JaBear:
Thanks for posting the diagram. Henry (Big Daddy) explained how to post an image from imgur so I edited the post above to insert the picture.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
All I can say is model railroaders tend to do things the hard way and paper dosn't always translate to being right as their are too many variables for the average person to put into the computer. Most things I do railroading wise are newer ways but final before building is ussually best laid out in some fashion.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
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I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
railandsailI was under the impression it was much more accurate than it appears..
The CAD program I am using (3rd PlanIt) is very accurate! It renders your mistakes very accurately! It will draw whatever you tell it to. It won't do the designing for you. If you put two tracks too close together it will draw exactly that. However, there are some warning features. For example, you can set a minimum radius for the curves and if you draw a curve below that minimum radius the program will warn you, but it won't adjust the radius for you. There is a 'questionable track' feature as well. It will show you if adjacent track is too close together either horizontally or vertically based on the minimums you select. It will also show grades that are too steep. It's helpful in identifying technical errors but again, it won't design the layout for you. If you design the layout with sidings that are not long enough the program won't point that out.
The program is paying off big time for us as we build the layout. I have been able to pinpoint the end points of all of the turnouts and track pieces to within 1/16" so drawing the cut lines and track centers on the plywood and Homasote, and locating those pieces once cut has also been very accurate. You may recall my asking earlier about how to plot out the track plan 1:1. We mused about having the whole track plan printed full size (at considerable cost). CAD has made that really easy and very inexpensive.
Track is in blue. Plywood cut lines are in red. Grids are 12". Ignore the lines in the upper right. They are part of another diagram.
I actually got the image to post this time! Thanks again Henry.
@Dave,Not opposed to the track design software at all, I'm just not proficient at learning it,....and I was under the impression it was much more accurate than it appears..... 'sometimes'.That ability to go back and make little changes and mods was one of the reasons I had wanted to utilize such a program.
Brian
My Layout Plan
Interesting new Plan Consideration
Post deleted. Nothing ominous. It was regarding using regular Velcro. I just read floridaflyer's post that suggested that regular velcro might not be up to the task so we will use the heavy duty stuff. We have said strongly that we will not cut corners.
railandsailSounds like you learning quite a few interesting details about designing a layout,...even with that 'fancy computer software program' you were utilizing....ha...ha.
railandsail:
Sorry to hear about your getting stoned! Seriously, I had kidney stones in 1989 and I never want to go back there again! I got so many needles in my butt to kill the pain that the pain killers couldn't kill the pain in my butt! That's a Catch 22 if ever there was one!
I sense that you are not in favour of 'fancy computer programs'. Certainly the fancy layout design program doesn't prevent you from making errors. However, it does allow you to go back and quickly make changes which can immediately be applied to the layout under construction, so I think there is a net gain to using the software. Certainly the ability to generate plotting diagrams for laying out the track and cutting all the sub roadbed pieces has made the program quite usefull. The program has also allowed us to stick to our basic standards like minimum radii and workable grades.
I have to admit that the complications that we are encountering are largely my fault. Plain and simple, I stretched the rules. The reach in distances are a bit on the long side if you are standing on the floor, but a two step stool solves that problem. Some of the tracks at different elevations are too close together so the scenery slopes between the different elevations are a bit steep as drawn. We have already figured out how to solve that problem.
Bottom line is that the layout plan is not a disaster. Yes, we have encountered some challenges, but that's half the fun of the hobby. None of the challenges have brought us to a dead stop, and I will say that we probably would have made the same errors using pencil and paper.
Don't really know Brian. Just went to HD they had two types, one was heavy duty. Used that. I did use the same type to attach my skirting to the fascia. Has held up well. Added a small section to the layout and use "regular" velcro to attach the additional skirting, did not hold up well at all. There is a difference.
hon30critter We have come to the conclusion that we have left ourselves short in terms of space for industrial scenes, and more importantly industrial track. Most of the spurs are too short to do anything other than move two or three cars around. Tonight I spent some time trying to add some length to the spurs, and I had a bit of success. In one area I was able to roughly double the industrial space by getting rid of a part of the hilly terrain and extending a bridge by about 24". I managed to add a couple of feet to three other sidings as well.
Sounds like you learning quite a few interesting details about designing a layout,...even with that 'fancy computer software program' you were utilizing....ha...ha.(been away from the forums for about a week getting some offending obstacles removed myself (both Gall and Kidney stones)
hon30critter floridaflyer Used heavy duty velcro to attach 40 tortoise in 2006. Have had no ill effects so far. I had a recent experience with velcro that pretty much proved how strong it can be. I was trying to undo the velcro closure on the cell phone pocket in my new winter coat. It was all I could do to open it up, and I have strong hands. I thought I was going to tear the coat liner. Cheers!! Dave
floridaflyer Used heavy duty velcro to attach 40 tortoise in 2006. Have had no ill effects so far.
I had a recent experience with velcro that pretty much proved how strong it can be. I was trying to undo the velcro closure on the cell phone pocket in my new winter coat. It was all I could do to open it up, and I have strong hands. I thought I was going to tear the coat liner.
Cheers!!
By the wording 'heavy duty velcro' shall I assume you are speaking of the heavy duty 'mushroom shaped plastic type',.....power lock or dual lock??https://www.zzounds.com/item--POWPGM?siid=190173
Hi Rich:
richhotrainMaybe it is time to stop construction, step back and give this more thought,
I think we can get what we want simply by eliminating some of the hills so we can enlarge the flat areas. After a couple of changes the plan has about 75' of 'industrial' sidings in total.
One bridge will be extended to around 90" which is pretty long, but there is a real bridge that goes over Parry Sound, Ontario that is 1695' long (234" in HO scale) so the long bridge will fit into our Northern Ontario theme quite nicely. It will be an interesting bridge to model because there are several different types of spans and both concrete and steel supports.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqoG_5HDmow
Dave, I am a bit surprised that your club is running into these problems.
Maybe it is time to stop construction, step back and give this more thought, and re-draw the layout plan to more accurately set up the length of spurs and the elevations. Making changes on the fly may have short term solutions but long term consequences.
Rich
Alton Junction
We have come to the conclusion that we have left ourselves short in terms of space for industrial scenes, and more importantly industrial track. Most of the spurs are too short to do anything other than move two or three cars around. Tonight I spent some time trying to add some length to the spurs, and I had a bit of success. In one area I was able to roughly double the industrial space by getting rid of a part of the hilly terrain and extending a bridge by about 24". I managed to add a couple of feet to three other sidings as well.
I also lowered the maximum elevation from 11" to 9" in order to create some level track on the higher areas. Previously the track went up and then started back down immediately. Now there is about 18' of level track at the highest point. Part of the reason for the change was that the slopes were getting too steep between the higher and lower track levels.
We decided to use DCC Specialities PSX-AR reversers for the two return loops and the turntable so those are on order.
floridaflyerUsed heavy duty velcro to attach 40 tortoise in 2006. Have had no ill effects so far.
floridaflyer, thanks for sharing your experience.
Used heavy duty velcro to attach 40 tortoise in 2006. Have had no ill effects so far. Agree screws are good but the velcro has worked for me.
Whatever works. That's basically what I did but used the scaled down printouts from 3PI to transfer the measurements.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Just to clarify, we are not having any problems laying the cork strips. The center line is easy to follow. We are marking all the turnout positions as suggested. The challenge was how to re-plot the turnout locations where we are using sheet cork for larger areas like the yard and the service facility. Once the sheets go down all the plotting points on the Homasote disappear.
One of our members found a very easy way to re-draw the plotting points on the cork sheets. He took a series of photographs of the turnout ladders while they were still on the Homasote. Then he measured the actual locations of each of the turnouts, and then he simply transferred the coordinates to the pictures. They aren't to scale but that doesn't matter. We can clearly see the location of each turnout and how the ladders are arranged so installing the track on the cork sheets will be pretty straight forward. As an added bonus, the whole service area and east yard ladder only required five sheets of paper.
We got a lot of cork laid on Tuesday night. We had a box of 500 stick pins and we had to stop laying cork because we ran out of pins. That's OK, it was time for coffee anyhow.
Oh yes, something else I did, when markign the center line before installing cork, I also drew lines across at the ends of each turnout. All three legs, plus where the throwbar was. While the center lines would be covered by the cork the start and end point of each turnout was still visible.
Could you extend the center line that the straight edge of the turnouts follow, mark it on each end with a mail, and snap a chalk line once the cork is down so you can see where the go?
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I think my whole 8x12 layout, minus the blank pages for the donut hole in the middle, was only about 30 pages. It's not that hard to line them up, unless you use really heavy weight paper and can't see through it - like up the markes exactly on top of one another and it's aligned. I was thinking more on the lines of printing maybe 3-4 pages worth, all in a straight line (so 1 sheet x 4 sheet's worth) just to check alignment.
I wouldn;t worry about the cork covering things up - if the cork was placed on the track center line then the middle of the cork is where the track goes. Same thing on my last layout. I printed out (but not full size) the most crticial area which was to the right side of the yard because that was just past a curve and also had the branch for the cement plant coming off it. I printed it to a scale I could read off directly with a ruler, and made some marks on the foam about where the track should go. Marked some straight lines between the turnouts, and also took my stick and traced the curves. Close enough, because I wasn't trying to squeeze the maximum track in the space so if it wasn;t pefectly centered on the benchwork or something, it didn;t matter.
This fellow here had some intersting ideas about layout planning and track and turnout placements,http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?38830-Help-Me-Plan-My-Layout/page18
hon30critterrrinker Print out a part of the ladder full size. Good idea. I'll give it a try.
Good idea. I'll give it a try.
Hi again:
I printed out all the pages that had turnouts on them in the service area and west end of the yard 1:1. These are the areas where we will be laying the track on cork sheet as opposed to roadbed strips. Even after deleting the unnecessary pages there were still 30 pages in the printout. At least the club is paying for the ink.
When I started to assemble the sheets it quickly became obvious that getting them lined up perfectly would be very difficult. The slightest deviation from one sheet to the next would throw the track position off quite significantly several sheets later. Scrap that idea. I could see it working with larger sheets of paper but trying to do it with 8 1/2 x 11 printer paper is too prone to error IMHO.
We have the turnouts for the service area and the west end of the yard temporarily laid out and pinned in place on the Homasote. Now we have to install the cork sheets. Unfortunately the cork will hide all of our track position markings. I have printed the area at about 1:12 and we will record the turnout locations and track position on that diagram. That will allow us to lift the turnouts, install the cork sheets and then re-lay the turnouts in the same place. In hindsight we should have laid the cork sheets first and then plotted the track position on the cork, but apparently doing things the easy way isn't in our cards.
The rest of the layout won't be quite as challenging because almost all the track will be laid on cork roadbed strips so it will be easy to follow the center lines already drawn on the Homasote.
rrinkerANd as silly as this may sound - I know you went back and forth on what brand of turnouts to use, when you drew the final plan that you are working from, did you make sure all the turnouts were the correct brand? If the plan shows Peco and you are using Atlas, or vice-versa, even if they are both #6, this will throw things WAY off.
Hi Randy - Yes, I used the Atlas #6 drawings from the 3rd PlanIt library.
The only turnouts I had to fudge were the Peco Code 83 curved turnouts. They weren't in the library and Atlas had not released their curved turnouts when we placed the order (I believe Atlas is now shipping their curved turnouts).
rrinkerPrint out a part of the ladder full size
Thanks,
Print out a part of the ladder full size - you should be able to go at least a few turnouts in before it gets too wide for 8 1/2" paper. If you don't know how to do this in 3PI - once you set a printing scale it will cover the layout area in a grid of paper-size boxes. You cna unselect them all and then just select the ones you want to print. Maybe 3 pages worth, and use the registration marks to tape them end to end, and lay it over the problem area. There may be some kinks as the tolerances can be a bit loose with turnouts so if you forve them together such that there are no gaps, it's actually NOT lined up properly. Sight down the diverging side of the ladder, with all points set to the diverging route, it should looks smooth, not all kinds of wobbly.
ANd as silly as this may sound - I know you went back and forth on what brand of turnouts to use, when you drew the final plan that you are working from, did you make sure all the turnouts were the correct brand? If the plan shows Peco and you are using Atlas, or vice-versa, even if they are both #6, this will throw things WAY off.
I spent Saturday morning at the clubhouse with two other members laying out track. I have spent a lot of time on the computer plotting track positions but we are having some difficulty actually getting some of the track to fit where the diagram says it should go. Much of the track has fit in exactly as planned but some of the turnout ladders have not been quite as cooperative. There doesn't seem to be any discrepencies between the CAD turnout drawings and the actual turnout sizes so I'm not sure what is happening. I'm very frustrated that all the track simply can't be placed at the plotted coordinates and have it all fit. Anyhow, we have been able to make things fit so far but it is taking much longer than I expected to get it to fit properly without any kinks or tight radii.
The other thing we managed to accomplish on Saturday was to lay out the cutting patterns for several more sections of cookie cutter plywood sub roadbed and the Homasote to go with it. That, along with laying the cork for the track that we have plotted out successfully, will keep the guys busy on Tuesday night. We might even get some bus wire pulled too! Will wonders never cease?!?
Cheers guys! Thanks for your interest.
rrinkerI think you mean SPDT toggles?
Yes Randy, you are correct. Brain fart!
richhotrainGood luck with those Tortoises and the velcro mounting concept. In my experience, and I have over 60 Tortoises, the best method for me is to simply use two screws, one in the front of the Tortoise and one on the back opposite side of the Tortoise.
Thanks for detailing your experience. Like I said, we can add screws if the Velcro doesn't hold the Tortoises securely enough. Most of our club members are approaching their senior years so I am trying to make the under layout work as easy as possible.
Tam Valley Depot has all sorts of servo controllers, for both DC and DCC. They have mounts and servos and all the other bits too. There are others. I used Tam Valley's controllers on my last layout, but this time I am making my own. I used Tam Valley controllers but I bought my servos on eBay, typically under $2 each - the SG90 type are fine for HO and smaller and have enough throw to probably work fine with O scale as well.
Yep, Tortoises can be visually displeasing on upper deck layouts. Perhaps the only drawback. Not a problem for me since I have a single surface layout.