Hello everyone!
I have settled down on a trackplan. I have decided to cut down the Red Rock Northern to 9x9 (from 11x9). I have also eliminated the lower storage tracks due to limited access. The yard has been reduced in size due to the cut in layout size. The mines have also been eliminated (to allow for curved backdrops in their place). It offers everything I am looking for in a simple plan - twice around running with several industries.
My issue is the scenic treatment for the engine servicing area and directly behind the roundhouse. Attached is a drawing of the area I am speaking of (subscribers can see the whole trackplan in the plan database).
As you can see the back of the roundhouse is right next to the elevated track. In my plan I have moved the turntable and roundhouse away from this track to create some space for the separation between levels. Can anyone give some advice on how to handle going from 0 to 4 inches in elevation in the space of 1 or two inches realistically? I'm thinking having the elevated line run along some kind of retaining wall, viaduct or even through some kind of industry behind the roundhouse.
Any ideas? Photos or links would be great. I know of a couple people on this forum who are building a version of this layout, and wonder how you handled the elevation difference at such a close distance.
Greg
This is N scale, and the separation is about 2". I used a retaining wall casting, but not full height. I went up vertically far enough to get to where the remaining earthen slope was reasonable realistic.
Too often you see vertical walls that would be terribly unstable if built in the real world. That's not to say that full height walls don't exist. But these are typically in very old urban environments where such situations were unavoidable due to the lay of the land.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Nowadays the civil engineers will have several heavy and long I-beams inserted into the ground with a pile driver. Then heavy corrugated galvanized steel is bolted to what is left above ground to stabilize embankments. This was done recently not 1100 yards from where I live. Other solutions are heavy steel cages measuring 3'X5'X3' filled with rock and gravel and stacked in a setback stepped fashion. Otherwise, sandbags, driven poles and pilings, or a timber retaining wall. You have little choice, given what you want to do, but to have a considerably sharp lift over a few scale feet in radius outward from the rear of the engine house. Or, slope it at 45 degrees until you get your desired height and have the roadbed cover the rest of the needed height at the top with a heavy rock or timber framed method. You may have to set your higher trackage back about 3" to get a reasonable effect, which means using more room...probably.
Lee's example is an excellent representation of a retaining wall (my compliments go to him!). I have spline roadbed that was necessarily exposed in some places, so I scratched it up and painted it to look like rock and mortar. You can see it in this photo just under the coal hoppers.
-Crandell
I am building a layout loosely based on the track plan from an enlarged version (15'X16') of the Red Rock Northern with wider curves and even greater elevation differences between levels. I am using concrete and stone retaining walls to separate track elevations Since I had more space I tried to separate the levels more but still have some 2" separation.
I suggest you draw your layout with one of the track CAD programs and make sure that you have enough space to make things fit. I drew mine with XtrackCad (Freeware) and have found that I have some tight spots where my track is too close to my backdrop for scenery. I drew my layout with a 30" minimum radius which has shrunk to about 26" in a few spots.
gcodoriTo give additional info - I am modeling early steam era - not modern. Retaining wall was one of my ideas but didn't want to fall into the retaining wall overuse cliche. I did notice that the elevated track is right on the backdrop. I was thinking of moving it some as well. I'm having a love-hate relationship with the plan.
A timber retaining wall would have been used in earlier times away from the city. Stone would have been the choice within cities for a relatively prosperous railroad. Anything steeper than about 45 degrees looks unnatural - except for rock cliffs and retaining walls. Unfortunately, because of our space limitations these tend to get over used. One of my checks on a track plan is the horizontal distance between parallel tracks at different elevations (includes turntable edges). I try to allow parallel track spacing plus an inch for every inch of elevation difference. In your case, this would be at least 2" (track separation) plus 3.5" elevation difference, or a total of 5.5". If there isn't that much available, then I know I'm faced with a cliff or retaining wall situation.
As for the love/hate, that's perfectly understandable. It's always much more difficult to simplify and shrink a published plan than to start from scratch. Believe me, I understand your pain - I've been down that road too many times in my track planning efforts. Even taking 6" out of an 8x10 plan is excruciating.
Since you are modeling an earlier period, can you shrink the turntable? Scenically, the turntable is always a tough area in a small plan. The more you can limit yourself to small locomotives, the easier life becomes. A 9" (65ft) turntable will take the Bachmann 2-8-0, 4-6-0, and most other small locomotives. But it won't take any of the BLI steamers I know of. 2-8-2s, 4-6-2s, and 4-6-4s are all going to be questionable as well, with no more likely than yes for fitting on a 9" turntable.
I'm modeling 1900, and I limited (punished?) myself by buying a kit for a 60ft Seller's turntable. In the prototype world, that was the most common size of Sellers turntables, and almost all locos of the day would fit. But our tendency to glorify and produce and collect big steam makes using such small turntables almost laughable in the model world. The other good point about staying with small steam is that it looks better with the length of trains most of us have room to run. A 4-4-0 pulling an 8 car train isn't too far from common prototype reality, depending on the grades involved. Max on the NWP for their 4-4-0s coming south with a 1.8% ruling grade was about 18 cars, with 12-14 being common. Using a 4-8-4 for the same 8 car train is ridiculous (IMHO).
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
It's difficult to tell, but there is a track directly above. I used "rubber rocks" that I painted and glued in place. Also hard to see, but it continues for about 3-4 feet.
San Dimas Southern slideshow