It looks like you have enough room to add at least one, maybe two, more section of track to the approach track between the mainline turnout and the first turnout on the NW yard to accomplish what HHPATH56 is suggesting. An easier solution but admitedly not as elegant as his.
Bear "It's all about having fun."
My only suggestion is that you lengthen the approach track to your yard, so that a switcher can form a consist without tying up the mainline. The turnout approach to the yard could be repositioned to the right end of your layout, by curving it around the top. I use double-slip switches within the yard to allow the switcher access to any track from within the yard. Have you considered using a Y and two regular switches,(rather than a ladder), so that all the tracks within the yard are of equal length. My stub ended yard is much larger, but the idea could be employed on your last layout design, with a four track yard. Bob Hahn
My latest version in RTS 7 was designed using a 42"x90" "layout footprint" allowing for approx 3" clearance from all edges at those dimensions. When I actually go to build on a 4x8 I'll have about 6" or so clearance from any edge to most of the tracks. Doing the reduced layout working area simplifies deciding how close is too close.
It is never to late to offer advice.......unless it is suggesting that the plane should have been refeuled before take off.
Maybe this is a little late, but I noticed your Northwest yard is up against the edge of the 4x8. Having children myself, I also have a yard against the edge like your drawing...and I can't tell you how many times the young ones like to run up to the layout and inadvertently knock over/derail all my rolling stock that I just finished placing the 32nd car on the rails in the yard. In N-scale it is real easy for them to knock over a few trains.
If I was doing your layout, I'd move the outer ring along the edge of the 4x8 and place the northwest yard a little deeper. Even moving it a few inches would prevent those little hands from reaching over and the "tornado" season would finally be over.
I've been tinkering a bit more and feel comfortable with this plan for a 4x8. The reversing loop is gone for now, I can add that later (Northwest yard to the Southeast yard). Industries are as follows-
Abby's Cement Mill Complex- #1 is receiving of raw materials in hoppers and gondolas, #2 is the rotary kiln and adjoining bldgs, #3 are the silos for finished cement, accesible to rail tankers and truck tankers.
#4 is small lumber yard, road and rail.
#5 is a steel fabrication complex
#6 is TRM Precast Concrete Products with access to 2 spurs. Northwest spur is for receiving sand, stone, and cement by rail. West spur is for loading finished product on flat cars.
#7 is Steph's Wood Products Manufacturing, road and rail.
Southeastern Yard has a runaround and a spur that can be extended to additional future expansion. Northwest Yard is for staging and storage.
I'm sure I eliminated all the S-turns on the Mainlines that may cause issues and tweaked the rest on the sidings and spurs.
The access road runs from lower left and curls up around the Industrial Park.
Any comments?
Total agreement about the nail, spike, and pin holding qualities of Homasote vs foam. Which is why I swear by Homasote as a roadbed for my handlaid track. And now that I understand that the sheet Homasote is to help with various temporary track configurations, I agree that it's one of the best materials for that purpose.
That's pretty close to what I did on my last HO layout. I started handlaying an oval on a 4x8 plywood covered with Homasote. Had to cut the thing to 4x6 in one of my many moves. When the track was about 80% done, and I knew the final configuration, I pulled the jig saw out and cut out (cookie cuttered) the plywood and Homasote together. I then added the risers and set up my grades, filling in the open areas with plaster of paris over window screen scenery (foam wasn't known or commonly available then).
thanks for clarifying
Fred W
Fred W.,
I do appreciate your "free and often unwanted" advice.
My thoughts for using the homosote stems from my memory. My dad had a small peice (about 12"x12")hanging in the garage as a bullentin type board and also he had a few sheets for throwing under the car or truck to lay on while repairing. From what I recall the homosote was more forgiving than foam would be to repeated "stabbing".
At work we use Dow blue board (both in 1" and 2 1/2" thicknesses) in fairly high volumes, depending on production levels between 1 and 5 tractor trailer loads a week. Most of the cuts we make in both thicknesses are along the length of the foam, or with the grain. We all use a tape measure to score the board and we can just snap the 1" board where the 2 1/2" thick boards need a pass or two with a thin blade putty knife before snapping in two. We also use the white EPDM (I think thats the professional name for it) foam that resembles white balls smashed together. I've said all of this to explain the reason for staying away from foam for this stage. Foam does not like repeated punctures in a small location nor will it hold a smooth shank nail, it will hold annular nails (ring nails)very well though.
I figure if I do the homosote on plywood (keeping zero elevations) I can tinker with a track plan until I find one that will work and sometime down the road I can relatively easily remove the track from the homosote and start cutting for the grades.
concretelackey wrote:.... I'll modify the existing crossovers to limit the s-turns and throw it on a sheet of 1/2" plywood covered with homosote. I figure using the homosote as the building base I can fairly easily change things down the road as my skills allow. After I throw together another plan I'll post that for comments.Thanks again!
.... I'll modify the existing crossovers to limit the s-turns and throw it on a sheet of 1/2" plywood covered with homosote.
I figure using the homosote as the building base I can fairly easily change things down the road as my skills allow. After I throw together another plan I'll post that for comments.
Thanks again!
I am one of the biggest fans of Homasote on this forum. But I don't think it's really the right material for what you are intending. Homasote in model railroading works extremely well as a roadbed material when supported by a rigid subroadbed. But elsewhere, as either a table top or as a scenery support, I would say extruded foam has all the advantages over Homasote.
- neither Homasote nor foam are fun to cut. But foam is fairly reasonable to cut by hand, Homasote not so much.
- foam is light, Homasote is not.
- foam is easily carved to give something other than flat terrain, Homasote is not.
The last is the best reason for favoring foam over Homasote for the table top or scenery support.
my advice is free but still often unwanted....
I played with RTS 7 some more and started having second thoughts. Not about doing a 4x8 or N scale but about the complexity of doing a reverse loop under the layout on my 1st try. Now I'm leaning towards eliminating the reverse loop totally. I'll modify the existing crossovers to limit the s-turns and throw it on a sheet of 1/2" plywood covered with homosote.
First off, Thanks to all for your replys, it is much appreciated!
At this point in time I'm stuck with roughly a 4x8 layout footprint due to a lack of permanant space. I can't do a around the wall layout either for a few years until a few of the kids "grow up" and go off on their own. The phrase "Being N scale it should allow for the impression of open space" was meant in refernce to the differnce between N and HO.
I'll pop some drawings out with the following changes-
-I'll widen the mainlines on the upper leftside and lower right (bringing them closer to the layout edge) and drop the north tunnel (upper right) off the outer loop thru the layout between them. At the same time I'll try and bring the south tunnel up thru the layout to the inside loop near the lower right. I'll lose the reversing loop but will have somewhere around 10-12' of hidden track for grading as well as 8-10' of exposed track for additional grade adjustments. This will address the grade issue.
-I'll keep the cement mill complex coming off a passing track in a counter clockwise direction but bring the industrial park spur off in a clockwise direction.
-To address the s-turn issue I try and fit in some curved turnouts where possible.
-Since the mainlines will be a wider radius I can shift both the cement mill and the industrial park a bit closer to the edges and throw a extra spur or two at each location to eliminate the south yard.
-A street/access road can run diagonally roughly from lower left to upper right to acommindate truck traffic wih parking areas put in where they may fit.
I'll do all this as soon as I can get on our desktop (this laptop is a bit outdated and cumbersome for any cad work). I'll post what I can as soon as I can.
Again, thanks for the replys and inputs!
Ken
That's quite a lot of track and all of the spurs seem to be coming off the mainline in the same direction (unless I am missing something). That's fine if that's what you want, but IMHO it takes a lot of the fun and challenge out of switching.
The are a couple of S-curves coming out of the loops into turnouts diverging in the opposite direction that will likely be problematic. Angled crossovers would help in a couple of cases, although they're not very common on real-life railroads.
The grades seem a bit severe on the reversing connection as well, but I didn't spend the time to figure them carefully.
As others have said, I don't believe that it leaves much room for a depiction of "open space" as the layout stands now. It is possible to put a lot of operation in an N scale 4X8, or to find a decent balance between operation and appearance. It's usually also possible to find room for staging tracks suggesting a connection with "the rest of the world".
Hate to rain on the parade, but I think some more study might suggest better alternatives for the space if you want to design your own layout (as opposed to using a published design). John Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operation is a great resource, although it will take some time to digest the material. And of course, an interesting layout alternative is possible in just a skoche more space (when one considers the aisles needed around 3 sides of the 4X8) by judicious cutting of the 4X8 sheet.
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I am one who like to design operations into a layout and you have some nice switching.
But I don't see the layout as giving the illusion of open space.
I also think that you should draw in the access roads and parking and see if you can imagine how the industrial scenes will work.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Looks very interesting! 4x8 is a decent space for N. Looks like it'd be fun to operate!
The only advice I have is to find a way to figure out exactly what sort of grades you'll have with that hidden track. Grades at or above 2% in N scale tend to limit train length because our very light locomotives often have trouble generating the tractive effort to lug the same number of cars their equivalents in HO can on the same grade.
I had 3% grades on my last N scale layout. I hated them. I swore off grades above 1.5% after that. But a 4x8 in N scale should give you a decent run allowing for gentler grades.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
Thanks for the reply!
I started to do the same plan in HO and had an ephiphany(sp?), darn it would be big! So looks like N for me.
Any thoughts or concerns about the plan as it is? I know some of the building outlines seem at odds with the track but I figure that when it comes time to lay track and do the structures I'll tweak as needed.
your layout has a lot going on , looks like it will be fun to operate . switching to HO instead of N will require a much larger space , and maybe some redesign so there are no places where the edge-to-track reach is more than 3 feet (and less than that if you're much under 6 ' tall)
redraw it in HO and see how it looks , you may be surprised at the space required
After having spent quite a bit of time pricing materials on the net I now am at a crossroads. Considering that HO and N are priced about the same for the most part perhaps I should re-design for HO scale. Ho will in the end be a bit easier to handle and model, especialy considering the availability of a wider selection of items.
Hmm.......to turn right or to turn left???
Same plan with structure outlines added.
1st posting of a layout which is not a submittal for the contest.
M&R Central, 1970's and later deisel freight/industrial theme. N-scale on the ever popular 4x8 footprint.
the south yard resides at zero elevation while Steph's Hill (which contains Abby's Cement Mill and Tristan's Industrial Park) rises up to about 4" with the inner circuit bearing the brunt of height changes. The "red line" is a hidden track under Steph's Hill (and the layout proper) to give the illusion of distance.
While I don't have structures shown this is what I intend-
Abby's Cement will have receiving of raw materials and coal (for the rotary kiln) on the 2 spurs to the upper left requiring assorted coal bins, conveyors and silos. Heading to the lower right between the 2nd and 3rd spur will be the rotory kiln (15' diameter by about 200' in length), and associated buildings and finally between spurs 3 and 4 will be the cement silos holding the finished product. This complex will require a fair amount of switching.
Tristan's Industrial Park has building permits for a wood-working company (high volume/low quality particle board furniture manufacturer supplying the big box stores), a steel warehouse receiving plating, tubing, piping and I beams next door to a steel structures fabricator using the received materials to prefab building superstructure components. Also, perhaps a precast concrete plant and storage yard and a few additional companys to fill out the tax base.
Being N scale it should allow for the impression of open space...........I think.
Any thoughts?