Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
QUOTE: Originally posted by Larry NMRA Coyote, one thing I've not seen mentioned is the height of the layout. Usually wiring and other items are located underneath. And being over the hill myself I know it's difficult to work underneath sometimes. Try to make it high enough so you can sat on a short seat and work at a comfortable level for you. This is from past experience on a large club layout and a home layout also. Also keep main wire runs near the front with feeders back to the track. I know this is past the track design stage, but needs to be kept in mind as you design. If you can't wire a beautiful section of track or service it, it becomes a static layout. Good Luck. Larry NMRA
QUOTE: Originally posted by Texas Zepher QUOTE: Originally posted by grandpacoyote Im not sure I followed the discription you gave on the second drawing in terms of where the tunnels would be, Did you know if you click on the picture it gets bigger? When you do that you can see a couple of places where there is a single loop of track that overlaps the double track. It is those two single track loops that would be hidden.
QUOTE: Originally posted by grandpacoyote Im not sure I followed the discription you gave on the second drawing in terms of where the tunnels would be,
QUOTE: Originally posted by Texas Zepher Here is the dog-bone saga. I did my initial idea (sort of an "E" shape) only to find out there was not enough space to do it maintaining the 24" / 26.25" minimum radius curves. So I just dog-boned the original design (below). I did not find it so interesting. So with a major change in thought I came up with dog-bone two (a most primative version also below). The problem with it is that to get this shape I really had to pinch some of the isles down to two feet. Very crowded, especially if one is trying to show off the trains to a group of people. Dog Bone 1 The separation of the two tracks at the one point is due to a picture I have where at one point the Santa Fe only had a single track over a river. When they added the second bridge for the second track is was down river about 100 yards and at a slightly different angle, making a quite dramatic scene. Dog Bone 2 Here the dog bone "loops" (upper right and upper left) would be in tunnels under the other trackage. The boring long straight track along long straight edges of the layout could be replaced by sweeping curves. And then my final thought. On the original design simply replace the loop in the lower left (just past the staging area) with two loops one on top of each other and Walla dog bone layout. The problem with that is the train would have to pass all the way through the layout twice (once in each direction) to get back to the staging yard. Or if you're up to the engineering add a helix and have a layout that can operate as a loop or dog bone layout.
QUOTE: Originally posted by grandpacoyote Did you draw up the trackplan using RTS? I'm not sure if I read that right.
QUOTE: Originally posted by Texas Zepher As promised here is the double track version. I threw in a couple of spurs and I didn't shrink it so small, so one can get a better idea of what I was thinking. I wish I could sketch in some scenery stuff, and I wish I hadn't tried to add text, but oh well. I'll continue to work on the dog bone design, but this weekend is pretty booked.
QUOTE: Originally posted by grandpacoyote Yes Sir that is a wonderful design, although I will admit to you truthfully that I do not completly understand it all, I think I see a bridge there perhaps?
QUOTE: Originally posted by Texas Zepher Ok after the description of your space, and knowing you want to see your SuperChief run, I came up with this general shape for a single deck layout that fits in 17x16 and does not have a duck under. That leaves a three feet wide isle on two sides to get to the washer dryer, work bench, window, and door. It only has six "scenes" instead of eight. If you like the overall concept then you can start figuring out which scenes would be just scenery and which would have towns or industries. The real stinger here is that except for the track from Glorieta to Albuquerque all the Santa Fe track along your choosen route would be double track. Double tracking this plan might make it look too crowded. I'll work on a generic dog-bone to simulate the double track and see if you like that better. As usual let me know if this is the direction you want to head or if you were totally thinking of something else.
QUOTE: Originally posted by rfross You might want to simplify and start small but build with future expansion in mind. I think one of the dangers of having a lot of space is to try to stuff layout into all of it and ending up with an overwhelming large project. So big that it eventually fails because the 'fun' turns into 'work' which kind of defeats the purpose. I've got a shelf layout in an 11 x 13 spare bedrom in progress. The wall brackets and framework are in place and I'm in the process of installing the backdrop. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the track plan which I held off doing until the framework was up because that helped me visualize exactly how much space I had to work with. The more thinking I do the simpler my track plan is becoming. In the end I'm probably going to only have a couple of passing tracks and maybe ten industries to switch at the most. My hope is it will be simple to maintain and most of all fun for the long haul. One thing you could consider is to take the small layout plan book and add long connectors between the industries to help fill your space. It would simplify things and make it easier to manage versus cramming all the track you can into that very large area.
QUOTE: Originally posted by Texas Zepher QUOTE: Originally posted by grandpacoyote The 20x19 space is the main Garage itself it is ringed by a 3' concrete 'riser' on two sides, a builtin workbench, washer and dryer, and shelve sits on that riser... the door to the house is also on that riser as is the only window in the room.. so the 20x19 space is completly free as long as I leave myself some space to get around it etc. Do you have a preference for a minimum isle width. From this description as long as a 3' isle was left infront of the "riser" we should be good. That would basically leave a 16x17 space totally free to use...right?
QUOTE: Originally posted by grandpacoyote The 20x19 space is the main Garage itself it is ringed by a 3' concrete 'riser' on two sides, a builtin workbench, washer and dryer, and shelve sits on that riser... the door to the house is also on that riser as is the only window in the room.. so the 20x19 space is completly free as long as I leave myself some space to get around it etc.
QUOTE: Originally posted by grandpacoyote Hi Andrew, Thank you for all the excellant advice it is great help and helped put my mind in a better direction, I think. Going to show my ignorance here, which is easy for me to do [;)] but what exactly do you mean by "a twice (or three times) around", Im not sure I follow. Thanks again. Peace. Coyote
QUOTE: Originally posted by grandpacoyote [What I'm looking at is a large 20'x19' space, HO scale. AT&SF line, set in and around 1954, between California and Texas.. The Line will be those portions of the AT&SF line that ran near or by Route 66 which is the basis of the layout.. Running the Super Chief and also AT&SF freight..
QUOTE: Originally posted by leighant A 20 x 19 foot room? I think of layout as linear track running through a scene. Such as an 18 inch shelf with track, a 3 feet aisle and another 18 shelf on the other side of the aisle. In a 20 foot room, you can have 3 aisle-and-track-on each-side combinations, each 6 feet 8 inches wide. (That makes each shelf 22 inches wide.) Suppose the aisle is S-shaped--starts in one corner of the room along one wall, makes a U turn at the end of the room and goes back through the middle of the room, then another U turn to end at the opposite corner from where it started. The track runs on a shelf generally 22 inches wide. The end curves on inside pninsulas may need a little more width to keep radius from being too tight, have to take that out of the shelf on opposite side or make aisle narrower just at that point. The track would go back and forth six times the length of the room. 19 feet x 6 = 114 feet plus a little extra on the ends. Background down peninsulas keeps you from seeing more than one route going past at any point. Like a map, right is always east, left is always west, regardless which way anything is in the original room. This is the concept behind David Barrow's older layouts. Santa Fe in West Texas. See some of his articles such as article _Model Railroader_ Feb75 radio control throttle related to track plan, _RMC_ Dec78 p.85 article RR Mod Craftsman Nov79 p.78 passenger operations 50s, Mod RRer Mar80 p.62 Expanding the Cat Mtn, Mod RRer, Aug79 p.60 Rebuilding & Updating, Mod RRer, May84 p.66 "Today's Cat Mtn" Great Mod RRs 92 p.26 yard throat design, Summit & Mesa _Mod RR Planning 97_ p.84 "25 Years on the Cat Mtn" _ModRRer_ Sep99 p.56
QUOTE: Originally posted by rayhippard GRANDPACOYOTE, I am about to start designing a layout for a 14' x 19' train room with one entrance door and no windows. Planned it this way and have the room completely finished now including flat black painted ceiling, coved corners, painted masonite backdrops and flat black painted masonite overhead valances to define layout outline and hide layout lighting. My plan is around the room but not across the doorway. One peninsula juting out from beside the doorway into the center of the room. This gives me space on the end of the peninsula for a helix to the hidden ( but accessible through black curtins ) lower level with double ended staging yard connected to a second helix on the other side of the doorway. This will let me run trains in both directions without seeing the same train twice in one operating session. A view hiding backdrop down the center of the peinsula will let you follow your train and see it in only one scene at a time. I will have a variety of scenes from big cities to open country to mountains. You may be able to adapt something similar for your larger space. I personnaly do not like the '" EXPOSED " multiple deck layouts because this usually limmits decent scenery by lack of height and does not seem as realistic to look at when viewing a " scene " . Also, with my plan, you look more realistic by having only one mainline running through each scene. With more room for industry tracks and scenery, I believe this to be a more overall challenge to all of our modeling skills. I hope this gives you more food for thought. I also have had to read TPfRO several times to get the gist of it and refer to the book as I design my track plan. Please keep us posted on your progress as this is one of the more interesting aspects of this forum to see how everyone is doing. Ray ---- Great Northern fan.
QUOTE: Originally posted by railroadyoshi grandpacoyote, ereimer had GREAT stuff in his lat post My worry for the layout you r designing is that since you want your layout to follow Rout 66 and it is in the desert, going multiple times around one deck will be VERY unrealistic, more so than say a mountainius layout set in the woods[^] [#ditto] about Pelle's layout DEFINITLEY look over that layout You seem to be in a similar situation in many respects. Good luck[8D]