Thoughts on bench design for new layout

[otiscnj]

Fiddlehaven Belt Line

Here's 3 drawings of the layout I had in the 90's. Only reason I got rid of it, was I moved to a condo with a 18' x 24' storage unit. Oval was 26" radius, figure 8 was 22" or so. Underwood yard was actually underneath Acorn City. The aisle between Underwood/Acorn was 24"-a bit too tight, but the space I had to work with. Main peninsula was 5' x 11' or so.

It was a great plan, with a lot of interesting possibilities, and operational potential. I had young nephews at the time, and each time they came over, they wanted to see the trains run. I have some photos, somewhere, 2-3 moves later now.

 

[Trussrod]

Say Ian,
Having looked at your plans in the beginning and size of your room it seems that your going to be hard pressed to try and stay with 30" radius curves. The thing you need to remember is that the bear minimum a 30" radius will take up is about 62" and your probably going to need about 64" at least and maybe even 66". This all takes up a lot of room and may well require a pop-up in the middle, so the smaller the loop you can get away with I believe the better but your choice.

As far as the derailments you've had it could be that one or more of the cars that derail on you have trucks that are fastened too tight on the bolster and not allowing for some flex as they encounter uneven track or going through switches. Is it only one car that derails? Check to ensure the wheels are in gauge as that can cause a problem if they're not. Could the truck be hitting something under the car or could the curved pin on the Kadee be hanging down too low and catching as it goes through a switch. Are the cars properly weighted, do the wheels all roll freely. Also when you tacked the rail down make sure you didn't set the nail in too deep so as to form a shallow ' V ' in the tie as that will pull the rail together and cause the wheels to ride up high on the rail and derail that way too.

I think you were on the right track, NPI, by your revised plan and 30" deep bench work where possible. I think that a folded Dog Bone similar to what I'm doing with a loop on each end and narrowing down to the 30" deep bench work in other areas with 45* angle corner fillers will afford you much easier access and more enjoyment of working on it. The loops may have to be staggered a bit but I think you will be able to do a lot more. Also the inside area of the loops offer a fairly large area for an engine house & turntable I would think even if you went down to a 24" radius that would give you an almost 4' diameter area to work with within each loop.

A Folded dog bone also lends itself very nicely to the outside line being at a higher elevation again like mine is and that also gives more separation and may well make it easier and more believable for the mine area and a passing siding PS. Also that can, a, PS, very probably worked in on the lower or inside line and still leave a fair amount of room.


HTH?

 

[ianacole]

Well, took a crack at it and came up with this. The lowest radius on the mainline is 32.75 in the upper left corner. What do you all think?

 

[Motley]

Look good Ian.

The passing siding on the upper right corner, is that long enough? You could extend it around to the top/back.

And the upper right corner, how about a two track girder bridge with river running under that.

And the freight house tracks, on the top, separate that from the mainline, and run it along the side of the mountain, and connect it to that other industry on the bottom.
Like an inside freight mainline, and the outside passenger mainline.

 

[otiscnj]

If it were me, I'd reduce the radius more. I also try and avoid duck unders and lift out sections. Do you think it this design will keep your interest long term? I hate turning good lumber into sawdust.

 

[steinjr]

Well, took a crack at it and came up with this. The lowest radius on the mainline is 32.75 in the upper left corner. What do you all think?

In no particular order, first impressions:

XtrkCad marks curves that are below whatever standard you have set with red. What radius are the curves marked in red in your drawing?

The car shop is inaccessible - unless your turntable is long enough for both engine and car. Why is it important to have a car shop on this layout?

Too many alternative paths through the layout for my taste. The one past the freight house and through the mine seems somewhat weird.

I also would recommend putting industries (like your freight house) between track and the wall - that allows you to model large industries (by only showing one end of the buildings).

The flip side is that having the main in front means that you will have to lean across the main while switching industries further back. But the tradeoff usually is worth it for industries.

Two passing sidings - both too short for trains longer than 4 feet or so - i.e. an engine and seven 40' freight cars, or an engine and three 80' passenger cars.

But the main challenge (for my taste - you may not care about that at all) is that there is nowhere for cars and trains to come from or go to.

At the moment, the design is focused very much on fitting in specific buildings you already own and keeping curve radii as big as possible on the main loop.

No staging, no obvious arrival or departure point for the layout - no interchange track, track leading out of the area, yard or anything like that.

Staging isn't something you add in after the rest of the track plan is done - it is part of the conceptual design phase - the first phase of design - where you come up with the overall theme for your layout.

Where is this? Is it the end of a branch line? A junction town? Along a busy mainline? Along a branch line? Where do trains come from, where do they head towards, what are they doing while passing through the area you are modeling?

By all means - don't feel obligated in any way to come up with a track plan that suits my preferences. Or feel dejected about my comments - they are meant as constructive criticism. Things that may be worth considering.

But the most important thing is to think about what you want from your layout.

Smile,
Stein

 

[ianacole]

So, reworked a little based on Stein's and Michael's thoughts. To answer some of the questions...

The turntable is 130' ... using the trains feature of XTrackCAD I was able to fit an F3A and an 80' car on the table and still rotate it. I'll be using a switch in this area, so I should be able to fit a loco and a car for the car shop.

One of the primary goals was large main-line curves so I can run my passenger cars without some of the problems inherent with smaller radius curves - derailing, binding diaphrams, etc.

This is interim - 5 years or so - until I can commandeer the entire basement, which will give me roughly 26'x11' to play with. For now, I want something that I can build on and practice on, enjoy running my trains with some interaction opportunities (not just a big loop). For now, I can pretend the tunnel in the bottom right runs from Cole River to NYC and back again

And Stein, I appreciate the feedback. It affords me the opportunity to get outside of my knowledge limitations. I don't know what I don't know, and can use only my current knowledge to apply to any track design I come up with, so outside opinions are a great opportunity to learn. Now, I may take that knowledge and choose not to apply it this go around, but I've still learned. I learn way more from folks who site opportunities for improvement than those who just pat me on the back.

Enough pontificating, here's the redesign, please feel free to comment:

 

[Doughless]

Ian....

If I may jump in here. First off, I like the shape of your plan. It satisfies your main goal of watching passenger trains run. I hope you have access to the W, otherwise, you have poor access to the track left of the car shop.

The spur for the freight house is long, yet the spurs for the big mine are short, which seems reversed to me.

The crossing of the main to get to the turntable is redundant. You don't have room for redundancy on this layout. If you eliminated the crossing track and had only one access to the turntable, you might be able to squeeze the shops closer to the roundhouse and declutter the area a bit.

If your main goal is to watch your passenger trains run, why have so many spurs and industries anyway? The spurs that are inside of the main just clutter things up for me.

If it were me, I would have the turntable, roundhouse, and shop be the focal point of one side of the layout, with the mine being the focal point of the other, with long enough spurs to make it convincing. Leave out the station, freight house, power company, and other spurs, until you build the big layout.

 

[ianacole]

Doughless - thank you. Very interesting points. I will take another run at the layout tomorrow moving the mine to the north or northeast corner. The room to the west is wide open, I just can't intrude too much further and still have room for my computer desk and workbench ... and the wife's area.

The crossing of the main was to allow freight to access the turntable without running along the passenger line, but yah, it doesn't feel quite right. Removing that crossover and just running a double line, with some crossovers near the station would probable look better.

I certainly don't mind leaving off the power and freight companies, although they are already built. I can always offer them up here I don't even mind losing the car shop, although there is sentimental value associated with it as it was the first model I built since rejoining the hobby. I thought including it would provide some opportunity for interation. I want to include a little something for interactivity - I enjoy watching the trains go around, making the horn sound, and watching the smoke, but I like to have some variety as well.

I have a number of other building that have not yet been built (Allied Rail Rebuilders, Midstate Marble Company, Downtown Deco's Trackside Tavern, and some other Campbell kits). All of these can wait or be built and stored until I have layout space I desire.

However, I have a strong desire to have the following structures included on the layout, all of which are all completed (the water tower is awaiting completion of a ladder to be deemed finished):

-Roundhouse
-Turntable
-New (Cole) River Mine
-Coal (Cole) River Station (see gallery link below)
-Sandshed (see gallery link below)
-AR Gilmore Grain & Feeds (see gallery link below)
-Water tower (see gallery link below)

http://www.wasabiraceteam.com/gallery/TrainPics/trainpage.html

 

[ianacole]

Another thought occurred to me while chatting with my wife about the redesign: The southeast corner could be elevated land, with the tracks running through a tunnel, giving me room for a town.

 

[Doughless]

If you want to use those structures, I would suggest trying to group some of them. Like the power company, freight house, and station for example.

Rethinking the benchwork shape, if you're going to move the mine to one of the N corners, that would free up the skinny part of the S benchwork. That's where you should have your liftout access, where the benchwork is naturally skinny. Right now, you have it in the fat part of the layout, kind of wasting space by creating a hallway in the benchwork. Since you have access to the SW corner on all sides, make the benchwork there shaped like a fat triangle by filling in the liftout area, which should allow you to have more structures in that area.

As far as the crossing. I would eliminate it and use the track just north of it as a stub spur. Maybe relocate the freight house there. It would sort of help the whole scenic view of the layout. The SW corner being more urban, and the E/NE being more rural with the mine.

These changes shouldn't harm your operating plan much. Frankly, I think a real railroad would avoid crossing the main to access the turntable and would use a crossover to the outside track to get there.

 

[ianacole]

Thanks. One of the reasons for having the mine in the SE corner was to have the conveyor run to a cliff/mountain with a tunnel. Having this in the SE will still allow access to the tracks in the tunnel... I may have a thought or two there...

 

[Doughless]

Ian....

Sounds good. Yes, its tough to offer suggestions sometimes since the OP generally has a vision that can't be completely conveyed in these short choppy discussion forums. Responders are often shooting blind in someways.

Having the mine over trackage that's hidden in a tunnel will make things more interesting.

Also, remember that the main reason you want 32 inch radius curves is for appearence, not operation of the passenger cars. If a curve is hidden under a tunnel, you can go with a sharper radius curve there, the sharpest your equipment will allow, since the poor visual effect will be concealed. Using a sharper curve under the tunnel may free up some valuable space. Just because your layout has "32 inch minimum radius" curves doesn't mean you need that minimum everywhere on the layout. What you really may need is "32 minimum visible radius".

Also, locating tall-ish buildings on the inside of a curve, along with trees or other view blocks, can help conceal the radius, allowing you to go 30 inches in other places. The Northern Power Co. and the grain building may be good candidates for locating inside the curve.

It'll be interesting to see your revised trackplan.

 

[ianacole]

I've tinkered a bit ... threw out my thinking that the mine has to be incorporated into a tunnel, and came up with this revision. Again, feedback is more than welcome!

 

[steinjr]

That car shop is mostly inaccessible, since the turntable likely will be to small for both an engine and a car.

How about reorienting the structures of the engine terminal:

Smile,
Stein

 

[ianacole]

Ooh ... I like that! Let me see what I can render in XTrack.

 

[ianacole]

Came up with this:

 

[Doughless]

Much, much better than your first plan. Stein's suggestion was key.

Be careful about having the turnout in the tunnel. No reason to create a maintenance issue since you have room to move the portal to the east.

I still like the idea of having the liftout closer to the middle of the south bench, where the track is closer to the outer edge of the space, but you'd want to find a way to straighten the track there as to not have a liftout with curved trackage.

I'm also curious. Is that the New River Mine in the NE or some other kit? The footprint you have now seems small if it is New River. I hope it will really fit where you have it.

Overall, I think that's a pretty nice plan and captures your main goals well.

 

[ianacole]

Thanks! That is the Walther's New River Mine kit. It's what was included in the parameter files of XTackCAD, but I agree it looks small. However, the footprint listed on Walther's site is 12-1/2 x 9 x 9-3/8", which looks close to what's there. And, yah, I will probably move the tunnel east to miss the cross-over, but the south side of the tunnel will be open for access as well.

 

[Motley]

That looks really good Ian. That's a nice plan, and I like the double-track main.

Now go build it already!