Problems with "The Central Midland" Atlas HO-29 layout w/Pics


Eric, I couldn't get the link to photobucket to work. I signed up but your link only took me to my 'friends' page.
 
Eric, I couldn't get the link to photobucket to work. I signed up but your link only took me to my 'friends' page.
That's part of the reason I posted the link to Eric's discussion of his layout modifications on this forum , rather than in another location.

I don't 'trust' some of these many 'free' photo hosting sites. I think they have 'alternative motives'? And I don't like having to register with all of these sites just to view some photos. Even the google image site, as I understand it, wants to automatically post ALL of someone's photos on their computer, even if they only really want to 'post' a few to the google site??
 
Baltimore City Backdrop

......

City Scene Backdrop
This could be the most exciting scene of all. My plan was to make this a city scene of Baltimore, an industrial city, home of the nations first railroad, and home of the famous B&O. There would be two distinctive images I thought I would include; 1) the infamous ‘Bromo Selzer’ tower, and 2) the Mt Royal train station. The train station in particular, as I had no room on the layout for a model station. I imagined it could be painted onto the backdrop, and include a dbl track portion that would appear to join the actual mainlines over in the back corner of the layout.

There are lighting techniques, layering techniques with poster board materials, and thin single-sided plastic structures that could make this city scene come alive, even in its very ‘flat presentation’. I have some sample illustrations.

Coal was, and is very much a part of Baltimore’s history along with steel and railroads. I had thought it could be possible to paint a coal fired power plant or steel mill onto a portion of this city scene down on the lower left hand side near the roundhouse area. Maybe add a large pile of coal alone with a string of coal cars waiting to be unloaded. If the layout were spaced out a bit from this wall/backdrop, it might be possible to insert one or two ‘fake’ sidings with coal cars and/or B&O passenger cars in waiting.

...continued...
Posted on the wall were some sample photos, and a file folder with several good articles on special modeling technics to make a 'lighted/layered city scene' come to life, Combined with todays more modern LED's this could have been a spectacular backdrop scene.
View attachment 34484

The Bromo Seltzer Tower is a very special landmark in Balt.
View attachment 34485 View attachment 34486
Here is a short interesting story about the origin of that tower:
http://explore.baltimoreheritage.org/items/show/82
(While few remember the slogan of the Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Company - "If you keep late hours for Society's sake Bromo-Seltzer will cure that headache" - the iconic Bromo-Seltzer Tower has been a Baltimore landmark since its construction in 1911.....)

The beautiful Mt Royal train station
View attachment 34487
 
Turntable scene

....
Roundtable Zone
I’ve always favored steam engines for their intricate nature and great variety of forms. So naturally there is a steam engine turntable and repair facility. And why not put this right up front where one’s collection of steam engines can be on display. This steam display replaces the diesel facility of the original Atlas plan. It features:

a) A fully operating turntable capable of handling a BigBoy or Allegheny.
b) A roundhouse, and several different repair shops
c) Outdoor track stowage (nice display of steam roaster)
d) A water tower and diesel fuel tank
e) A twin track coaling tower
f) A twin track bridge crossing to this steam facility from the freight yard.

Sub-Roundtable Loop
Below the roundtable scene I’ve added a full circular ‘subterranean track loop’ with several spurs branching off to 1) a fuel oil depot, 2) a production factory/warehouse, and 3) and a stone quarry/loader situated over in the adjacent mainline loop. The stone quarry will feature its own particular rock style wall at the inner perimeter of the surrounding track. There is provision (another turnout) for another spur line that would go out into an industrial park scene (or whatever), yet to be built off to the left of this subterranean loop. Switchers (both steam & diesel) can do continuous running on this subterranean loop

...continued...
A few photos of the turntable scene...
 
Bridges to Steam Facility & Turntable

a few close up shots.

It was a little tough to get the radiuses and that dbl track bridge situated so I could get a BigBoy loco into the steam area. That loco could only use the inner of the two tracks. The turntable itself could just barely handle the BigBoy, but only one single holding track could 'store' it....the one straight ahead off of the turntable as the loco entered the turntable itself.
 
I never really provided the modified track plan for my layout, so the other day I sketched them out, and here provide them with the mods highlighted in blue and orange.

Just looking back thru this subject thread for another link I may have posted. Miss this old layout I had,...wish I had it back rather than starting all over again.

Oh well, next one will be around the wall double decker.
Brian
 
Just looking back thru this subject thread for another link I may have posted. Miss this old layout I had,...wish I had it back rather than starting all over again.

Oh well, next one will be around the wall double decker.
Brian

Looking through the pictures once again, I am reminded how much I grew to dislike this plan. Spaghetti is certainly the right word. However I learned a lot about what not to do and thnk the experience with the Central Midland was worth the year of my life. My railroad rather looks finished today, but it will never be complete, we all know that.

Here is a video of how it turned out. http://youtu.be/G6TkXxG6Ymc
 
Hi Brian,

This Layout has a lot of challenges. One is getting time to work on it. I ran the trains this morning and am still coming up with modification ideas. Some days I want to tear it down and then days like today I just love it. It has come a long way from 6 years ago that I started it. The last few years have been hard to work on it. If you want to run bigger equipment on this layout you have to get the minimum radius down to 22 degrees. That is a challenge but I have done that except in the yards. Making 2 main lines sure makes it more fun to run. I have some ideas that I am going to try but I think I am going to keep this one for a while.
 
Spaghetti is certainly the right word.
Being a westerner, I used to have that criticism of a lot of the Atlas layout plans and the 101 layout ideas. I mean, a double track main line on a bridge going over a yard, three railroads crossing at grade, and tracks rising up from the center of a yard on stilts! Then I started taking train trips back east. I cannot believe how many times I would look out the window and see a track arrangement thinking, "that looks exactly like configuration of track in Atlas plan xxx". BTW one place the track rises from the center of a yard on stilts is just outside of the Philadelphia Pennsy 30th Street station. The track (yes double track) on stilts goes up and then over the northern tracks and heads off to NYC. Four day's later I was on a train on the stilts track. Those trips changed my entire view of railroading and model railroad plans. I can only imagine what the all the tracks would have looked like at the height of rail traffic before they started ripping stuff out. So to Atlas, in the heart of New Jersey, all of that kind of stuff is common place and ordinary.
 
Looking through the pictures once again, I am reminded how much I grew to dislike this plan. Spaghetti is certainly the right word. However I learned a lot about what not to do and thnk the experience with the Central Midland was worth the year of my life. My railroad rather looks finished today, but it will never be complete, we all know that.

Here is a video of how it turned out. http://youtu.be/G6TkXxG6Ymc

WOW, that's quite a RR there JoeDaddy,..but also quite a bit bigger space. Nice job
 
There were LOTS of photos on this subject thread that seemed to have gotten 'scrubbed off' ??

beiland (formerly 'railandsail')
 
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Did you lay the track by eye or did you draw centerlines using the appropriate tools?

One of the big problems doing things by eye is insuring you have no "kinks".

Whenever you have a joint the "radius line" of of the track on both sides of the joint should be coincident.

See attached.

The misalignment is exaggerated for clarity.

You can see that in the upper image the "radius line" for the curve and the straight are coincident.

In the lower image you can see that they are not - and you have a "kink" that can lead to derailments.
 

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  • Rail Kinks.jpg
    Rail Kinks.jpg
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Lots of photos posted, but where are they?

I had lots of photos of my Central Midland layout posted on this subject thread, starting at page 2 under the name 'railandsail',.....but where are they??

It documented my theme for the layout as it progressed, and it documented my keeping the layout as 3 distinct sections to eventually allow removal from a rented house.

I use to make links to these photos from other websites, which I thought was a good thing as I was directing other railroaders to this site,...was that not a good thing??

beiland
 
Over 20 'corners' in my current HO set up from 24" down to 15" and I pay very close attention to the transition points where a straight meets a curve, I think I did allright, no problems at any speeds in both directions forwards and backwards at the transition points, it PAYS to go SLOW laying track!

Atlas turnouts? Don't even go there! grrrrrrr! They require a little 'work'!
 
I had lots of photos of my Central Midland layout posted on this subject thread, starting at page 2 under the name 'railandsail',.....but where are they??

It documented my theme for the layout as it progressed, and it documented my keeping the layout as 3 distinct sections to eventually allow removal from a rented house.

I use to make links to these photos from other websites, which I thought was a good thing as I was directing other railroaders to this site,...was that not a good thing??

beiland

I keep re-asking this question about all of the MANY MISSING photos I posted, and NO ONE ANSWERS ???????
 



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