Connection with places

[Maxitrains]

Hi,

Can anyone kindly tell me if the following places have any connection together?

Tallulah, Paint Springs, Jellico, Ashville & George Crossing (don't even know if this is a place ).

I've been trying to figure this out lately, but couldn't get the match.

Can anyone help?

 

[Railphotog]

Might help if you mentioned in which country/state/province/territory they might be located in. Have you tried a search on Google Maps? Or Google Earth?

 

[Maxitrains]

These places should be all in the USA, which state or province I don't really know, all I want to know if these places are connected to each other somehow and how far are they from each other.

 

[WCWBrassHat]

Jellico shows up in TN, Tallulah shows up in LA. Ashville is in AL, OH, NY, PA, NC, PA, KY, FL, ME, and VA. Ashville, AL doesn't have any railroad service, so you can probably cross it off the list.

How did you get these place names?

Glenn

 

[Maxitrains]

Hi Glenn, thanks for your reply.

I actually got these names from the layout I chose to simulate, and I chose this particular layout from a book of 100 different layout, because to my eye it has potential in scenery effects since it has different levels of height, and background almost all surrounded in mountains. But honestly I couldn't quite match all these three places in one layout, even though I'm still gonna keep on working on this layout, matching places or not.

This is the plan I am working on

 

[SpaceMouse]

Can we assume this is N scale?

 

[Maxitrains]

You can assume whatever you want to , but this is HO at least I'm doing it in HO, and every square is 1 square foot. On the book I took it from it says its a table of 8 feet by 4 feet. Now since the rails on the sides are almost at the edge of the layout I had decided to give the layout 1 more extra foot ( 6 inches on each side ) to have more space to work on the scenery.

 

[jbaakko]

Actually, I just looked at picking up a layout with almost that EXACT track plan, but slightly modified. It was HO scale, 4'x8'

 

[Maxitrains]

I liked this layout because of its different heights, the lower part is about 2" off the board and goes up to 8" at the highest point, then there are the hills and mountains which add more height to the scenery. I like all kind of layouts, but mountainous layouts are my favourite. The most dangerous part of this layout is the mid crossing point, which has a 90° intersection, which is quite dangerous if you do not install some detectors with cutout block on each incomming side. I also had a hard time finding such a cross intersection, so I had to do it myself.

 

[SpaceMouse]

I would seriously consider trying to duplicate the plan with XtrkCAD using the type of track that plan to use on it. There are a couple reasons for this.

1) The magazines did not make their layouts to scale when publishing them, rather had them drawn by graphic artists.

2) The turnouts used in the layouts were often modified or hand laid to fit.

I used XtrkCAD to replicate one that was in the books as 12" x 16 ft. It took 18" by 18 ft. to get it done with turnouts currently available.

The up-shot of those points is that your plan is very tight. Make sure it works/fits before you spend the bucks.

Your curves are very tight probably just less than 18". This requires that you use engines that can make the turns--small steam or geared steam. You also have some very steep grades which I'm guessing in the neighborhood of 4-5%.

While modern diesels do those grades okay, small steam does not do them so well. I had two inclines on my last layout and I was running small steam. On the 3.1% with my 11 engines I could get 4-13 cars up the slope. On the 3.7% grade, those same engines could get 0-4 cars up. Those included geared stuff.

[edit]But once again silly me. It seems while I wrote this that you posted that you have already built this. I was going to mention the track close to the edge, but you have solved it. The extra foot will also have helped make those tight curves.

Tell me what kinds of engines do you run and how do they work?

 

[SpaceMouse]

I can't tell you where you are wrong. You can't argue with success. While I would have had reservations about building this layout--stuff like there is a lot of track with not a lot of room between to make elevation changes, the fact that you have solved the problems shows me that you are very creative.

I suggest you open a thread with a photo layout tour. I'd love to see it.

 

[Maxitrains]

I had to be realistic, as you said most of the times the layouts are only drawings and not something made to scale, and infact they don't even specify tracks or radiuses, they give you a center point but nothing really exact, I had to mix and match to get it almost there and didn't do it all as it said on the plan, some places I still don't know how am I gonna build the scenery, since some of the upper track decking is almost overlapping the one below, I will be illustrating these problems in the future with photos.

When I finished joining all the layout, I realized that I had no space where to insert new locos while the others were running, so I had very little space where to add another siding, which is not included in the plan, where I can comfortably place the loco with cars, and then get it running. My greatest drawback is that I don't have any long sidings on this layout, so I have to use small cars and also few of them.

I will edit my previous post, where I have my layout's plan, and put the picture of my actual layout, so it can be compared.

BTW I didn't quite understand your last words when U said to open a thread with photo tour, what did U exactly mean, take close up pics of specific places in the layout? I also have another drawback, my webspace is full and I don't have where to upload my pics to show them here.