My new layout an around the walls type has 2 mainlines 22 and 24 radius with a service track off the 22
I am not into a lot of switching staging etc but like the roundy roundy
However I figured the service track would breakup the plainness of the ovals
Then I saw an engine house I thought would look sharp so I added it
Now I realize I have no way for the workers / equipment etc to get into the area but by train
Would this be somewhat this prototypical or do I have to add an access road over the rails in the top corner behind the engine house -I could add it in the lower corner but then it would be to the left of the service rail
51% share holder in the ME&O ( Wife owns the other 49% )
ME&O
You could have a road coming from the front edge of the layout. Then cross the track into the service area.It looks like there is a lot of room at the lower portion of your photo. Might be a good spot for the start of a town or industries. A road could come from there also.
Phil, CEO, Eastern Sierra Pacific Railroad. We know where you are going, before you do!
Yes you have landlocked your service area. But by moving a few of the out buildings forward and to the left of the engine house "track" you divide the service area and expand the scene just a tad. You could all so put in another switch running away from the engine house as a service track.
Johnnny_reb Once a word is spoken it can not be unspoken!
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The area just beyond the near turnout can be developed as a parking lot, with connection to the street that will run perpendicular to the tracks and cross them at grade about where the locomotive is now. If that's a busy public street, the railroad would probably have a chain-link fence right next to the sidewalk, and a gate across the parking lot entrance.
Depending on how important that road is it could have a full suit of crossing gates and flashers, flashers only, just a crossbuck, or a fence and Dead End sign just beyond the parking lot entrance.
I presume that your workers who don't drive their own cars either live in the area to the left of your layout and walk to work, or arrive by the bus that travels along the (virtual) street just off the edge of your benchwork. Or, if the grade crossing is important enough to rate the full suit, the bus stop could be adjacent to the parking lot entrance, with its twin just across the street. Then a lunchroom, a bar, possibly a 'Mom and Pop' grocery store...
After all, there's a lot of acreage to develop in your photo's foreground.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
What I miss most is a track to supply coal to the tipple. A sand facility and ash dump would be handy too. You've got plenty of room to add them and work in access if you shift some of the structures.
Mark
Thanks for the ideas
What material for the road --sheet styrene ramped up to the road bed and between the rails and between the tracks then painted asphalt or concrete ?
I have the sand facility but no ash dump
That goes where ?
Sculptamold, cardboard, plastic sheet, foam core board, whatever. The surface material and color is dependent upon the type of road desired. Why not get a book on scenery making such as Dave Frary's?
UncBob I have the sand facility but no ash dump That goes where ?
On the service track.
I have one or two areas on my layout where there is no obvious access for workers to reach by truck.
my attitude is, so what.
Don't ask, don't tell.
Alton Junction
UncBob,
From the photo of your layout, you may not have room for an ash dump unless you re-design that area and lay some additional track.
Kalmbach has produced an excellent book that you should purchase. I have a copy for myself that I often refer to.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/400-12228
Hope this helps.
Rich
richhotrainUncBob I have the sand facility but no ash dump That goes where ? UncBob, From the photo of your layout, you may not have room for an ash dump unless you re-design that area and lay some additional track. Kalmbach has produced an excellent book that you should purchase. I have a copy for myself that I often refer to. http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/400-12228 Hope this helps. Rich
I may just leave things as they are with just an unsophisticated road coming in in the lower right corner
I am not really into a lot of structures etc and just don't want the layout to be too naked
UncBob richhotrain UncBob I have the sand facility but no ash dump That goes where ? UncBob, From the photo of your layout, you may not have room for an ash dump unless you re-design that area and lay some additional track. Kalmbach has produced an excellent book that you should purchase. I have a copy for myself that I often refer to. http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/400-12228 Hope this helps. Rich I may just leave things as they are with just an unsophisticated road coming in in the lower right corner I am not really into a lot of structures etc and just don't want the layout to be too naked
richhotrain UncBob I have the sand facility but no ash dump That goes where ? UncBob, From the photo of your layout, you may not have room for an ash dump unless you re-design that area and lay some additional track. Kalmbach has produced an excellent book that you should purchase. I have a copy for myself that I often refer to. http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/400-12228 Hope this helps. Rich
UncBob
Now you got me thinking. As I look at your photo, you could run a turnout off of the track coming back from the wye and that track could run to a turntable. That would alleviate the "naked" look by taking advantage of that space at the bottom of the photo. Place the ash dump on the track as it leads to the turntable. That's where I placed mine.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
richhotrainUncBob richhotrain UncBob I have the sand facility but no ash dump That goes where ? UncBob, From the photo of your layout, you may not have room for an ash dump unless you re-design that area and lay some additional track. Kalmbach has produced an excellent book that you should purchase. I have a copy for myself that I often refer to. http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/400-12228 Hope this helps. Rich I may just leave things as they are with just an unsophisticated road coming in in the lower right corner I am not really into a lot of structures etc and just don't want the layout to be too naked UncBob Now you got me thinking. As I look at your photo, you could run a turnout off of the track coming back from the wye and that track could run to a turntable. That would alleviate the "naked" look by taking advantage of that space at the bottom of the photo. Place the ash dump on the track as it leads to the turntable. That's where I placed mine. Rich
Aren't turn tables usually right as you come out of the engine house
UncBob Aren't turn tables usually right as you come out of the engine house
Typically but not necessarily. I've seen prototype photos and drawings where the turntables didn't directly feed into the roundhouse stalls.
You could put a curved turnout at the point of your inner track at the bottom of the photo. Then, move down the water tower on the new access track toward the curved turnout, add a sanding tower and an ash pit, then the turntable and finally, the engine house, leaving it where it already sits.
richhotrainUncBob You could put a curved turnout at the point of your inner track at the bottom of the photo. Then, move down the water tower on the new access track toward the curved turnout, add a sanding tower and an ash pit, then the turntable and finally, the engine house, leaving it where it already sits. Rich
What radius is a curved turnout
The inner track is 4 sections of Atlas 22 radius
In addition I only have 13 inches from the edge of the table to the inner mainline
Turn table doesn't seem do-able
May have to live with the engines backing into the service yard off the main or conversely backing onto the main
D94RHow much space do you have between the back corner of the engine house and the main line? Do you have enough to put a single lane dirt road coming in from behind? that would kind of simulate the road paralleling the track for a couple hundred yards originating at the edge of the layout and terminating at the area you are trying to get crew access to.
Yep that would work and had crossed my mind
Uncle Bob,
I recommend you pick up Kalmbach's book by Marty McGuirk "The Model Railroaders guide to Locomotive Servicing Terminals. It's a great reference book for knowing where to place what in your engine facility such as sand house locations, cinder & ash pits, inspection pits, water columns etc. tons of great information worth every nickle in my o/p. That being said a common mistake a lot of modelers make is not making a scene look believable, building some times just seem to spring up out of the ground with no viable way to ace's them. In some cases large facilities such as steel mills had a crew train and or motor car that would bring in the crews of workers at **** changes. Thing like this were done generally because you don't want people driving around a place as hazardous as a steel mill, but an engine svc. terminal would most definitely have an access road. In your case it really doesn't have to go any where but you could make it come from the fascia on the isle side into the facility. This way you don't have to be concerned with crossing tracks etc. You have to remember some thing we often overlook. The isle or area in which you stand really isn't there, from a modeling standpoint. Think of it as your standing in a lot or a field or on a hillside what ever looking down on or into that particular scene. Of course you can't put things like structures or scenery there but there's nothing stopping you from having roads or bridges etc. appearing to continue into the space when they actually terminate at the end of the fascia. When that was pointed out to me a while back it gave me a whole new perspective on how I look at my railroad.
UncBob richhotrain UncBob You could put a curved turnout at the point of your inner track at the bottom of the photo. Then, move down the water tower on the new access track toward the curved turnout, add a sanding tower and an ash pit, then the turntable and finally, the engine house, leaving it where it already sits. Rich What radius is a curved turnout The inner track is 4 sections of Atlas 22 radius In addition I only have 13 inches from the edge of the table to the inner mainline Turn table doesn't seem do-able May have to live with the engines backing into the service yard off the main or conversely backing onto the main
richhotrain UncBob You could put a curved turnout at the point of your inner track at the bottom of the photo. Then, move down the water tower on the new access track toward the curved turnout, add a sanding tower and an ash pit, then the turntable and finally, the engine house, leaving it where it already sits. Rich
Oops, from your photo, it looked like you had more space than 13 inches. The Walthers 90' turntable is almost 14 inches in diameter, so that wouldn't work.
The smallest curved turnout that I know of is the Walthers Shinohara with an outside radius of 24" and an inside radius of 20", just a bit too big for the outside radius to work on your inner 22" radius track curve.
I think that it is time for us to stop trying to reconstruct your layout for you. LOL.
Back to your original question which was how to provide an access road for your workers. How did you resolve that issue?
Probably go with a road from the left that doesn't have to cross the tracks like Allegheny 2666 suggested above