What is the most used approach to track planning with Large Scale

[overall]

I am a life long O gauger with experience in HO too. I have become curious about Large Scale over the years. What is the most preferred method of track planning? Do you take an HO plan and enlarge it. Do you use the LDE approach advocated by Tony Keoster? I ran across an article about LS operation in the Dispatcher's Office magazine. Do a lot of you operate with car cards etc?

Thanks in advance,

 

George

[cabbage]

Well I take a length of hose pipe, lay it on the ground, and kick it around for a few days... Then when I know where my track is going I produce a datumn point and work out levels and curves from that. A length of clear pipe with coloured water in it produces the level for the track that is then transferred to a row of sticks planted in the path of the track.

This is how I did it the first time and this is how I am doing it now (despite "help" from my young son)...

"Daddy -the water in the bucket looked low -so I topped it up for you!" (ETC!!!)

regards

ralph

[ttrigg]

I did my planning in a rather different way than most people here.  I have a 28ft x 32ft "upper patio".  I picked up a bunch af track, mostly "flex" and a couple of different sized circles of LGB brass track.  Went to the store, picked up a box of children's sidewalk chalk.  I drew out the outline of the availabe space where I was going to build my little empire on the concrete.  I started trying different "layouts" until I came up with one that I liked.  I also spent time running the trains on my "track plans" to see what I liked and didn't like.  Since the trains were going to go around the Koi pond (not dug at that time) and I knew I wanted the train to go under the water fall for the pond, I was able to position in some cinder blocks to form the waterfall substructure so that everything would work.  I went to the stone yard and got the stones that would form the top "ring" of stone for the pond and positioned them within the "layout" plans on the patio.  Then when I had the "layout" planned the way I wanted it, and the pond outlined the way the wife wanted, then construction began on both the pond and track at the same time.  I spent just about seven months modifying the plans before I began the actual construction.

Some folks here will tell you to get a bunch of penciles and paper and start drawing.  I have problems doing it that way in that I just cannot visualise the problems encountered along the way, curves, clearances, switching etc. 

 I have a friend who is also starting to design a layout.  In his case he has a chunk of baren ground that will become his "empire".  We are three months into designing his layout.  Flop the track on the ground, run the trains, see what he likes and what he does not like, change what needs to change until he gets what he wants. 

[altterrain]

Howdy,

Sorry, I don't have any idea what or who the "LDE approach advocated by Tony Keoster". I'm guessing you have an eye towards operations since you mentioned car cards. Most garden railroaders do not run much in the way of ops for a variety of reasons - the size of land required, the physical work of building such a layout, maintaining a large layout, the price of track and equipping locos with battery/RC systems, etc. Our club runs ops sessions at a club member's layout who has a very large layout which we help maintain in trade. We run in 2 man teams with an itinernary of car pick ups and drop offs using the car numbers. Its a 6 hour affair and lots of fun. There have been articles in GR on running ops in the garden.

Layout design has a lot to do with what you want your layout to look like, the size of your space, types of rolling stock you will be running keeping in mind minimum track diameter, how much track you can afford, etc.

I fit my layout into an existing garden space and it initially was a simple double loop with 3 switches. I expanded last year, adding a loop extension and ten switches connecting the loops and adding industrial sidings with an eye towards some mini ops sessions. I don't have any yards in my layout as they take up valuable garden space. My layout is about 80 feet end to end, 25 feet at its deepest with 9 and 10 foot diameter curves.

 

-Brian 

[alamosa]

When I first started I just had a simple oval and siding that surrounded a water feature. After one season that was not enough, so I also used the old garden hose to lay out my expansion ideas, then I moved that hose around until I was pleased with the result. Then it was a question of figuring out my curves and elevations, which necessitated several changes to my plan to make it work. Must be blind luck but when it finally came time to put the track down it actually worked. With the space available, while I can have several trains going at once I did not have room for much more than very plain and short sidings.

[kstrong]

"Most used" is a hard one to peg. The better question to ask is what are you looking to accomplish? If you're building a railroad with operations in mind, then start with figuring out what industries you'd like to have, what kind of tracks they'd need to be served properly, and then go from there with the space you have available. That's kind of the approach I took when designing my Tuscarora Railroad:

http://www.trains.com/grw/objects/pdf/tuscarora_plan.pdf

My industries were based on existing ones on a prototype railroad, which I pared down to fit the space I had available. An in-depth look at how I designed and built the railroad ran in the June 2006 through Feb 2007 issues of GR if you have them. If not, the series is available for download from Kalmbach http://kalmbachcatalog.stores.yahoo.net/grpdf030.html or by ordering those issues. (Disclaimer: I don't make any money from those sales.)

A few things to consider when designing a railroad, especially one with operations in mind. Yards and sidings need to be level, so the cars don't go rolling away. Use the widest switches you can, but balance that with the amount of space you have available. Long switches cut into siding length. I used #6 switches on mine. Also, keep things simple. Maintaining switches outdoors is a bit more of a hassle than it is indoors, so cleaning 50+ switches prior to each operating session can get quite tedious. Less is more, and in an operational sense, quite challenging in its own right.

Later,

K

[Great Western]

Greetings Ralph,

The mention of you son (helper) and the bucket brought a smile to my face.  I can appreciate how it is.  Sadly my rwo sons are grown up and didn't help (well one was on the other side of the world) and his son, had he been here would have loved every minute of the work.  He is now 7.

But he may be here later this year an a small extension to the railroad is planned.

        
 

 

 

[calenelson]

I bought a load of used track, laid it out on the ground....at least 1K times till I got what I had in mind, that would fit what I had on hand....and began.

cale

[piercedan]

I just went outdoors and started by throwing track on the ground, then I dug a 4 inch dee/6 inch wide trench where the track was and added weed block fabrick (this is to keep the 1/4 inch gravel from mixing into the dirt).  I filled the trench with the gravel and then ran trains. 

Then I expanded every year for 4 years. 

I started with a basic loop with a provision for a figure 8 via 4 switches.  This way I could run trains while working on the RR!!

 

 

[Great Western]

When I built my railroad I maintained the existing garden layout, leaving the trees, bushes and plants where they were.  Only in one area was new ground used, where sweet pea trellises and a couple of unwanted large hydrangeas were removed.  The rest was built, as per the 1:1 chaps folllowing the contours and spaces where nothing was growing.  The  head gardner preferred this was as she said it would look like a garden railway - she had seen one or two others which, to her, were more like railways in a garden.  Agregate blocks and stout timbers were used for the base and were set into a narrow trench. The ballast is a little coarse.  This seems to survive the heavy rains better than the more fine  gravels.  Also where seeds decide to appear they are very easily removed without any real disturbance to the ROW.   Apart from a lessening of a grade vitually no maintenance has been needed since the line was built 18 months ago.  Just a small amount of ballast, here and there,  where my dogs have disturbed the ROW after chasing birds or cats.  The track is, in the main, loose laid. It is only fixed lightly where the ROW crosses three bridges:  I prefer that to a wreck

[overall]

Thanks to all who responded. The LDE or Layout Design Element approach is to take a stretch of real railroad somewhere and shrink it down and compress it to fit on the layout. The schematic of the track layout itself ( i.e the relationship between the switches and track ) is keep intact however. The idea is to let the real railroad do all the track planning work while we as modelers simply plagurize it. For example, CSX runs through my home town of Murfreesboro TN. There is a passing siding, some smaller on line customers and a couple of good size plants served by rail. I would copy this layout, compressing distances as needed, but keep switches and track arranged the way it is. I would feed trains in from both sides using staging yards.

Have any of you tried this approach in Large Scale? If you did, did you like it?

Thanks in advance,

George 

 

[cabbage]

I did look at realism for my first layout -but the problem is one of scale.... Even clipping things down to bare essentials left me with a single platform island station that was 3 metres long and the layout was only 11 metres square. Now that I have a somewhat larger back garden -I can still only expand my station to two island platforms and 3 metres long. This gives me a loco, two carriages and a guards van length for my platforms. At the scales that I use Gauge 0 / 16mm (1:19.1) and Gauge 3 / 13.5mm (1:22.6) this means that at most -I can have a scale 1.5 kilometres of track around my garden. Corners are equivalent to; 2.4 chains, and 2.75 chains -repectively. Normal UK tight curves are about 8 to 16 chains and in the case of any Great Central Railway track -600 chains!!!

The LDE approach cannot be translated to the garden. The environments are very different to that found indoors added to this you have the sheer size of the thing. If I were to model the Derby "Friargate" Railway Station (now disused) in its early days of 1860 then it would be well over 20 metres long at the 13,5mm scale -and that was a small local station. I doubt anything resembling Birmingham Snow Hill or Nottingham Victoria could be modelled at scales bigger than Z...

[altterrain]

Thanks for the explanation. Interesting concept but I don't think I have seen anyone take that approach in large scale.

 -Brian

[Capt Bob Johnson]

Brings us back to the old "It's your railroad, do what you want!"  because if you look hard enough you can find a prototype for almost anything.

I did something between the throw some track down and build where it lands, and paper planning everything.   It worked well for what was intended at the time, but I think I would do it differently another time.   It does not lend itself well to expansion or alteration; and I'm not about to move block walls and 30 truckloads of dirt!

I would surely stay with the raised railroad concept.  It is especially easier on the old knees and back, keeps most critters out, and is enjoyable to look at; but then it is a railroad in the yard and not so much of a garden thing!

Given the cost of what I have, I could almost have built a 30' X 50 or 60' pole barn and had it indoors and been able to play with it year round and with less problems.   When you railroad outdoors you have all the problems the real railroads have, from ground settling to erosion to snow removal!

[Anonymous]

I ripped my track back up....because it was my RR and found drop track in the grass a better way for me to get my mow right where I want it.

I cleaned all my track last summer and the brass is shiny new + I have NOB (new old brass) left over from before the track went up and heck I did not know till 6 months before but spent my limit on track!

Looking back drop track is better for me

Toad (the one who ripped up track in da Swamp)

[Ray Dunakin]

I'm not much good at doing a lot of detailed advance planning. I try to think through what I want as carefully as I can and then work out the details as I go. My layout is a bit unusual in that it's built into a steep slope. I couldn't lay out all the track in advance because tons of dirt had to be moved first. I'd never actually seen a large scale layout except for some small temporary exhibits at the county fair. So I had a fairly vague idea of how much space would be needed for access, etc.

So I started with a rough approximation of what I wanted to produce and just started building. The most complicated areas were the ends, where the track has to make horseshoe curves and one level goes over another. I started at the east end, and built a little at a time. Each section involved much time spent laying down pieces of sectional track and trying out different arrangements, while trying to visualize how much track would be covered by mountains, how the upper level would cross the lower level, how to access the tunnels, where to fit footpaths, etc.

There was a time when I was trying to figure out how to fit everything together at the west end, where I was beginning to despair and wondering if I'd bitten off more than I could chew and generally botched the whole deal. This end of the layout is the most complex, with a lot that had to fit into a limited space, and it all had to come together just right in order to connect the upper level, mid level and lower level tracks. But I kept fiddling with it until I got an arrangement that worked, and now I'm very happy with it. In fact it's my favorite part of the layout.

Anyway, that's how I did it. My method wouldn't work for everyone, in fact it probably wouldn't work for most people. You just have to figure out what works best for you.

[kimbrit]

Mine grew slowly as I bought track. My garden is flat and floods, so over time I have lifted the level of the whole garden by nearly one foot and put a drain in. I am a firm believer in a railroad in the garden, not the other way round and I don't let it get 'in the way', I can work in the garden with a train going round and not worry about standing on it! After lots ot thought I knew what I wanted and I worked off the picture in my mind. Works for me. Each to their own really.

Cheers,

Kim

[Rex in Pinetop]

My planning started with a need to landscape the front yard of a corner lot for the summer home we just finished.  The streets are several feet higher than the house so some teracing was required along with drainage requirements.  All of that meant I had to move tons of earth and bring in more tons of rock no matter what I did.  My previous layout was a backyard one that didn't get many visitors and almost no kids which was a shame so I had this brilliant idea that I would landscape the front yard with a GR that the neighborhood kids could enjoy.  In our community everything visible from the street has to be approved by the home owners association so I roughed a sketch together with some explanation about what a GR was and got the required approvals including an exception to the six month completion requirement.  I already had a saw mill and my older son has a gold panning hobby so those two got added to the plan.  The terrain required a 4' rise to be able to use all the area available so a helix became part of the plan to get the town connected to the gold mine and logging operation.  Everything just grew from those basic ideas.  Working in the front yard attracts a lot of visitors so I get to talk to lots of people.  This last summer I put in enough track so the kids could run a train.  It's been a blast just watching them have so much fun and keeps me inspired to keep working on buildings and such even while we're down in the desert for the winter.

Rex

[kstrong]

The LDE or Layout Design Element approach is to take a stretch of real railroad somewhere and shrink it down and compress it to fit on the layout. The schematic of the track layout itself ( i.e the relationship between the switches and track ) is keep intact however. The idea is to let the real railroad do all the track planning work while we as modelers simply plagurize it.

That's pretty much exactly how I arrived at my track plan (see above). Didn't know it had a fancy name, it just seemed logical if one was to model the operations of a real railroad to use their track arrangements. I took the ICC valuation maps for the EBT's Shade Gap Branch and designed each location based on that (with obvious concessions for space). It really gets one thinking about how a railroad does what it does with--really--minimal track. Rarely does a railroad lay track just for fun. Each foot of track has a distinct purpose.

I suspect, however, that you'll find the vast majority of large scale railroaders aren't so interested in prototype operations to where many will have tried that. But it does work, and work well. Narrow gauge railroads--particularly the smaller eastern ones--are great fodder for simple track plans and operation schemes. I'm reading a book right now on the Lancaster, Oxford, and Southern RR (otherwise known as the Peach Bottom RR), which was a very simple railroad that ran very simple trains. No fancy yards, minimal equipment, and just spurs and passing sidings at the various towns.

If you're looking for an ultra-simple track plan, try the Monson RR up in Maine. Not quite a straight line, but you sure wouldn't need many switches.

Later,

K

[Beach Bill]

" I would copy this layout, compressing distances as needed, but keep switches and track arranged the way it is. I would feed trains in from both sides using staging yards. "

 Unless you have huge amounts of space, staging yards will be hard to place on an outdoor railroad.  Also, I wouldn't want to leave the locomotives and rolling stock outdoors when not in use, so those staging yards will need to be located indoors OR one has to move a lot of equipment to storage.   Also, most garden railroads have a loop feature rather than true point-to-point.  This allows one to enjoy watching the trains run while trimming the plants or doing other landscaping.

I only had a "postage stamp" back yard to work with, but it had been selected because it was large enough to support a basic dogbone.  I measured my space, selected the largest radius that would fit in the space, sketched out a plan to scale, and then purchased the preformed roadbed to match the plan from Mainline Enterprises (an extruded PVC product that can readily be adapted to grade changes).  Things have only been in operation out there for about 8 months so far.  Regular minor tending of the area is needed, and a large outdoor layout could become very time consuming just to keep it nice (pine needles out of the way; weeds pulled; grass trimmed; ballast and slopes maintained after rains; etc.).  Weeds and things grow fast down here in South Carolina.

Good luck.   Enjoy.    Bill

 

[spookytown rr]

No matter how much you can plan in Autocadd or on paper once you get out in the garden and you strart to build things will change.  Might be a tree root there, boulder here, heavy clay soil everwhere else, track is still "in the mail" and you wanna run a damn drain already!

A simple hand draw sketch with flexibility to change will probably be less of a headache for most people.  It's not like the prototype railroads ever stopped laying new track or reconfigured lines here and there, it's an ever changing process to begin with.  This is how I started out, simple idea of a basic mainline, had enough track left over for a small inner loop. All was good!

It works, I can run the trains, and of course plan for more expansions, heck even within the last month that original "big" loop is now a smaller loop, and the newest plan calls for another loop that would double the entire track length that I already have down.

If you think about the prototype they grow the same way - organically - based on new needs and destinations of the railroad.  Why not build it the same way?  You wouldn't believe how much of a difference new track next to used track looks in the garden, and it will take several years for it to weather the same, but in the meantime visitors can actually "read" the story of expansion on your railroad. 

Buildings can be "read" the same way.  Most garden railroads that I have seen have one weakness that's very preventable.  When I drive from town to town, I study the architecture, and it's quite apparent that building materials and style vary greatly from town to town.  Most people that "plan" their garden buildings are using the same materials and look for every town...which might still look great but not at all realistic. 

"Growing the garden layout" as a means of designing and building I believe is a way to go.. Look at the protype rails, do you really think they used a master plan and stuck to it, HELL NO. They looked at the land and figured out where the track goes! Take your track outside and start building, and don't waste your time planning everything on paper.

Just my opion of course!

MAD

 

[Lynn Episcopi]

The SENSIBLE way is to first look at the size of the plot.  If you are going to be restricted to LGB R1 curves do not expect to run Big Boys  (or anything else much) and for it to look convincing.  In this situation small industrial locos and rolling stock are your best bet. 

Plan for the largest curves and switches (points) you can manage.  If you do not you may find that when a manufacturer finally produces your heart's desire it will not take the curves.

Your choice of prototype will to some extent dictate the room you will need.  

Decide if you want to just run trains or operate a railroad, this will dictate to some extent what you will need.

Check your soil conditions.  This will have a bearing on what kind of substructure you can use to  lay your track on.  Poor drainage usually indicates some form of raised structure. Ground level needs good drainage.

Be aware of costs - better to design something you can afford to do properly than suffer frustration due to bad execution or the fact that you will not see any tangible results for a very long time.

<> Read all you can  before starting, as Garden Railroading is a very different kettle of fish to indoor layouts - for a start you up against nature in a way not encountered indoors.  Also be aware that not all articles will be suitable.  Without wishing to teach granny, techniques used in dry areas of the US may not be appropriate for the wetter cooler UK , and some ideas in the UK may not be suitable for areas of high heat or frozen ground (severe winters).

I think it inadvisable to scale up HO plans WITHOUT any consideration  for the increase on scale and physical size.  By all means adapt them but I would be wary of simply scaling them up.

Best

Lynn in UK 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[EMPIRE II LINE]

Morning George,

9:00 am here where I'm, in Kissimmee, FL. Interesting Question here that you ask, and with of course many diverse answers and approaches.

So I thought I might share with you the general approach that I took to the design of my most recent "G" scale endeavor. This is the 4th "G" scale layout I've personally built.

I too model the "O" scale, 3-rail trains and my plan is to incorporate a loop of the "O" scale along with my "G" scale layout outside, by way of making the "O" scale line look similar to the L-trains of Chicago, or is that EL, through my town area.

I model the Great Northern RR, Seattle to Chicago, scaled down of course, through Essex, MT. My initial plan was to design this line with the transition era from steam to diesels in mind, About 1948 thur say 1960, during the hayday of Luxury Streamliner Passenger service in the US.

Mind you my space is limited, I live in a Mobile Home Community, yet I wanted to be able to run long frieghts and passenger cars on the line, trains about 50 to 60 feet long or so. I also did not want to have to deal with removing trains from the track all the time. And I have a bad back.

So I designed a large ladder storage yard shed, 11ft by 35ft, and an elevated track system, with no curves less than 10ft diameter, 11.5ft minimum on the main line. 

So in a few words, take the time to think about what it is that you want to accomplish.....and proceed as your wallet/Wife dictates also, and above all have fun.

Byron  

[overall]

Thanks to everyone for the replies and good information. I used to have 40 acres of land in Alabama adjacent to the Southern Railway's Alabama division mainline that I let get away. Of all the mistakes I made in my youth, that was the most imbacillic,idiotic and moronic. It was right up there with Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of stew in the Old Testament. I have often thought of what I might have done with that property. Building a really large garden railroad was only one possiblity. The LDE concept might have been practical with such a large parcel of land. The staging yards would be housed in outbuildings designed for that purpose. I guess the saddest words spoken or penned are those of what might have been.

Thanks again,

George

[van buren s l]

.....planning?

Bob

[kstrong]

The LDE concept might have been practical with such a large parcel of land.

That concept works well on any size parcel. My yard's only 30' x 65'. As I stated earlier, I didn't know it had a fancy name when I was using that method to plan my railroad, but it's definitely scalable to fit any given space. You just have to be more selective in what you include as your space diminishes. You can get a surprising amount of operation in just three towns. It takes me the better part of an hour to move the freight.

Later,

K

[SandyR]

In 1983, I got an LGB catalog. From the page that had information on track radii and length, I figured out full size templates. These I cut from cardboard cartons. Then I took them outside and laid them out on the ground. I drew a map of what track went where as I did it, since I didn't have enough cardboard for templates to do the whole railroad at once. A year later, I got an LGB starter set, and gradually got more track. And eventually built the garden railroad that I had once laid out. In the interim, I built a berm garden with the right of way for the railroad, and once I had all the track, it was plug and play. And my little railroad is still running today.

SandyR

 

[kstrong]

SandyR, PICTURES!!!!

What you can't see because of SandyR's lack of photos is perhaps one of the coolest little garden railways I've ever seen. Hers is the antithesis of the "bigger is better" school of thought--mostly 2' radius curves and garden landscaping that just gives the railroad the perfect look. Add a Porter and some hand-built shorty cars to complete the picture. Anything larger would look completely out of place, but with the proper train you can sit and watch it for hours and not get bored (voice of experience).

Later,

K

(BTW, SandyR, you can e-mail me the photos and I'll store them for you.)

[Camaro1967]

Please Sandy provide some pictures. Sounds like this should be an article in GR, Kevin. How about it?

[OeBB]

Bill, how hard was the Mainline road bed to install?  It seems like more work then what i did, which was to use crusher fines for a subroad bed.  However, it sounds like this may be good for application with a lot of gradient. 

Thank you.