This was posted late on another thread so I thought we could give it a fresh start. The reason I’m starting the thread is that I’m hosting the picture, so here goes;
OK everybody,
Here is tyhatts trackplan;
He has asked that we look it over and see if we can find any problems or suggest changes to make it better.
Here’s what tyhatts says about his plan, (this is a compilation and condensation of several posts)
do u think i should change to # 6 turnouts?
i plan on runnin all new rolling stock and locos… well…i just want a switcher… the “plan” is to add on later on.
the very top track thats pretty much straight across the layout is the track i hope to add on to… i just want to get a BIIIIIG main line so i can run big trains… im using the upper right hand track ( with the re railer ) as the inbound track and then the yard at the left as … i guess u could say staging ??? the plan is to have the inbound cars all mixed up in those tracks and then having to put the right cars at the right industries… then once every thing is " loaded " i plan on putting them back there neatly !!! i dont know if thats the right way of doing things… i dont really know the names for all the types of sidings or parts of track… but i try !!! hahahah maybe i should add a loop to the outside and have the yard in the middle … that way i can have a nice train goin around while i play with the switching yard.
There have been several responses already. They are here;
From pcarrell;
tyhatts,
The locomotive facility is needing a little more work. There is very little room for a fueling/coaling/water facility and also a sanding facility
To be honest, I think he’d be tearing his hair out in 10 minutes.
One problem I see is the run-around track terminating with a short lead at the turntable. That’s a long way to go each and every time you want to make a move and the lead is too short.
The tracks at the upper left also need a crossover so an engine can escape after pulling in cars.
Further, if the tracks to the lower center right are supposed to be useable for industry, he’ll only be able to switch one car at a time out of there. That’ll get old real fast.
The lead is a bit short, but he should only be shuffling two or three cars at a time on a small switching layout anyways.
An escape would be good in the yards, but I’m not sure that there’s room for it as the layout sits now without some pretty sizable changes.
Lastly, switching one car at a time would extend your working time on the RR and make the layout seem bigger then it is IMHO. The work given would take longer to do and require more moves to do it, therefore…
Agree with what others have said. Leads are frustratingly short and the lead into the turntable is kind of impractical.
Being forced to “switch one car at a time” will get old pretty fast and is certainly not realistic. Not the best introduction to operation or to model railraoding in general.
Then sort of starting from scratch I got the one below. Still has many problems like way too many parallel to the edge tracks, lost the locomotive storage facilities, etc. BUT for what it is worth:
I was doing the same thing yesterday. I was messing around with this to see what I could come up with. I was playing with the TT in the lower left corner and the roundhouse in the upper left. A small yard kind of goes diagonal ending next to the TT and extends towards the upper right of the center. That’s about as far as I got though. I’ll see if I can’t finish it on Monday and post it.
Both of those are pretty good. The second lacks some indoor storage for the loco, but it’s not bad at all. The first is good also, but I don’t know about the runaround setup. seems a little querky. I don’t know, it’s late, maybe it’s just me…
No, its not you. Its a combination of trying to keep some relation to the original plan as well as intentionally tricky, so it doesn’t just end up just shuffling cars.
I think the real issue with the first one I did, is that there isn’t enough left hand industry track to justify the run around… Hence the funny double “switch back” to get to that final left hand industry.
