i dont like my layout the way it is . so im going back to the drawing bord kind of
i have a drawing of a small to med. sized yard that is no longer there and i would like to build it .i even have photos of the yard . the thing is is if i build it to what the drawing tells me to ill end up taking up half of the room i can build in ( less than 100sq) and my trains will not have room to "go any where". my aim in the first place is to have some thing to do on my layout . thats whats wrong with my layout as is .
thinking out loud
maybe thats not a bad thing switching cars around in a yard will give me something to do but i know myself better than any one and ill get bord with it and ill want more .
maybe if i put it on a curve it might work but i will have to do alot of things i have never done befor like compressing , streching, rerouting, and keeping it as close to proto type so that it will fit into a corner. hmmm i dont know i have some thinking and drawing to dowhen did i become like this is this what happens when you get older
Hi Kain,
you are not the only one, who sometimes has his/her own doubts about the way to go. The issue is to find out, what you really want to get out of your layout. Developing an idea on what type of operation you´d like to have is the key to a successful layout design - successful for you! That´s why copying someone else´s design does not work.
I suggest you to do a little more reading - there are excellent pages from Byron Henderson and Chip Engelmann available here in the web. They will help you through the process of sorting your thinking.
Have fun!
Edit:
I am still in the planning stage - my givens don´t allow me to build the "train empire" I have always been dreaming of. I am going for a shelf layout with a switching theme, but not just a switching puzzle. Actually, it is amazing, how little you need to come up with a rewarding layout. As Lance Mindheim once put it "the more you know about real railroad operation, the less track your layout needs".
You can visit his web page here
Well, kain, welcome to my boat!
I'm in a similar situation, being dissatisfied with my current layout. I'm not getting any younger, either, so it's time to build my Dream Layout.
But it's hard to express exactly WHAT I want in a layout. I've done the Givens & Druthers thing but I'm still undecided.
I went through some layout planning last year and posted my drawings on several forums. It was comments from Ulrich and Byron Henderson that caused me to shelve the whole process for the time being. Don't get me wrong, they offered great comments. I just don't know how to incorporate their suggestions into what I want. Guess that means I still haven't determined exactly what I want.
It takes a lot of thought, research and hard work to develop a track plan that meets your needs. It is not a process for the faint-of-heart. But it is a good process. Keep at it. Define and re-define what you want to do with your layout. Accept the inevitable compromises. When you finally do build a layout, it will a good layout. It may not be everything you wanted, but it will be closer to your ideal than if you hadn't done the homework.
Good luck and enjoy the trip!
kain687 i dont like my layout the way it is . so im going back to the drawing bord kind of i have a drawing of a small to med. sized yard that is no longer there and i would like to build it .i even have photos of the yard . the thing is is if i build it to what the drawing tells me to ill end up taking up half of the room i can build in ( less than 100sq) and my trains will not have room to "go any where". my aim in the first place is to have some thing to do on my layout . thats whats wrong with my layout as is . thinking out loud maybe thats not a bad thing switching cars around in a yard will give me something to do but i know myself better than any one and ill get bord with it and ill want more . maybe if i put it on a curve it might work but i will have to do alot of things i have never done befor like compressing , streching, rerouting, and keeping it as close to proto type so that it will fit into a corner. hmmm i dont know i have some thinking and drawing to dowhen did i become like this is this what happens when you get older
You want a layout with "something to do" and you are considering modeling a yard. Okay.
But what is the core of what you want to do - is it just sorting cars into the right order for delivery to your local industries (and then possibly delivering them), or is it imagining that your yard will be sending trains off in different directions, so you want to sort inbound cars into outbound blocks - say one block for Boston, one for New York (or one for Kansas City and one for Chicago, or one westbound and one eastbound or whatever)?
Or in other words - are you most interested in switching, or most interested in routing?
If your main goal is more switching, could that be served by a small industry support yard - just a couple of tracks that can hold extra cars temporarily while you switch nearby industries?
Or is your main goal to model a specific real yard? If so - is it to model how the real yard worked, or is it mainly to model how it looked?
Lots of options here - try to firm up a bit what your main goal is - what you are looking for.
Smile, Stein
If in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout...
Or, sit down and spend a few minutes thinking about the dream that you would find most satisfying. You seem to like the yard you mentioned, yet you realize that modeling even a small prototype yard accurately to scale will do a number on the space available for other aspects of operation.
My own master plan is based on reproducing the operation of a rather short length of prototype railway. I didn't even think of trying to model the real track layouts of the stations in question, since I have a garage, not a hangar. Instead, I decided what trackwork I would need to handle the schedule, eliminated the rest, then shortened what was left to make the station-to-station run longer. My main station still runs the full width of the garage, but it doesn't overwhelm the rest of the railroad.
Note that I didn't arrive at my present solution overnight. Rather, it's the culmination of plans scribbled or carefully drawn over a span of forty years, some tested on layouts (and found wanting) and some not. Once I finally got an adequate space for my 'last in this lifetime' layout I had my ducks pretty much in a row. Construction is proceeding, with very satisfactory results.
Whatever you do, don't get bogged down in, "Paralysis by analysis." There is no such thing as a perfect model railroad (or a perfect full-size railroad, for that matter.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Think selective compression (smaller turnout numbers than real-life, fewer tracks, shorter spurs). Are you working in HO? is N an option?
Alan
Co-owner of the proposed CT River Valley RR (HO scale) http://home.comcast.net/~docinct/CTRiverValleyRR/
Compression is the key. You have to look at the overall scope of your entire layout, and determine just how much yard you really need.
If you have a simple roundy round layout that can optimally handle 10 or 12 car trains, then you have no need for a fully scaled yard that holds hundreds of cars.
So often modelers get hung up on modeling a facility inch for inch that you lose sight of the fact that it has be functional in the context of your modeled world, not in the context of a prototype that you can't possibly include.
On my railroad, I run through trains, a few locals, and my yard is also a division point. So I have three longer tracks to arrange the pick ups and set outs for the longer trains, and three shorter tracks for the locals to be built. And I have a modest engine terminal to handle the power swaps and what not appropriate to the division point. I'm working in N Scale, so I have a bit more elbow room to work with, but still, it's a lot more compact than what actually existed at Hagerstown back in the day!
Simplify. Build what you need, and build it so it functions the way you need it to function.
I find it's more important to capture the essence of the facility in a way that works for your layout, rather than try to replicate every inch of track at the expense of realism on the rest of the railroad.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Kain,
talk,talk talk,
why not make a drawing of your space, with all obstacles? Why not show us your present layout and your plans. Why not tell us your druthers?
Chuck said it, Allen McClelland too: perfect layouts do only exist in dreams; good enough is what matters.
IMHO analysis paralysis is bull; or a neat way to describe an armchair modeller.
Paul
I will tell you what I did, may be of help, may not. I am 73 years old, have been into model trains since my first Christmas thanks to my dad. Started in HO in 1959 when I graduated seminary and have been in model railroading ever since. After several attempts to build a layout that would hold my interest, I decided to model a part of the Santa Fe in Oklahoma, the region where I grew up, return to often, and know the history.
The layout I started in 1983 is a three deck railroad in a room 33ft by 29 ft. When I started I knew and laid out what things I wanted to do. I wanted to duplicate the grain hauling season in Oklahoma, which meant lots of grain trains and lots of large elevators. I wanted to duplicate a portion of the mainline from Oklahoma City north to Arkansas City. I have done that with Arkansas City being a staging yard. Now I had the grain hauling, the major terminal for switching.
Next I included the Enid Dist. of the Santa Fe which ran from Kiowa KS through Enid, one of the largest grain terminals in the US and on to Guthrie and connected with the Oklahoma City main. I did that.
Then I decided to include a stretch of the old Frisco (now BN) line from Tulsa to Avard on the ATSF Transcon mainline. I did that.
I set the date as 1989-1990.
So today, that layout with all those ideas is a completed layout, my goals were all met, and I never get tired operating it or working on it. Changes that are made are to improve the railroad, never to change it.
I am happy with it, I enjoy it, I continue to make improvements, but, the original purpose and design remain the same. If you don't know what you want, you won't build what you want. It sounds like you haven't settled into the hobby enough yet. Give it some time, work on what you want in the design and remember, "Rome wasn't built in a day".
Bob
One thing that no-one has dealt with is a question of what interests you about the whole model RR thing at a deeper level.
This isn't major philosophy or navel gazing.
The thing is that in 50+ years I have often wondered why people make really amazing layouts and then rip them up to start over. Why don't they sit back and enjoy running the trains?
The answer is that they enjoy making the layouts and that running the trains is actually somewhere way down the list - if it's even on it.
There is no criticism here. I have just learnt that it is very useful to identify what one really wants to do. There's no point in sweating away to get a layout built to only find that it "isn't right" and start again if what one really enjoys is the making... because once made the real interest has come to an end... and running the trains is only a bi-product. It is better to take more time building the thing.
I hope this makes some sense.
PS I think that a huge (subconscious) part of the hobby for a lot of people is the "problem solving" element. Whwether it's finding a particular model or figuring out how to build an awkward baseboard. It has the "hobby" advantage that we don't really have to get it right and we don't have a deadline to meet (unless we make one)... so we can beaver away for years without actually having to "do something".
I know how you feel. I have been working on a plan for several months. I finally got a couple trains running the other night but after looking at how everything would work I wasn't very satisified. I am now back to the drawing board to see what else I can come up with.
Good luck
MC
this is the yard it is no longer there it was torn out in the late 70s maybe 80s the scale is 1"= 100'and that is apx.8' long thats alot of space for just one place
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the history for me is that it was there for a large part of my life and i never knew it was there ..good thing though i would have gotten on my bike and road it to there. i would have gotten in to a heap of dung if i was cought beleave me i would have gone there. well worth the risk
GIVENS & DRUTHERS im not sure what those are all i can do i guess. i know the- room that i have to work with in, the scale N by the way, local survice (i also know a few local places that got service like there was a lumber yard, a mill of some sort lumber i think , a ware house and it also serviced a power plant that would have dirty dirt taken away ) i would also like to have service come in from some where and out to some where i kinda know the "end points" but those places ill never build
ya know writing some of this down is helping me
hmmm i have things to do in the yard , 4 places to go, and ill need stageing
[edited for content by selector]
that pic is a drawing from the 30's i also have a drawing of what it looked like in the 60's i think ill stick with the 30's yard the revised yard from the 60's is nuts way to much to do lol BUT ill have to drop the power plant and do some history to fill in the blanks and ill have to strech time i want to run f units along with steam
thank you all for the info it all helps the more i get the better informed i am and the better layout ill build
Hi Kain --
Not sure I am clear on what you want to build yet.On one hand you speak about servicing or switching 4 local industries - a lumber yard, a mill of some sort, a warehouse and a power plant.
On the other hand, the yard track plan you posted shows only a small part of some yard - essentially the engine service part of the yard, not the parts of the yard used to take apart arriving trains or inbound blocks of cars, resorting cars by destination, and building new trains and outbound blocks of cars.
You do not need a biggish yard with all kinds of engine service tracks for delivering a few cars to four local industries on a modest sized layout located in an apartment. I would start with a sketch and/or description of the room where you want to put your layout, and some more description of what you are trying to do.
For instance - are you planning to extend your existing layout by adding a small yard and some more industries?
Or are you planning to take down your existing layout and build a new layout from scratch, with the new layout based on local switching in some small town ?
Or are you trying to do something else instead? Try to describe how much space you have available, and what you are trying to do. That is what a list of givens and druthers really is - a list of the things you either cannot or do not want to change (givens) and a list of what you would like to be able to do, if you can make it work (druthers).
Dave-the-TrainThe thing is that in 50+ years I have often wondered why people make really amazing layouts and then rip them up to start over. Why don't they sit back and enjoy running the trains? The answer is that they enjoy making the layouts and that running the trains is actually somewhere way down the list - if it's even on it.
My belief also
I think most are model makers with a RR theme
I personally like to see them run
I have a two track oval 18 and 22 with just 2 sidings for appearance--run both trains at once
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