the text.

The staging area has been giving me fits. I have such a limited space, and I’m probably trying to do too much with it, or just do not have the talent to create a good design within the given space. The yards for the staging area are indeed pathetic, and will probably evolve into something else. At least to start with the staging area will just be track on roadbed on the bench-work, with nothing else, and so changes should be (relatively) easy to make even after track is laid.

4

Yes the staging area seems like an incredible waste of space. If you join the two yards (to make a continous loop) and create a double ended yard from their joining you could have 10-12 nice staging tracks with access to either direction. At the same time you remove two reverse loops.

It has improved a lot.

5

Okay, I’ve divorced the reverse loops from the layout, before my wife divorced me over the increased use of space in yet another room. I’ve shrunk the staging area bench down to 12" wide and created a double ended yard with 5 sidings plus a run-around siding. A turntable will swap locomotive direction.

Thanks again for the great input!