Ah summer, floating around in the pool, quietly thinking and planning things. And finally it came to me. An alternative idea for a track plan that involves no duckunders and no liftouts (except in front of the furnace room, and since that's not something that gets used every day, it doesn;t need to be a fancy gate or loftup).
The idea - folded dogbone around the walls. I can see this as either single deck, with one loop in the laundry room and the other loop in the lower left. Or a double deck design, with the loops (and staging) stacked in the laundry room and the lower left loop actually a helix.
I'm still not 100% convinced on the idea that you go around the room clockwise, then on the upper level go counter-clockwise and it's all supposed to be the same direction. But I think I can live with it. I haven't sketched in any branch line yet, but with this design I can completely block the right-hand side of the stairs and still have no access issues, so I was thinking of locating any branches along the side of the stairs and maybe curving around along the wall below where it says "stairs". Not sure what else I could put in the space on the right, between the penninsula and the East wall. Maybe just leave it open, the whole place doesn't have to be crammed with track. And I can probably sneak in an industry area on the lower right, the front door there is offset to the West side so there is room for narrow benchwork down the East side of the entry there.
This is just a rough outline, I just drew some circles of my minimum radius (30" - so the outside curve of double track is larger radius) and connected them to see how an overall design might look. Key here though is unlike what I seemed to be stuck on before, this plan allows easy walk in and walk around, no lift up sections just to get in to the layout area. Just the basic main lines there adds up to over 5 scale miles of track, and if I make it double deck...
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy,
Looks good overall. You could perhaps make the peninsula E-W from the East wall and fold the lower left helix near the right entrance to the stair for a longer run.
Re: the opposite direction is the same direction thing bugging you, how about a NOLIX? Close the Left entrance of stair and joining up to the laundry room and continuing on to second level? Mainline run feels pretty long to give you a good 15" spacing.
I am playing with this idea for my 16 x 23 basement.
NP.
It might be Me....But on Your two west loops, if one is a double track, one single....How do You get out of them once You enter? I tried to explain this before on another thread. I have a plan similar to this....but...It is an all double track mainline... a train does not enter/exit from a loop and come out on the same tracks, that way I can run two trains constantly on each of the mains and do something else on sidings and yard, without interferring with the mains....but as You know, I'm a DC user 8 1/2ft x 30 x 6 1/2ft, in My finished attic, I do cross in front of one window, but never need to worry about it, the room's temp controlled.
Take Care!
Frank
NP: If I cloose the left stair, and run across to make a nolix, then I will need a liftout, plus all access in and out of the house (we never use the front door, we always come in through the garage - the door on the west wall. The real front door is upstairs) would be around and through the layout and that would be a hard sell.
Frank: that loop would be a double track helix if I double deck things. Or one track would go in one side and the other track would come out the other side if it were just a turning loop. Those aren't turnouts where the main goes in to the loop, that's two tracks into a double track loop. If I don;t do double deck, it will be more like the loop in the laundry room, east main goes in one side of the loop, comes around (half or 3/4 circle) and becomes the west main. Same with the loop at the bottom of the penninsula, I didn;t clear the excess part of the loop, there's no full circle there, just a double track half circle. Pulled out, the layout is simply a dogbone shape, double track through the shank with a loop at each end. Even if I go double deck - take a dogbone shape, bend it in the middle (the helix) so the end loops are on top of one another. That's the basic shape. You can usually distill even complex track plans down to a few common shapes - ovals, dogbones, straight lines, etc.
This is your best plan so far.
Single track main, double stacked all the way a round. One helix in the laundry room, the other at the SW corner of the layout.
Assuming that what is shown would be the upper level, you can have one connecting track under the stairs and one in the SW peninsula. The helixii would have fatter bases than what is shown now, but you would also have access on three sides so it wouldn't matter.
- Douglas
Excellent use of space!
Lighting trick to help keep direction sorted out. Have eastbounds running into the 'sun' and westbounds running with the markers in full sunshine. One of John Armstrong's books illustrated this with light cans. Can probably do the same thing with twistybulbs or LEDs. (So it's always 0900, even though the fast clock reads 1630.)
If you partially unstack the helix at the lower right you can keep the train in the open most of the time. Google Ali-Shan Forestry Railway, Tzu-Li-Shan to see the prototype. Granted it's in Taiwan on a 762mm gauge route. That doesn't invalidate the concept - and it beats the tar out of having a mile of invisible track on the spiral. (Says he, who has about two kilometers of continuous invisible first main track with eight hidden staging areas along it!)
For some reason, I can see a huge roundhouse inside the end curve of the peninsula on the side closer to the stairs...
You could take that industrial area in the door corridor (major colliery?) off the half-way level of the spiral - and call it Midway.
Just a few random thoughts.
Chuck (Layout design freak modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I was thinking along those same lines - instead of putting the yard along the south wall like I have in previous plans, put it on that penninsula. I also considered changing the lower left so that the connection to the helix would be on the east side of it instead of the west, creating another curve to nestle a roundhouse in - though the complete turnback at the penninsula would be maybe more dramatic. If the yard doesn;t end up there, the end of the penninsula would need a Bellinadrop treatments so you just can't see up both sides by standing at the end.
Here's my thinking on the two directions - on the real Reading, there was a major yard in the namesake town, where predominantly east-west (compass direction) lines met the main which was mainly north-south. The original part of the line was sort of a big L, north-south to the coal regions then turning east to Philadelphia. So while it's not a 180 degreen change of direction, it is a significant change and could work. If I move the yard way back around, it's not as easy to justify. Though I could put a smaller yard at the base of the helix - or better yet, on the upper level, to get more run distance between yards. Or, while this was not really a through route for much traffic, the Reading did effectively make a U turn if you figure the main up from Philly, into Reading, and then what was known as the East Penn Branch back east towards Allentown. Northwest out of Philly, Northeast towards Allentown.
This is definitely better than the way I was trying to design it before.
I like it a lot. I am particularly impressed with the generous aisle space. I think you'll be glad to have it.
Here's an idea: The upper and lower level staging areas in the laundry room can be considered the outside world. They can be connected by a helix or not, as you prefer. A train on the lower level comes on scene and proceeds down the left side of the center peninsula where there is a large Division Point yard. Necessary switching is done, the crew is changed, and the train begins its run over your Division. It enters the helix at the SW corner and returns on the upper level to the end of your Division, which is a large yard on the opposite side of the central peninsula. After a crew change and switching, the train leaves your Division, follows a route above the lower level yard, and disappears into staging.
There are other valid approaches, of course.
Tom
In reading another old MR, I came across the original article on Jim Hediger's Ohio Southern - the first one that was double decked, witht he picnic table style legs for the penninsula. Feb 83. Looking at his space, it looks very similar to mine. Those old track plans didn;t give room dimentions or have the grids like modern ones - however the track plan database has the current version plan which does have the dimensions. Son of a gun, his space is almost exactly the same as mine. I have a bit more space in the top right (OS plan is rotated so my east is on top, so I am referring to my plan locations) and I have the chunk taken out for the furnace room but otherwise I have almost the exact shape and space - I have a few more sq ft than Jim does because of the bigger top right room. So I've been studying botht he old one and the current one, because it's listed as having a lot longer main line run than I'm coming up with in the space, yet he still has 3 foot aisles all around. So I should be able to get more in my space, especially if I locate turnback loops in the laundry area (or to take the OS as-is, move the helix into the laundry area (current plan, which has the helix right along that wall whch would be along my stairs) without compromising on decent aisle spacing and while still having a good operating railroad that isn't a spaghetti bowl of track.
If you want a dogbone without a duckunder, here's how I would do it.
From the entrance to the return loop to the entrance of the helix is 106 feet. 212 feet of double track mainline counting both levels (not counting the helix).
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