Layout design help requested

[cthart]

Hi,

After many years in my armchair, and a few years as a member of a modular group, I'm planning my first layout. But I'm a bit stuck coming up with a good plan.

I wonder if one of you could help me? Ideally, I'd like to hire Byron Henderson to design a layout for me, but at the moment the money is a bit tight.

I've used the questionnaire on Byron's site to come up with the following requirements:

Vision
- dense operations oriented trackage
- transfer operations (staging to yard to staging, multiple railroads)
- industrial switching
- possibly a port area
- 1 or more tall structures in the foreground

Prototype
- Multiple railroads: BN, Santa Fe, Soo Line, GB&W, Milwaukee Road
- Era: 1978-82
- grain operations and other commodities requiring covered hoppers (I have lots)
- I have mostly covered hoppers, box cars and tank cars
- no steel or coal operations
- Pacific north-west? Or Chicago area?

Opportunities and Constraints
Space:
- see diagram, boxes are 20cm
- layout should be constrained to around the walls of my office (4.2m by 5.1m = 14' by 17')
- center of room should be kept free
- optional future expansion on modules that can be attached for operating sessions, stored under other benchwork when not in use.

Time: just mine, several evenings per week + several weekend days per month.
Skills: basic carpentry skills.

Ergonomic factors:
- layout will be at a height of 130cm (also dictated by space between radiator and window).
- depth of shelves as shown on diagram, can be slightly more if needed

Layout type and concept
- Switching
- One person, sometimes more
- formal operations
- no idea on style of train control
- low cost construction would be great
- should be moveable/resuable, shelves built as sections

Modeling preferences
- HO scale, standard gauge
- 24" minimum radius, more if possible of course
- #5 turnouts in yards and within industries, #6 from mainline to industries, #8 on mainline
- Peco code 83 track
- DCC
- middle of the road as far as good-enough detailing is concerned
- phased construction would be nice
  * refering to my idea below, the top staging yard and connecting mainline to the main yard could be built first.
  * more industrial trackage added later
  * finally add the 2nd staging yard

Layout and Operating Style
- continous running is not desired
- single deck, flat layout


Idea
I thought of the following layout schematic, starting top right on the diagram and navigating clockwise around the room:
- a narrow shelf (20cm) along the entire wall above the sofabed as staging (3 tracks)
- the shelf under window (40-45cm) contains main yard
  * mainline + double ended Arrival/Departure track closest to the window
  * single-ended yard of 6 tracks connected by compound ladder on bottom left
  * mirror image of this
- caboose track + engine servicing including Walthers 90' turntable in bottom left
- 2 main lines up the left hand side, 1 doubling as yard lead
  * industries as background buildings
  * other industries in the foreground
  * possible tall foreground industry?
- second staging yard (3 tracks) at the rear of the 60cm (could be deeper) shelf at the top of the diagram
  * staging yard tracks continue on to lift-out section in front of door for operating sessions (tracks could even continue into the high cupboard at the corner, top right)
- staging hidden by background industries (grain elavator?)
- more industry trackage in the foreground
- connection to possible future extension

Is this feasible? Am I trying to cram too much into the available space?

Thanks for any help!

Cheers,

Colin

[Anonymous]

 Sounds like a lot of track on narrow shelves, leaving hardly any room for scenery. If you can live with an inch or two before and behind the tracks, that´s OK then. But if you also want to have some scenery, you need to either limit the amount of tracks or make your shelves a little wider.

[Paulus Jas]

Hi Colin,

cthart

- a narrow shelf (20cm) along the entire wall above the sofabed as staging (3 tracks)
- the shelf under window (40-45cm) contains main yard
  * mainline + double ended Arrival/Departure track closest to the window
  * single-ended yard of 6 tracks connected by compound ladder on bottom left
  * mirror image of this
- caboose track + engine servicing including Walthers 90' turntable in bottom left
- 2 main lines up the left hand side, 1 doubling as yard lead
  * industries as background buildings
  * other industries in the foreground
  * possible tall foreground industry?
- second staging yard (3 tracks) at the rear of the 60cm (could be deeper) shelf at the top of the diagram
  * staging yard tracks continue on to lift-out section in front of door for operating sessions (tracks could even continue into the high cupboard at the corner, top right)
- staging hidden by background industries (grain elavator?)
- more industry trackage in the foreground
- connection to possible future extension

Take a pencil and draw the above. Add a feet for scenery; ready!!?

cthart

But I'm a bit stuck coming up with a good plan.

You have a great plan. Are you familiar with designing by squares? Some math: min radius is 27", so the length of your square is 32". Your layout is about 5 squares wide.

For the bottom side you want a yard, but your curves, left and right do take 2 squares; so does your yard throat at the left. The throat at the right will be 1 square; so no trainlength left and engine service facilities with a turntable and roundhouse must find a place too. You will need 7 or 8 squares for your yard plus the end-curves. Which means for a yard at the bottom you have to go down to 18" radii and #4 switches.

My feeling is you could start drawing. Draw your yard (add two squares for the 90 degrees end-curves)and then start calculating. My guess: it takes the whole shelf along the west wall (17 x 2) when you go for a larger radius and #6's.

When you make drawings of all the scenes you envision you can shift them around. At the same time label your druthers from one to ten. The idea is that the high numbers must stay in, the lower numbers might stay. 

Jan Schoof's Free Haven Terminal (11 x 10 only; 48 Top-notch Track Plans) is an great exemple that could fit your bill. Allthough drawn with radii between 15 and 20 inches and #4 switches. And though he builded a pier and a hugh elevator he had no space for any marine left. His pike could be a great exemple how scenes could be fitted.

This harbour yard can recieve short transfer cuts from all the various railroads you  like. Problem is your staging tracks are very long but few in numbers.

Have fun drawing, and you can always post a first draft.

Paul

[CTValleyRR]

Colin,

Welcome!  You've done a lot of homework already, which really makes it easier for us to provide intelligent and meaningful (and more importantly, useful) feedback.

From your description of what you want, I think you're ready to put pencil to paper and sketch it out.  I have to convert tu use the metric units (although Paul, Ulrich and a few others who routinely comment will be right at home), but it sounds a little like you are trying to put 5 kilos of "stuff" into a 2 kilo sack.

What I would recommend you do next is to take that little sketch of your office area, make a couple of copies of it, and actually draw in the tracks where you think they would fit.  You can either freehand it, use a ruler and compass, use a template, or invest in one of the computer drawing packages.  Even though the computer design tools may sound like the right answer, and they do have the advantage of keeping you honest when placing track, the additional learning curve and a false sense of security (it MUST be a good design, because I can draw it on a computer) may not help you.

Anyway, do some quick drawings and it will very quickly become apparent whether things will fit or not.  No track plan ever goes on to the benchwork exactly as it was designed anyway.  Do a couple of different plans, and let us comment on them.

Also, remember this -- no one but you can really design a layout that suits you.  We can guide and suggest, but ultimately you will have to get something that pleases you, and is within your capabilities (both physical and financial).

[cthart]

Paul,

Questions/comments:

I thought a 90 degree curve takes 1 square, not 2?

24" minimum radius means squares of 29"?

I wanted to put the yard under the window because I can't have a backdrop there or any structures. So it's either staging under the window or the body tracks of the yard.

I want to angle the ladder of the yard to save space on the bottom side. A compound ladder should mean that the yard lead would be on an angle of 5:2.

My turntable is just for turning locomotives, so no roundhouse is necessary. But this is one of the lower priority items (I just have one in a box so it could be nice to use it if it fits in the space available).

I'm very familiar with the Russell Schoof plan; I do realise that he has shoehorned a lot of railroad into a small room using very tight curves and switches... I'm hoping I can manage as much railroad using broader curves and more staging (without the vertical switch) into a larger room. The amount of scenery he has allowed for is about the feel I'm going for. I don't need any marine, I'd prefer to suggest it rather than model it :-)

Thanks for the feedback, you're inspiring me to start drawing.

Colin

[Doc in CT]

cthart

I thought a 90 degree curve takes 1 square, not 2?
24" minimum radius means squares of 29"?

 

Colin

I believe Paul was factoring in a curve at the top of room and at the bottom of room, i.e., at both ends of the large yard on the left shelf. Yes???

As to square size  the formula is S=R+2C   R is the minimum radius, C is the track center spacing for two curves (one outside the inner mainline).
So for 24" radius and 2" spacing, a square is 28 inches on a side (you were close or had a track to track spacing of 21/2 inches).

Alan

[steinjr]

 Hmmm - late 1970s/early 1980s - what kind of cars are you running - mostly around 60 foot cars (ie about 8 1/4 inch long - about 21 cm) ? Or longer?

 What kind of train lengths are you planning? How many cars will a train contain? 

 A caboose track and a 130-foot turntable seems like overdoing it a bit for 1970s railroading.

 I see you want to have your yard on the 16-18 inch deep shelf in front of the window (left side of drawing above, big window starting about 40" in from upper and lower wall), since you can't put up a backboard in front of the window.

 If a significant part your fun will be running transfer runs from staging to your yard, maybe you would want to have your yard so that you get a little run length instead - perhaps along the left wall in your drawing (opposite your sofa bed and staging) ? Could you e.g. install some roll-down curtains over the window and paint the inside of those curtains blue?

 Here is a very rough sketch to get an impression of how much space you have available, using #6 Peco turnouts and 56-65 foot cars, and not trying any space saving tricks at all:

 Anyways - not a specific proposal for you, just a couple of almost random ideas and comments to get some discussion flowing about the specifics - you have made an excellent list of givens and druthers to start working from.

 Second purpose of drawing above is showing distances in feet and inches for those that think in inches and feet instead of meters and centimeters -  the precise conversion of course is 2.54 centimeters = 1 inch, but for a rough approximation, just observe that 10 centimeters is approximately  4 inches. So 20 centimeters is about 2 x 4" = 8", while 100 cm (1 meter) is about 40".

 Smile,
 Stein

 

[cthart]

Hi Stein in particular and others in general,

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply to my request for help.

Answers to Stein's questions:

1. I have just a few 60' cars, which I don't run very often because I don't like the look of these on most curves & turnouts that we modellers use.
I have many covered hoppers; these are mostly around 54'-55'. And I have many 50' boxcars. Most of my tank cars are of the 16000 gallon variety.
I also have some modernised 40' boxcars and shorty tankcars.

2. Train lengths will be on the short side; most will be one locomotive, 5-7 cars and a caboose. A long grain train (probably 1 for each operating session) will be 2 locomotives (GP7s), 10 covered hoppers and a caboose.

As you can see from my answers here, I'm trying to fit more layout in by using shorter trains with shorter cars, which in turn also helps to keep minimum radius down.

3. Yeah, the turntable (90') probably won't fit in, unless I radically change the layout's footprint. I don't think I should attempt this for a first layout; I'd like to keep the whole thing on shelves at one level to keep the construction fast and easy.

4. About the caboose track: what happens to cabooses when used in transfer movements? Presumably they are set out of the way, if only for a very short period. And the transfer run returns back to its origin immediately after making the transfer?

5. I like your sketch Stein, I hadn't realised just how much industry I could fit into the corners either side of the window.

6. I'm starting to do some sketches myself, and just gotten the idea to move the sofabed to the wall next to the door.

Thanks again,

Colin

[steinjr]

Hi Colin --  

You might enjoy this photo tour of a switching run on Wolfgang Dudler's Westport Terminal RR - it starts out with an engine, 9 cars and a transfer caboose from Westport yard, drops off some cars at Third Street switching district (where the local switcher will handle them), and then go on to the harbor district, where the road engine does a little switching before returning back with the outbound cars from the harbor district and the caboose.

http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/161307/1776790.aspx

Smile,
Stein

 

[Paulus Jas]

Hi Colin

Glad you'r on the drawing board again.

cthart

* mainline + double ended Arrival/Departure track closest to the window
  * single-ended yard of 6 tracks connected by compound ladder on bottom left
  * mirror image of this

cthart

dense operations oriented trackage

Reading those three remarks made me think about a bigger yard then Stein has drawn.

Counting the left and right curves together, the yardthroats and trainlength  your yard will become about 10 squares long. Just like Jan Schoof you have to go around the corner. Dense traffic was translated by me into more trains at the same time. IMHO the yard can easily become the bottle neck. When one operator switches cars from the big Three into cuts for the local jobs, and uses the IN-drill. A second crewmember can at the same time classify the cars from the local switchers into transfer cuts for the big Three.( and uses the OUT-drill)

A dedicated drill, free from mainline traffic, is only needed when lots of waiting for each other is at stake. If the ATSF has only one transfer cut a day a seperate drill track is not really needed. 

Some good thinking has to be done. Before you know it your are drawing a layout for up to 6 operators. And before you know it, you have so many destinations that your yard is becoming hugh.

With yards of the big three that close a turntable for the "harbour" yard seems not logic; all engines can and did run backwards. Even cabooses were not always obligatory for short transfercuts.

I found your reason for the yard to be before the window very clever. 

BTW some math: compare Jan Schoof's with yours. He uses #4 switches, you number 6's. He uses a 18""radius you were hoping for 27", his pike is 11 x 10 your 17 x 14. All dimensions have about a 1:1.5 ratio. The spacing will remain the same, so you could build a longer and your version of his pike.

Have fun
Paul 

[cthart]

Hi Paul,

Paulus Jas

Reading those three remarks made me think about a bigger yard then Stein has drawn.

Thanks for taking the trouble to draw this! Now I see what you mean. Somewhere between this and what Stein has drawn is what I have in mind, so hopefully I can get there.

Paulus Jas

Counting the left and right curves together, the yardthroats and trainlength  your yard will become about 10 squares long. Just like Jan Schoof you have to go around the corner. Dense traffic was translated by me into more trains at the same time. IMHO the yard can easily become the bottle neck. When one operator switches cars from the big Three into cuts for the local jobs, and uses the IN-drill. A second crewmember can at the same time classify the cars from the local switchers into transfer cuts for the big Three.( and uses the OUT-drill)

You call him Jan, in the book he's Russell... was this a pen-name?

I am trying to position the yard in front of the window, make the yard ladder go around the corner, and then have the yard lead on the left side of the room. The shortest yard body track would then be 2m, just enough for 10 50' boxcars. The longest yard track (at the front) would be long enough for 10 grain hoppers. It is very tight though... and the yard lead would be on a 24" radius curve.

Paulus Jas

A dedicated drill, free from mainline traffic, is only needed when lots of waiting for each other is at stake. If the ATSF has only one transfer cut a day a seperate drill track is not really needed. 

Some good thinking has to be done. Before you know it your are drawing a layout for up to 6 operators. And before you know it, you have so many destinatios and your yard is becoming hugh.

With yards of the big three that close a turntable for the "harbour" yard seems not logic; all engines can and did run backwards. Even cabooses were not always obligatory for short transfercuts.

Yes, I'd like to design the layout so that it can keep more than 1 operator busy; besides, that also feels right to me even when operating by myself. The Russell Schoof design is actually very clever in that it allows 2-3 operators to work relatively independently.

But yes, I need to think more and decide which aspects are more important. What I also like about the Russell Schoof plan is the way that the industries are easily serviced from the yard.

Paulus Jas

I found your reason for the yard to be before the window very clever.

Thanks! I haven't given up on this idea altogether; though the draft posted by Stein has a nice feel to it, it includes a long run in front of the window where I can't place many industries. I'd like to keep curtains in front of the window rather than a blind as I have to spend many hours working at my computer in this office, and a roller blind looks rather sterile compared to some nice curtains.

Paulus Jas

BTW some math: compare Jan Schoof's with yours. He uses #4 switches, you number 6's. He uses a 18""radius you were hoping for 27", his pike is 11 x 10 your 17 x 14. All dimensions have about a 1:1.5 ratio. The spacing will remain the same, so you could build a longer and your version of his pike.

I hadn't done these figures, but these do give me some hope for fitting in a good chunk of railroading in my basement (yes, this is a basement office).

Cheers,

Colin

[cthart]

Paulus Jas

With yards of the big three that close a turntable for the "harbour" yard seems not logic; all engines can and did run backwards. Even cabooses were not always obligatory for short transfercuts.

OK, this is the good reason I was looking for not to include the turntable!

Does the same go for locomotive servicing facilities? Or would there be a small facility for the switchers used in the area? Or would said switchers go elsewhere for their fuel and servicing?

Thanks,

Colin

[Paulus Jas]

cthart

Does the same go for locomotive servicing facilities? Or would there be a small facility for the switchers used in the area? Or would said switchers go elsewhere for their fuel and servicing?

Thanks,

Hi colin,

this is a tough one. I've seen on a lot of prototype drwawings small engine service facilities, e.g. on the end of the Milw.Beer Line. If I remember well it was once the end of an independent railroad, the facility may be came handy and remained in service. Or it depends on the ownership of the "dock" CO; if it belongs to one of the big three or if it is independent.

Being a proto freelancer gives you some freedom. On your layout you can have the feeling that you have enough switching to do, but the operator of the transfer cuts is just waiting and wating for a new trainorder. So when you still have an unbuild area you could better make the transfer job more appealing. Let him service his engine and let him turn it slowly around on a table into the right direction. Or let him build a new train in staging, if needed by fidddling.

Have fun and cheers too
Paul

BTW Schoof and 't Hart are common names in Holland. I happen to know a gentleman called Jan Schoof; but he is into lager and not into railroading; Russel Scoof designed (and built?) the Free Haven.   

 

[cthart]

Hi Paul,

That doesn't make it easier :-) I was just getting used to the idea that the engine servicing facility will have to be a future Fremo project :-)

 

Just today I measured my office again because I had the feeling I transposed the measurements... I was right. The room isn't 510 by 420, but 522 by 407.

More later,

Colin

[cthart]

Here's a new, more accurate plan of my basement office.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cthart/4310097490/

Back to drawing,

Colin

[AlienKing]

Chicago will be the best place for the railroads you want. It had 4 of the 5 (BN, Santa Fe, Soo Line, Milwaukee Road). If you move your date forward to 1987, the Soo took over many of the Milwaukee's tracks so you could get 3 out of 4 railroads in Winona, MN (BN, GB&W, Soo Line/Milwaukee Road).