Not bad. You seem to have something like 9*12 foot to work with. Around the walls gives much more track than a table in the middle of the room. Would it be possible to add a peninsula sticking out into the middle of the room to carry more track, perhaps in the future?
Your yard and spur trackage have a lot of crossovers. You could get to the same place with plain turnouts. I mention this because crossovers cost at least twice what turnouts do.
It is not clear what your yard lead track is. You will want a yard lead as long as the longest yard track. When it comes time to extract the car at the end of a full year track and put it on another track, the switcher needs room to pull all those cars out of the yard track. You want to be able to work the yard without blocking the main.
Do try for wider radius main line curves. 22 or 24 inch would let you run passenger equipment and big engines. 18 inch is mighty tight.
You have a lot of spurs, which is good. Is there enough space to erect industrial building on the spurs so as to give a real reason for dropping cars on them?
Have you read John Armstrong "Track Planning for Realistic Operation"?
Good luick
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
Two things
1) Add another staging track to the one you already have, more if you can. One is not enough.
2) Go with larger radii if at all possible like Mark said.
Like the layout. It should keep you busy enough not to get bored with it. Like others have suggested, don't skimp on the curve radii. The bigger the better. Have you entertained the idea of maybe removing the entry door to the room? Could you change it to open outward? Or maybe a bi-fold door (about the price of a good piece of rolling stock). The extra real estate in that corner could be used to improve an already interesting layout.
Keep us posted on your progress.
Steve
I dig it. Looks like you have packed quite a bit fo action into a little layout to give all kinds of switching options. That should keep you busy for along time,plus still allowing full loop running for the days you just want to relax and watch a few trains run or get it going for visitors.
Definatly post some pics of progress.
Best Regards, Big John
Kiva Valley Railway- Freelanced road in central Arizona. Visit the link to see my MR forum thread on The Building of the Whitton Branch on the Kiva Valley Railway
Dave, that's a very good point about a staging or interchange with the GMO I'll have to think on how to add that in.
Peter, the yard is already laid but may change at a later date.
Tom, I'm planning to run my layout as a small town local outfit, an outpost of the "NS" system and have three "four" axle units already as power. One SW switcher and two GP units all "NS" but I'm looking to pickup a GMO unit in the future or paint one. And I lean toward the older 40' and 50' rolling stock as to me they are just more applying because of the graphics.
Mark, The yard is the only thing laid as I type but I'll try a larger radius when I start laying the curves to see what fits best in the space. As I have already rebuilt the yard once (flipping it) to give it more yard track length.
Greg, the software I used is "3rd planit". It's a little pricey, but I was able to use the demo to lay out a working plan within a hour of download. Very little learning curve so I bought the full version.
Johnnny_reb Once a word is spoken it can not be unspoken!
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markpierce wrote:I believe you would better off if you used something like a 24" radius rather than the rather tight 18" you chose. With 18" you'll be more limited in the locomotives and cars and could have more derailments. You have room for larger radii.Mark
I believe you would better off if you used something like a 24" radius rather than the rather tight 18" you chose. With 18" you'll be more limited in the locomotives and cars and could have more derailments. You have room for larger radii.
Mark
It would also give a little more room at the doorway.
what software did you use to do that with? I want to try that instead of the RTS from atlas. I really don't like their program.
Your plan looks pretty good, it looks like it will have lots of op interest. Just make sure that your spurs and passing sidings are long enough to handle the train lengths you want to run. like, for instance, a 3-foot section of flextrack can hold an engine with like, 5 cars, typically at its max. and also think about direction your trains will be traveling, because doing switching is really impacted by whether or not your turnouts are facing point or trailing point.
by that i mean, a facing point turnout is a spur that the engine enters head on into. a trailing point spur is the best and easiest spur to use in order to pick up a car, because you just uncouple the engine, pull up, back into the spur, couple the car, pull out, and then back up and couple to the rest of the train.
just stuff to think about.
Looks good. Make sure to include some pictures once you start building it.
Bill
Johnnnie,
What size locomotives will you be running on your layout: 4- or 6-axle? With R18" curves, I'd stick with smaller 4-axles and shorter (50' and under) rolling stock.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I'm far from an expert, but I like it! The only thing that I might change (if you have room) is to add another track to your "yard". It looks like you've got a one-track yard, plus A/D track and runaround ladder. Maybe add a second track to increase your sorting capabilities?
Nice!
Peter
Looks pretty good. I would be tempted to try and simplify the yard throat a bit, but it looks like a good switching oriented layout with one or maybe two trains running per session. With as low a density of trains as you are going to be operating you could make the throat a little more straightforward if you wanted, but what you have looks like it fits and certainly gives you additional options if you want them.
Only change might be to add a GMO staging track behind the rock quarry area so a GMO local can come over to the yard and interchange and then go back. Not necessary, it looks like you have an interchange track maybe, but might be a nice addition if you are comfortable with adding another hidden track.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Here's my latest track plan drawn with real track planning software