My track plan is online!

[88gta350]

I've finally finished a rough draft of my track plan and posted it on my site. I'd appreciate it if you guys would check it out and give me your feedback. It's an 11x22 and I've never done anything this large before. The plan really only includes track and the major buildings (which may not be to scale, but are close) and doesn't include most roads, streams, and mountains just so all the lines didn't get confusing. I'll take any feedback... be honest about the operability of said plan. I wanted to incorporate continous run capability but still have alot of switching options. The plan has 3 foot shelves with two peninsulas. 30" aisles are standard with a pinch point in the center of 2', but it shouldn't be bad.

While you're there, read the history of the line to get a feel for why the track plan looks the way it does. I was able to keep the town of Belleville very true to the prototype. There may be the addition of a passing siding and/or station between Belleville and Reedsville, but because I don't know it's exact location yet, I didn't include it.

Link to my site is in my signature!

Thanks!
Dave Moore

[Anonymous]

Dave,
I took a look at your track plan and am envious of your layout space. I have been planning a smaller layout for a while that include continous running and switching/point to point operations. A couple things jumped out at me right away..
1) You have 2 Wye switch arrangements, is that a prototypical feature you want to capture?
2) In the Belleville switching area the only runaround possibility is one of the Wye's with an industry on the tail track.
3) The yard seems a bit small, especially for the area it is placed in. Perhaps the majority of the yard tracks could be single ended and 3 or 4 double ended to assemble and break up trains. Losing a few turnouts makes track laying, wiring and financials simpler, plus could almost double your car storage area.
4) The duckunder makes my back hurt just looking at it. It seems quite wide, perhaps narrowing the benchwork would make entering and exiting more enjoyable.

Sorry if that was a bit much, like I said I am planning my own so this kind of thing is running tehachapi loops in my head lately.

Last thing would be how I would approach your room area. If the peninsulas were shaved and replaced with one protruding from the right side of the room you could lengthen your mainline by 30+ feet. A 4 foot wide peninsula with 22" curves, narrow the benchwork along the walls to 1' leaving 2.5' wide aisles. This new peninsula could hold the yard at Lewiston, the industrial area from Belleville or just some glorious scenery. The area underneath the new penisula could be used for a staging yard if that fit into your operations ideas.
Again, I don't mean to be harsh. I like the concept you have and will be waiting for the construction photos. Who knows, maybe I will put my plan on here and see what I missed.

Jay

[88gta350]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Javious

Dave,
I took a look at your track plan and am envious of your layout space. I have been planning a smaller layout for a while that include continous running and switching/point to point operations. A couple things jumped out at me right away..
1) You have 2 Wye switch arrangements, is that a prototypical feature you want to capture?
2) In the Belleville switching area the only runaround possibility is one of the Wye's with an industry on the tail track.
3) The yard seems a bit small, especially for the area it is placed in. Perhaps the majority of the yard tracks could be single ended and 3 or 4 double ended to assemble and break up trains. Losing a few turnouts makes track laying, wiring and financials simpler, plus could almost double your car storage area.
4) The duckunder makes my back hurt just looking at it. It seems quite wide, perhaps narrowing the benchwork would make entering and exiting more enjoyable.

Sorry if that was a bit much, like I said I am planning my own so this kind of thing is running tehachapi loops in my head lately.

Last thing would be how I would approach your room area. If the peninsulas were shaved and replaced with one protruding from the right side of the room you could lengthen your mainline by 30+ feet. A 4 foot wide peninsula with 22" curves, narrow the benchwork along the walls to 1' leaving 2.5' wide aisles. This new peninsula could hold the yard at Lewiston, the industrial area from Belleville or just some glorious scenery. The area underneath the new penisula could be used for a staging yard if that fit into your operations ideas.
Again, I don't mean to be harsh. I like the concept you have and will be waiting for the construction photos. Who knows, maybe I will put my plan on here and see what I missed.

Jay

Jay, thanks for the ideas! I'll take them into consideration, but let me give you some reasons why I designed it the way I did:

1. The line is based on a prototype shortline long ago abandoned, and the two wyes were to match the prototype. I've considered getting rid of the one at Reedsville, but the one at Belleville is just too entwined in the history of the line to get rid of.

2. again, the prototype is arranged in this way, with a customer built directly over it's turning wye. This is the only reason this was done.

3. The yard is modeled after the prototype, but extremely compressed. I may be able to sharpen the curves to lengthen the yard, but the yard is really more show than go for me. It's really only there to represent the interchange with PRR/NS and as a destination for my product. There won't be a whole lot of switching going on there but if I change anything, it'll probably be this yard.

4. I was planning on having a wheeled chair that visitors can sit down on a roll under the duckunder, because I realize it's bad. The layout should be high enough that one could roll under it pretty easily. I may also narrow the benchwork at that point.

4.5. I've toyed with the idea of a center peninsula as you've described because I love long mainline runs. The idea of a 1' shelf didn't really appeal to me though. The reson I have such wide shelves is because I plan on building my background mountains instead of painting them on my backdrop. A 1' shelf wouldn't allow that. Also, I'd really have to change the layout of the towns of Belleville and Reedsville, and I was hoping to recreate them as accurately as possible.

I will definately look over my plans and see what I can incorporate though. Thanks for the comments!

[Anonymous]

Dave,

Cool, you have definite reasons for the features in your plan. I tend to look through my "freelance" glasses and realism is limited to correct rolling stock, industries and scenery for my era. You have a good mainline run and plenty of switching. The only advice I have left is to build what you like, operate the way you want to and always have fun doing it.

Jay

[88gta350]

I've always thought of myself as a freelanced modeler as well, and never intended to go as prototype as I did with it. I think the only reason I stuck to the prototype as much as I did is because it's my hometown and I want to recreate it as accurately as possible.

Thanks for the tips!

[Anonymous]

Dave,

Good job on your track plan.

I would suggest that you set up some standards. Such as minmium radius and turn out size and benchwork height. I would then re-draw the plan with a track plan stencil. It will give a more accurate sense of how things will fit. A couple of classic errors that I see here are not allowing enough space for switches (a no 6 is a foot long in HO scale). Your yard throat will definately be a lot longer than you have shown here. Another classic is not allowing enough space for accurate curves. I when you use the planing tool some of your spacing will change here as well. I would also consider more storage and possibly staging for long trains.

Your bench work is pretty wide. It might be difficult to reach some of the areas to uncouple cars etc, particularly in the back of your penninsulas. I might re-arrange things to put track closer to the front or make the benchwork narrower.

My two cents,

Guy

[Anonymous]

My first reaction, and perhaps as an architect I am predisposed to look for this, was that the aisle space is uncomfortable. If I am correct in reading your graph scale as being 6 inches per square, then you're allowing 24" aisles minimum with 30" preferred. This is workable, but it is the same as what I had built my original WP&P to, a layout which I am currently rebuilding with wider aisles. On my layout, I had even rounded all the corners to a minimum 12" radius, and it still felt tight. While there may not be much you can do about the overall room width, I would encourage you to round off or chamfer (cut at an angle) the corners of your peninsular features, and maybe find space for one wide viewing area with more than 36 inches of width. Your elbows, your friends, and your friends' elbows will thank you.

Second, I agree with the recommendation that you lay out turnouts according to a template. The yard throats you have drawn won't work, but you might find interesting ways of making them work, perhaps by beginning the ladder within the approaching curve and fashioning the mainline curve out of the connected diverging routes of all the turnouts. Doing so is not prototypical, but it might be a reasonable compromise. You might also have the mainline run as a parallel curve just inside of such a ladder, with just one turnout to connect the "pinwheel yard ladder" to the main.

Another thought I had was that you might just lengthen several of the industry sidings by locating their switch a bit further away. This will add car capacity, but you might also use that extra length to accomodate a slight change in elevation, which can add interest. On my own layout, I have an industry situated in front of my main depot, but I have the spur descend a modest grade so that this customer doesn't block my view. Even if the industries themselves don't grow to accept more deliveries, the extra track can be just a decent hole for a caboose or helper engine to park in while getting clear of the main.

One last thought: you had sketched in the main street of Belleville as being perpendicular to the layout edge. I suggest a very slight angle or tilt to it instead, as this will be much easier to treat in a convincing way when it gets to the backdrop. Plus, it places the viewer in a more dynamic relationship to the crossing; you get some of the view that the engineer has upon approach, and not just the view of the cars waiting on its passing. The siting of buildings also becomes more intesting, as you work in rectangular building footprints into a triangular or trapezoidal area; the corners that get created always end up being the places where interesting details accumulate.

Hope this helps!

[88gta350]

I appreciate all the insight you guys have given me! I'll start tweaking the track plan, and since I have lots of time until construction actually starts, I'm going to work on some radically different plans too. Maybe somethign will jump out at me.

Keep the ideas coming!

[Anonymous]

I see the planning part as being the most important, it's what will determine how you enjoy your layout after (and while) it's built. So keep drawing, show us more, it's great to see what people come up with [:p]