Aralai,
you seem to have mastered RTS, chapeau nice drawn plan you are presenting us; i tried to install Rts anew but still no curved switches.
The gravine is talking about a !:2 ratio, give and take an inch. Your coaches will be 11"long, so your radius will be 22". When i looked right the radii you have drawn recenntly are over 25". You"ll have some space to add a lot of the old goodies.
Still a few things to decide. I feel you will start building soon. I'd love to see some pictures of work in progress. In a relatively small space you've created a great empire.
Good luck, have fun
Paul
Looks better to me - I like the single track look by the lake.
I agree with Paulus that you should consider putting in a runaround at Davis Drive. Otherwise your freights would need to back all the way to the yard when working facing point industries. Or you could run your local out-and-back, and only switch the industries when they are trailing point. The only kicker is your industry at Wellington St., that one needs some kind of runaround somewhere, unless backing all the way to the yard is OK.
You could get some more length for your yard lead by curving it off to the right, but then it would need to be paritally hidden in the mall. I just got a visual of that car chase scene from the Blues Brothers movie
As for the turnouts and curve radii, I believe the timeframe being modeled here is the late 1980s, so 40ft cars will be a rarity. Maybe compromise at #5's?
And here's some background reading at the LDISG site on curve radii, so you know what to expect.
For more operations, you might want to try to put some backdrop-flat industries along the left side (in addition to the current reserved yard lead). You can access them by putting a double-slip at one of the ladder turnouts, and adding a runaround somewhere. The tradeoff would be that one of the yard body tracks would need to be reserved as a lead for those industries.
I really had to think this through. I moved the main back to behind the yard, so I can keep the main able to stop at the Newmarket GO Station and at the same time isolate the yard and have a yard lead. I extended the yard lead to cross Davis Drive as a double track and rejoin the main there. The yard also has a runaround to the main at the bottom. The main splits north of Mulock to provide the spur for the industries north and south of Mulock. From there it enters the hidden staging (two tracks) which use the drop-in for loop traffic.I'm not sure I really need the spur at top left. It is not the yard lead anymore, although could be used to store some freight cars if needed. I got back the angled yard and straight main which I like. Bear in mind that I will substitute curved switches or #4 or #5 switches for freight areas. Nothing jumps out at me as a problem - I am liking the layout.
My Build Thread: https://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/185298.aspx
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Dear Aralai
you performed a miracle, i really love the layout as it has turned out.
The spur left of Newmarket could start south of the crossover, to avoid the heavy curves. When you angle the main to Barre a little bit too, almost invisible, the last crossover will be more sleeky (maybe the #5 are doing the job allready). With curved turnouts it will be a beauty.
You obviously don't like the switch on the bridge, i would try to get the switch as far to the bridge as possible. Makes it far more easy to hide the lapconnection. I found the idea of two high buildings around the connection very appealing. With an overhead passage between the buildings you virtually hide the tracks.
Chapeau sir
Have fun, good luck (and start the build soon)
Aralai
Is looking good.
Two suggestions :
1) To switch that small industry at Wellington Street, you have a fairly short switchback tail. You could move the turnout right to create a longer tail. Probably also would have been room for another industry at the very corner left of Yonge Street, but it would take some track changes there.
2) Newmarket GO station - why not take the curved track coming around the upper right hand corner and take it straight ahead into the lowermost siding by the GO station (just mentally redesignate that as the main spur. Then do a crossover to the track right in front of the station, with the industry lead going off the end of the siding.
Like this:
Smile, Stein
steinjr 2) Newmarket GO station - why not take the curved track coming around the upper right hand corner and take it straight ahead into the lowermost siding by the GO station (just mentally redesignate that as the main spur. Then do a crossover to the track right in front of the station, with the industry lead going off the end of the siding. Like this: Smile, Stein
I thought about that, but it would mean the regular GO Train would need to use the crossover everytime it ran along the main line.
Not to throw a monkey wrench into a good plan, but since I am getting better at RTS, I put together a plan that switches things around a bit. One thing that has been really bugging me (and I have not voiced it yet) is that the real Newmarket GO station has a platform curved the opposite way to my plan. I did not think I could model it the real way easily, thinking the station platform would only be able to face the back wall, but this new plan allows it to be modeled with the correct curve. The station would be located in the bottom left on the inside of the curve. Thoughts?
I fear the enthusiasm for responding to your thread will wane when more severe changes are made to your plan. But...
Aralai, I don't understand your consistent desire to have what looks like a double track main line spaced so widely apart. Most double tracked mains run parallel and as close together as possible in order to use the least amount of real estate. Same with runarounds. I don't understand the island-like industry with the track splitting around it. Also, access to the yard is a long reach.
I don't know how much you want to stick to a particular theme, but you'll have a tough time modeling your theme exactly after a prototype, given the small space you have. You may have to choose particular elements of the prototype area you like, such as a station, a building, a bridge, and arrange them each in a way that fits your space, rather than have the train pass near them in the order they would on the prototype. For instance, a layout might be based on a prototype in one part of the State, but an industry that's in another part of the State might be modeled because the modeler likes the look of the building and the type of traffic it generates. It could be modeled accurately, but just because the industry is not in the precise location as on the prototype (in some cases not even on the same railroad) does not necessarily make the layout unprototypical. The trade off of having the traffic and the look of the factory provides much more enjoyment to the modeler than the blemish created by the inaccurate location.
I like the yard and/or staging on the leg of the P, or the yard where Yonge street is now, using curved turnouts as the ladder. I think you can get the shape of the curve you need for Newmarket station along the middle of the top wall, possibly any other wall, if you build the mainline using the tightest radius curves you can in the corners.
You could also experiment with having east and west staging on the P leg and gaining a broad enough radius across the drop in by moving the drop in one square to the north. The train could travel around the layout through all of the elements you want, and terminate on a staging track that also rests on the P leg. You could cross the staging tracks there to gain length and drop in radius if you need to.
Good Luck
Doug
- Douglas
All fair points Doug. I appreciate it. At this point, everyone's feedback has been invaluable to me, and your comments about real estate are a good example. I need to focus more on the layout making sense operationally and from a logical perspective to make it realistic and as you say, not worry as much about recreating the prototype in whole, but rather in parts. I think that is where I am finding my biggest challenge. I'm real close with the layout Version 9.4, so will probably just make some minor tweaks to it. Thanks everyone for your interest and advice!!!
Hi Aralai,
I have been out for a few days and am just digging into to this thread again.
I am not about to add more comments to your layout design, which I thought to be pretty mature already at the time I went out. I just want to give you a word of caution regarding planning, which can turn into some kind of a mania searching for the "best" plan ever. I have the feeling that you are running the risk of entering this loop - I know what I am talking about, I am running the same risk.
When you have a track plan that you quite like - leave for a few days, look at it again, and if you still like - build it!
My layout progress continues in this thread...