Layouts and layout building

 Stein,

 you have a certain way of putting things to the point! You are right - it is not the operation, but the overall look of this plan I like about it. Somehow there is a picture of it in my head, generated while I was drawing it.

I am also a little unsure about the operations - I need to learn to think mor in ops terms.  

Is there a way to "simplify" this plan while keeping its character?

Sir Madog:

 Stein,

 you have a certain way of putting things to the point! You are right - it is not the operation, but the overall look of this plan I like about it. Somehow there is a picture of it in my head, generated while I was drawing it.

I am also a little unsure about the operations - I need to learn to think mor in ops terms.  

Is there a way to "simplify" this plan while keeping its character?

 Must be, but I haven't found it yet. Let me first put labels on the existing layout, so it is easier to refer to tracks while discussing how they could be used.

 Ooops - time to cook dinner - my turn to cook today. More later.

 Smile,
 Stein

steinjr:

  Ooops - time to cook dinner - my turn to cook today. More later.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

... did that only once in 25 years of marriage. My wife used to teach cooks in a vocational school - no chance to create anything that withstands her discerning eye or tongue.

Enjoy!

steinjr:

Sir Madog:

 Stein,

 you have a certain way of putting things to the point! You are right - it is not the operation, but the overall look of this plan I like about it. Somehow there is a picture of it in my head, generated while I was drawing it.

I am also a little unsure about the operations - I need to learn to think more in ops terms.  

Is there a way to "simplify" this plan while keeping its character?

 Must be, but I haven't found it yet. Let me first put labels on the existing layout, so it is easier to refer to tracks while discussing how they could be used.

 

 Ooops - time to cook dinner - my turn to cook today. More later.

Well, both the wife and our two kids (and I) survived dinner, so I can't have botched it too badly :-)

Have been mucking around with this track plan. I am not sure that this is an actual improvement, but here is a suggestion:

Main changes:

1) Added an extra crossover between the running main (track 3-4 in the original plan) and the rear/top industry track, allowing you to switch two of the five industries without  having to move cars at other industries at all, making sure that you never will have to move cars at more than one other industry to switch one of the industries that are behind other industries, and making sure that you won't have to shuttle back and forth several times to get at the car or car spot you want.

 2) Moving the tracks to the dockside industries on the bottom/left side away from the middle diagonal yard track, and moving the runaround up to the main running track above the yard.

 Of course, the core problem has not been solved - that 6 industries/spurs are are on spurs where an engine moving cars from the yard to industries (or the other way around) needs to make a runaround move, while only three industries (packing plant, dept store and maybe pai co) are on spurs where movement from  the yard to industry spots do not require runaround moves. In an ideal world, the yard is oriented the same way as the industries - so an engine grabs cars and back out before driving forward again into the right spot for the car.

 Smile,
 Stein

 Hi Stein,

we had a terrible thunderstorm yesterday evening - so I did not dare to switch on my computer.  No major damage in our area, though. The more I look at my plan, the less I start to like the "tangled spaghetti" track work in the middle of it. No railroad would do that - too expensive. I guess I have to do some more research and planning -. It´s a challenge...

... which I took up again. After a little research in the internet, I found a homepage with a lot of helpful hints and ideas for shelf layouts. I "borrowed" one of the ideas and transformed it into this:

The track plan is pretty close to the original, just omitting a three-way switch. Does it look familiar, Stein? Hope you don´t mind me "stealing" your idea...

 The track is all Atlas Code 83 flex-track and no.6 super switches, the double slip switch is Peco Code 83.

Sir Madog:

 After a little research in the internet, I found a homepage with a lot of helpful hints and ideas for shelf layouts. I "borrowed" one of the ideas and transformed it into this:

The track plan is pretty close to the original, just omitting a three-way switch. Does it look familiar, Stein? Hope you don´t mind me "stealing" your idea...

The track is all Atlas Code 83 flex-track and no.6 super switches, the double slip switch is Peco Code 83.

LOL - my old living room layout plan?  I don't even think it got a proper name - just "industrial switching in 2x7 feet" or some such thing. Looks much better with your buildings and scenery superimposed on the track plan than the layout ever did in my living room - where it got about half built before I changed prototypes.

 Btw - sorry to keep throwing new ideas at you all the time, but that Federal Street plan has kept moving around up in my head. Here is a variant of some of the ideas from Federal Street in 2 x 8 1/2 feet - I am calling this one "Federal Overpass".

It has some of the same elements as federal street - diagonals, street crossing the layout, small buildings in the front you look over, big factories in the back.

Any good, or just more confusion ?

Smile,
Stein

 Stein,

as it will take some while before I can start to build any layout, I´ll make use of the time to collect ideas, applying the motto "the better is the enemy of the good". Your Fed Street layout is thrilling!

The two of us should collect all these ideas systematically and publish a book 

If this is a dcc powered railroad, how do you set up the power distrits with all of those switches?

DJO:

If this is a dcc powered railroad, how do you set up the power distrits with all of those switches?

 Don't need separate power districts for a small railroad with just one operator - when you create a short and things stops, there is no point in still having power to another part of the layout be a separate power district so other people won't be affected by the short.

 Smile,
 Stein

   I would be interested to see how these small shelf designs would fit in the "grand scheme of things". Take all of your different ideas, and designs and connect them all into a giant empire. Each design could be a seperate town miles away from each other. I like all of the desigs you guys came up with. Keep up the good work.. I hope to see some progress shots of the design you deside to build. 

MPRR:

   I would be interested to see how these small shelf designs would fit in the "grand scheme of things". Take all of your different ideas, and designs and connect them all into a giant empire. Each design could be a seperate town miles away from each other.

 Wouldn't work.The layouts in this thread are not designed as scenes that could be integrated in a larger layout (or at least - it would take a major redesign to make these into scenes on a larger layout) - they are quite deliberately designed as standalone switching modules.

 For one thing - note the extensive use of partial buildings along the left and right side of the layouts here. Works when the world ends there. But it would be hard to create a natural looking transition from pretty cramped downtown area to "miles of track before next town".

 Here is a couple of examples of scenes designed for possible  later inclusion in a larger layout:

 True, they are all meant to be stand-alones, but the idea of creating a little "empire" of interconnected, individual scenes is fascinating. How about designing a connecting "black box" to disguise the change in scenery?

Or building the Milwaukee Road Beer Line in indivudual, but interconnected scenes? Maybe a good idea for a club layout...

Sir Madog:

 True, they are all meant to be stand-alones, but the idea of creating a little "empire" of interconnected, individual scenes is fascinating. How about designing a connecting "black box" to disguise the change in scenery?

 You are right - I was too categorical.  I was trying to communicate that just stringing standalone switching layouts together with some mainline between wouldn't necessarily work well for a larger layout.

 You certainly can connect several small shadow box style layouts if you want to. Either connect the separate shadow boxes  physically (e.g. by having portals/holes in the "backdrop" or "sidedrop" on both layouts match up), or connect the shadow boxes operationally (e.g. using a train cassette to transfer cars and/or trains from one layout to another - e.g moving stuff left on an interchange track on one layout onto the interchange track of another layout).

 Physically connected scenes obviously can be connected with or without a black box in between two scenes simulating a longer running distance between the scenes (drive into the tunnel, wait 10 minutes, run into next scene. 

 In either case, it makes most sense to me if the scenes connected are set in the same era and same area, so it makes sense to have a train that passed through scene 2 appear in scene 1, scene 3 or scene 4, depending on the route taken out of scene 2.

  So as long as you are still just running with one operator and one train at a time, you are okay, as long as the scenes are not too jarringly disjoint in time era and location (it would look pretty yucky, in my opinion, to have an Acela first running through a 1990s scene from the NE corridor, then past a small town at the end of a prairie line in the 1940s, then past a Colorado narrow gauge mining railroad set in the 1890s).

Or building the Milwaukee Road Beer Line in indivudual, but interconnected scenes? Maybe a good idea for a club layout...

 Mmmm - the basic approach of modular model railroads is that each scene can be built on its own, but interconnected into a far bigger layout through the use of a standardized end profile - either personal/club module standards like the Milwaukee Road Beer Line or David Barrow's dominios (mentioned by Svein earlier in this thread) or by the use of standards followed by more people (like FREMO or Free-mo or Ntrak or Austrak).

 That is often a good idea for a club setup, since it is flexible - modules can be swapped out for new modules if a member moves or changes modelling interests. Provided that the modules are big enough to allow reasonable length sidings etc.

 The modular approach usually try to make each module visually complete (and visually compatible), though - it is normally not considered desirable to need a visual viewblock on the right and left end of each module down along a modular setup.

  But I still think I would have most likely have wanted to redesign a larger layout as a whole if I was going to run it operationally as a larger layout - to review the interdependencies between desired train lengths, staging capacity, number and length of sidings, classification capacity, types of runs, run lengths, possible routings and so on and so forth.

 Smile,
 Stein

 You are right, Stein.

When you connect different "stand-alones", you need to have at least one  concept or theme behind, as the common denominator. That requires a certain amount of pre-planning, aside from deciding how and where to connect the sections/modules, so the tracks actually "meet".

I am still a member of a group of mrr´s building such type of a layout. The overall theme is a fictious narrow gauge line in the west of Germany. We meet a couple of times each year for operating sessions and a charity drive. Last time we were able to collect 25 k $ in donations for a children´s cancer ward in a hospital.

The group´s home page is www.sbeg.de

It is in German, but the pics show what I mean!

All these groovy plans make me want to start building 5 projects at once (as opposed to the 2-3 going on now!).

The small size would seem to be a plus: you don't have to think of the "big picture" of a large layout, until you realize this is more difficult since everything here IS the big picture!

It's definitely a fun challenge to create a little little empire.

While reading the earlier threads, John Armstrong's "Switching layout for shelf" popped into my mind.  It's on page 139 of Track Planning for Realistic Operations, and since line drawings sometimes lie, I had to try it out on Anyrail:

I used Atlas 83 track with a Walthers Cornerstone 12 1/4" turntable.  There's no dimentions in the book, but it lays out 18" x 12'.  (Those are 6" squares).  I think his indicates a grade, with the rear line elevated a bit.  Armstrong says "Turntable serves to get end-loading and 'unload-from-the-side' cars into position for delivery - also completes longer runaround track."

Just curious what people thought of it operationally.  Is this a fun & realistic switching layout or one that unrealistically creates work for itself.  Also didn't know if the turntable was a consideration for Sir Madog.

Cheers!
--Mark