One of the features and benefits of a good software design program written specifically for model rr is that it won't allow you to connect with a "kink." And it should have accurate switches, which I believe is the other principal benefit (if its catalog doesn't have accurate ones, construct your own in the program based on actual dimensions, frog angles and radii). Again, if you have a Mac, I recommend Empire Express by Haddon.
Dante
If you do this, just be very careful about lining up the paper track pieces so the junctions are truly straight across. It's real easy to cheat a little bit, even unintentionally, and introduce kinks which will let you fit in more track, but when you go to build, your plan won't fit - or even worse, if you build in the kinks to make it fit, your trains won't stay on the tracks.
I won't say "ask me how I know" because I haven't actually done this, but a friend once bought a partly-completed layout with this "feature", and had to completely scrap it.
- Gerhard
Touche! Or is that Two Shays?
As if the current legislative systems weren't screwed up enough on their own
This space reserved for SpaceMouse's future presidential candidacy advertisements
rcato What are the drawing programs used?
What are the drawing programs used?
Quite a few different ones. Like with the choice of operating system for your computer, a lot comes down to what you like and what you feel comfortable with.
For Windows, I like XtrakCad - a freeware program which can be downloaded from (http://www.xtrkcad.org/Wikka/HomePage) - it does what I want, and the investment in time on how to use it well has been repaid in flexibility since I have used it on a large number of track plans - my current layout is on revision 43 of it's track plan, I think, and I have designed/drawn quite a few other track plans as well - probably more than 100 different or modified plans over the last couple of years.
Some other people around here doesn't like XtrakCad's user interface, and swears by a program called AnyRail (http://www.anyrail.com/buy_en.html), which costs $55 (IMO, still not very much, compared with the total cost of this hobby).
You had already tried the Atlas track planning program - it is free, but limited to using Atlas tracks - and you didn't care for it.
There are quite a few other programs as well, but I'll leave it to people familiar with those to give you recommendations on those.
And of course - you can use pretty much any vector based drawing program (vector based - a line or a curve is an "object" which can be selected, adjusted, moved or deleted) to draw layout plans. It doesn't have to be a dedicated track planning program.
Or draw on paper, or just layout out turnouts and pieces of flex track on the floor or on a temporary piece of benchwork made from scrap cardboard mounted on sawhorses or whatever.
The relatively low tech solution of buying one turnout in every size (small, medium, large, curved), putting it on a xerox machine and making paper cutouts also work.
Many different ways of visualizing and testing designs.
Great book for learning about layout design (and about how and why real railroads do things in various ways) is John Armstrong's "Track planning for realistic operations". Can be picked up e.g from our hosts here (Kalmbach) or from Amazon.
Smile, Stein
Hi Stein,
Thanks,
-Ron
I like the idea of developing switching opportunities. Still learning how to draw these things. I'm glad this drawing gave everyone a better idea at what I am TRYING to shoot for. Having fun!
I'm going to look into some other CAD programs. Not too fond of the Atlas track plan drawing.
Roundhouse with turntable.
I wanted to see if i could set this yard up like a stub end of a branch line were there would a couple of stalls, a team or RIP track, a sanding tower, a repair shop, things like that - plus some room to sort and classify. Maybe a couple of small industries.
Just learning how to draw this stuff so I don't think I am too to scale here, but evolving.
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Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
GraniteRailroader Stein! I didn't know that the Vermont Rail System had a yard a Burlington yard in New Hampshire
Stein!
I didn't know that the Vermont Rail System had a yard a Burlington yard in New Hampshire
Didn't get the memo, eh ? To save on costs in Congress, they are cutting down on the number of number of states and the number of senators. Minnesota is working on one scheme - providing one senator for the cost of two, and VT and NH will try merging and have 1 senator from each half of New Hampmont
Nah - just typing faster than my brain can think sometimes - let's adjust it to Burlington, VT.
Grin, Stein
Assuming you are joining your tracks in your yard, you have a good concept going. The yard definitely overpowers your switching options though. Perhaps if you toned down the yard to 3-4 tracks and used the rest of the space for more industrial switching you would find a better balance.
Great idea on the staging. The more the better.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Is that a Traverser you've got planned on left side? What is your concept??
-RC
Second attempt. More to follow as I get better at drawing to scale. HO at 3/4" scale.
I agree.
The 30" in the middle and around the edges seem to be comfortable to walkaround the layout. I have a full size paper mock up of the table that I've laid down in the garage space. The 9x9 square cut into a U seems to fit okay. There will only be one person operating this railroad (to start).
Drawings to follow (when I get used to the drawing tools).
Thanks.
Stein,
No worries. I found a 2x8 drop down shelf example in an old book I recently bought the HO Railroad That Grows - Linn Wescott.
I am learning to use 3D Planit and a Track Planning tool from Atlas to get a scale drawing done.
My local train store did not have any templates.
I do have a large sheet of paper (full size) cut out shaped like the table (full size) that I can lay out on the garage floor.
I need to lay it out and draw on it or lay some track to see if it could work.
The 30" aisle and the 30" width around the layout seem to be pretty comfortable for me to walkaround it.
Thanks for all your advice. Drawing to come when I get the tools down.
rcato Garage has shelving, table and chairs storage, bikes hanging from the ceiling. The dogs have an area. Some gardening tools and lawnmower storage. Yes, the LDSIG site is very nice. Since I am a beginner I was going to copy some other layouts and track plans. Can a yard fit into an 8' by 3' shelf or table? Thanks, -Ron
Garage has shelving, table and chairs storage, bikes hanging from the ceiling. The dogs have an area. Some gardening tools and lawnmower storage.
Yes, the LDSIG site is very nice.
Since I am a beginner I was going to copy some other layouts and track plans.
Can a yard fit into an 8' by 3' shelf or table?
If you have 30" aisle' on all four sides you have enough room to walk around the layout. You could divide more "tables" with backdrops and have more "sides" to your layout. If its in a garage, you may be limited to the overall 9 x 9 space for the layout since you may need the 30" aisle space for accessing whatever is on the other side of the layout, unlike putting a layout in the center of a bedroom for instance.
I've been reading this forum for over a year. You can consider Stein and 'Mouse as semi-pros at this layout design stuff. They offer good advice.
- Douglas
Hi Ron --
Sorry about being so grouchy earlier today.
Okay - you were asking about how much yard you could fit into 7 feet of linear length in H0 scale.The answer to that is "it depends"
It depends on e.g turnout size, track lengths and whether the yard lead must fit within that area.
And it depends a lot on what you mean when you say "yard" since there are many different types of yards i a lot of different sizes, from UPs Bailey Yard in North Platte, NE to e.g. a small industry support yard (a couple of tracks where cars can be stashed temporarily and resorted) in an small industrial park in Lakeville, MN.
Here is e.g. one 2x16 foot freight yard plan inspired by Burlington yard in New Hampshire (or rather - in Vermont :-):
The plan is designed for two different train lengths - long trains of one engine, max fourteen 40' freight cars and a caboose, and short trains of one engine, max nine 40' freight cars and a caboose. The key to yard flexibility is the interaction between tracks F, G, H, K and L. Track L is the Running Track, which can be used to allow trains to bypass the yard without disturbing switching operations. It can also be used as a runaround for trains that turn at Burlington and head back to the left or to the right. It can also be used as an A/D track for long trains (engine, 14 cars and caboose). And it can be used as a siding for a passing meeting- one long train can hold on L, between the crossovers to track H, while another train snakes past it by way of track H or track F/G. Track H is the primary A/D track of the yard. It can also be used as a runaround for a long train on track L, or when dropping off or picking up interchange traffic on track F/G. Track F/G: Left bound interchange traffic is dropped off and picked up at F. Right bound interchange traffic is dropped off and picked up at G- Track K is the yard lead - or rather - part of the yard lead - it is also the lead for traffic to the engine service facility (J) and to the RIP track (I). Yard lead is long enough to pull an entire short train of 9 cars from the primary A/D track (H) and move the cars to classification. Track M is the caboose storage track - it can hold 4-5 cabooses. The label E marks three general classification/storage tracks - long enough for 10-12 cars - ie long enough to built a full short train of nine cars and a caboose. Track C/D is the team track - at C there is an end unloading ramp, while cargo is unloaded directly in trucks at D. Track A/B is another industry track - at A there is a fuel dealer, while at B there is a concrete company.
On the lower left end of this layout (designed by forum poster Arjay1969) is a small industry support yard that fits in a less than 7x3 feet - but each of the four track can only hold about five or maybe at a stretch six 40' cars (which in H0 scale is about 5 1/2" long - ie two cars per foot). Except a yard that is full is a yard that is plugged - it probably never should get fuller than about 50-75% full - call it 10 - 15 cars of so for this layout.
It all depends on what you want to model. A straight yard ladder eats a lot of space.
Four parallel tracks with a straight yard ladder using #4 turnouts in a seven foot long area, with room for a yard lead for a small engine and three cars:
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You right. The John Armstrong book is excellent. I am reading it now. I am a subscriber to MR.
I appreciate the effort and help. I just feel too new to develop a model of a prototype so I thought some project layout or publish plan would be helpful to me to get started. I may end up with a 5x9 table.
When I say nice reading, I mean very helpful. I pop back to those sites periodically.
I've learned a lot about the hobby from the readings in this forum.
I like the HO scale. I am trying to learn as much about GM&O as possible using the Internet.
Trying to learn to draw to scale and use track plan software. Baby steps. One at a time.
I appreciate it.
rcatoGarage has shelving, table and chairs storage, bikes hanging from the ceiling. The dogs have an area. Some gardening tools and lawnmower storage. Yes, the LDSIG site is very nice. Since I am a beginner I was going to copy some other layouts and track plans. Can a yard fit into an 8' by 3' shelf or table? Thanks, -Ron
Interesting reaction, Ron. You say "site is very nice" about the LDSIG primer and "nice reading" about SpaceMouse's advice, but you show no sign of actually trying to apply the information from those sites.
You say you want to copy a layout plan. Okay - then copy a published layout plan.
If you want to design your own layout plan by cobbled together bits and pieces from several published layout plans, you are already designing your own layout plan. Then you might as well do it right.
Feel free to come back and ask for more advice when you have spent a little more of your time on actually studying the advice on those web sites and applying the advice - e.g. on sketching your room to scale, organized your thoughts and coming up with a proper list of givens and druthers, and I'd be very much honored to spend some of my time sparring with you and offering comments on your track plans.
Another great resource when it comes to how much can fit into a given amount is space is John Armstrong's classic book "Track planning for realistic operations". Can be bought e.g. from our hosts here (just click on shop at the top) or from amazon.com.
Good luck with your design.
No, I fully appreciate it. Nice reading. Thanks.
You can talk about this for as long as you want, but eventually you will have to get some design software and wade in to see what really will work.
Or if you are softare phobic you can go to your hobby shop and get a template and draw it by hand.
Or you can guess, spend a lot of money, guess again, spend more money, etc.
It wouldn't hurt to read my Beginner's Guide below. Take you all of 5 minutes.
There won't be as many tracks. I could make the length 8' and maybe 3' wide.
So how big is your garage, and what other uses do you have to fit into the garage, alongside the model railroad ?
A good starting point is to read through the questions a pro layout designer asks his prospective clients, so you get a check list of things you should think about at this stage:
Byron Henderson's check list: http://www.layoutvision.com/id13.html
The Layout Design Special Interest Group (LDSIG) also has a "primer on layout design" that it is smart to read through and consider: http://macrodyn.com/ldsig/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Primer
The design and layout shape you have chosen is not necessarily all that optimal for a garage layout, and the information that the yard part is not to scale (as I suspected) means that it won't fit into a 9x9 space.
I would recommend concentrating on what you want to model first, and then see how to fit what you want into the space you have available afterwards - there are quite a few tricks in fitting in layout into a room, once you know what you want on the layout.
I hate to be the wet blanket or curmudgeon here but that yard is not going to work. I don't believe it is to the same scale as the other side. To do that yard it is going to take a space twice as long and wide as you have. Now you could scale it down with fewer tracks which shloud be fine for the size of teh running portion but not as drawn. The give away as to that fact is the turntable. If that space is 7' plus long that turntable is smaller than 6" and would be useless.
Not to scale. I put some cutout copies of what I was thinking on the plan to see what it might look like.
Only one operator. I would like to use DCC from the get go.
This is in a garage space, not to much room. There will be 30" to walk around all 4 sides of the layout. I may have the narrower side of the layout butt up against a wall, not sure. I like the idea of being able to walk around it plus have the aisle. 9 x 9 square with the shaping to add some vareity to the looks so not to be so blocky looking. Inspired by a couple of layout designs I've seen in the model railroader magazines and track plans.
The section in the back is 1 foot by 9 feet which will be behind a backdrop for staging. There is a small section between the u-legs that will be 30" by 1 foot.
The yard side will be 30" wide by 7 feet long (maybe up to 8 ft long). -Do you think that would be enough room to build a yard in? -I would likeSeason: Fall. the yard to have some features like a scale track and RIP track, etc.
Trying to get 22" min radius curves.
I like the Alco RS-3's.
Freelanced. Not totally prototype.
Railroad: I like the GM&O. Where: Somewhere in the Central to Southern U.S. - from Chicago to New Orleans (Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Tennesee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana). Era: Mid 1950's to late 1960's. Season: Fall.
I'll have a routing system. My locos and rolling stock will be to NMRA standards.
rcatoHere is a draft all.
Here is a draft all.
Looks buildable, as long as:
1) you are not planning to cram two (or more) operators into the pit at the same time,
2) those two figures you have copies are to the same scale - I am not totally sure that the yard part at the bottom is drawn at the same scale as the 4x8 at the top, and
3) the room it will be in is big enough to allow you at least a minimum two foot walk way below the 4x8 layout in the figure, and possibly also a minimum two foot aisle on the upper side of the yard layout (if it is deeper than 28-30" at the deepest.
What, where and when are you trying to model ?
Smile,Stein