Logging with no switches.

[Jetrock]

If you're going to do a logging operation with no switches, why not make it a point-to-point?

The one that comes to mind is the Mattole Lumber Company, which hauled tanbark from the Mattole Valley to a dock near Petrolia. Total mainline running 2 miles, motive power one Vulcan 0-4-2, 30" gauge. Operations consists of running to the valley and filling some gondolas with loads of tanbark, hauling it back out to the dock and loading a boat, top off the water tank, repeat for about ten years until you run out of tanbark oaks to strip for bark.

One could take a tip from Carl Arendt and pu***he edges of the "no switches" rule by including turntables, sector plates, transfer tables or fiddle yards of various sorts instead.

About stopping for logs: Normally a logging operation would stop laying track while lumber was being cut, and then proceed once all the nearby logs were cut. So a logging operation that was actively cutting logs would proceed through a landscape of stumps near the tracks, finally seeing nearby trees again at the end of the line.

Another thought: What about modeling the lumber mill end? Many large industries used a small captive switcher and cars to move items around industrial complexes--the back area of a sawmill would be no exception. Receive logs at one end, carry them through a variety of scenes--storage pond, milling, planing, seasoning, storage, loading of outbound cars of lumber ready for market.

[Anonymous]

Not all are of the round-about style. There is the "continuous run" school and the "point-to-point" school with many variations of the two. (Watch now as someone posts a completely useless either-or poll about this, completely ignoring the many variations.)

My new layout will be a point-to-point with a terminus/ interchange town. Trains would be traveling to mines, furnaces, sawmills and, of course, the Tofu Packing Plant along the way with tracks climbing the mountains and ultimately ending deep in the woods past the Black Fly Logging Camp.

In this type of operation, there is usually less track with more scenery and more of the illusion of travelling somewhere. While I have some track that doubles back within the scene, I'm trying to separate it with enough distance & elevation change to make it less noticable.

I'm going to forgo continuous running on this layout unless I get creative when I ultimately finish building the route and make a connection with the ends. The emphasis here being on scenery & a linear operation, the function being to go somewhere, turn around & come back.

This is my first layout designed for this type of operation after a lifetime of running around in circles.

Wayne

[tatans]

I think I'm on to something here from your replies, ereimer says about "realistic" operation, that made me think that to represent real operations where I live I would have to have a small town with 2 grain elevators then many miles of open track to the next town (or factory etc.) then many more miles (usually many straight miles) to the next town and so on,(I live on the Prairies) so am I wrong in assuming people have "condensed" reality to fit their layout, remember that railroads actually travel many miles of not very exciting countryside to reach areas in towns and cities, not too many layouts have miles of open track out in the "boonies" which is not too exciting eh? But now you have me thinking, O.K. O.K. maybe a COUPLE of switches, but I think with a bit of revision(and help from this forum) I may stay with my original concept, or sort of close to it. I also must add that, don't all layouts really go "round and round" albeit in a roundabout way, otherwise they would fall off on the floor. thank you all.

[Train 284]

Well, its your choice, but I would have to have a couplke switches cause I would get bored wating a train go in a circle, but enjoy your railroad however you want!

Matt [8D]

[Anonymous]

Hey, go for it! My first "layout" consisted of two parallel tracks with two double cross-overs, one at each end. The "layout" was 1' x 12'. I was twelve years old at the time, and pleased as could be with "running trains". It didn't last a year before bigger and better things replaced it, but it was educational in many ways. A spaghetti bowl of track is not all bad, especially if it is yours and you enjoy running your trains. Some of the responses list shortcomings, but even now, many years and several layouts later, I still have shortcomings in the current layout. Unfortunately, the present shortcomings can only be corrected with a larger basement.

It is just a hobby. Enjoy it anyway you can or want to.

Tom

[Anonymous]

Actually, running, then stopping on the tracks, then running some more, kind of happens along the logging line. A train would work its way along the line, picking up logs left alongside the tracks often with a Barnhart loader carried along on the logging cars.

I can't think of any other operations where an entire ROW might be used as the loading area.

Wayne

[ereimer]

1st ... it's your railroad , in your basement , and it's your money that's going to pay for it , so as long as it makes you happy , it really doesn't matter what the rest of us think , or if it 'works' or what it looks like .

2nd ... if you happened to build this railroad , and get an article on it published in MR i'd take a look at the track plan and wonder what was supposed to happen after it got built . do you just run trains around , stopping when you feel like it then running some more ? might be your idea of fun but i'd be bored with it about an hour after i got it finished to the point where atrain could run

3rd ... along with 'realistic' operation , layouts these days are pretty much designed like real railroads as much as possible , to give the illusion of going from one place to another without curving back on itself if possible in the restricted space we have . that's whu you don't see 'spagetti bowl' layouts too often anymore , it's just not realistic to have the tracks run through a scene more than once on their way to your destination

again , it's all about what is fun for you . you might do an amazing job on the scenery and i'd admire it for that , but wouldn't consider building the trackplan

[Anonymous]

Logging lines often loop around and up mountains that they can't just charge straight up. They meander and are often convoluted affairs. Tracks usually don't find themselve close to each other because the idea is to spread out into the woodlands and logs are dragged to the nearest tracks or loading. Logging lines usually lend themselves to realistic point-to-point operations because of the often temporary nature of the tracks: they go on and on into uncut woodlands and usually simply end, more often than not with no way to turn a loco. Lots of backing up gets done on a logging line.

I don't believe I've ever seen one whose track crossed itself, let alone numerous times, though as we often see here, there seems to be a prototype for everything. Probably safe to say you will have to freelance a logging loop line with no switches.

Will it work? Of course it will work, if your tracks are laid properly and the correct rails are joined in the end. Will it be interesting to operate? Possibly if you don't mind that all loading of logs, unloading at a sawmill or pulpmill, etc will be done on the mainline. And with no switches, you will be pulling an interesting consist because all your rolling stock will be in motion at the same time with no place to store MOW or other support cars while your logging cars are at work. And don't forget to find a way of shipping logs or sawn lumber off the layout since there won't be an interchange.

Of course if simply having a layout that offers continuing running with a logging theme and no deep operational or prototypical focus appeals to you, then why not? You can build lots of dramatic scenery into it. (What scale is your "plate of spaghetti?")

[SpaceMouse]

Nor reason you can't do, it, but if you do then the only thing you can do is stop here and there and watch. No switching, no loading and off loading cars, etc. About the only thing you can do with it is work on it. Plus with all that track what room do you have for trees and structures?

I'd get bored after a couple hours running no mater how many zigs and zags.

And how are the men going to get to the whore houses if you just have a bunch of logs on your train?

[tatans]

Just doodling on a sheet of paper to see if I could design a logging layout with no switches, of course it would be a complete circle, but I planned grades over and under existing track , there are 13 track over (and under) track crossovers. Lots of trestles, a few small tunnels, track stuck on hillsides, different plateaus (of course) as the layout is on 2 to 3 differnt levels, and the track then connects back to the original starting point, by the way this will fit on 4'x8' plywood. Some track goes up over the bottom track then back down to ground level THEN goes up and over again further down,etc,etc,. O.K. O.K. now lets hear why this will NOT work, it looks like a plate of spaghetti on the drawing. I'm waiting ! !