Feedback on track plan

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W

Wheels70

New Member
After many years I am finally beginning to get started on my first layout. Before I start spending money and making mistak -- err, laying track and building scenery :), I'd like some feedback on this track plan. What kinds of problems am I likely to (or going to) run into if I build and operate this plan? What would improve it?

Here are a few givens 'n druthers:

* Layout size and scale: HO, 5' x 9.5'
* Setting and era: freelanced central New York State branch line loosely modeled after the Lehigh Valley, late 1940s
* Track plan: 18" min radius; 1.4% max grade; #5 turnouts on the main and #4 in the yard; 2" parallel track separation and about 2 3/8" on curves
* Equipment: short/medium length freight, steam and early diesel
* Trains: 6-12 car mixed-freight and passenger
* Operation: point-to-point switching via loop, with the option of continuous run
* Scenery: mix of urban/industry and rural/countryside (view block to the rescue)
* Benchwork: plywood surface, 41" height (already built)

My goal is to have a layout with both operational and scenic interest. Scenery will be highly compressed, so my intent is to create small-scale scenes that work when viewed from up close.

A few specific comments about the track plan:

1. My operation plan is to build a train in the yard to the right side of the layout, let it run over the mainline, and spot and pick up cars at the various sidings. The return loop will give me access to sidings that face the "wrong" way, and give me an out-and-back capability for through traffic. (Other roads have trackage rights on the H&W, giving me an excuse to run whatever other equipment might find its way into my roster).

2. Yard capacity is about 15 40' cars, enough to make up 2 trains. The yard also represents an interchange to other railroads. I've put a runaround in the yard (marked "A") so the switcher can easily get to the caboose track (lower-right spur), but don't know if it's operationally in the best spot. Any thoughts?

3. There are two main yard tracks. The outside track is the yard lead. The inside track is the arrival/departure track (aka staging).

3. The blue line is a view block. The top portion of the layout is rural/countryside, and the bottom is urban. A few sections will be removable to facilitate access to hidden trackage.

4. Due to the crossover (marked "B") and the need to use the outer loop of the main line, whoever is spotting or picking up cars on the industrial sidings (green) is going to be fouling both the main lines part of the time. Am I adding "operational interest" here or just creating a traffic jam?

5. The main line consists of an outer loop, inner loop, and reversing loop. The inner and outer loops meet at the top, allowing traffic to pass from one loop to the other. The reversing loop has an 18" radius; the rest of the mainline is 19" or better. (Alas, I couldn't find room for a wye or roundhouse, so I'll either reverse through the reverse loop or use the great hand of God to turn the motive power around.)

6. The track marked "C" serves as both a passing siding and a place to park a train with cars needing to be spotted or picked up at the industry sidings. There's room for about 5 cars here, which is pretty short for a passing siding. Then again maybe the local consists of a loco, 3 cars, and caboose....

In case it tickles anyone's fancy to know, this track plan started with the Red Wing Division from 2009 Model Railroad Planning. There isn't much left of the original plan, but I strongly feel that starting with something that worked was much better than starting with a blank slate.

Thanks in advance for any comments!

Thomas
 
What is the overall room size? Is this in the center of a room? You may have some challenges reaching the center of the layout.
 
Thinking the same thing. It looks like you have a scenic divide (blue line). On the top right of the layout, you will have a 4' reach, on the bottom left, a 3' reach. That will be frustrating when you are knocking over foreground scenery while working the long reach.

I was in the same boat with a 5x8 layout. I eventually changed to a 7x10 donut shape layout. Assuming you need a 2 foot path around your table, a donut will give you more layout square footage in the same total space. Of course you need to deal with a "duck under", but you could move the center operating pit around so that the duck under is much less then 2 feet or go with a removable section so that you can get in and out without crawling or ducking.

Doug
 
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Thanks for the feedback. The train table is already built; the room is plenty big, but due to family constraints I'm limited to the current size and position for the trains. Eventually.... :)

Doug, yes the blue line is a divider. I plan to make a couple sections removable for access to the tunnel tracks. That's less than ideal, but once it's built I shouldn't need to get to that track anyway.

I agree about the reach on some of the other tracks though. I've moved the industry spurs a few inches closer to the edge of the table, and my longest reach now is just over two feet. And as it happens I like the change, I think it will improve the scenicking opportunities a little. I've also cleaned up a few curves, and removed a couple spurs to reduce the "cluttered" look. Here's the latest.

Thomas
 
Not being a cad user yet here's a very crude revision to your plan. :) Overall it's a good plan. The revisions are only meant to give you some ideas to consider to increase operations on your layout. The changes to your yard tracks should double the car capacity. Having a Xover in the yard is a waste of yard capacity & the switches can be put to better use elsewhere. Added sidings to the switching areas to make it possible to do runarounds to switch those spurs. Also it doesn't matter which direction the trains are going. If it's a facing point switch just run the loco around the train & shove the cars into the spurs.
 
Thanks for the ideas, Andy. I've moved the turnouts for the passing siding to make it longer. I'll admit I'm reluctant to make drastic changes to the yard. What I like about the current plan there is (1) the A/D track has an escape route for the loco for a train that is arriving "eastbound" (counterclockwise around the loop); (2) that crossover in the yard provides the opportunity for some interesting switching maneuvers to tack a caboose onto a train; (3) I just think it's aesthetic. You've given me a lot more capacity there, which I like...but I'm not sure what I'd do with the extra capacity. I think I like your ideas for the spurs in the upper section though, I'll play with that some and see what sticks.

Thanks,
Thomas
 
Your layout isn't really large enough space wise to warrant a separate A/D track in the yard. Use the middle track to left of yard for that. Besides if you're like most people you start w/ only a few cars. But eventually you're going to collect alot more cars & no place to put them. Your yard will hold about 14 cars max & that's using the Xover tracks. My plan more than doubles that. As for locos & cabooses put two spurs in the bottom left corner.
 
Okay, I moved the turnout to the passing siding to the right (see "A"), which makes it about 3 cars longer -- room now for an 8-car train or so.

I've also reworked the yard a bit (see "B"), gaining maybe 2 or 3 cars capacity. I tried implementing your ideas there, but everything was getting too compressed.

Finally, I modified the lower-left ("C") to make it look a little prettier. Even so, the curves on the two connected curved turnouts are a little funky; I imagine I'd have to handlay that section for it to really look right. I'm probably going to play with that a bit more....

Thomas
 
Is that a double slip switch at 'A?' Never had one because everybody says they're a headache.

Thumbs up on the curved switch. They add a lot of operational flexibility, by lengthing sidings, etc.

Any way to bring the end of the passing siding from A, closer to the tunnel portal at B? You might look into optimizing the passing siding length at A to allow you to move the yard switches closer to A to lengthen the short yard tracks by the view block.
 
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Yes, that switch at "A" is a double-slip. Or rather, it was. After further consideration I've removed it, as I don't see how it adds anything other than visual interest....

Thomas
 
Here's another revision of your plan to give you more food for thought. There's no runarounds in the yard tracks as runarounds can be done easily on any of the 3 tracks to the left of the yard. You don't have an interchange track but one of the yard tracks can be used for that. As drawn the yard can hold about 20 40' cars on straight track. (it's very hard to do coupling on curves!)
Still showing sidings here in the switching areas that you didn't put in your latest plan. You don't have to put them in in the beginning but leave room for them. Also when you lay your track down just tack it down enough to keep in place w/o ballast. Run your trains around & do some switching to see what kinds of movements are involved. Then when you're happy w/ the track "cast them in concrete" w/ ballast. :)
Don't have a crossing across from the lower main to the main above as real RR wise it wouldn't be done. If you want Xings do it in the switching areas W/O switchbacks. Modelers always want to put those in thinking it increases switching. But the real RRs avoided those like the plague as it took too many movements to more just a car or two. In other words to the RRs, time is money as in the extra labor expense. Besides like most of us you'll get very tired of having to make alot of extra moves for nothing.
In the bottom right are house tracks for engine & caboose service plus a RIP track for car repair. In the lower left are some industry spurs.
 
cajon said:
Not only that but they cost about 4 times more than a regular switch!
Click to expand...

Andy;

He could do what I did on my last layout, handlay it!;):D (Talk about basket weaving!)

But since its been removed, he won't have the pleasure!:p

I do like the revisions you've made Andy. It is hard to NOT have a layout this size not look like a bowl of spaghetti.
 
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Well...I like the way the yard track 'flows' (visually) in my existing track plan, but from an operational/practical standpoint I'm inclined to like your revisions, Andy. You've definitely given me something to think about anyway and I'll work on your ideas a bit.

As for the spaghetti bowl, that's why I have a view block, to reduce that cluttered look a little. And I'm hoping to alleviate it more by creating a series of small scenes that work from up close.

Thomas
 
You can always layout the different versions and run them for a couple of weeks to determine which way best suits you...
 
No, that one isn't working for me either... I tried through FireFox and IE and get a "Document not found" error."
 


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