Thanks Fred, I'll look into that book. I really liked this design I created but if there's something close to it that actually is proven to work then maybe I'll tweak it. I've also thought about the casters to be able to pull it out. Or I might just turn it lenght wise out from the wall.
There is a track plan with a similar theme in the "48 Track Plans" put out by Kalmbach with "Laurel" it its title that fits on a 4x8 with a small extension in HO. Others with a better memory than mine can provide more details.
The plan is an oval with a small interchange yard and a mining branch that ends with a wye. Expanded (or not!) to fit your space, it might provide the non-flat table operations you are looking for. Almost all published plans will be improved by expanding and/or lengthening them.
Access is a huge issue that if not dealt with will be the death of your layout. A 30" maximum reach is considered normal. One way to get around the limitation on an island or table layout is to put the whole layout on casters, so you can pull it away from the wall when needed (and you will need to!). Putting a layout on casters requires a little more engineering of the benchwork, especially the leg bracing, and a compatible floor to roll on - deep pile carpet is not the floor of choice.
just my thoughts
Fred W
pcarrell,
Thank you very much for taking the time to write all that out. You brought up some very good points and I appreciate your input. Let me answer some of your questions:
I have thought about the around the table accessibility and for where this table will be, eh, that's probably going to be a major problem.
I believe I can reach the stagging area from the front or bottom of the image, but I will not be able to reach the mine if it's up against a wall.
I'm going to model in the late 50's, 60's and 70's to incorporate the PRR, Penn Central and Conrail era's. But it is all going to be totally freelance until I get some more experience. THAT! Being half my problem. I may be a little over zealous about my first layout. But I just didn't want to do a flat 4x8 platfrom.....Blah! BUT! It might not be a bad idea to start a little simpler. Because even looking that this layout and running it in the CAD program, I'm not sure how I would wire this for DC, I'm not ready to get into DCC just yet.
Thanks again, I will review the links you provided and maybe revamp or delete this plan. What I would really love to do is to model the Altoona Rail Shops but I have to get a really detailed picture of the shops. I go past them every day and there's a TON of interesting switching to go on. Paint shops, loco repair, there's a tank car repair company right up and along the same main line. Boy, you've really given me some food for thought here.
You have some good basics here, but first a few questions.
Are you following a prototype?
Do you have access to all sides of the layout?
Is the staging area accessable?
Here's why I ask. It seems as if you're looking for the flavor of a particular road (Pennsy?), but you aren't modeling any particular place. Nothing wrong with that at all. I freelance myself. Here's the deal though.......you have no towns so I can only assume that they are to be represented by staging? No problem. But you also have businesses near your mine, and most mines are fairily remote in that area of the country. You might do better scenically to seperate them more. Lastly, you don't have a real run-around track for your sidings, unless you count the modest yard in the middle.
That brings up the next point......the yard may be too modest. It has no lead and it will only hold 5 or six cars max. It might be better to see if that can either be increased, or deleted. The staging yard is kinda short too.
Next, with this size table, you're going to need to move all the way around it to be able to reach many places. That's not too much of an issue, but if you have that much space you might want to consider a shelf type layout around the room. You'll get a lot more RR in the same space. (See this for ideas: http://siskiyou-railfan.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.12 )
And finally, be sure that you don't bury anything, like staging, into a mountain. You'll need access. I'm sure you already thought of that though.
The basis of a really great layout is here, but some tweaking would really make it come into it's own, ya know?
Some questions to ask yourself when planning might be:
If you don't mind, can I pass along some sites that helped me a lot?
Too bad, I'm going to do it anyways!
http://www.chipengelmann.com/trains/Beginner/BeginnersGuide01.html
http://ldsig.org/wiki/index.php/Category:Primer
http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/index.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~mrsvc/id28.html (this applies to your sized layout too!)
These's a lot of good info here. Take your time, read it through. You don't want to make a ton of mistakes and have to start from scratch in a couple of months, do you?
AJ,
You did. I don't think ndbprr scrolled down far enough. He's a Pennsy guy. What did you expect? (I'm just kidding, ndb )
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Hello fellow hobbists. Here is my final track plan and I would like some input on it. Here's my "train" of thought, please excuse the pun.
It starts with a small pass through stagging yard off the main line. Going clockwise, through the switch and around the industrial corner, past the coal mine inlet line and around the car/loco repair shop. It then runs through a switch and out onto the main line, as it makes the lower right corner it startes the 2.3% grade up to cross over the stagging yard, I put the two tracks side by side so I can use a double rail bridge of some sort. After passing over the stagging it circles back down around on the down grade to run past the stagging yard this time and into the continuous run. In the mean time I have a GP7 running cars from the coal mine at the top jumping though the switch while the mainline train is on the other side and on to the inner loop to climb the mountain and over the stagging yard on the other track, ( I think this will look really cool when I have a couple of coal loads being pushed up the mountain while passing the mainline train headed down in the other direction, or visa versa) it then also comes down grade into or through the stagging yard to switch into the power plant. I also have two switchers to run cars from the stagging into the manufacturing plant or car/loco repair building at the top.
I've been playing with this design for about a month now and I just can't improve on it and there's enough mainline running and switching to keep me occupied for a while. BTW, where the down grade comes down into stagging will be a big mountain to hide the coal mine and there may be a tunnel put in there yet too. Please remember this is only a moc up and the real thing I suspect will be just a little different in reality.
Thanks for your questions, comments, and critizizisms.
http://www.imaginationink.freewebspace.com/layout2.jpg
ARR