Please review my Track Plan

[Nerfball6]

Hello,

I’m designing a new layout that will fit a 13’ x 14’ space in my basement and am hoping I could get a little feedback from the community on my track plan design.

Here is some basic information:

- Early 1950’s; freelanced Milwaukee Road/Chicago & North Western set in Wisconsin
- the focus is towards operations, but want continuous run at times.
- There is a double mainline; Blue is East bound, and Green is West bound.
- The green has 24” minimum curves, and the blue 22”.
- Minimum turnout is a #6.
- The Blue line is freight, the green line is a continuous-run passenger service line - or an alternate freight line.
- The orange siding leads into a passenger depot and Railway Express Agency. There is also an interchange track (for possible future expansion)
- the yard is split with locomotive service on top, and classification on bottom.
- the center island will be a town/urban setting with some city switching. the track plan in this area is not finalized yet - but I want to leave enough room for buildings/streets, etc.
- the top area will be primarily scenic with 3 sidings to industries.
- The left side is industrial switching.
- The red track at bottom left is the in-bound line from a removable staging cassette.
- Hinged swing gate.
- Some of the industries I’m considering might include: coal, timber, ore, minerals, paper/pulp, farm products, dairy/milk/cheese, grain, fuel, chemicals, beer, food, farm supplies, passenger.

Thanks in advance!
Dave

 

[Nerfball6]

One other note. I'm going with sectional benchwork in case I need to move in the future. So I've tried to keep as few turnouts over joints as possible. The center island (which I originally designed to be two sections) will probably be one 2'x7' section that I can detach if I want and use as a separate switching module.

[cowman]

Where your track to possible future expansion comes in, there is no way to get to the yard without several reversing manouers.  Not sure what kind of space you have to put in additional crossovers.

How do you plan to swing your gate.  What looks to be the most logical way would be toward the closet door. but it  may still stick out into your aisle, depending on what you have for benchwork at "track to staging.  Might want to consider a lift out.

Just some thoughts.

Good luck,

Richard

[Nickel Plate Road]

Hi Dave,

  Looks like a nice layout - looks like you've covered your bases. Coal mining might be a little hard to pull off if I understand the space. Why not consider those 1/2 buildings against the back drop to add operational interest?  On your center island maybe a pit mine?

Regards

Angelo :-)

[Nerfball6]

Thanks for the replies guys!! Richard, you bring up a good point about the track I planned for future expansion. I may just look at using that for passenger train staging and then the train could pull right onto the depot siding.

And yeah, the swing gate by my calculations would block about 8” of the entrance when opened towards the closet. I’m only seeing the staging cassette being about a foot wide. A lift out may be a better option though. Most of the time I’ll probably be running point to point anyway.

Thanks Angelo. And you are probably right that a coal mining operation would be tough in the space I have. I’m thinking maybe a small, single track mineral or ore mine at one of the top sidings might be a better choice; something with a couple of hoppers to pick up and drop off. Mineral/ore mining has been a pretty big industry in WI over the years, so I’d like to squeeze it in if i can.

I’’m planning on using a lot of flat and shallow buildings for industries, along with backdrops. Thanks for the pit mine suggestion, but I’m pretty certain I want to keep the center island town/city. Only because I’ve always enjoyed moodily that.

Thanks again!
Dave

[carl425]

Hi Dave,

The only flaw I see in your plan is that you have failed to take advantage of one of the most significant opportunities provided by an around the walls design.  It cost you very little to provide a more generous radius in the corners.  Running passenger equipment, I would want at least a 30" radius.

You also mention 22" and 24" as your curve choices.  Although you don't say so, this implies that you are planning for 2" track center spacing on curves.  This will not work with a 24" radius.  If you want to run passenger cars on a 24" curve, track center spacing will need to be more like 2-3/4" to 3".

If you are interested in increasing your yard space, consider placing the yard on the outside of your oval rather than in the center.  This has the added advantage of not having cars in the yard block the view of a train going by on the mainline.

[kasskaboose]

carl425

Hi Dave,

The only flaw I see in your plan is that you have failed to take advantage of one of the most significant opportunities provided by an around the walls design.  It cost you very little to provide a more generous radius in the corners.  Running passenger equipment, I would want at least a 30" radius.

You also mention 22" and 24" as your curve choices.  Although you don't say so, this implies that you are planning for 2" track center spacing on curves.  This will not work with a 24" radius.  If you want to run passenger cars on a 24" curve, track center spacing will need to be more like 2-3/4" to 3".

No question that having broader curves is the ideal.  Trying to tighten the curved track creates issues of derailment.  You also limit your selection of freight cars.  

[rrebell]

From experience, unless you love the passenger cars, you may want to delete them as they mean wider curves and other restrictions.

[Nickel Plate Road]

Nerfball6

Mineral/ore mining has been a pretty big industry in WI over the years, so I’d like to squeeze it in if i can

Good Afternoon Dave,

   WI? Have you looked at LS&I in MI U.P for inspiration for mines? There was this small mining town along the WI/MI border that must have been served by The Soo Line.  You've got a great area to work from, I am sightly jealous!!

:-) Angelo

[Nerfball6]

Thanks again for the comments everyone. Yeah, I’m aware of the less than ideal conditions for passenger train running with this plan. I did try to compensate some by making sure the passenger train would run on the outside main; so the overhang wouldn’t be an issue (or as noticeable because they will always be viewed from the inside of the curve), and I made sure the curves were at least 3” apart on center.

To be honest, passenger train running is not a high priority for me. Most of the time it will be strictly freight operations and the green line will be an alternate freight route. I really wanted to include the passenger service for when my dad comes to visit because he likes seeing them run. And I’m not sure how many more years he’ll be around.

I plan on keeping the passenger car lengths down to 60’ or 65’ branch line/commuter cars. So I think the 24” minimum should be OK. (how are con-cor’s cars? I see they have a Milwaukee Road and C&NW set of 65’ heavyweight commuters)

I tried designing something with wider radius curves in previous versions, but it seemed to really cramp my ability to get spurs/industries in.

Since I’m doing early 50’s, My longest freight cars will probably be 50’ with the vast majority 40’ or under. My longest steam locomotive is a 2-8-4 Berkshire (that runs ok on 18” radius curves - though the cab really hangs over) but I don’t plan on running anything longer. The next largest would be a 4-6-2 Pacific. Most of my diesels are GP7s & 9’s, RS3’s and small yard switchers.

I appreciate all the feedback!!!

[bearman]

With respect to the green passenger train line, are you going to run it continuously or will it stop along the way, in which case there does not seem to be an obvious place(s) where the train would stop to drop off or pick up passengers.  Other than this nit, looks great.

[Nerfball6]

Thanks Bearman! When running the passenger train, it would mostly be for display and continuous run. Though the the orange track is dedicated to pulling off to the passenger depot for loading and unloading passengers. Otherwise, it could also come in and leave the layout through staging.

[bearman]

In that case, have at it!

[Choops]

I think you have way too many crossovers from main line to main line.  You can eliminate the two behind the main yard and the ones at the top abd bottom of your plan need to be flipped so a train leaving the main yard can get to the outer main as soon as possible.  you only need one crossover at the top, one at the bottom, and the two on the left side of the plan.

Have fun.

Steve

[Nerfball6]

I thought these were some good suggestions so I made a few changes. I did leave one crossover between the blue and green line at the top end of the yard just so I had a complete runaround if I need it. I changed the direction of the team track at the bottom so I wouldn't need the extra crossover there. Only problem with that now is that it places turnouts where I had planned on placing a bridge. So I may have to move or get rid of the lower river.

 

[SouthPenn]

There's nothing wrong with a switch on a bridge.

[Nerfball6]

Thanks SouthPenn!

[Doughless]

I'm from the school of thought that thinks less track is more.  Thinning out the number of crossovers from the original plan was a good idea.

The city/urban switching area seems to have an excessive amount of switches for serving what looks like can only be about three industries, considering the switchback on the left side and the two close parallel tracks near the top.  I'm sure there is a better way to serve three industries without using the six turnouts and a double-slip ? or crossover (blue track) you have now.

If you are looking for a more rural Wisconsin feel to the rest of the layout, I think you have too many spurs and industries.  A lot of buildings on the layout will make it hard for the entire layout to not have that urban feel, but maybe that's what you're going for.

[Nerfball6]

Yeah, just ignore the track in the city/urban area. I'm still not sure what I am going to do there. The idea originally was some narrow sidings for a an ice platform, tank car unloading, and maybe to store some MOW equipment. And I thought of doing a town/city in the space to the left - possibly elevated - with the tracks disappearing under a highway overpass. But I'm rethinking all that and may just make it a couple of industries behind a small town main street area.

Even though I’m setting this in WI (my home State), I know I can’t do it justice in the space I have. I’d need much more space to do it right. Especially since the State itself has so many variations in geography. Long mainlines going through farm country, the hills and woods of the kettle moraine, near-mountainous rock formations in the West, tunnels, bridges, the north woods, winding along the Mississippi, around lakes, docks and piers on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, Big Cities, small towns. large variety of industry. It really is a neat state to model rail and really does have everything.

Even though my plan is freelanced, I have been giving more thought to the prototype as I’m designing it. I’m thinking Southeastern WI where there are many small towns and industries relatively close together. I’m thinking that my staging yard will be trains coming from Chicago and Milwaukee, with the yard possibly becoming the yard and shops at fond u lac, and the peninsula could become Green Bay. Though I don’t know that I want to get that specific. The scenery on top tracks will represent woods along the kettle moraine. The river will probably be the Milwaukee river. I plan on using my backdrops to represent the farms and woods along the route. Most of the industries will be rural. Structure building, and switching are two of my favorite things in the hobby, so I’m leaning heavily towards that.

Thanks!
Dave

[Nerfball6]

If anyone has any track plan ideas for the 2' x 7' peninsula I'd love to see them. I really do like this city classics layout: http://www.cityclassics.biz/news/roadshow_layout.html and this is along the lines of what I was thinking originally - with the city elevated above the tracks. Though Doughless brought up a good point that maybe sticking more rural would be a good idea to keep with the WI theme. And since I want it to be a switching/operations layout, maybe something like this would be more appropriate and give more operations: http://mrr.trains.com/how-to/prototype-railroads/2014/05/small-town-railroading-in-the-early-1950s Even though this photo is Iowa, it's very similar to what you would see in much of south Eastern WI.
Edit: ... Although ... that Iowa photo is kind if what I see having on the left side of the layout. So I would sort of be duplicating that.

Argh. Decisions. ;)

[gregc]

[Nerfball6]

Thanks Greg!!

[Doughless]

I certainly didn't mean to suggest that a Wisconsin based layout had to be rural, you could make the whole thing downtown Milwaukee if you wanted to.

The idea of keeping the peninsula as an urban district is intriguing.  You could have a loco take cars from the yard and switch the district as another train orbits the layout.

The left side could be like the small town you linked above.  Along the top could stay like it is, or you could eliminate all spurs and industries all together and scenick it as purely rural countryside to put some space between the urban yard and small town on the left.

Just thoughts about concepts just to give you ideas. 

[Nerfball6]

Thanks again Doughless! I appreciate it.

I have been seriously kicking around the idea of removing the top surs (or maybe just leaving one) and going primarily country side there. And also winding the top main lines line a bit.

I'm also seriously thinking about getting rid of the orange passenger siding completely. And bringing the depot up to the green main line. I've already reconfigured the left side a bit to add another depot there, like in that B&W photo. The reason I liked the orange passenger car siding was simply to park a passenger train there, but maybe I'll just plan on running it to and from the staging cassette. That would also give me a little more breathing froom for structures in the yard. I want to have a coal tower, water tower, diesel fueling, sand tower, etc.

I'm also wondering if I should add a triangle corner piece to the isle above where the engine house is now, and put in a turntable. If I do think of that as the Fond du Lac yard, I know C&NW had at least one there as part of their engine shops. It would increase the reach into the corner, but if I get rid of that siding, it will just be scenery there anyway.

[rod.h]

SouthPenn

There's nothing wrong with a switch on a bridge.

That location looks familiar for some reason, is it somewhere important? Though I think it's no longer like that as when I did a Google Earth  flyby, it just has...one track and the remains of everything else.

[Nerfball6]

Well, after a few revisions I think I'm finally happy with the layout. I used the photo of the small town from the link I posted above as the basis for the left side. I created the peninsula to be sort of a stand-alone switching layout. Thanks for all the input everyone! Time to start the benchwork.

 

[Doughless]

I think the plan looks really good.  It should be enjoyable to operate. As you build it, you may find yourself adjusting the trackwork slightly, including leaving more room for buildings on the peninsula.  Not a problem.

Thanks for sharing, and please keep us updated on your progress.

[Nerfball6]

Thanks Doughless! Yeah, I expect the track plan in the peninsula to probably change when I get to that. Even though I'm set on it being industrial/urban, I'm still kind of playing with the idea of making it a warf scene. I was trying to imagine the types of buildings, roads, etc,  and where I'd be placing them while I was working on it. But I like the basic core plan of that area. I'm going to be laying and testing track  clockwise from the left, so I'll have some time to keep thinking about that. ;)

[hon30critter]

Hi Nerfball6:

I've been following your thread with interest, and your track plan is developing nicely.

I have one small suggestion. On the lower right side of your penninsula you have three side tracks. Two of the tracks are formed by placing one turnout in what I will call the 'run around' and the second turnout below that in the spur. I think there is space to put the second turnout in the run around instead of in the spur. That will give you three separate spurs and more than twice the available storage space than your current configuration does. Using smaller turnouts might make the change easier.

If my description isn't clear, I can draw up a track plan for the area.

Dave

[carl425]

In case you haven't started the benchwork yet, I think you'd find the whole layout easier for operators and visitors to walk around if you were to attach the penninsula to the top section of the layout.