https://imgur.com/a/6zCf79a
Hi, I'm 66 retired 2 years, finished building my shop, finishing helping a daughter build a house and looking ahead to next winter. Playing around with railmodler pro and came up with this. Atlas 83 code track. All curves 22" radius or larger except 1 piece 18". Max grade is 2.6% Walthers 130 turntable. Probably looking at postwar diesel, possibly some steam. No specific road, possibly Lehigh Valley. Have good hand skills. Left room for expansion.Thanks in advance
Welcome to the forum, here is the pic
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Welcome to the forums.
Just some questions,
What do the different colors represent?
And it looks like a tunnel going to the TT ?
Mike.
My You Tube
I was wondering about your minumum radius. Are the grid squares one foot apart? If so I can eyeball your main line curves at 18" or may be less. You have to have 18 inches, lotta rolling stock will derail on less. More is better. I have 22 inches and my full length (80 foot) passenger cars have trouble on the curves. You can only reach in from the table edge maybe two feet to rerail trains or work on stuff. So you want to check your reach in distance. Turn tables are a steam era thing. If you are going to have turntable and a round house, it would be nice to have a place for a water tank, a coaling tower, and an ashpit. The usual arrange ment is to coal and water, and dump the ashes, before entering the turntable.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
12" grid, radius are all 22" atlas except for one 18" piece. Different color sections are for setting elevations . Tunnel to turntable. To mostly for loco storage and to turn them around
Your arrangement in the upper right corner with the turntable, yard, and mainline looks like it may have some problems. Moving the turntable into one of the 2 blobs would probably work better.
Realistically, the only reason for having a 130' turntable is if you plan to run large steam locomotives like UP's Big Boy. If that's the case you'll probably want larger radius curves. Some manufacturers claim a tight raduis will, but the overhang will be large and appearance will suffer.
I suggest you get a copy of John Armstrong's book Track Planning for Realistic Operation
Good luck
Paul
If the yellow area represents the full width of the layout, I suggest stretching the left turnback all the way to the left (2 squares) and the right turnback all the way to the right and move the turntable to the inside. That will give you a longer run, and possibly slightly larger curve radii.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
IRONROOSTERThe only reason for having a 130' turntable is if you plan to run large steam locomotives like UP's Big Boy.
Another reason might be to have narrower stall spacing without frogs.
However from the posted track plan he looks like he has 20 degrees between the tracks.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
What jumped out at me was the 130' turntable and 22 inch radius curves. That seems incompatible. A turntable that large would turn the largest steam locomotives which are going to have trouble on 22 inch radius curves and even if they can negotiate them, they aren't going to look good doing it. With what you have in mind, a 90' turntable should be plenty big.
I would also suggest a little stronger concept of what you want. In the long run, it could save you buying locos and rolling stock that don't really fit what you are doing. I'm speaking as the voice of experience. Do you want to model a real prototype or just freelance? From what you tell us, it sounds like you are interested in the post-WWII transition era. That would mean first generation diesels and some steam. Do you want to just run trains around a loop or do you want to do some operations. Your track plan looks like it is designed for the former.
I agree with John. A 130' turntable is overkill for a layout with radii as small as 18". That monster articulated steam loco you want to buy might look great on the turntable but it's not going to go around an 18" radius curve! If you scale your rolling stock to your layout, your trains will look and operate much better and you'll be happier, too. We tend to perceive model trains to be longer when the number of cars is greater. Thus, one large loco pulling six 89 foot cars seems significantly shorter than a couple of four axle switchers pulling a train of fifteen 26' ore cars, even though the two trains are actually similar in length. I have a fairly large HO scale layout, but I chose to model a line that was built for pre-1900 rolling stock. Because of rapid growth in the area, this short line was never able to acquire additional right-of-way to ease curves to accomodate larger rolling stock. Thus, my transition-era version of this line is restricted to four axle diesels/small steamers and rolling stock no longer than 50 feet. Most of my rolling stock is 40 feet or less. Even relatively short trains of 8 to 10 cars look good snaking through the various urban areas of the layout.
Having previously built nothing but freelanced layouts, I was amazed how modeling a specific prototype streamlined so much of my current layout's design. I had a prototype track plan to follow (obviously with compression and a bit of folding to get it to fit the space) and I didn't have to "invent" most of the industries the railroad serves. Okay, I invented a few, but they still fit into the prototype industrial makeup of each layout location. Even better, this fallen flag protoype short line used to run through the area where I live. Though the trains are long gone, a lot of the buildings and industries survived long after the railroad. If you model a few key locations and structures, layout visitors might even recognize what they're looking at.
Do a little research and you might just find the perfect protoype to model. A steel plant could be a layout all by itself. A harbor railroad would also make an excellent layout. I've been looking at the Port of Hueneme and the Ventura County Railroad in Southern California. Not only does this line serve a very busy yet very compact harbor, but it also serves a Navy CB base immediately north of the harbor. A layout of this line during the 1940's could be incredible! Best of all, this line used to access the harbor from both the north and south with both lines connecting with the Southern Pacific coast line to the east. This means that a loop of track could actually be prototypical.
Good luck and I hope you can find a prototype to sink your teeth into!
Hornblower
Hi FlattenedQuarter!
You do know that defacing currency is illegal don't you?!?
Seriously, welcome to the forums and to the hobby!!
I know that your plan is still in development, but I don't see any destinations for your trains other than the yard and the roundhouse/service area. In other words, there aren't any sidings. Personally, I love just watching trains run around the layout, but many people grow tired of that after a while.
You said that you have left room for expansion. Perhaps you could post a diagram of the entire space so we have a better idea of what you have to work with.
I look forward to seeing your layout develop.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
hon30critterHi FlattenedQuarter! You do know that defacing currency is illegal don't you?!?
So they say. Back in the 70's I too the Amtrak San Francisco Zephyr as teen from Sacramento to Denver. At a later time my dad told me he put a penny on the track in front of the train before it left the station, probably because a quarter was worth more back then and was more with spending. You can send the feds after him if you like but his memory mostly gone and likely he won't remember it.
riogrande5761my dad told me he put a penny on the track in front of the train before it left the station,
My mom grew up on a street in Oshawa, Ontario that had train tracks down the middle. As a kid she and her siblings would place pennies on the track to watch them get flattened. That was in the late 20s when a penny actually had some buying power. It must have been an expensive hobby, just like model railroading!
Sorry,
Hi again FlattenedQuarter,
I've been studying your plan a bit more, and I am trying to figure out the elevations in the area to the immediate left of the roundhouse. You show what I believe to be tunnel portals but I suspect that you used the symbols simply to illustrate which track is on the higher grade and which is on the lower. Are you going to have actual tunnels or just bridges?
hon30critterAs a kid she and her siblings would place pennies on the track to watch them get flattened. That was in the late 20s when a penny actually had some buying power.
I've been pwned!
When my oldest was 4, we took him to see Tom Chapin (Harry's brother) do his kid songs, and at the festival he was playing, COnrail had their Operation Lifesaver train. He watched the cartoon from BNSF, the one with the fox and the bird, where the fox keeps doing dangerous things around trains and the birdy keeps telling him not to and how to be safe. One of the things onvolved putting coins on the track - wheels are actually conical sections, not cylinders, so it IS possible for the coin to be shot out like a bullet, like pinching a watermelon seed between your fingers. Some other stuff went down when I took him in the locomotive cab, a bunch of rowdy teenagers climbed up the other side and then were hogging the cab, one 'expert' pointed out the controls to his friends - and got them all wrong - so I simply pointed out the correct ones. That got them to leave so my son could get a change to sit in the engineer's seat.
Go forward a few months, I take him to Strasburg to ride the train. And we eat at the Caboose Motel, in the dining car restaurant they have. While waiting for a table, we stood trackside to watch the last Strasburg train of the day. Some older kids were lining the track with coins. My 4 year old goes over to their mother and basically recites what the little birdy said in the safety film. Naturally she ignores him. He comes back over and says "Dad, it's not safe to stand here, we should move" So we moved away from where the coins were.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I was thinking bridges
dstarr If you are going to have turntable and a round house, it would be nice to have a place for a water tank, a coaling tower, and an ashpit. The usual arrange ment is to coal and water, and dump the ashes, before entering the turntable.
If you are going to have turntable and a round house, it would be nice to have a place for a water tank, a coaling tower, and an ashpit. The usual arrange ment is to coal and water, and dump the ashes, before entering the turntable.
dstarr Turn tables are a steam era thing. If you are going to have turntable and a round house, it would be nice to have a place for a water tank, a coaling tower, and an ashpit. The usual arrange ment is to coal and water, and dump the ashes, before entering the turntable.
Turn tables are a steam era thing. If you are going to have turntable and a round house, it would be nice to have a place for a water tank, a coaling tower, and an ashpit. The usual arrange ment is to coal and water, and dump the ashes, before entering the turntable.
A sand tower would also be standard, would it not?
Another option would be to model in N-scale if your eyesight and dextarity is good.
I am 70 and model in N-Scale with no issues and will do so as long as I can.
In N-scale you can run big locos and have a 130 ft turntable and with the room you have you could have a great layout.
IRONROOSTERRealistically, the only reason for having a 130' turntable is if you plan to run large steam locomotives like UP's Big Boy.
Not necessarily. A mated AB set of F units needs that much space to turn.
NittanyLion IRONROOSTER Realistically, the only reason for having a 130' turntable is if you plan to run large steam locomotives like UP's Big Boy. Not necessarily. A mated AB set of F units needs that much space to turn.
IRONROOSTER Realistically, the only reason for having a 130' turntable is if you plan to run large steam locomotives like UP's Big Boy.
Not really. I have four sets of AB F units and their wheelbase is about 13 inches which works out to just over 94 feet in HO.
FlattenedQuarterI was thinking bridges
That makes a whole lot more sense than tunnels. I guess I asked a stupid question. The scene should look really good!
If I can make a suggestion, take the bridge pier, tower or bent locations into account before you position the turntable or the approach tracks. You might have to move things around a bit in order to fit the bridge supports in between the lower tracks. I went through a similar exercise when designing my old club's layout. It took a bit of head scratching even though there wasn't a turntable involved.