Thanks for posting the photos. It looks different (larger) on a mock-up than on paper, but that's normal. Can't get that same sense of size on a drawing. It looks like the chimney base is not much of a concern except for taking up room. Looks like the Mill has hidden the corner sticking out as well as anything could have. Also looks to be a lot of open room to fill with clutter and small buildings or sheds and stuff.
Good choice on the backdrop paper buildings where the road goes toward the back. That works as good as anything else would.
More brainstorming--- If there was some room back there by the road, depth wise, and it were my layout, I might think about bringing the road out some and putting a fence an inch or so away from the backdrop. Then put an open gate where the building alley is and possibility putting a car or small pick-up between the fence/gate and building alley somehow. Because that area seems to be so open, it may need some details of some sort along there to help blend the scene into the backdrop.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
gandydancer19 wrote:More brainstorming--- If there was some room back there by the road, depth wise, and it were my layout, I might think about bringing the road out some and putting a fence an inch or so away from the backdrop. Then put an open gate where the building alley is and possibility putting a car or small pick-up between the fence/gate and building alley somehow. Because that area seems to be so open, it may need some details of some sort along there to help blend the scene into the backdrop.
That makes a lot of sense. Will see what I can do here.
I think have found my prototype location in the Twin Cities. On the west bank of the Mississippi, bounded by the Omaha Road yard /River Street and 1st Street North in one direction, and by 4th Avenue North and 8th Avenue North in the other direction. Otherwise known as "the warehouse district".
Re-orienting my layout so left along the upper wall is "downstream", right is "upstream" and the backdrop is towards downtown Minneapolis, with the easily recognizable Foshay tower as a landmark.
Version 35 of the plan:
Comments or suggestions ?
Smile, Stein
The new plan works like the photo. Looks like it could be made to look similar to the 'Sweet Home Chicago' module.
Would there be any advantage by extending and connecting the spur in front of the NY Butter & Egg Co. to the spur going into the paper company? It would make a runaround of sorts, but also realizing that the tracks may be occupied most of the time.
I am also wondering if it would be any help at all if all the loading track(s) be continuous from one end to the other with the access points as you have them now (and the added turnout at the paper co. as mentioned above).
Scenery wise- it may be to your advantage to make the buildings different depths. That is, one building could be shallower and have a covered loading dock, and the buildings on either side of it would be close to the tracks and have direct loading access from the buildings doors. Right now they are all in a line. Realizing that sometimes the prototype did this, I think it is advantageous for us modelers to break up the scene a little bit, even though the buildings themselves would have different looks, colors, and architecture.
gandydancer19 wrote:The new plan works like the photo. Looks like it could be made to look similar to the 'Sweet Home Chicago' module.Would there be any advantage by extending and connecting the spur in front of the NY Butter & Egg Co. to the spur going into the paper company? It would make a runaround of sorts, but also realizing that the tracks may be occupied most of the time.I am also wondering if it would be any help at all if all the loading track(s) be continuous from one end to the other with the access points as you have them now (and the added turnout at the paper co. as mentioned above).Scenery wise- it may be to your advantage to make the buildings different depths. That is, one building could be shallower and have a covered loading dock, and the buildings on either side of it would be close to the tracks and have direct loading access from the buildings doors. Right now they are all in a line. Realizing that sometimes the prototype did this, I think it is advantageous for us modelers to break up the scene a little bit, even though the buildings themselves would have different looks, colors, and architecture.
You know, you are right. I went back to the drawings of the prototype and looked closely at them.
How about if I do some more slightly radical surgery, and do something like this instead ?
I'll have to sacrifice one of the three tracks by the elevator on the right - third track becomes the new main - in order to pull the tracks by the upper wall slightly down, so I can fit a second track between the main and the buildings along the upper wall.
I'll axe the building supply industry (and just reuse the name for the old chemcentral), to open up the center of the layout a little. But it looks like that would allow me the room to fit in a small three track yard in the middle of the upper wall.
Turnoutwise ....
Plan 28: ======== LH Med: 5 RH med: 8 LH short: 1 RH short: 1 LH curved: 1 Short cross:2 Plan 36: ======== LH Med: 7 (+2) RH med: 6 (-2) LH short: 0 (-1) RH short: 1 LH curved: 1 Single slip: 1 (+1)
Not too bad - I am short 2 LH mediums and a single slip. I'll check the box of spares first, but I think I will have to order at least the single slip. No problem, though.
What say ye ?
Grin, Stein
I just have to say this is a wonderful exchange of ideas and critique. Its been an inspiration to watch. I wish business worked liked this (grin). To see a layout evolve in the way this has is just plain cool. I wish all the exchanges on these boards were this constructive and courteous.
Nice Job Guys,
NC
There are some really great ideas put forth here that everyone can use. The fence in front of the backdrop edge is brilliant!
Fences like that are one of my favorite details anyway, and now they serve a very useful purpose, rather than just decoration.
Nice combination of low relief buildings and photos, very effective.
steinjr wrote:How about if I do some more slightly radical surgery, and do something like this instead ? Not too bad - I am short 2 LH mediums and a single slip. I'll check the box of spares first, but I think I will have to order at least the single slip. No problem, though. What say ye ? Grin, Stein
The modifications you have made look really good to me.
I was going to mention using a double slip at the lower left corner of the NY Butter & Egg Co. instead of the crossing (looks like a crossing on the plan to me), but I assume that is where the single slip is going that you are talking about. I guess you wouldn't really need a double slip there. That gives you a nifty short runaround up there.
For those of you that have been following this exchange and have made the above comments, Thank You. I am glad that you all have found it entertaining. I am also glad that you have gained some bit of knowledge that you can use.
Stein, I have one more suggested change that I just thought of. Not necessarily something that needs to be done, but something that may give the industrial area a more prototypical look. The plan looks like the mainline runs through a small part of the industry tracks. The change suggested below will allow a mainline train to run on the layout while some switching is going on in the industrial area. Not a big thing, but again, just food for thought.
gandydancer19 wrote:The modifications you have made look really good to me. I was going to mention using a double slip at the lower left corner of the NY Butter & Egg Co. instead of the crossing (looks like a crossing on the plan to me), but I assume that is where the single slip is going that you are talking about. I guess you wouldn't really need a double slip there. That gives you a nifty short runaround up there.
You are right, but I checked my box of Peco turnouts - no single slips in the box, but I have a double slip. So a double slip it is, after all.
The change suggested (cutoff for main below switching area at top) will allow a mainline train to run on the layout while some switching is going on in the industrial area. Not a big thing, but again, just food for thought.
You are right. I will steal that idea. And I will reintroduce the change Dave suggested a while back in this thread - I will take the two RH mediums I have left over from my old plan and make a crossover between the main and the second track by the mill.
That will give me two double ended sidings (lower left hand corner and upper right hand corner) where trains can pass each other - as long as one of the trains is no longer than one road engine (like a GP7), 5 40 foot cars and a caboose.
Also - I will chop off about half the length of the freight house to improve reach in the upper left hand corner - I can just use the rightmost part of the freigh house track as a team track as well.
Like this:
I think we have a wiener . I'll go grab a couple of extra Peco code 75 LH medium turnouts, and take up and change track on the upper half of the layout. Hopefully I will have some pics of trackwork by next weekend photo fun.
Me too - I love the back and forth interaction when brainstorming a design - none of us have all the answers, but when we put it all together, it sometimes turn out good combinations.
It has taken a lot of time, but I now have a design I am really enthusiatic about. I think the track plan is pretty much locked in now. Now I just need to lay the track and hook it up before I change my mind again
Thanks to everyone who has offered advice!
Yep !!! This last one looks really good. It looks like a flexible plan that has numerous switching possibilities as well as a few challenges for a crew. Nail it down before it runs away!
It also looks like with the addition of the passing siding above the small yard, the top part of the layout is now self-contained. That is, if you find yourself with some more room for a larger layout someday, you can move the upper half of this layout and incorporate it into a larger layout without having to change the track arrangement.
Now I would like to offer one more suggestion, and this has to do with operations, particularly on small or medium size layouts. I have used Car Cards, Tab-on-Car, and a computer generated switch list program. By far, I like the later the best because the moves are random for the most part. More so than either Car Cards or the Tab-on-Car system. The program I use is called Rail-Op, and there is a great support group for it at YG. It is a very versatile program that can handle yards, industries, interchanges, staging, service tracks, car floats, and passenger trains as well as freight. And if you get the advanced version, you can set up loads and empties, car routing and schedules etc. To me, this makes it more fun to operate because you don't really know what the next train is going to do exactly until you get the printout of the switch list. And there is more than one way to setup the same job. (I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but you are not locked in to doing everything one way.) This is not to say that you have to set up an operations scheme right away. Its just something to think on. Also, I am not associated in anyway with the program or the manufacturer / vendor. I am just a satisfied user.
gandydancer19 wrote:Yep !!! This last one looks really good. It looks like a flexible plan that has numerous switching possibilities as well as a few challenges for a crew. Nail it down before it runs away!
Well, nails might be too much for me, but I have started caulking things down. Still waiting for the last two turnouts in the mail.
Yup. But not too important - I don't really expect to get any more room than the 6 1/2' x 11 1/2' room I have available now in the foreseeable future.
Mmm - sounds good. You advocated Rail-Op when we discussed how to generate traffic for a small switching layout back in the spring of 2007, too. I haven't decided what to do here yet - most likely I will just start out with a lightly modified version of Dave Husman's KISS system of single cycle waybills:
1) Make one car card for each car I plan to use on the layout. 2) Make one waybill for every destination spot.
If a spot (e.g. a team track spot) can take several types of cars, include a small chart on the waybill, and roll a die to decide car type when waybill is picked.
3) Decide on how many cars (M) to pull - either just pick a number or trow a die or something 4) Shuffle car cards on layout (w/attached waybills) - pick M top cards 5) Put car cards not picked back in industry boxes 6) One by one for the car cards picked: Remove waybill from car card Put waybill in stack of available waybills Put car card w/o waybill back in industry box, at front
7) Decide on how many cars (N) to deliver - same way as above 8) Shuffle stack of empty/departing spot waybills - pick top N 9) If different types of car possible, determine car types, e.g. with a die 10) Pick out suitable cars, put on interchange track 11) Put corresponding car cards w/waybills in "incoming" box
12) Now I can either just start moving cars - making pick ups and set outs, or make a switchlist to help me organize in what order I want the pickups and set outs to be made (and consequently how I want the cut of cars sorted).
It is a fairly simple mechanism in many ways - but it looks like it should do the job. I'll try it first at least.
If I am not happy with it, I'll keep Rail-Op in mind and give it a try to generate switch lists.
Thanks for the tip!
I'm impressed at the flow of good ideas, too. I've learned a lot from this thread, as I want to build urban scenery for my layout.
Stein, if you're backdating Progressive rail, what era and what railroad are you modeling?
gandydancer19 wrote: Also, here is a photo of my background fence seperator.
Also, here is a photo of my background fence seperator.
Mac, I like the fence idea, but I really like your retaining wall. How did you build it?
Gary
Since you have a fairly small layout, you could create one waybill for each spot. On the waybill designate the industry and the types of cars that go to that spot. If you feel a commodity is essential, for each car type add a commodity. For example:
Lumber Yard - Spot 1
Double door boxcar - Plywood
Centerbeam Flat - Lumber
Gondola - Fence posts
At the start of a session decide how many cars you want to pull, and remove the wabills from those car cars. No waybill means pull the car and take it to the interchange. Put the pulled waybills into the stack of unassigned waybills. Then just shuffle the waybillss and draw out however many you want to spot that session. Then match the waybills to the cars you have available.
You will never "overspot" anything because each spot has only one waybill and by putting multiple car types on each waybill you can adjust to match what cars you want to move.
Dave H.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Hi Gary. Thanks for the comments.
The retaining wall is Holgate-Renolds embossed sheet plastic. It came in a cream color and is very thin, about 0.010 or 0.015 inch thick. (I'm not sure if they make it any more.) The block embossed sheet had to be mounted on a solid support. I used Luan, but builders foam sheet could be used as well. The concrete edging is Evergreen styrene strips panted and glued on after the block sheet was in place. (Both the sheet and strips were painted first, then cut to size and glued in place, then the paint was touched up and weathering streaks applied.)
garya wrote: I'm impressed at the flow of good ideas, too. I've learned a lot from this thread, as I want to build urban scenery for my layout.Stein, if you're backdating Progressive rail, what era and what railroad are you modeling?
The Progressive Rail track plan served as a great inspiration to try to create an industrial switching layout. But after these last 40-some posts of layout plan changes, whatever influences still are left from Progressive rail is getting pretty weak.
These last few plan is based on some intriguing pictures I found showing the West Minneapolis yard and industries along North First Street in Minneapolis served by the Omaha Road (the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha railroad) ca 1955-1960. And/or the Chicago and North Western - the Omaha road was finally absorbed by the CNW about 1956-57.
I found an interesting roster of CNW diesel units at http://utahrails.net/cnw/cnw-chron.php - from this roster one can see that some of the engines the Omaha road had in 1956, which was added to the CNW roster in 1957 was:
Count, type, engine number
1 44DE-18a (ex CStPM&O) 10 1 SW1 (ex CStPM&O) 55 3 S-1 (ex CStPM&O) 56, 57, 69 3 VO660 (ex CStPM&O) 58, 59, 60 1 NW2 (ex CStPM&O) 70 1 DS-4-4-6 (ex CStPM&O) 71 3 VO1000 (ex CStPM&O) 87, 88, 89 4 S-2 (ex CStPM&O) 90-93 5 H10-44 (ex CStPM&O) 94-98 2 DS-4-4-10 (ex CStPM&O) 99, 100 1 S-4 (ex CStPM&O) 101 4 SW8 (ex CStPM&O) 126-129 6 H16-66 (ex CStPM&O) 150, 168-172 11 GP7 (ex CStPM&O) 151-161 6 RS-3 (ex CStPM&O) 162-167 12 F7A (ex CStPM&O) 6500A,C-6505A,C
So there ought to be an interesting mix of engines that could be modelled, either in Omaha Road colors or C&NW colors.
Anyone has good links to pictures of Omaha Road diesel locomotives from the late 1950s ? A quick google round and round of some of the usual places (rrpicturearchives, thedieselshop.us etc) hasn't yielded any good pics yet.
steinjr wrote: Anyone has good links to pictures of Omaha Road diesel locomotives from the late 1950s ? A quick google round and round of some of the usual places (rrpicturearchives, thedieselshop.us etc) hasn't yielded any good pics yet. Smile, Stein
Hmmm..you could try here: http://www.cnwhs.org/memberphotos/index.php
I also found that the equipment shared the same color schemes, but with CMO reporting marks:
http://www.cnwhs.org/ch_spmo.htm
(scroll down)
garya wrote: steinjr wrote: Anyone has good links to pictures of Omaha Road diesel locomotives from the late 1950s ? A quick google round and round of some of the usual places (rrpicturearchives, thedieselshop.us etc) hasn't yielded any good pics yet. Smile, SteinHmmm..you could try here: http://www.cnwhs.org/memberphotos/index.phpI also found that the equipment shared the same color schemes, but with CMO reporting marks:http://www.cnwhs.org/ch_spmo.htm(scroll down)
Found quite a few good pics - here is a link to one from 1958 that illustrates their colors pretty good:
http://www.cnwhs.org/memberphotos/displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=17
I also found a different website with CMO/CStPM&O engine pictures:
http://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr046.htm
Gives me quite a few valid engine numbers for the Omaha Road in the late 1950s.
Thanks for the pointer!