Hi Judead, Sorry for not getting back to you sooner.
David,
Thanks for the information definitely will look at a minimum of two 8' x 36" wide boards keeping the reach no more that 30".
The idea here is to make it easy to not only reach your trains but also for doing scenery. I have to admit that even I in a few cases have exceeded the 30" reach over and if you have some kind of sturdy smaller step ladder to get up on you can overcome the reach over situation but not always very comfortably but alas it generally only for a short time.
I definitely will make different heights. You mention different heights which brings me to another question what grades are acceptable for trouble free operation?
Elevation variation can add a lot to your layout as it tends separate the areas even if only an inch or two. As to what grades are acceptable is somewhat a personal choice depending on what area your trying to model. For most diesel main lines I believe the grades are generally kept to maximum of 4% but you have to realize also we as modelers or often limited on space so sometimes our grades need to be steeper to gain the needed elevation to cross over another track below even if crossing over a tunnel area. One of the best tricks here is to start your incline as far back as possible to lessen the grade.
I think high would be best as the two year old is quick to grab so I want to make sure she can't do so without supervision.
That sounds like a good idea to me. The height of your layout depends a lot on your height. The more we can tend to view our trains near eye level the more realistic they tend to become. I'm 5' 9" tall and I have my main table height at 45 1/2" and my second level on the mainline is 9"s above that but to attain that I had to have grades between 6 to 8% which is ok as I'm trying to portray back woods rural areas in Colorado which did have some very step grades as well as I probably only be running short trains or may require that I double head or use a helper to push on the rear car which really ads realism to operating and quite a thrill too as I did it one time.
I'm still just using 'DC' but was able to do it.
How many cars can you have on a string with one or two or three locomotives pulling the cars?
That all depends on the traction of which ever loco your referring to and of course if you had two or more loco coupled together their pulling power would basically be doubled or tripled assuming they are all the same.
I'm not really familiar with the new diesels but would think you should be able to pull between 10 to 15 cars up a 4% grade but this is just a guess as it depends of what loco your referring to? I'm in early steam which are much smaller and lighter.
You also mention dropping off cars for various industries. Is it possible to automate and have locomotives pickup and drop off cars at various locations?
Yes, just like the operation on the real railroads, pick-up a freshly loaded car/s and maybe drop of a car or two too be loaded and deliver the loaded car to it's destination, to add some variation to just watching them run. If by automation you mean a database program that will generate a PU/DL schedule for us, yes they are available. I've been playing around with one a bit but I don't know enough about setting up a relational data base to know what to do next in the process. More studding on my part.
Now if your referring to this being done through the use of computers to route the loco's to one spot or another I guess anything is possible but that would alleviate you as the engineer controlling the throttle.
I was thinking of incorporating things the girls know around here such as we have a bun factory that makes mcdonalds buns for their burgers and they use refrigerator cars. We also have a steel recycling company so I was going to incorporate that as well which is box cars with shredded steel in them. Of course there are usually three locomotives tied to a long line of various cars that runs outside of our house constantly. They haul anything from wood to Lowes I am assuming to box cars to car haulers to flatcars with wind turbines as well as humvees etc..
It can get very interesting trying to figure out what materials your going to pick-up and deliver to wherever as well as delivering the raw materials to such as flower etc to the bun factory as an example.
I was curious what brands you guys think are good quality? I would like to have them already painted up for CSX but if not I can do so. I am going to get pictures so I can figure out what models they are.
Many of the guys on the forum seem to like Athearn which I don't have available unfortunnately. But I do have the full line of Atlas, as well as MTH, and Kato and Bachmann.
I also will go to your website and look around. I am not opposed to paying more if where I am buying from offers knowledge in the purchase.
I'll send you a PM explaining my situation and why I have the site without any merchandise in it.
thanks for the information David![/QUOTE]
Your welcome Judead.
Talk with you again, David