I finally decided what I am going to do with the one end of the layout. I tore out the track and have redone it. The junction will be at the end of the yard and the yard will consist of 4 stub tracks and a runaround track. It will be sceniced and have turntable and engine facilities but for operation purposes it will be a staging yard leading to the rest of the point to point layout. It will represent either Ludlow of the T&T when the railroad is the Ludlow and Southern RR or Death Valley Junction on the T&T when it is the Lila C branch. - Nevin
Two spring to my mind right off..
1) B&M's Portsmouth branch. This is a short branch from Newfields, NH to Portsmouth NH. Its all that is left of the old Concord & Montreal mainline that crossed the B&M at Rockingham Junction. Rockingham is now a large siding, or small yard perhaps, of a few tracks with the Portsmouth branch curving off. Portsmouth includes the Newington branch which is still busy today, a short branch across a river to Kittery, and another branch down to Hampton & Seabrook. Modeling era will determine how busy it is and whether the seabrook branch is in use. It used to be the Eastern Railroad from East Boston up to Portsmouth, but thats another story..
2) The storied Rockland Branch of the MEC. It terminated at Brunswick Maine which was a small yard, now just a siding, where the "Lower Road" through Augusta and on to points west and the Lewiston Lower branch also converged. Rockland has a small yard itself with and today features a cement rail to barge transload from the huge cement plant in Thomaston, also on the branch. This branch in years past was an interchange with Narrow Gauge in Wiscassett. It featured Canneries and such as well. Now its owned by the Maine Eastern, I think, and is a tourist railroad in addition to the concrete business.
Both these branches are viewable by Google Earth and over the years have featured a variety traffic as opposed to some of the more focused branches that just serve a paper mill or some such.
Good luck!
Chris
Building a point to point branch line vs. the 4x8 oval seems to have more a realistic RR "feel" to it. I think your on the right TRACK!
With the point to point shelf layout your track goes from scene to scene only once.
I model a freelance bridge RR the Missouri & Arkansas Railway used by the CB&Q & MKT that takes place in Eastern Missouri. The line starts out at Old Monroe Mo on the Cuivre River at MO. State Highway 79, then west to Hawk Point then south along MO. State Highway 47 across the old Wabash / Norfolk & Western RR line near Warrenton Mo. thru Missouri Wine Country to connect with MKT near Marthasville Mo. on State Highway 94. Since this is "my" railroad most places will have the "flavor" of this area but may not be perfect to the prototype. Time is pre Burlington Northern (1970). The location & time frame gives me a lot of room of equipment I can use plus freight cars from so many different Railroads from all over the country. As with many railroads built in the 1800’s they never reached all the way as planned. So they never made it all the way to Arkansas. In later years it became a branch line for the BN.
#6 Keep everything simple so I can spend more time running then repairing!
Here are some shots of my 1st section that is about 85% done.
Here is my suggestion. Since all prototype branchs involve point to point railroads anyone of them is a possibility. There are two way to decide on one. If you model a certain railroad like the PRR you can decide what equipment you want to run and choose a branch that carried that type of engines and cars. For example the Chestnut Hill branch carried commuters in MP54 electric cars had a steel mill and several other factories that had diesels or steam be the engines of choice. Where it met the mainline at North Philadelphia station would allow even GG1 or other mainline engines to show up. The other choice is to find a branch that fits the space you have and take whatever equipment it gives you. One mile to the east of North Philly is the Fairhill branch. It is about four blocks long, ran in the street and switched a couple of publishers, Philco Radio and Cross Brothers Meat Packing company. Both left the mainline the same way. A turnout off the outside track.
My three track stagging yard is my branch terminal, the only junction trackage is a single run around siding, locomotives run around the train and shove it into the yard, no muss, no fuss . A new twist will be the addition of a trailing spur off this siding to expedite interchange with the Central California Traction, this could also double as reserve stagging, though current plans are to use it for live interchange..
The branch ends in a similar manner, single run around siding, cars are then shoved as required between 5 packing and lumber shed tracks. The transition to electric freight operations will further simplify operations I can duplicate the practice of several prototypes and have a motor on each end to facalitate switching.
I do believe in keeping it simple
Dave
Maybe the staging yard could be made to represent an interchange yard where the line connects to a larger railroad's mainline?? You could put in some basic engine servicing facilities, have engines come out of an enginehouse and get fueled / watered and hook up to train in the staging yard and run up the branch etc.
I'm using 16" wide shelfs but kinda the other way around...my staging yard is being scenicked to represent an iron ore yard for my freelance railroad. It connects up at a junction to the mainline (NP/Soo's joint iron ore line in central MN) to go to Superior WI where there will be a large iron ore yard and ore dock. So on my layout the staging yard is the branch I guess.
Thanks for the responses. They do summarize my dilemma. My railroad consists of a 16 inch wide shelf that circles a 14 by 14 room with an opening for the door and the bathroom door. One end represents the end of the line for the branch. That part is complete and has a nice terminal with lots of Nevada mines to switch. I have designed it to be "slightly generic" so that it can be operated as either the (1) Silver Peak RR (connected to the Tonopah and Goldfield RR at Blair junction), the (2) Bullfrog Goldfield RR connecting Rhyolite to Beatty (where there was a yard with the T&T) , (3) Lila C branch of the T&T that ran from Death Valley Junction to Ryan, finally (4) The Ludlow and Southern that ran from a connection with the T&T and Santa Fe at Ludlow to the mines at Rochester, Ca. So for 1 model railroad I have 4 scenarios.
Where I have been going back and forth is whether to put a (1) 3 track staging yard in the back of the 16 inch wide space and put a gold mine or other industry in front of a low backdrop or (2) to just have a siding in the middle of no-where where the cars are theoretically dropped off or (3) to build a generic open staging yard with a turntable but scenic it so it looks realistic but not try to model Ludlow or Beatty. (4) try to model part of Ludlow or Beatty. - Nevin
If the trains will originate elsewhere, then a single turnout is all that is needed. If trains can originate from either end of the main line then a "Y" would be in order. An example of this is the junction at Old Saybrook, CT on the New Haven RR leading to the Valley Line which runs North to Essex and beyond.
This trackage is still there and can be seen using any of the satellite viewers. Before about 1980 there was a signal/interlocking tower in the center of the "Y" to control movements onto and from the branch line.
To conserve space, the branch line does not have to be at 90 degrees to the main line. It can be at a 30 degree angle with the track from the least used direction curved around to join the branch line further along.
To add interest there is a passenger station opposite the tower, and there was also a freight house with loading dock track and a team track and two long passing sidings on either side of the double track main. A water tower served track side water plugs which were used by the long freights between the Cedar Hill classification yard at New Haven and Boston.
Instead of just a turnout you can make the junction into a very interesting place
There is/was a pretty good thread in the Model Railroader Prototype Information Forum recently discussing freight houses and platforms for an interchange between narrow and standard gauge. To me, one of the take-aways from the thread is that railroads generally tried for reasonably efficient solutions that suited the type and density of traffic involved. Heavier traffic, especially of one type, justified greater infrastructure investments to gain more efficiency. Low level traffic levels, especially with a wide spectrum of traffic types, resulted in simpler solutions. Very much as Mark said.
So I would tend to arrive at the appropriate facilities by going through the following:
IIRC, John Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operation contains various generic prototype junction layouts. And many, many track plans published in Model Railroader have some sort of junction or another. And not every part of the junction needs to be modeled or shown if you don't have the room for all the facilities your operational scheme dictates. Various parts can be assumed or simulated through staging.
Or, you can even change your operational scheme to reflect what you want to model. I've done that with several layout designs - found a design or portion of a plan I really like and come up with an operational scheme to justify the track arrangement. The purists would say I'm all backwards, but....I'm having fun my way.
Fred W
Mark's approach is minimalist, while mine is not. The junction between the JNR main and the Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo (modeled as an independent, but patterned on a JNR branch) is a busy subdivision yard/engine change point. The TTT diamond yard is tucked into a 'pocket' between the JNR passenger station and the classification tracks, and the two interchange tracks connect to the JNR's main drill track. I doubt that there was anything that complex in southern Nevada. I don't know what the prototype V&T/SP interchange resembled. A quick satellite scan of the UP east of Reno was educational - apparently the branch to Hawthorne once had a wye and much more extensive trackage. Now it's a single switch off the main (trailing point westbound) to a short passing siding on the branch, which then curves around the remaining leg of the wye and heads south.
Taking satellite views of other junction locations, past and present, in the area you're modeling might yield some ideas. Often the roadbed configuration is still identifiable in places where the tracks have long since disappeared.
Good luck, and good hunting,
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Another thought...
If only the branchline is being modeled, I'd have the "rest of the world" represented by a staging yard consisting of several tracks connected to the one end of the branchline. With this arrangement, branchline trains originate/terminate in staging and no junction is physically modeled..
There were instances of branchlines connected to mainlines at either end. This could be represented by staging yards at both ends of the branchline.
Mark
NevinWI am running into "model railroad design block" with my junction on one end of my point to point railroad. Any good examples of websites of model railroads with point to point branch lines out there? - Nevin
Branchline junctions with mainlines will vary greatly depending on the operational scheme and traffic density/volume. A junction can be a single turnout or go "upward" from there. For example, branchline trains could/often/usually originated/terminated at a mainline yard, so trackage at the junction was often minimal. On the other hand, if branchline trains originate/terminate at the junction, or if the "branchline" is actually an independent shortline, the junction trackage could get complex.
I prefer to rely on prototypical examples rather than some track planners' ideas for inspiration, but the key is that the track scheme should follow function.
The plan for my proposed layout includes a continuous mainline and a point-to-point branchline. The junction is a single turnout. Since branchline trains originate/terminate on the mainline distant from the junction, the layout has the advantage of longer runs for branchline trains and reduced complexity at the junction.