New Trackplan for Critique

[babefluff]

Good evening to all, 

I posted a plan here a couple of months ago and after your reviews, I decided to start all over and try to come up with something that was better.  Well, here it is.  I have put a lot of thought into this plan and hopefully it will pass the "Forum Test."  The railroad is a fictional subdivision of the Canadian Pacific set in the northeast during the late 70’s to early 80’s.  The Soo Line and CN share trackage rights and interchange at Bishops Falls.   I run all 4 axle diesels and mostly 40 – 50‘ cars.  I plan on operating it as follows:  the local will depart the main yard at Bishops Falls traveling downgrade to Badger switching the industries there.  It will continue around the blob and then stop at Botwood.  From there it will head south under the bridge around the lower blob into the hidden trackage.  The local will emerge at the top blob and finally it will switch the paper mill and then return to Bishops Falls.  I can run bridge traffic from north or south staging around the layout and back into staging and I can drop or pick up cars at the interchange.  I can make up trains in the yard and send them out or I can bring them in and terminate them.  What do you think?

 

Scott

 

[HHPATH56]

Hi Scott, Let me lead off the critique of your new layout plan. For the space available, it is well planned. My only concerns are the three hidden tracks against, the three walls, How do you plan to have access to them, to take care of derailments. etc.? I have made access to the five tracks beneath my peninsula mountain, by constructing the mountain of reinforced arches of plywood, covered with heavy screen, and then plaster cloth and sculptmold and hydrocal plaster. I designed the reinforcing plywood arches so that I could cut portals along their edges, and constructed boxlike inserts that can be removed for work on the 5 inner tracks. I had to remove an intire corner mountain in order to place the N scale end of a dogbone beneath it. It so happened that my stepson got a cello that was encased in a styrofoam casse that has one inch thick walls. I plan to make use of it to form a removable mountain in the corner. I, also, have a crawl under oval cut in the 5/8" plywood, as access to the N scale loop. One could build a similar mountain shell from offset arcs of stacked styrofoam insulation. Below, is a photo of a ravine covered by an arch bridge for Faller cars and trucks and a railroad bridge that handles all the traffic circling my layout. I am at present finishing construction of a rather vast Ashland Iron & Steel Mill complex, including two Hulett unloaders and an ore carrier, the Blast furnace, Blower Engine house, and Rolling Mill,(all connected by 10 rails, to the inside and outside. Bob Hahn.

[Paulus Jas]

hi Scott,

You have a nice design, you can built it and have lots of fun. But as always there are questions and remarks. Not meant to put you off, I am just very curious.

1) You have chosen for a two blob design, your main is a dogbone, the result is a rather wide bench and two routes through every scene. Did you ever consider a footprint like the `Muddlety Creek` by Allen McClelland (Model Railroad Planning 1996) or the San Jacinto & Santa Fe by Andy Sperandeo, a version with an oval is #67 in !02 Realistic Track Plans)?

2) You seem to have chosen for a multi route approach. The schematic would be more straight if Badger is on the main only. The branch would start in Botwood, with a spur to the the paper mill (Grand Falls), and then over the bridge directly into Bishops Falls. 

3) On your plan I would flip the turntable and the yard in Bishop. Asuming Bishop is on a high level, you will need it for access to staging anyhow, you can lengthen the yardtracks over the main. How far depends on the door. The reason behind this remark is trainlength, Botwood and Bishop are designed very short.

Have fun
Paul

[babefluff]

Thanks for the comments so far.  To HHPATH56 I plan on having removable access for the staging tracks.  In fact, something quite similar to this recent post.  http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/160753.aspx  It is the last post on the first page by der5997

To Paul,

1.  I actually looked at those two designs but in order to have a continuous run option, I opted to go with a walk in plan.  My last layout, in a similar size room had three doorways leading in to it, therefore three duckunder-liftouts.  I said after that, my next layout will be duckunder free!  Except for the blobs, the bench is around 24" wide.  To which area in particular are you referring? 

2.  I do not mind having to run twice through the same scene.  The tracks are well separated and at different elevations.  The reverse loop will provide a long run which is one of my druthers.  I like your idea about having Badger on the main only and then the spur from Botwood to Grand Falls.  I will play around with that idea in RTS.

3.  Yes, Bishops Falls is on a higher level.  Do you mean flipping the yard from top to bottom or from left to right?  There is no actual door way into the room.  The bottom wall extends out about 96" from the lower left corner and the right wall extends down 100" from the top right corner resulting in an angled opening about 60" wide into the room.

[selector]

I like the plan a lot.

However, I think if you visualize where the front of the bench will be in the central operating area at the lower left corner, but mostly the upper right blob, I feel you will have substantial reach problems.  Scale it out at the upper right and you'll realize you are going to be reaching at or beyond 40" (101 cm) which is beyond the practical limit for all but 0.02% of the world's men.

-Crandell

[Paulus Jas]

hi

Both at Badger and Bishop your bench is about 30" wide. Badger is drawn beyond the grid line, so bench width will be more then 24".

Flipping top to bottom. The idea was making Bishop a bit longer along the southern wall. I may be wrong, but trainlength in both Botwood and Bishop seems less then 35", so some extra length isn't bad at all.

It is not about being right or wrong. I can have misread your drawing, when you'r sure about your bench width it's fine.

You are right about the long run on the branch, omitting the reverse loop is shortening this run significally. 

Paul 

[babefluff]

Good day,

 Here is revision 4.9, I flipped the yard and extended the siding at Botwood as Paul had suggested.  I even got a dedicated yard lead out of it, albeit a short one.  For Crandell, I decided to move the staging yard underneath the layout and shift the whole layout to the left.  By doing this I now have access to the upper right blob.  I also added a passing siding to the northwest corner.  I will leave this portion of the rear track exposed as it will disappear into tunnels to the south and to the east.  Thanks for the comments and take care.

Scott

[markpierce]

The switching lead at Bishop Falls is a near waste.   The way the yard is laid out, one still can't enter/leave the yard while the switcher is working since one is blocking the arrival/departure and classification tracks regardless.  I'd redo the yard or shorten the lead so the track functions as a switcher pocket: a place for the switcher to stay out of the way so trains can access/escape from the yard.................The runaround track/arrival tracks are arranged so they either block access to the engine terminal or the classification tracks.  This is another reason to redo the yard.  Or maybe your thinking is that arriving trains will take a stub track and the switcher will remove the trains' consists so the road locomotive can escape by backing up?  That's workable but a bit awkward.

From where the leads to the staging yard disappear, it seems the staging tracks would be extremely short (five feet, less the length needed for any turnouts.)  Also, turnout access from above looks difficult/impossible since there are tracks close above.

Access to the Bishop Falls yard looks difficult since it is at the back of the layout.  It should be closer to the operator, especially when fooling with coupling/uncoupling.

Will there be a switcher assigned to Grand Fall?  If not, what's the reason for such a large (4-track) yard there?

Good luck.

Mark

[Doughless]

Scott,

I like the plan.  Like the walk in dogbone and the continous run option.  Not sure if all of the switches will fit like you have them, but the general plan still holds up well if they don't. 

Sorry if you want further suggestions, but I'll go ahead anyway.  I don't think you still have enough space for access to the upper right corner, about 12 inches it looks like.  By pushing the blob left, you've also reduced the access to the center of the layout.  Generally speaking, I think you could accomplish the same operating plan with less track, and improve your scenery to boot.

If you drew a schematic of your layout, I don't know if there is alot going on after Botwood, only heading to staging and back.  You could accomplish that with less track. Since your staging tacks are in the middle of your plan, an oppossed to the end, they should represent an interchange, sort of eliminating the need for the interchange siding you have now.  Optimally, the train that reamerges from staging should be a different train from the one that left Bishop Falls. That different train could bring different cars to switch the industries along the way back to Bishop Falls.  What I would do is...

• Have the staging tracks start somewhere to the left of Botwood and the staging tracks straight along the left wall. That switch in the upper right before Botwood is now still tough to access, so moving it left , after Botwwod, will help that issue also. I think it will improve operations as well. 
• Eliminate that one industry in the upper right that angles towards the corner.  Not having to uncouple cars or throw a switch eliminates the need for frequent access to that corner. Poor access becomes less of an issue then. Axing that industry will tend also separates the towns better also.  (Maybe move Botwood industries towards the upper left corner with the new found space). You probably don't need more than three tracks in the small yard either.  Generally, you want to try to keep the tracks towards the front of difficult to reach places and the bigger buildlings towards the rear.  Doing so would also help to conceal the sharp curves of the blob.  There are many articles about how to use buildings to hide return loop curves.
• Eliminate the interchange siding since staging would be the interchange. 
• I would add a fiddle interchange track along the wall in Bishop Falls. (For future consideration)
• If you eliminate the interchange siding and move staging back along the wall, you can hide the entire curved portion of the bottom blob, leaving it open from underneath, thereby improving the scenic quality of Bishop Falls.
• With the new found room at Bishop Falls, add a rather large industry there to give the return train more reason to go BF.

This may sound like a lot of changes, but it isn't really.  Sorry if you didn't want anymore suggestions.

Doug

[kain687]

looks nice the only thing i would do is drop your staging under your lay out and move the lay out over top of the staging yard  that way you can reach all of the track with ez and get to your cars and engins for maint. with out reaching over any thing that could brake or get cought on a sleave