Hi everybody! Ok I have attached a JPG of the track plan for my new layout. I say new because I had to tear out part of my old layout because I violated the "square footage treaty" of the basement with the embassador or household space (my wife). Soooooo I figured why not take this opportunity to re-do it and fix and or correct all the things that I did wrong the first time around.
So, please if you have time look over the track plan attached, give me your thoughts. This is not 100% complete but close. It's a layout for the C&O in the late 50s. Minimum radius is 22. Area size is 13 x 22. All Digitrax DCC. Any track that is colored white is a tunnel. The left side and the top side of the image are walls. The red square is a iron post that supports the house.
Take a look and let me know, all in all thanks in advance
DANOC&O lives on!!! Visit my railfan community site: http://www.crtraincrew.com
Without having traced each individual track - I´d sayy I love it. Lots of yard trackage, engine handling, decent length of main line run, what more do you want? A few more industries to be served, and check the aisle width at its narrowest point.
You didn't mention it, so I just wanted to be sure that you know you have a reversing section.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Keep an eye out for S curves. This is where a curve changes direction without a tangent section of track at least as long as your longest car. This happens on your turnback loops, and most of the crossovers. You can fix most of these by flipping the crossovers so that if you have a left hand curve you go into a left hand turnout.
Also watch the spacing in the yard. If this is HO you will not want it closer than 2" spacing.
and remember HAVE FUN!
Chris
Check out my railroad at: Buffalo and Southwestern
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So summarizing the layout, it is a double track main, with one major classification yard w/loco facilities. At the one end of this yard there is a major coaling plant or mine. There are two other towns, one with a passenger station and one not. One of the towns has two industrial tracks, the other a long double ended siding, in addition to the station track. There is one other industry away from the towns. There is one reversing loop track.
This looks like a rail fanning type layout, where the main goal is to watch the trains run.
I see no hidden storage or staging tracks.
Why does the layout come to the left of the red pillar instead of looping it. I presume there is some other obstical there?
The crossovers between the two mains seem to be strangly placed to me. I would have placed them such that a train crossing over would have easy access to the turnouts "in" the town, and that they could serve as an "in-line passing track". Is the way they are placed a prototypical C&O practice?
stilson4283 Keep an eye out for S curves. This is where a curve changes direction without a tangent section of track at least as long as your longest car. This happens on your turnback loops, and most of the crossovers. You can fix most of these by flipping the crossovers so that if you have a left hand curve you go into a left hand turnout. Also watch the spacing in the yard. If this is HO you will not want it closer than 2" spacing. and remember HAVE FUN! Chris
Chris, First, thanks for your feedback, so let me repeat this and see if understand you correctly, for example the crossover at the top of the plan should be flipped based on what you saying because on each side it creates an S curve coming off the turn and into the crossover?
As for the yard, yeah I had a yard in my old layout that was spaced an inch apart, I don't have much long rolling stock (except for passenger cars) and they won't be in the yard, but still a very good point.
Phoebe Vet You didn't mention it, so I just wanted to be sure that you know you have a reversing section.
yup, would have a couple more but it just didn't work out that way, so I planned it to come off the yard so that trains could go up grade to get to some of the industries
i think you got it. But a picture is always worth a thousand words:
Texas Zepher So summarizing the layout, it is a double track main, with one major classification yard w/loco facilities. At the one end of this yard there is a major coaling plant or mine. There are two other towns, one with a passenger station and one not. One of the towns has two industrial tracks, the other a long double ended siding, in addition to the station track. There is one other industry away from the towns. There is one reversing loop track. This looks like a rail fanning type layout, where the main goal is to watch the trains run. I see no hidden storage or staging tracks. Why does the layout come to the left of the red pillar instead of looping it. I presume there is some other obstical there? The crossovers between the two mains seem to be strangly placed to me. I would have placed them such that a train crossing over would have easy access to the turnouts "in" the town, and that they could serve as an "in-line passing track". Is the way they are placed a prototypical C&O practice?
Ahhh, I did a poor job explaining the working of the railroad. So, going in reverse answering bottom to top:
No, actually C&O in a double track set up would have both lines split to form a center line passing track (using wyes) and then come back together the same way. I did not follow that mainly because I'm working with everything I currently have track wise with a relatively medium budget for new track so I had to compromise there.
The crossovers I do have were set up so that if a train occupying the opposite side needed to switch a few cars over to the other side it could, as well as serve as passing regardless of what side your on. So the idea was to create some interesting switching operations that would require track occupancy requests during an opps session.
The red pillar: that is because I need walking space to get around the furnace and storage shelves :)
In a way, you are right it does have a lot of qualities of a rail fanning layout, however it also has a lot of switching and opps possibilities too, the two loop backs will be towns with industry to switch into, as I said, I'm not 100% there but getting close. :)
My summary (this may help quite a bit):
First this layout has an upper part and lower part, the outer most tracks are grading up to a plateau and the grading down. There is a passenger station on the outer track (far left side) and then there is a second passenger station beside the classification yard. Off of the first passenger station siding there is 2 spurs for industry, one a railway express depot, the other construction equipment shipping and receiving (this is the one with the long brown wood dock, top left corner). ver on the far right there are 2 sidings one for each track, the outer most track siding serves 2 industries (TBD on what, I have the kits just have not built them) they are half buildings so they are menat to go against a wall which in this case will be masonite. The left side siding can serve as a set out track or as a place for a train to go to be passed.
The loop circles a small town (not complete yet so far one building is there) currently only the large frieght depot is in place but may move. As mentioned earlier in this thread the reverse loop I just noticed needs flipped, it was meant as a way for trains coming out of the yard could circle back the opposite direction, and will serve as a way to switch into the small town.
As stated earlier the classification yard serves the passenger station and engine facilities. There will be some resemblance of a town elements off the engine facilities but might be more rural. There is a siding track that runs the length along the main that connects up with the tipple area, I put this there so tipple operations wouldn't always need to use the main to move empties or loads around.
Lastly the other loop will have a town on top of that (that passenger station 1 serves) with some spurs for industries to serve.
There is no "storage" on this layout, but there is a staging track that comes off the loop on the far left lower corner and it extends off the plan map. This runs along my work bench where I service cars, engines and build models. so I figured it made for a great place to have a staging track.
All in all I'm glad you made me think this through because I found some things I need to tweek.
Let me know if this makes sense
stilson4283 i think you got it. But a picture is always worth a thousand words: Chris
ahh yeah, exactly what I thought. Thanks, good catch! :)
I like the plan. It would be interesting to see your final placement of spurs, industries, and other buildings. I echo the concerns about the crossovers and s curves, which are easily fixed.
From your description, I could not follow what that group of tracks at the far right is suppose to represent. For a passenger platform? If so, it may make sense to move the crossovers down stream to allow more options for trains on other tracks to park at the platform, and depart to afterwards.
- Douglas
Hi Dano,
some more issues however.
First the placements of crossovers, they must be placed before and after a station. If those "station"-tracks are pretty long optional crossovers in the middle could be added.
My concerns are mainly about the width of your "shelves". Four feet wide is very wide indeed, if you could build them 2 feet wide (10 tracks) you could even build a peninsula in what is now the central operating pit, for a way longer and more attractive main.
Paul
Thanks, guys for all the great feedback, I'm tweeking it and will repost once I get it complete.
Paulus JasFirst the placements of crossovers, they must be placed before and after a station. If those "station"-tracks are pretty long optional crossovers in the middle could be added.
dano99a the two loop backs will be towns with industry to switch into, as I said, I'm not 100% there but getting close.
only the large frieght depot is in place but may move. As mentioned earlier in this thread the reverse loop I just noticed needs flipped, it was meant as a way for trains coming out of the yard could circle back the opposite direction, and will serve as a way to switch into the small town.
As stated earlier the classification yard serves the passenger station and engine facilities.
OK, the revised track plan, I didn't solve all the crossover issues yet but maybe this makes more sense
I won't comment on the crossovers..
Mentioning what Paulus pointed out, the NE corner will be hard to reach since the engine servicing area creates more than a 30 inch reach to the corner. That is a real problem that needs to be addressed.
I think engine servicing tends to be a good way to scenic a loop of track, so I would re locate servicing where the industries are in the loop and narrow the benchwork in the NE.
I don't understand the purpose of the long group of tracks along the E wall. If it was my layout, I would use the space to relocate the industries from the loop and place them along the wall to create another switching district, like you have along the W wall. You can slice the buildings for minimal depth if needed.
Overall, be sure no track is beyond a 30 inch reach.
Looks very industrial and urban, which would make quite an impression with a layout that size.
You might consider some staging. Operationally, I think you might want to take the cars from the industries to the yard with a few short trains spanning a few scale hours/days, assemble a larger train, then haul it out. Ideally, I would want a couple of staging tracks in the tunnel to give that train somewhere to go. But if you don't have room for staging, you could run the train around the layout a couple of times then stop back at the yard, call it a different train, and break it down again. Not for the purists but who cares.
For all of those who helped me along with this, I wanted share the updates, this time with photos. Below is a link to a gallery where I post the photos for all to follow. Take a look and let me know what you think.
Things to note:
So far, the track is 98% layed down, all tracks are wired to a digitrax system, power districts are set up with a PM42 (which now functions correctly). Additionally the blocks are monitored with BLD16's and the whole shootin match is controlled through JMRI on my MAC and my iphone (which runs through a PR3).
All the switches are ground throws, I know there were some concerns about depth but I'm a tall guy and it works for me, plus my 8 year old son runs trains and with his footstool seems to be able to work it just nicely.
http://www.crtraincrew.com/dan-weatherby-modeling-2012
additionally you can see picks of my old layout too if you care to see it.