Layouts and layout building

I have been a "Lurker" on this and other forums for quite some time now, and I have learned and used a great deal of valuable info. Thanks to all of you who have contributed to my knowledge and abilities!

I currently have a 6x8 N scale layout that I hang from my garage ceiling using a boat winch to raise and lower it. I use an NCE PowerCab and two Cab 04p's that are great. The only problem that I have with the layout is that it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer.  Plus, I now want more. 

With that in mind, I am building a train room in my attic.  I have built a flight of stairs to the space above the two-car garage that is now being used for storage. Above the Master bedroom/bath/closet is enough space to make an 18x21+ room.  I had to move some pipes and realign the heating ducts, but it is coming along.  The wall space on the east and west walls is limited by the roof pitch - the east is less than 4' high and the west is about 6', but will have the heat/AC unit hung as high as it can go. There are no windows, and there are two doors, both opening out from the room. 

 

The Track will be code 55, Fast Tracks hand laid #10’s on the main, #5’s on all yard and industries, CI ground throws, NCE power pro wireless cab, 4 04p aux throttles for the industries. The plan is circular for just running, but point-to-point for ops using the East yard as both the North and South terminus. At least 1 train in each direction

Any and all comments are welcome. 

Bob

Welcome aboard.

Wow, I envy your space.

I'd be concerned with access to the track in the tunnel at the lower left, if indeed that's a tunnel.  Also, there are a few places where the closest you can get is 3 feet from track.  In general, the recommended maximum reach is 30 inches.  From experience, that's a pretty good number.  It's really hard to even reach a train car at 36 inches, much less get it back on the track.  Even where your track is only 2 feet or so from the edge, I don't think ground throws are the way to go.  You'll be reaching across scenery and other trains to throw turnouts.  You should consider using either electric switch machines or cables to the fascia.  (You might like Humpyard mechanical levers for this.)

Although your track plan looks like two loops, it's really one loop folded back on itself.  For that reason, you can't run two trains in opposing directions unless you're actively managing both of them and using your passing sidings.  By adding a couple of crossover tracks, though, you could probably provide a two-loop path as well.  This would let you run a pair of trains with no intervention while you concentrate on switching, or interleaving other trains with the two running on "auto pilot."

The layout has no provision for turning trains or engines around.   With the amount of space that you have, you could put in a reverse loop or a train-length wye and accomplish this.  If you're running steam-era equipment, then a turntable is always a nice scenic element, and it allows you to reverse engines, too.

Ha!!   I knew we'd shake someone out of the tree.    Welcome.

I like this type of layout...I have one myself.  My one requirement for this type of layout is the ability to turn entire trains, so I built a return loop requiring a diagonal bridge crossing the open pit in the middle of my layout.  It's a pain, but not a huge amount.  I do get to turn long coal drags and my heavyweights around, and that makes all the stooping worthwhile.

About the only criticism I have, if you'll bear with me, is the way you have fanning stub tracks at the two fat spaces on the right, upper and lower.  It seems contrived to me.  I would have less trackage and something a bit more purposeful and interesting than merely backing in, dropping cars, and then chugging back out with loads.  Don't get me wrong...I am gratified that you know to have something to do on days when watching them run in circles doesn't quite fit the bill.  And I like that you have a rudimentary yard.  Although I would flesh it out with runarounds, A/D track, caboose track or RIP track(s) where you can park engines that need work...which just happens to also keep them out of the way.

If I were doing what you are doing, I would work hard to have a turning wye in that middle peninsula.  Or, fashion a short lift-out bridge to cross the aisle at the ends of one of the outer stubs on either side of the divider so that you can turn a train around by running across it.  It can be gone in seconds and will thusly not interfere with rapid and purposeful movement.  But, one session soon enough, you'll know it's high time to insert it and run a train across it to get it turned.  Failing that, and if you are in steam particularly, but not only, a small turntable to turn engines would be handy eventually, as Mr. B. points out.

Also, at lower left, even a four foot saw-by siding or passing siding would be of interest and potential use, particularly if you and even one other person were to share an operating session.

-Crandell

selector:

Ha!!   I knew we'd shake someone out of the tree.    Welcome.

Welcome to the forum Bob !

Sounds like a good plan. Nice size space too!
You'll diffinatley want some heat and AC in that attic!

I would suggest doing some more research on yard design, and work on the design of your yard.  With as many large switching areas as you have you will be pumping a lot of cars through your yard.  If you intend on more or less realistic operation then  you will want more capability in your yard.

I would also suggest working on including some staging.  Once again, depending on how realistically you want to operate, staging can be important to the design.

I would consider the track designs in the industrial areas as mere placeholders.  They all seem to be mirror images of each other and all one sided.  You can put industries off both sides of the track and you can put industrial spurs off the main.  On both areas on the right hand side of the layout, all the spurs break off in the same direction.  I'm not suggesting a bunch of switchbacks, but you can put switches in both directions.  The switching areas on the peninsula will not be easy to switch since in both cases the sidings they break off of lie across the base of the peninsula, so if I am in the upper aisle switching the upper switching area, my engine will be down next to the lower aisle, much too long a reach to uncouple or reach switches if they are a manual throw.

In that same vein the design doesn't necessarily lend itself to walk around operation since trains going across the base of the peninsula force the operators to walk about 15 feet around the peninsula to catch up with their trains.

Adding a turning loop or a two loop connection is only required if you want that type of operation.

And now for something completely different:

Do you have any pictures of your winch arrangement for the overhead layout in your garage?  Even better, some video of the whole thing in operation?  Every now and then, someone asks questions about this concept, and nobody can ever show a shot of one that actually works.  If you could post a shot or two, maybe in a different thread so we don't sidetrack this one, it might become one of those "reference threads" that we point back to when someone is looking for precisely what you've got.

Thanks.

We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

 I would also suggest maybe #8 turnouts instead of #10 other then a few 'cosmetic' locations. A #8 will easily handle any sort of equipment you might want to run, even Big Boys and those huge modern articualted auto racks, and using #8's will make your sidings longer and possibly give room for more of them.

                                       --Randy

 This is a welcome from Bob to Bob,      I am glad that you have joined our "give and take" sessions.   We may be a bit critical, but it is for the purpose of sharing our present and past "givuns and druthers".   I like your "pass through yard", but with the available space, you might flesh it out, as Mr.B suggested.   My biggest concerns are the need to reach 36 inches to retrieve or rerail trains, and your access to trains within the tunnels.  I am also concerned with the fact that the main line is a folded back loop, with no way for a locomotive to reverse it's direction.  I assume that your circular mainline is to allow for "auto pilot" operation, while you work the yards. But, with the "state of the art" of a NCE power pro wireless cab, why do you use ground throws, (rather than throttle controlled switches?  I have a continuous SceniKing sequential 8"x11" sectional diorama of low hills, city, harbor,and mountains surrounding the entire four walls. I matched the uniform sky blue of the tops of the SceniKing sections, and painted the upper background, before gluing on the SceniKing sections.  Does the central peninsula backdrop divider go from the layout top to the ceiling?  Have you ever considered a reverse loop, or wye, (from what I assume is a raised overpass to the top part of the peninsula), to pass through the backdrop, to rejoin the lower track in the bottom section, to reverse the direction of train travel.   My own 24'x24' around the room HO layout is not really, that much bigger than your layout. I also have a central wide peninsula,(part of which is shown in the lower photo), that is undivided and has a diagonal 7 track pass through yard,a roundhouse, a large mountain with ski&skate resort at the top, a large harbor serving a huge (back ordered) steel mill, and a town, "which is going to be connected to another distant town by a Faller two directional slotless "magnetically steered" roadway).    My 96 electric motor operated switches, are divided between four power districts, with 6 ground throws, (within easy reach of the four district operators). I was going to have all the switches operated from  Digitrax DCC throttles, but decided to use 24 "double pin probe" switch operation, on each of  the four districts, (so that each operator has direct viewing of their set of numbered switches).  My goal was to maximize switching and independent routes, so I installed six reverse loops and three wyes to allow six locos the operate independently, and yet have two main lines for auto operation, while I am working the stub ended and pass through yards.   My only purpose for "blathering on about my own operation", is to "perhaps", give you some new ideas for your own layout. Each of us have different layout goals.   Good luck and happy model railroading. Bob Hahn

Mr. B

1. Yes that will be a tunnel on the west side, but it will have a removable top.  I have that on my current layout, and I have built removable mountains on 2 other HO layouts for friends.  Only the turnouts on the north side will be hard to reach, and I intend to power them, but not at first.  I will make provision for that though.
2. I fully expect to use the 3 separate passing sidings for running in both directions.

Crandell

1. I just laid the stub tracks in those positions for now, not knowing exactly what industries will be going where
2. I am open to any suggestion as to how to improve or flesh out the yard area. (This is way better than my original idea)
3. I don’t see a need to turn specific loco’s, which will be all/only diesels, as I plan to run trains in both directions. I originally had a turntable but dropped it as I think a roundhouse take up too much room as I see on several friends’ layouts.
4. Multiple operators have been my plan from the outset.

Dave

1. I have looked at yards on other plans and layouts and I thought having it as I do, it is better than having it on a curve as many do. I am certainly open to improving it.
2. Yes, the spurs are placeholders.
3. My thoughts on operation is to have a train pull into one of the sidings, drop a cut of cars just short of the switch, pull forward of the switch, back into the industrial lead to the first spur, pick up any outgoing freight/empties and continue back on the main, then let the yard/industry switcher do its thing.
4. As far as prototypical or realistic – I haven’t a clue – it just seems to me that would be the way to run a line.

Mr. B

I just learned how to load a file to Photobucket 2 nights ago – now you want me to learn how to take a video and transfer it too?  My brain is going to explode!

I’ll work on it over the weekend.

Randy

I’ll look at the #8’s. It will have to be all 8’s or all 10’s, not both.

Bob

See all comments above, plus, The reason for the ground throws is so that I’ll have the money to pay for the power (NCE).  The imagination that you have useed in planning your empire far exceeds my limited capabilities.

All – Thanks for the welcomes and Thanks for the comments – Back to the drawing board.