Newbie needs layout opinions and/or suggestions please...

[Screwjack]

Okay, newbie here and I am trying to decide what to do for my first layout. I have a couple of ideas in my photo albums here;

Layout 1

Layout 2

What I am really looking for is something that will be interesting to run, but not too complicated for a newbie, I would like to be expandable in the future in case fall in love with this hobby. I am loking to have a layout size about 30X78 or up to 48X96, so if any of you experts would take a look at my photos and either offer up suggestions or ideas I would appreciate it. If you have a totally different idea please offer it up also.

One more thing, being new to this I am really not too sure on the wiring so any tips there would be helpful too. I am going to start with dc at first just to keep the cost down for now.

So hey, let the suggestions come

Thanks,
Tony

P.S.; I am working with "N" scale...

 

[Selector]

It is interesting with the return loop (the diagonal), but do you appreciate that a return loop presents polarity problems that you will have to manage? More on that in a second...or fifty.

What is the purpose of the single spur with multiple branches? A single engine spotting cars at any one of those industries, if that is what they will serve, blocks the work of any other engine potentially. I would have maybe two tracks there at most.

But that is very little "work" for the engine(s). You now have a vast expanse unclaimed by track nearest the camera in the new version. What do you have in mind?

I'm trying to get you to understand that we can't be of much use to you unless you have a firm grasp of the "nature" of your railroad as represented in any plan you produce for us to assess. You don't want to load up the entire board with tracks, but you also want some "revenue" for your railroad. In that respect, I would urge you to place at least one spur into that open area, and make its access direction opposite to the one(s) in the other half, beyond your diagonal track. You don't want any one train being able to run one way around the outer loop always able to back a cut of cars to spot them at an industry. In some cases you want the engine having to lead the cut of cars into the siding or spur. When that happens, the engine must be able to escape, so you need what is called a "runaround" track...two more turnouts leading to a short siding that lets your engine slip around the the back of the cut and shove them home under a hopper or whatever.

Your diagonal: If you follow the rails mentally, you will find that the rails eventually contact themselves once they meet again through a turnout. At this point you get a short...a positive meets a negative. This will work, but not when the short is permitted. You need to place tiny gaps at each end of that diagonal, immediately after the divering route of the turnouts, where the joiner should be. No joiner, unless it is a plastic one for alignment. Then, to provide power to this isolated segment, you will need a pair of feeder wires up to it controlled by a double-pole double throw switch (DPDT) that will allow you to flip the polarity in that segment before your train comes back through the turnout and causes the short.

I hope I haven't lost you, or that I have been explaining stuff you already know.

-Crandell

 

[Screwjack]

Okay, that all makes sense (I think?)

I do have the reverse loop figured out. I actually just got done reading about the wiring on it. So I am good with the reverse loop thing.

A single engine spotting cars at any one of those industries, if that is what they will serve, blocks the work of any other engine potentially. I would have maybe two tracks there at most.

Not to clear on what you are advising me above. I am thinking you are saying I should add another turnout and another track off the existing spur? Or are you saying I should run an entire new spur?

You don't want any one train being able to run one way around the outer loop always able to back a cut of cars to spot them at an industry. In some cases you want the engine having to lead the cut of cars into the siding or spur. When that happens, the engine must be able to escape, so you need what is called a "runaround" track...two more turnouts leading to a short siding that lets your engine slip around the the back of the cut and shove them home under a hopper or whatever.

The above quote I am having a hard time with. I am either to new to this hobby or not familiar with railroad operation (or both) to understand exactly what you are suggesting I do and where to do it.

I'm trying to get you to understand that we can't be of much use to you unless you have a firm grasp of the "nature" of your railroad as represented in any plan you produce for us to assess.

I guess like I said in the previous post, I want something not too complicated but fun to work with. If you are looking for exactly what I want to do with the railroad, well again maybe I am too new at this to even know myself. But, I think I would like (if possible) a kind of small hodge podge of things to get a taste of what I am getting into. I was thinking about some industry in order to get to know how to work the switching and running engines and swapping cars around, plus I wanted to have a small residential area possibly with a train station to run a passenger train around the main line.

Thanks I appreciate the comments and will work on the extra spur. I hope my explanation of what I want helps you and others as to what I am looking for in this first layout.

 

[Selector]

The runaround is like a small siding off a siding...or off a spur to an industry. If you are running down a single track main and have to drop off two boxcars at an auto parts manufacturer, you take the turnout and trundle down the spur. You get to where the cars are needed and you park them. Now what? You towed the cars in and have no way to get yourself out! You would want to be able to move ahead, through a turnout, throw the points, and then back, diverging, onto a parallel track that allows you to continue reversing past the cars you just cut loose. You soon encounter a second turnout, through which you will enter the diverging route and rejoin the spur, but this time behind the cars you just dropped. You can keep reversing out to the main or if you need to move the cars further forward, but didn't want to foul the turnout and ruin your runaround procedure, you can now couple to the last car and shove them further down the track, maybe to a loading dock. Once the cars are where they are meant to be, you reverse all the way back to the main and do what you are tasked with on the rest of your train order.

I have just described a runaround track.

 

[Screwjack]

Crandell,

Do you mean something like this;

Runaround?

Minus the little alignment issue I have to work out.

This is what I did to the layout based on your suggestions from the previous two posts;

Layout 2 mod_1

If this is waht you are suggesting then I will only need to figure out how to wire it up. Well, I think I still need a bigger base, by the time I lay track bed it might over hang the edge.

 

[Selector]

The first "runaround" at the top does qualify as a runaround, but I would classify it as an unnecessary one. If you do the same thing, but place one on any of your industrial tracks (they run beside where you spot your cars at industries), you have your runaround tracks.

-----<==============>------------ is a runaround, except I couldn't draw a turnout's geometry. Place one of these at at least one, or most, industry tracks. I don't mean near the main, but it would be at the last single tangent section/length of track where the cars will be plunked and left with brakes engaged. IOW, after the last turnout before the track dead-ends. It is along this length that you must effect your escape if you lead in the cut of cars to be spotted at the industry served by this bit of tangent track.

Note that there are such things as "team" tracks, although the term comes from horse teams pulling wagons that would run atop ramps between rows of boxcars. If you had two closely set parallel tracks with a raised platform with ramp access to one or both ends of the platform, you could have a team track. The point is that you would use a turnout and crossover between them, near the end, so that a lead engine could escape by backing down the (hopefully) empty parallel track.

I don't want to bog you down unnecessarily with too much nitty gritty, but for your track plan to work well, you want to imagineer it as if you are really in the tiny engine. Go everywhere, play various scenarios at each industry, and then figure out how to deal with any problems the way the prototype would do it. In the case of industrial tracks, a runaround is often highly desirable.

-Crandell

 

[Screwjack]

Okay, just so I am sure I understand this;

You are saying I should remove the runaround that I do not need, but do the same track arrangement at the industrial spurs, right?

If so, I will give it a try tonight after work.

 

[hamltnblue]

I see you have some extra room. Any chance of making the layout alittle wider? With the track on the edge you will eventually have one or more of your collection crashing to the ground.