tankist
Active Member
i'm not quite done all the things i have planned already but i just can't help but think on further expansion possibilities.
here is the space. that mountain will need to be either demolished or dug through. additional merit of this expansion piece is somewhat logical connection of upper and lower levels scenery-wise.
here is the revised plan.
since the traffic patter is counter clock wise and the engine will get trapped in this spur the operating idea is as follows:
after several loops main train enters the inner loop line and drops a car somwhere on green track (not on the crossover, cant separate color of those two pieces in software that i'm using ATM). if spurs are empty they can be used to cut the train and get the needed car to be left behind. switcher that is hiding in stab 1 picks up the needed car , proceeds with it against the pattern, shoves it into the new red spur and heads back to his stab. main train re-couples any cars it left on spurs and goes to continue his long roundy-round haul once the switcher is safley in the stab.
or that area can be made MOW equipment staging area that will not see a lot of traffic and the pattern will not be an issue (and pedestrian walkway - stairway connecting upper and lower work areas will be nice touch).
the purple expansion is even farther away time-wise as it really takes valuable space and impedes "pedestrian traffic" in the garage. as such it will probably be installed in special occasions only. but both these sections face the same exact questions - curved turnouts.
i read a thread on here of somewhat similar situation and the consensus was that no regular turnout due to its geometry can allow as smooth diverging curve as needed, after all the diverging path is the mainline. tried couple things with stuff i already have on hand: old shinohara turnouts will need to be severely butchered to accommodate this. i tried atlas #4 custom in there, seems like it can almost work without modifications although it is more of a R24 as it puts the line somewhat outside of r22 circle i drawn. i have an atlas $ wye but it didn't work very well either. i'd really like quality switch there that will not give my preformanse headaches.
so far my experience with curved peco switch on the upper yard was not to bad. while flanges began to scrape, my 54ft test car did not derail on inner R18 path (with 18R section right after) and that is an achievement - boggeys on that car are very tightly screwed in, so the side to side, up and down motion si severlty limited. so far it derailed on any kink and raised especially poor elevation transitions (was quite helpful to tune the slope transitions). so i guess i could settle for peco if i find one with R22 inner radius.
i looked through walters catalog. per the specs the #6.5 curved is R20 inner and #7 is R24. so i guess i can't use walters. or?
input welcome
here is the space. that mountain will need to be either demolished or dug through. additional merit of this expansion piece is somewhat logical connection of upper and lower levels scenery-wise.
here is the revised plan.
since the traffic patter is counter clock wise and the engine will get trapped in this spur the operating idea is as follows:
after several loops main train enters the inner loop line and drops a car somwhere on green track (not on the crossover, cant separate color of those two pieces in software that i'm using ATM). if spurs are empty they can be used to cut the train and get the needed car to be left behind. switcher that is hiding in stab 1 picks up the needed car , proceeds with it against the pattern, shoves it into the new red spur and heads back to his stab. main train re-couples any cars it left on spurs and goes to continue his long roundy-round haul once the switcher is safley in the stab.
or that area can be made MOW equipment staging area that will not see a lot of traffic and the pattern will not be an issue (and pedestrian walkway - stairway connecting upper and lower work areas will be nice touch).
the purple expansion is even farther away time-wise as it really takes valuable space and impedes "pedestrian traffic" in the garage. as such it will probably be installed in special occasions only. but both these sections face the same exact questions - curved turnouts.
i read a thread on here of somewhat similar situation and the consensus was that no regular turnout due to its geometry can allow as smooth diverging curve as needed, after all the diverging path is the mainline. tried couple things with stuff i already have on hand: old shinohara turnouts will need to be severely butchered to accommodate this. i tried atlas #4 custom in there, seems like it can almost work without modifications although it is more of a R24 as it puts the line somewhat outside of r22 circle i drawn. i have an atlas $ wye but it didn't work very well either. i'd really like quality switch there that will not give my preformanse headaches.
so far my experience with curved peco switch on the upper yard was not to bad. while flanges began to scrape, my 54ft test car did not derail on inner R18 path (with 18R section right after) and that is an achievement - boggeys on that car are very tightly screwed in, so the side to side, up and down motion si severlty limited. so far it derailed on any kink and raised especially poor elevation transitions (was quite helpful to tune the slope transitions). so i guess i could settle for peco if i find one with R22 inner radius.
i looked through walters catalog. per the specs the #6.5 curved is R20 inner and #7 is R24. so i guess i can't use walters. or?
input welcome
