Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse Okay, I think the first challenge will be getting the 30" radius curves. IF you get creative you can do it. Remember you can round the edges of the layout and you can go down to 24" in the aisles as long as you leave your operating areas wide. The second challenge will be laying out your cities. Look for ways to create scenes in which if you are working one scene, you don't see another. Also, as Dave said, watch your train lengths so that you don't park in one and still be hanging out in another station. After that it will be locating industrial sidings, yards and staging. But start with the radii.
QUOTE: Originally posted by West Coast S Relocate Flagstaff to area A5, eliminate the third track diverging at Diablo (K23), eliminate Joseph City and the return feature for a good sized yard. Radical enough? Canyon Diablo should be the focal point. Since passenger operation is the primary traffic , you have a proper balance of industrial activity in my opinion. Dave
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse Coyote, Let me see if I have this straight. You are modeling a 100 mile stretch of the Santa Fe between Flagstaff and Holbrook. The three main geography features that I can discern from what you have presented is 1) There is a grade up from Holbrook to Flagstaff. 2) There is a bottleneck at Canyon Diablo and 3) Top of the grade is at or near Angel. There are 2 "major" cities: Winslow and Flagstaff which are 60 miles apart. The Santa Fe does not end at either Flagstaff or Holbrook, but continues on quire a ways in either direction. Now looking at the physical space of your layout as you have it currently set up in terms of scenes: 2 at Flagstaff 1 at McPhetridge 1 at Winona Darling 1 at Angel-Diablo 1 at Diablo-Sunshine-Denison 1 at Winslow 1 at Hibbard-Joseph 1 At Holbrook Ideally, you want your train to pass through each scene only once. A double track like the prototype is fine, but would point out that you have three distinct routes from Diablo to Flagstaff. You simply don't need them. You can do everything with just your dual mainline. Right now a 6 car passenger train stopping in Denison will still be in Canyon Diablo. Since all the geographic action takes place between the two largest cities, I would suggest modeling between Winslow and Flagstaff. Your instinct to put a yard at each end location on your layout is good, but the railroad you are modeling really doesn't end as you have it represented. It continues on in both directions. You have really provided the solutions perhaps without noticing. The yards you have designed are just to small to work well for you. So this is my solution based upon the info you have supplied. Obviously you have read more about the area than I since I haven't read squat, so you'll have to bring up my errors in assumption. Make Canyon Diablo / Angel your visual focal point like you have it but do it up big and run it from the mid-point between Dennison and Sunshine to the tip of the Angel side of the peninsula. Make Flagstaff and Winslow the ends of your layout and give them both larger yards. Start your Flagstaff yard where Winona is now. Remove the backdrop from the Flagstaff and expand the city street and add industries. Where the yard terminates in your return loop place your backdrop and run the single track you have nowrunning to A1 behind it. Open that track up to 4-5 tracks for your west staging yard--personally I would just call the area Los Angeles to give it significance as it represents all points west. Between Angel and Flagstaff you can put a town scene where Darling is now. It can be either Darling or McPhetridge. ON the other end of the layout the Winslow yard would start where you have Hibbard and extend to V17. What you call Holbrook becomes staging or Albuquerque (all points east.) Denison is where Winslow is now and Sunshine is On the point at N18. All your towns have room for industrial sidings if you choose. You can still connect at U19 (but I would connect via tunnel to maintain the one train per scene illusion.) Let me know what you think. I know it is hard to visualize from word pictures.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse This is from a post I did for GDS. Suppose that you want to set off a car in your upper right hand siding. Right now, your engince can pull the car in, but not be able to get the engine out without backing the car out. With a runaround you can pull the train onto the track right next to the red track I drew in on the left. You diconnect the train at the coupler directly in front of the car you want to drop off. The front part of the train pulls a head and backs int the siding and back onto the main to position itself in the back of the train. The engine then moves forward pushing the car into the side where it can disconect, thereby leaving the car. It then pulls the train back on to the main adjacent the siding, disconnects the engine from the rear of the train. The engine (and cars) then runs around and positions itself in front of the train and reconnects. The same type action happens near the yard. Then engine drops of the train on the main and uses the siding to get behind the train. It can then drop the cars (classifies them) in the appropriate classification track. If they are all mixed up, this will result in the train backing out and changing tracks quite a bit to get them sorted.
QUOTE: Originally posted by GearDrivenSteam Grandpa, it looks really nice. You're gonna have a lot of fun with something that size.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse What's the purpose of the track that ends at 10 B-C?
QUOTE: Originally posted by RevMattCNJ I like the bottleneck. Those are the types of things that make DCC such a blast.
QUOTE: Originally posted by jacon12 Coyote, I'm still very much a novice at all this so I can't comment on yours, but if you don't mind a question.... what type industries are you thinking of and where would they be located on your layout? I know you still must be in the preliminary stage of it but I thought if you had already figured those things out it would be interesting to know. Thanks, JaRRell
QUOTE: Originally posted by dthurman Coyote My take on staging was always to have it more out of the way, which is why I thought what I did. Guess I need to re-look at your design. On the benchwork, I am just curious as to how you plan to do it, but more important, would love to see the completed idea. I ask because I want to do the same thing.
QUOTE: Originally posted by SpaceMouse Hi, I think it is 100% improvement. Like Jarrel I would like to know what the industries are and how the towns are located. All of the yards and spurs need runarounds. The yards especially. The way you have them set up are head in. Once an engine heads in, how does it drop off the cars and get out. That is an easy fix. You have double tracks for most of the main. Personally I prefer a single track with strategically located passing sidings. It ads a lot of operational complexity--and more fun when operating with your pards. ON th subject of staging I dug this up for GearDrivenSteam. It was a soap box I got on a while back.. *** To the casual observer, staging just isn't that important. Just a place to store trains. True, but it is the conceptual part of what staging represents that makes it important and changes a train set into a model railroad. Staging represents a link with the rest of the world. Lets take a brewery as an example. Without a staging yard, you can pick beer up, and you can bring back empties. Just like the liquor store--it magically appears. But in the real world, the brewery needs hops, barley, preservatives, fuel, glass, aluminum, etc. etc. Without a stating yard where do these things come from? You could add a hops farm. But then where does the fertilizer come from for the hops. You just can't make an enclosed system that works like the real world. You have to suspend a lot of reality and give up a lot of operabilty. With a staging yard, the hops can come from somewhere else. The diesel fuel needed at the coal mine can come from somewhere else. The town's factories can be suppled raw materials from somewhere else. And all their goods can be shipped somewhere else. In other words, what you can do with your layout is expanded exponentially. Even if all you can do is get a track or two under your "low hills" you are opening up a world or possibilities.