Here is a VERY rough sketch of my latest thoughts on a layout. Let me tell you about my goals first off. I’m not much on switching, so I don’t need a lot of industries. I don’t have room for a huge yard. I love steam engines and want them visible, so an engine facility is a must. I like Pennsy coal hauling, so I want a coal mine. I want to be able to put together 3 or 4 trains (a passenger, a coal train, a mixed freight, etc) and just run them through some nice scenery - switching out locomotives now and then. 25" min. radius on the main, 20" on the branch. So here is what I have in mind:
I know it is a little rough, and you can’t see the elevations… But the branch line set inside the mainline on the right wing starts to climb right after it leaves the main - and runs up to the mine set in the hill. Dropping back down the branch to the main on the other side, there is a stub end siding by the passing track to set out coal hoppers on. I’ll use a small steam engine (probably 2-8-0) to work that branch with its steep grade and tighter curves.
The left wing has my engine facility, and the passing siding on the far left doubles as a passenger station stop with a small baggage spur. Also, the Y at the end of the siding gives me reverse loop ability. The blue line is a backdrop splitting the right wing - it slopes down and into the scenery before the mine. What do you think? Any thoughts or input are appreciated.
If your passenger cars are longer than 72ft, you will want wider radius curves (28 min). You might have the width for that if you are willing to compromise on the entrance throat to the operating “pit”. Also you will want No 6 or No 8 turnouts at the passenger station area.
Is the turntable an absolute druther, or would you consider dropping it to add some industrial sidings? You might also consider squeezing in a passing siding off the the inner main line (seeing as how you allow for reversing direction of travel).
Your pike seems nice at first glance, you will face some long term problems however. Are you a new kid in town?; my guess only.
Operationaly your trains can do just some laprunning; they don’t go from A to B. Are you familiar with the concept of staging?
You did add some spurs, to many important spurs are omitted.
The entrance of your aisle is one foot wide; at least one foot short.
Looking at a trackplan I have a shortlist of questions, do you have staging (no), do you have a passingsiding (yes, even two), do you have an interchange track (no), do you have a teamtrack and a freighthouse track in your stations (no) and do you have a spur to a big landmark industry (yes, the mine).
The underlying question is about your intentions , are you modeling a railroad or do you want having some fun with trains. If you are into modeling a railroad you have to research how things were done by the real thing.
E.G. the mine run leaves an interchange yard with the main and brings empties to the mine. The loads from the mine are brought back to the yard. The engine that does the mine run is being serviced at the same interchange yard. The engine service facilities can also be used by mainline engines. Steamers needed to be serviced every hunderd miles or so, and after servicing they were sent back to their home, heading the next train in the opposite direction. What you have now is a big engine and crew change yard, but I see no yard at all in your design.
What I did is describing an operating pattern, e.g. mainline freights running from staging to staging (from A to B), picking up loads and dropping off empties at a small interchange yard. The mine run starts and ends in the same yard and swaps the empties for loads at the mine. The mining operations n
The size is on the drawing, basically 12’ down the left side, 6’ at the bottom, 11’6" at the widest point. I don’t show it on there, but that basic shape is constrained by doors into the room.
Alan - I currently have a loop of track that I am tearing down, and my passenger cars run well on it - I just went down and remeasured - it is 27", so you are correct that I need wider radius. I’ll squeeze in 28" - I’m skinny, so I’ll manage LOL.
The turntable is a must - I want my steam engines to be the focal point so I can display them. I will have more exposed tracks off of the table than the couple I show. I don’t care about more industrial sidings.
I’m really after a nice little stage to run a couple trains through. Coordinating passings and working the mine branch are more than enough “operation” for me. My passion is painting/weathering equipment and steam engines. And I like to just relax and have a train run around slowly coming and going through the scenes. Truth is, I’m not big on making buildings and scenery, and if I had the money, I’d pay for a nice layout to my specs and just enjoy my trains. But I don’t have it…
Paul - I had started my earlier reply before your post I guess. Some of your questions I answered above, but not all. I’m not new to model railroading, but have never gotten a layout much off the ground due to other life circumstances.
I was going to keep the entrance aisle at 18" - not optimum, but I’m skinny and don’t expect alot of company in the middle.
I was thinking of staging - that would be great. Off of the upper left corner (up in the drawing), there is a closet that I was thinking of trying to put a staging yard in and run a line off that side - hiding it somehow.
I know wider radius is better - but my equipment runs on 27" like I said above - don’t see how I can do much more than that with the space I have.
One other difference that I thought of in terms of operations would be to somehow squeeze another stub siding on the side where the mine branch comes off - so empties could be dropped off of the mainline there and picked up by the mine engine. Fulls could be placed on the stub end I already show on the other side.
Do you have the option of using a temporary bridge across the door? With you desires something along the lines of an around the walls shelf layout could give larger radius curves. Basically use one side of the room for staging and the other as the visible town for trains to pass through. You could then do a fairly decent engine terminal on a pennisula in the middle of the room.
Here is a sketch of the room - you can see just how difficult the room is I have to work with (1 door, 2 closets, a fireplace, and patio doors). And I have to keep at least part of it useable for other purposes.
Considering the space you have, I think you pretty much established the best shape for the layout, although you might consider D shaped layout with a duckunder operating pit. Only you know best how to use your multi-purpose room, so you’ve probably already worked different shapes for the layout into your thinking.
It looks like you only have one reverse loop, the one on the left side. You’ll want two in order to change the direction of the train again. Probably in the peninsula.
Since you like to paint, weather, and display your rolling stock, I would think a storage yard makes sense. That entire left lobe could be a storage yard and engine terminal with an urban scene, if you don’t mind building some structures.
I don’t know why the branch has to have a steep grade, as you say, since the track doesn’t cross over another. You won’t gain much scenic separation by elevating the mine only a few more inches by using a steeper grade. A row of trees or steep hill in between the main and the mine would hide the mine just a bit and provide some separation without having to use real steep grades. If you lowered the grade, you might be able to have the branch re-enter the main farther up, avoiding it being so close to the backdrop when you’re trying to spot cars on the siding or storage track.
You mentioned you wanted to use the closet at the upper right side. Can you add the closet to your drawing? And just writing: this part has be kept free, is to easy. Precize boundaries are needed.
What i tried to suggest was building two towns: one up the mountain with a mine, on Tony Koester’s Coal Fork Extension you will find two nice exemples (MR track Plan database) and Allan McClalland draw a great mining town in his Muddlety Creek plan in MRP. Down in the valley is the second town, where loads and empties are swapped and the mine run engines are being serviced.
All in all you’r a bit to rough to my taste. You are drawing #2 switches, #6’s on the main will take way more space. Do you want to have a loop to loop design? Or a point to loop, with the point in staging? Can you really use that closet?
Can you reach all points on that left side loop, especially the passing siding? Murphy’s Law says that’s where you’ll have the most derailments and other problems if you can’t reach it easily.
Might not hurt to flatten out the design into a schematic (not track) to better understand the flow of things (for instance the above comment on the second reversing loop).
I agree with some of the other comments: specifically, do you REALLY need a turntable? I think your operation would be better served by using that space to create another industrial siding. Also, do you really need to run passenger trains on this layout? I think it is quite small for too much passenger tra
OK, while the other comments are on target with regard to things like needing larger radii curves and needing to consider some staging.storage tracks, heres a suggestion not yet made.
You show the branchline leaving the main and then reconnecting with it on the opposite side of the right hand ‘blob’. Eliminate the reconnection. Spend a little time researching coal mine operations in the late 40s and 50s. Conside having the branchline leave the mainline as shown on the inside aisle of the layout. have it climb (steeply say 2.5%) up as it goes northeast and then loops back and heads SW down the outside aisle side. Have the mainline on the outside aisle side enter a tunnel with the mine locate directly above. You can then have a 2 or 3 track tipple, have it closer to the aisle, and have storage tracks for loads and empties like a real mine operation would have. The mainline inside the tunnel could then have the passing siding and even room for some short staging tracks inside the hill… Scenickly, there would be a rise behind the mine which would separate it and the outside aisle from the ins
You show the branchline leaving the main and then reconnecting with it on the opposite side of the right hand ‘blob’. Eliminate the reconnection. Spend a little time researching coal mine operations in the late 40s and 50s. Conside having the branchline leave the mainline as shown on the inside aisle of the layout. have it climb (steeply say 2.5%) up as it goes northeast and then loops back and heads SW down the outside aisle side. Have the mainline on the outside aisle side enter a tunnel with the mine locate directly above. You can then have a 2 or 3 track tipple, have it closer to the aisle, and have storage tracks for loads and empties like a real mine operation would have. The mainline inside the tunnel could then have the passing siding and even room for some short staging tracks inside the hill… Scenickly, there would be a rise behind the mine which would separate it and the outside aisle from the inside aisle, serving as a view block.
Another variation would be to have the branch line depart from the main on the east side of the peninsula, then eliminate the reconnection on the west side (where it originates now), and instead, rise to reach the coal mine that is above trackage that would be concealed in a tunnel; essentially, in the skinny part of the layout in the lower left. The 2-8-0 consolidation would switch the mine, travel along the peninsula, around the bend, and back down to the main, where it meets the siding; a natural storage area until the local can retrieve it. The OP should have enough space to have the multiple tipple tracks at the mine like you suggest,and, he appears to have enough access there to widen the benchwork away from its skinniness. The east side junction could be a focal point of operations, which would separate another focal point, the mine, from yet another focal point, the yard and terminal. The longer ru
Doughless - I really like that idea about the mine - I’ll work on it some more, using what you suggest.
Thanks everyone for the input! There are a bunch of good ideas and comments in there - that is what I was looking for. I appreciate it for sure! I know it is rough, I am just trying to get some general “big picture” id
Ok, I knew someone else would eventually mention my first thought. Elimination of the double connection of the “branch” allows the mine to be done differently for much more interesting operations. Possibly even with a wye Atlas did in their “Plywood Summit” plan. AND/OR maybe use a switchback to get to the mine such as the D&RGW did to get to the Monarch mine.
Below is a diagram of a layout I did (jr. high) using a similar concept. The mine has its own locomotive (and caboose) and runs cars from the mine down the branch into the valley to interchange with the main line and brings empties back. The long dog-leg siding is the mine set-out / pick-up track. The mine can be worked while through trains rumble through the valley below. The mine is actually set OVER a section of the main line to give it more room.
Well, I did some thinking last night on this layout. I was thinking about what I said about wanting a stage to run my trains through. And I also thought about something I have always said - if I could go back in time for just one day, I would go back to the heyday of steam and spend the whole day standing on Horseshoe curve watching the trains go by. So, I’m thinking of making my own version of Horseshoe curve with tunnels on both ends so the back half of the layout is hidden - and with a little hidden staging on the back side under the mountains.
Yep, no “operations” what-so-ever! I know some of you guys think that is absurd, but I actually think it might be just what I want. I did some quick figuring, and I can do 3 mainlines with 30", 28" and 26" minimums in my space. And the good thing is that the actual “horseshoe”, while somewhat shallow, would have 30", 32" and 34" radius. If I wanted to, I think I could even squeeze in the fourth line at 24" and keep it to only freight trains. I’m thinking 2% grade to workem hard, but not look too steep. And I was thinking of superelevating the track a little, I think that would look good.
What better stage than being able to run 4 trains at a time - with helpers on the uphill side. With them running nice and slow and being hidden under the entire back half of the layout, I think it wouldn’t seem toylike at all. I am seriously considering this!
There is an element of railfanning layout of trains through the mountains on one side of the new 2010 MR project railroad that they are doing in the magazine right now, too.
The introductory project article included a comment in passing that one unusual but quite possibly effective way of simulating that trains are working hard uphill is to let the hill tracks be flat (so you won’t have to do a helix at the other end to make a continuous run), but to use the speed the trains run at to signal whether they are going uphill or downhill.
Trains moving “uphill” on the flat track just has helpers at the back and moves a lot more slowly, like they are struggling with the hill.
