Trackplan at last. All comments Welcomed and Wanted.


jbaakko said:
Looking good, I liked Plan #1 in this thread more so, this one seems a tad more cramped, it seems like you'll have little or no room for buildings or scenery?
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Josh I agree, it was looking far too cramped so I have opened it out some in the new plan. I'll try and post it up tonight. Thank you for the input it is always welcomed and appreciated.

Peace.
Coyote
 
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narrowgaugecdb said:
Do not forget to add an arrival/departure track and swith lead in your yards.
Avoid using the main line to do your switching.
I hope that this little tip may help you building a pleasant and good model railroad.

Constantin
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Constantin,

Yes thank you for the tip, I will try and keep it in mind and hope I have accomplished this in the new plan. Will try and post it later today.
Thank you for your tip! :)

Peace.
Coyote
 
cuyama said:
Both plans rely heavily on switchbacks for industrial spurs, the newest one almost exclusively. While some layout designers use these liberally, switchbacks are studiously avoided wherever possible on the real railroad (and on good model designs, IMHO) because they are quite inefficient on the real railroad and tedious to work on the model. I wrote a little about this here:
http://www.modelrail.us/id16.html

I also don't understand the crossovers on the yard tracks on the left side of the plan. Since the yard tracks are so short already, runarounds would probably be better accomplished using the crossovers between the mains.

I know that you're not heavily into multi-person operations, but I think you'll find the lack of staging a frustration in the future as you want to rotate more trains through the visible scenes.

Good luck and have fun.

regards,

Byron
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Byron,

Great advice it was all taken to heart and worked on. I have added some staging, tried to place my crossovers to make more sense and gotten rid of the switchbacks completely! Your article helped greatly, as has your web page in general.
I am hoping for some interesting operations on the layout, my desire and interest in operations is slowly growing.
I will hopefully be posting the current version of the plan today/tonight and look forward to hearing what you think of it.
As always thank you for your input and advice.

Peace.
Coyote
 
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Rico said:
Looks good! I agree with Byron about the crossovers in your yard tho. Also the crossovers on the main to the right of the yard may become redundant after awhile with the two at the top and bottom to use.
The leaf with the wye track could have buildings on the right side with a low relief scrap yard on the left to keep access.
Looks like lots of mainline running and switching to boot, right up my alley!
Rico
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Rico,

I agree with you it did need some work, I think I have made some vast improvements and will look forward to seeing what you think about the new plan. I will post it up later tonight. Your suggestion of a scrap yard stuck with me and kept turning over in my head so I have added one to the new plan. :)

Thank you for your input.

Peace.
Coyote
 
modelbob said:
I'm going to come out of left field and throw a curve... ;)

Have you given any thought to a double decker layout? Build something like what you have on the bottom, yard and switching etc.

Then, have a track that climbs up to an "around the walls layout" on the second level. Maybe just a single track on a shelf, a foot wide. Next to the track would be Route 66 and some buildings. Lots of wide open spaces etc.

The tricky part would be coming up with a way to turn trains around, but I have a couple ideas that might work if this sounds interesting at all.
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Bob,

I'd love to hear anything you can throw my way. I had thought of a double decker but had no idea how to pull it off in the space I have, (i.e. Getting trains from one level to another) as I don't think I could really put a helix into the space and not eat up a ton of space. But I do love the idea, so yes please tell me what your ideas are. Looking forward to hearing them and thanks for the input.

Peace.
Coyote
 
B_Kosanda said:
I would advise rounding off those square corners. This will give more of an even feel in the corners. In my opinion, all corners should be rounded. All layouts need backdrops. Will yours cover the window? What is the elevation on the layout? I assume there is a duck under to get into the middle. It should be at least 48" high. If you are going to use a lift gate, it should be built with an angled deck. That is, angled so it can be lifted without having to spread the layout apart.

Bill
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Bill,
First let me say thank you for the advice. Yes, I have rounded off the corners in the plans now with arounded backdrop in each corner. The layout will have a backdrop and yes it will will cover the window. The average elevation of the layout is planned at just at 50" high. There is a lift out piece 2' x 9" that will allow entrace into the main section of the layout. I have worked out a pretty finaly version of th plan and will be posting it later today/tonight. I hope you will take a look at it and give me any feedback you might have on it. I appreciate the help I get from you guys, you catch so much that Inever would have.

Peace.
Coyote
 
Here we are gang, this is what I have been able to put together with the help of many others, most notably Texas Zephyr, who I take my hat off to.

Here is the basic information (hope I didn’t miss anything) –

Locale: Northern Arizona alongside route 66. (Currently in a fictional town I am calling Gila)

Period: 1954.

Layout Height: Starting at 50".

Turnouts: #6 on Mainline #5 on yards and industry spurs #6 ½ Curved on Staging, #7 ½ Curved on corner crossovers and #8 on parallel crossover.

Curve Radii: 28" outside mainline, 26" inside mainline, general, some curves much broader in other areas.

Industries: Concrete Plant (2-B - 3-B), Scrap Yard (11-C - 12-D), Misc. Manufacturing (8-C 9-C), Fuel Oil Supplier (11-B), Stock pen (11-J), and possibly a Mill, Gravel Plant or Asphalt Plant. (12-K&L)

View attachment 3248

[In case the image won't enlarge you can see it at: http://mysite.verizon.net/coyote97/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/Bedplan5c.jpg


Peace.
Coyote


P.S. I have no idea why its posting so large I apologize to all for that. (figured it out and I'm fixing it so this won't flood folk's screens)
 
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I like the overall idea. Nice save with the staging.

There are still some things to solve. You can get from one loop to the other but not back. That could be solved when you solve the other problem of needing runarounds at all the major switching areas.

I took one look at the plan and said...."Nice!"
 
SpaceMouse said:
I like the overall idea. Nice save with the staging.

There are still some things to solve. You can get from one loop to the other but not back. That could be solved when you solve the other problem of needing runarounds at all the major switching areas.

I took one look at the plan and said...."Nice!"
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Chip,

Thank you a lot. :) You and TZ have been been right alongside me during most of this and I'm glad to hear from you. As for the crossover situation that is my fault, when I took the picture of the plan I had the Turnout Routing set to Off and it makes it hard to see the crossovers at the curves to either side of the Wye. I have included a new picture below with the Turnout Routing set On and hope it makes better sense now.

View attachment 3249

[In case the image won't enlarge you can see it at: http://mysite.verizon.net/coyote97/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/BedPlan5d.jpg ]

"Needing runarounds at all major switching areas" - Could you elaborate some on that, I'm not sure I'm following you.
Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Peace.
Coyote

P.S. I still have no idea why the picture is posting so large I apologize to all again.(I figured that out and edited to fix.)
 
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If your trains run in a counter-clockwise direction you can switch every industry but one (the one in the upper left). But I'm assuming you want to be able to run trains in both directions.

In order to switch forward-facing industries, you have to get the car you want to place at the head of the train. That means that the engine must run around to the back of the train to push it in. You therefore need a way for the engine to do so--the runaround.
 
I see sort of what chip is with the run arounds. But this can be solved many ways, adding more switches and sidings, or with a slightly more complex switch list with multiple "locals" switching the industries in either direction. I won't say you have to add run-arounds, But everything switches the same way but one. I've attached a copy of your trackplan with two red circles for possible run around, and a red X where the lone industry switches "backwards". I think that the left circled location whould be best, adding a "late" entry spot to the closet yard.
 
Chip & Josh,

I see what you mean. Yes, I would like trains to run both directions. So what if I say that the Inside Loop is Westbound Traffic, running "counterclockwise" and the Outer Loop is Eastbound Traffic, running clockwise and then changed the switching for the industry at the bottom right hand corner 12&13-L so that is also switched "backwards" and thus it and the top left hand corner Industry, the Concrete Plant at 2&3-A would both be switched correctly by the now 'clockwise' running Eastbound loop... Is that correct or even an advisable solution? I include a drawing with the changes mentioned above for aid.

Peace.
Coyote

View attachment 3247
 
Coyote,
I was looking at your plan again and I noticed something that reminded me of my first layout, which was from an Atlas track plan. When coming out of your center yard, you are going to require a reverser section. That is, the track polarity will need to be reversed when trains exit/enter the center island. Back in those days I was running my layout with DC using Atlas power packs. Those power packs were destroyed by this kind of lash up. I don't think the design could handle voltage from another power pack run into it's output, especially when it was in the opposite polarity.

If you are planning on running DCC, you can get an automatic reverser section and it will change polarity for you without you having to worry about it. If you're running DC, you'll need to be concerned with setting the polarity correct before trains try to enter/exit the center island.

Bill
 
B_Kosanda said:
Coyote,
I was looking at your plan again and I noticed something that reminded me of my first layout, which was from an Atlas track plan. When coming out of your center yard, you are going to require a reverser section. That is, the track polarity will need to be reversed when trains exit/enter the center island. Back in those days I was running my layout with DC using Atlas power packs. Those power packs were destroyed by this kind of lash up. I don't think the design could handle voltage from another power pack run into it's output, especially when it was in the opposite polarity.

If you are planning on running DCC, you can get an automatic reverser section and it will change polarity for you without you having to worry about it. If you're running DC, you'll need to be concerned with setting the polarity correct before trains try to enter/exit the center island.

Bill
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Bill,
Thank you for the information. I had a brief inkling of this somewhere in the back of my mind because of the Wye’s arms and some things I had read in passing here and on the Trains.com forums.
I do plan to run DCC so it is a relief to know that this problem can be solved easily. I will read up on reverser sections now.
Thank you again, very important info to know.

Peace.
Coyote
 
Seems like you still have some switchback challenges. Unless you want to do a lot of shuffling, you really only have three useable yard tracks because you have to use the two "outside" ones for access to the industry spurs.

If that's what you intend and it seems like fun to you, that's great. But I wonder if you might find it more of an annoyance over time, since you don't have a lot of yard tracks to spare.

Regards,

Byron
 
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cuyama said:
Seems like you still have some switchback challenges. Unless you want to do a lot of shuffling, you really only have three useable yard tracks because you have to use the two "outside" ones for access to the industry spurs.

If that's what you intend and it seems like fun to you, that's great. But I wonder if you might find it more of an annoyance over time, since you don't have a lot of yard tracks to spare.

Regards,

Byron
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Byron,

Yes, I must admit that even after a fair mount of reading and learning on the matter I am still rather daunted at the process of putting in a yard in the particular location. It seems to be a task that the more I learn and adapt the more I loose ground somehow. However I do have three yard ‘shapes’ I have been working on in hopes of getting the right ‘click’. I include them below in the hopes that you or any of the rest of the gang might have some comments on them. Do any of these work, are they all just badly thought out, any of them worth saving and using with some changes. Any direction you all can throw my way on this one would be a great help. :confused:

Alternate AView attachment 3254 Alternate BView attachment 3255 CurrentView attachment 3256

Peace.
Coyote
 
Boilerman said:
Plan looks very well thought out, it should be fun to run;) !
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Boilerman,

:D Thanks a lot! I am getting really excited about it and looking forward to starting work on the spare bedroom to convert it to a train room and then getting down to the building! :)

Peace.
Coyote
 
IF you can do without the wye, you could work in a pretty decent yard. Start the yard throat coming in from the bottom and use a rooster tail arrangement (I hope that is the term) fanning out into the peninsula.)
 
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