Building My First Layout

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Marlin338MX said:
Thanks PMW! It's crazy how long these cars are. All of my curved track is 18" radius. I wish it was 22", but that would make the layout that much wider. I'm glad it works on the 18" track. I'm sure it would look better in the bigger radius track, but it is what it is...
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I know we often make fun of them, but AHM / Rivarossi (well, and the one IHC I see in there) did a great job providing good looking, affordable cars that would easily negotiate an 18" curve.
 
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I've been spending some time trying to tune some of my rolling stock to make the cars roll as smooth as possible. One car in particular that's been giving me problems is my Athearn Santa Fe RPO car. It would derail itself at random places along the tracks, but especially at the turnouts. The weight of the car meets the NMRA standards. The wheels turn very freely in the trucks. They are metal wheelsets. I was almost out of ideas, because the two other Athearn passenger cars run perfectly. So tonight I removed the trucks and rolled one of them on the tracks all by itself. Sure enough, it derailed while going through a turnout. I have some Walthers Proto metal 36" wheelsets on hand, so I swapped the factory wheels with the Walthers. Problem solved! The factory wheels are too narrow and are literally falling in between the rails.

Here's a comparison of the factory wheels (right) next to the Walthers wheels (left)
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I haven't checked the wheels on the other 2 Athearn passenger cars because they've never had any problems. These are cars from my dad's collection, so I don't know the history on them. I'm just happy that I figured it out before I relegated the RPO car to a display case.

Edit to add a pic of the RPO car
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Below is a pic of the Santa Fe passenger train with 7 cars (2 baggage cars in front of the RPO), with a PA1/PB1/PA1 lash-up (Athearn blue box). Only the lead PA1 is powered
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I have 2 locos that have the dual mode DC/DCC decoders, so I hooked up my MRC Tech 6 Sound Controller 2.0. I disconnected the Railpower 1370 on the right side of my control panel and hooked up the Tech 6 in its place. It's nice to have the Tech 6 and be able to run my Atlas Burlington Northern GE U30B and my Walthers Proto Union Pacific EMD F7A & F7B units (both A & B are powered) in DCC mode on my DC layout without fully converting everything to DCC.

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I've been considering my options for adding more track to make room to park my passenger trains and other long trains when I'm not using them. Right now, the only place to park them is on the 2 mainline tracks, which doesn't allow me to run my other trains and locos.

My best and only real option, due to the limited space remaining in my attic, was to extend the yard on the right side of my layout.

This is the current track plan
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This is my new track plan
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The red curve is the current track plan for comparison. That curve will be removed in the new track plan. I added 4ft x 7ft in two separate sections, a 4ft x 4ft section and a 3ft x 4ft section. I only have enough walk-around space to extend the benchwork 3ft south of the red curved line (yellow line), and 8ft long (purple line).

This plan extends that yard enough to hold several trains that are 12+/- ft long without occupying the 2 mainlines.

I have the new additions in place. Now it's time to organize the mess and get ready to lay more track and cork roadbed.

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Maybe a dumb question - what is the curve radii on the new extension inside track of the yard? You may have to widen things out a bit on the tangent track to the left to keep from hitting stuff coming/going on the 2nd inside curve.
 
ctclibby said:
Maybe a dumb question - what is the curve radii on the new extension inside track of the yard? You may have to widen things out a bit on the tangent track to the left to keep from hitting stuff coming/going on the 2nd inside curve.
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Not a dumb question at all. All the curves are 18". That's my concern as well, especially with the 85ft passenger cars. My plan is to assemble one spur at a time, starting with the right side spur and working my way to the left, checking for clearances in those curves.
 


Todd: Don't know what CAD program you are using. Will it do Flex and has the ability for parallel tracks? Parallel is a button on my CAD and it lets me change the center to center distance too. To me it is better getting the CAD plan close to what you want as it is much easier to cut/copy/paste in CAD than it is to check center to center over/under hang, than rip up roadbed and rail. 18" radii for those long cars is a killer, you may need to route those to the larger radii which should not be a big deal.

Oh, and I would start from the inside smallest radii and work out. Those inside curves probably will have greater center to center distance which can become less as you go out. Looks like you have room, so you might even think about just setting the inside radii at 24" or something then work from there. You can extend the ends of the yard to meet your 12' train size if wanted. I just went through this - my inside radii was 26 3/4" and I had to make 2.5" centers for those dang passenger cars.

Later
 
Todd: I'm using the Atlas track planning software. I don't see a function for parallel tracks, but it will do flex track. Fortunately, my passenger cars were all made maybe 30 years ago, and they run really good on my layout, which is 100% 18" curves. They are Rivarossi, Model Power and blue box Athearn. I still have enough 18" curved track from my dad's collection to nearly finish this addition, so I am hoping I can make it work. But I'm not against buying bigger radius curves if I need to. I do like how good the trains look on the bigger curves, but there's no way I can replace my 18" mainline curves with 22" or 24" due to lack of space.

I did change my yard curves to 22" on the track plan. It looks good and fits just fine in the space I have. The 22" radii creates more space between the tracks, especially in the curves, as expected. I'll also try it will 24" radii and see how everything fits.

I'll permanently lay the track and roadbed for the mainline, then put the yard tracks down without roadbed so I can make sure there is plenty of space between the tracks before I make the yard tracks permanent.

I appreciate your suggestions and feedback!
 
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I've made a bunch of progress on the newest addition. All the track is laid on cork roadbed. The unpainted part is where the valley and creek will go, along with their respective wooden trestles. It's a better location than my original plan. The 7 "L" shaped tracks will hold 4 long passenger trains and 3 long freight trains.

I've also been adding weight to all of my rolling stock, and adding knuckle couplers to a few cars as needed.

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Some of the buildings aren't in their final places yet, but at least those are small adjustments.
 
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