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The rail line in the Port of LA/Long Beach is called Pacific Harbor line. Use Google Maps to see the myriad potential for modeling this area. Both UP and BNSF use the tracks. I do work down there and it is very common to see locos from all three lines moving up and down the harbor tracks. The Harbor just built a brand new rail yard along Alameda south ofAnaheim (Berth 200 yard). You could spend the rest of your life doing layouts focused on the part areas of LA!! Forget that, you could go bankrupt just trying to model all the yards in the port!!
I used AnyRail for my layout. They have a free version that has some limits and the paid version is not that much. There are others out there as well.
If you have the space why not build it to the same size. Would have more room for industries and more cars to move. Could make the straight thru track a siding to have a run around track.
To use the bottom main as a siding there needs to be another 6"-12" added to both ends to get 1 loco & at least 1 car across either Xover. But all those switchbacks & having to move all those cars out of the way! And what about a yard &/or a way to get cars o/off the layout?
The scale is 54.1% of HO scale, I'm trying to do the same thing for a much larger layout but converting standard to metric gets confusing , 3rd grade math is a b*^~{
How much space do you have for a layout? You can easily do this in n scale but like Cajon said you need more room on the tail tracks. This module looks very cramped and would be nicer if you spread it out over more space. If that makes sense.
How much space do you have for a layout? You can easily do this in n scale but like Cajon said you need more room on the tail tracks. This module looks very cramped and would be nicer if you spread it out over more space. If that makes sense.
Well it is a module it's designed to be incorporated into a modular layout not to be a stand alone layout. Smaus is very good at doing small layouts/modules and super detailing them for lots of modeling in a small space. I would agree that if this is going to be the entire layout it should be modified to give you a little more flexibility.
There is a great free computer with planning software available to modelers everywhere. It's called your brain. If I know Smaus the crossover and tunout numbers are identified. Just lay it out by hand with the actual track or draw it. (sorry, I'm old school! )
I could not resist drawing up an N-scale version of this track plan, spreading it out a bit, mainly to make the tail tracks longer. All tail tracks are at least 9 inches long. I drew the plan in XTrackCAD, a free track planning program.
The plan could perhaps be made a little smaller by using a different brand of track. However, adjusting for the fact that N-scale is more than half the size of HO and that the tail tracks are longer, the N-scale version of the layout could never be half the size of the HO version. As it is, the spacing between the parallel tracks at the bottom of the track plan might be too close together for manipulating locos and rolling stock by hand.
it's designed to be incorporated into a modular layout not to be a stand alone layout. Smaus is very good at doing small layouts/modules and super detailing them for lots of modeling in a small space. I would agree that if this is going to be the entire layout it should be modified to give you a little more flexibility.
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