Safety Valve wrote:You might want to "Flip" one of the staging to a opposite direction so that when a train leaves city a and is ready to pull into city B it can do so.
Good point. I didn't think it through. It was pretty down and dirty.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Ok what do ya think about this general layout, its an atlas track plan with additions. Again in n-scale using 2 3x8 tables in an L config.
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa153/garthor1/N172yard.jpg
Okay new plan. Each plan you come up with represents an improvement, and you are getting closer. I'm not sure if it was stated in this thread, but if you ask a whole bunch of people around here what they think was their biggest mistake, the most common is that they either didn't plan for staging or they did not plan for enough staging. That does not mean that you absolutely have to have it, it just means that you have work out your operations just that much more to make a working railroad.
My impression is that you are just laying track with out regard to what is going to be on the layout and how it will all make sense in the end.
It is time for you to graduate to a better track layout program. You are severely limited because you are trying to do everything with sectional track. It causes you to spread things out and take up more space than you need. You have much more room than you are depicting. XtrkCAD is free and easy and will design for most major track companies.
BTW: don't expect you can reach over about 30". If you think you are big and can do it, put something 3" high about two inches from the edge from your kitchen table. Now about 26" put something 3" high to represent a building or tree. Now take a piece of track and place it at 28" and try to place a piece rolling stock on that track over the building. Make sure you kneel so that the table is the same relative height as to what you are building.
I'm late to the discussion and I hate to rain on the parade, but I'd suggest that you take a step back from the CAD. A better tool probably won't help except to get you a destination you may not like a little quicker.
There are some basic prinicples of layout design that you may not have had time to learn about and understand. Staging is one, as has been pointed out. Another is schematics. The idea of a schematic is understanding what path a train will take. This helps you know if the overall plan you've laid out will result in a fun layout to run.
In the case of the latest design, it looks like a train leaving the yard can only go around the twisted oval in one direction. After a few laps, it would have to back into the yard. If that's what you want, OK, but most people would find that a bit tedious.
A better solution for a layout in this size range is something called an out-and-back schematic. With the addition of a reversing connection accross the basic oval, a train could leave the yard, run a few laps, reverse through the reversing connection, run a couple more laps, then head into the yard.
IMHO, you could also do some different things with the yard configuration and some of the industrial spurs to make the layout more fun and flexible in the long run, and adding staging might be on that list. But the bottom line is, making these changes successfully requires a little background that you may not have had exposure to as yet. John Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operation is an excellent resource if you want to do your own track planning. You'll gain a lot of benefits for some time invested in reading and understanding the book.
Unfortunately, a lot of folks spend a lot of time with the free track planning programs and don't always have the experience to design themselves a layout that will hold their interest in the long run. Just because it can be drawn doesn't mean it will be fun.
By the way, I think it's usually called a switcher "pocket", not a switcher "hole".
Byron
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
Byron,
I agree with you in principle kinda sorta. I agree that some people get to designing too soon in the process. They take their space and fiddle with a design program and throw a bunch of track into their projected space without much thought as to why they run the track the way they do. Then they post the plans here and a twisted lot of amateurs and wizened pros tell them they need to do their homework and plan more carefully.
But the CAD tool is not the culprit. They would make the same mistakes if they used pencil and paper. My take is that if the person is going to screw around with track and space they might as well be learning a tool that will ultimately allow them a reasonable chance of success. But don't take it that I am saying that better software means that they will design a good layout.
But most people have to be hit upside the head with a 2 x 4 before they get it that placing the track is not at the beginning of the process. You need to develop a vision and then develop upon the vision. That means homework. Working away from the software. That means developing a schematic. That means thinking of industries and buildings and access roads and rail movements and landscape and artistic viewing points.
For most new people that 2 x 4 is spending $500 developing a plan that is mediocre and ripping it apart when they figure out that their landscape ideas won't work.
Well if you have been following my posts you will see that I have gone through many revisions, and your right I need to figure out alot before I lay track. 1) What year I will be modeling. 2) What kind of layout I want, as far as out and back, point to point, or just go loopy ? 3) What industries the railroad will serve ? 4) The scale I want to model HO or N ? There are alot of nice layout out there and a ton of books detailing everything under the sun. I think what I will end up doing is a lumber company railroad, from forest to a dock. No mill or other complicted structure to start with. Something like the Jerome and Southwestern only as a lumber operation, a turntable at one end and maybe a Y out in the forest ? Early steam as motive power ? My main problem is that I over think everything, and I know I will miss something important. But as I have found out on these forums, I am not alone.
I believe I'm answered some of my questions:
1) Early steam
2) Out and back
3) Lumber and a small town, maybe some passenger service
4) N scale for the space saving quality of it
As with anything this is all just thoughts and I thank you all for your support.
garthor wrote:....My main problem is that I over think everything, and I know I will miss something important. But as I have found out on these forums, I am not alone.I believe I'm answered some of my questions:1) Early steam2) Out and back3) Lumber and a small town, maybe some passenger service4) N scale for the space saving quality of it As with anything this is all just thoughts and I thank you all for your support.
....My main problem is that I over think everything, and I know I will miss something important. But as I have found out on these forums, I am not alone.
I'm very glad to see your vision for your model railroad is taking form nicely. The downside of the vision thing is that visions tend to change over the years. Don't ask me how I know. Whether that means starting over, or just changing plans a little as you build depends upon your personality.
That is the main raison d'etre for beginners' layouts. It is a less expensive - in both time and money - way to discover what your real interests are. If you know yourself well enough to proceed to a more "ultimate" layout from the beginning, then you save yourself the aggravation and costs of the beginner's layout.
Now some practical considerations in your planning:
I do have to question your early steam (I'm assuming 1905 and earlier), logging, and selection of N scale. The combination has been done very well, but not enough that it's commonplace. The selection of suitable locomotives for early steam is small in any scale. In N, I only know of 4 early steam locomotives (Athearn/MDC 2-6-0, 2-8-0; Atlas Shay (not really early steam but who can resist); and the Bachmann 4-4-0s. Running qualities are reputedly pretty good except perhaps the Bachmann. Logging cars would also be similarly limited. Bottom line - how good are your abilities/willingness to go beyond the RTR hobby shop shelves to construct and populate your layout the way you think it should be - in N scale?
Another possible gotcha are grades. Most visions of a logging line include steep grades in the mountains, just like the prototype. Small scale early steam and grades tend to be incompatible. It's just not possible to fit enough weight in these tiny locomotives after a mechanism is installed to have any serious grade-climbing ability with realistic train lengths. Traction tires are one solution, but come with their own issues of reduced electrical pickup and difficulties obtaining smooth slow speed running. I've seen this issue in HOn3; it's got to be worse in N where longer trains are typically desired.
Though it pains me greatly to admit it, if you are truly looking to do a simple steam logging line using mostly RTR components, On30 (O scale using HO track to represent 30" prototype gauge) is a very good solution. There is a wide variety of suitable logging locomotives at reasonable prices, they run and pull well, and they are often the size of more modern HO. The only real drawback to On30 is the size of structures and scenery, which being O scale is large.
If you don't need RTR, then ignore my stupid comments.
Fred W
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon where it's always 1900...
Picture Gorge and Western Railway (HO) - "None More Picturesque!"
Tillamook Head and Bethel Railway (HOn3) - "To Heaven and back!"
Fred,
Haven taken the foray toward early logging, might I recommend the 1930's. It's still relatively early and the selection is much better for everything.
SpaceMouse wrote:Fred,Haven taken the foray toward early logging, might I recommend the 1930's. It's still relatively early and the selection is much better for everything.
Personally, I would go for the '20s. On the railroad side, the last round of major improvements in geared locomotives and cars were made in the early '20s. So there wasn't much difference in rail equipment between the decades. The road system which led to a gradual switch to logging by truck didn't really get started until the '30s when road building became a Depression works project.
The romantic in me prefers the earlier era in coastal California and Oregon logging when dog hole schooners still delivered the lumber to San Francisco and San Diego; when the specialized yarders and loaders were yet to be invented or gain widespread use; when wire lines were common; and geared locomotives were in their early iterations. Requires a lot more kitbashing and scratch-building than later eras, but that's not a bad thing when your layout space is very limited.
just my thoughts, your choices
Fred
WP Lives
fwright wrote:In N, I only know of 4 early steam locomotives (Athearn/MDC 2-6-0, 2-8-0; Atlas Shay (not really early steam but who can resist); and the Bachmann 4-4-0s.
Lets not forget the Atlas 2-6-0, which, granted, would be an old loco by the turn of the century. There are also many loco mechanisms that lend themselves to being backdated without having to rebuild the entire loco, but like you said, it's not exactly RTR.
Ok sorry the thread has been cold for awhile, issues in the real world have become well way to real. Going to build a small starter layout to get my feet wet and then include it into the grand scheme of things...I'm thinking a yard and engine servicing area in about a 2x4 area, maybe alittle larger...n scale , still leaning towards early steam. Lumber or maybe just early western style.
Thank you for all your imput to date,