Paulus Jas probably you made me aware about the way grain-elevators are operated. Room to roll, but how is this done on model railroads? By hand? Or not simulated at all? The issue is not unfamiliar to me, since the very same problem is part of coal haulers daily routine. Replacement of the cars during staging is an option too of course.
probably you made me aware about the way grain-elevators are operated. Room to roll, but how is this done on model railroads? By hand? Or not simulated at all? The issue is not unfamiliar to me, since the very same problem is part of coal haulers daily routine. Replacement of the cars during staging is an option too of course.
Yes, cars are rolled to the other end of the track manually -- typically done between operating sessions as part of the reset. And for open top loads, cars or loads can be swapped at the same time.
Paulus Jas The length of the lead does not seem very important to me, since making up cuts of cars is done in the yard. Is it not merely used as an engine escape? (a cassette would deal with this problem, beside it can function as another interchange)
The length of the lead does not seem very important to me, since making up cuts of cars is done in the yard. Is it not merely used as an engine escape? (a cassette would deal with this problem, beside it can function as another interchange)
It seems to me that the short lead affects switching most of the industries, since one must back down there to clear the turnouts. But there are multiple ways to switch it, some more efficient than others.
I'm not sure that he has room to add a cassette, but a simple rearrangement of turnouts would help ease the problem in the existing space, if desired.
Byron
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
hi Byron,
Hi Chad
your last plan confuses me. Is it oriented in a different way in your room? Did you ever considered to use a cassette to lengthen a lead track? The cassette could function as an interchange as well. You have the space to do it.
Are you still willing to make your wife happy? You did not indicate a cute town in your plans. In front of the yard might cause reach over problems.
Smile
Paul
Chad,
I normally don't comment on non-client's plans, just because I don't have a lot of time for analysis and also because the designers aren't always open to input on their designs.
But since you used my plan as a basis, I felt I should at least note some issues that often crop up with newcomers' plans that are reflected in your adaptation.
Adding length is always helpful and in that size you'll have no problem developing a workable plan. But here are some potential issues I noticed:
Length of switch lead (A1) versus length of runaround (A2). These don't always have to be equal, but in this case, the limited length of the switch lead at A1 is going to constrain a lot of what you'd like to do when switching. There are a number of changes you can make to help with this.
Switchback industries. You have situations at both B1 and B2 where you have industries on both wings of a switchback. If you walk through the switching of the industries, you'll see that cars probably must be removed from the County Co-op (and possibly from the industries opposite ADM) before you can switch the industries on the other wing. This is usually a bad idea and is avoided on the real-life railroads, although the arrangement is often seen on published model track plans.
In real life, these sorts of situations are much more commonly handled by a crossing (crudely illustrated at B3). But note that you would still have a bit of a "room to roll" problem at the ADM elevator (see below).
[I did use a switchback to reach the ADM elevator in my plan, which in itself is not typical. But there are no industries on the lead leg, which makes it less unusual (and a lot less tedious to switch!)]
Room to roll. In real life, industries such as grain elevators have cars spotted at one end of the track, then they are rolled by gravity (or pulled with a cable) below the dump spout or over an unloading grate to be filled or emptied. This requires extra room on each side of the industry that many modelers incorrectly do not provide. I mentioned this in the magazine article referenced in the Alcos in the Alcove layout page on my site. I illustrated this at C, but the same is true at the ADM elevator. The switchbacks outlined above obviously exacerbate this problem.
Probably unnecessarily double-ended sidings (D1 and D2) don't add much to the operating potential and aren't typical of real-life. D2 also interferes a bit with the last yard track (D3), since you must leave it open if an engine is going to run down there. You already have a runaround, so typically there would not be a second (D2).
Many newcomers to model railroad CAD create unexpected and potentially problematic S-curves such as the one that appears at E. By flipping this crossover the other-way-'round or moving it down a bit, you can eliminate the s-curve. This would also allow you to start the yard sooner, extending its length (always a plus).
I hope these comments will be helpful to you and to the others who are working to help you with your plan.
Best of luck with it.
Looks pretty good. Nothing jumps out as being a big operation problem. I assume there will be enough reach for the turnout in the upper right. Hey, why not extend all the way down the right side of the room now?
You know, if you're set on the shape of the layout and its location, you can always get started on the bench work and table top, then just play with the exact track arrangement in 1:1 as you build. It helps to see things in real life than just on paper. You'll likely make adjustments anyway.
- Douglas
Chad:
I think that it's time to start laying things out and building. Once you start I'm sure that you will find a few things you want to change around but that's the fun of modeling. Good luck and keep us informed of your progress. By the way, I agree about Firefox. I just downloaded the latest version and it is really good.
Joe
.png is the most popular web image format used today for nearly every website. you can download Firefox web browser from here . It's free and easy to install. I HIGHLY suggest using that.
Chad
I see your still posting in the same format. of which I can't see because it shows up a the background with my web broser.
Johnnny_reb Once a word is spoken it can not be unspoken!
My Train Page My Photobucket Page My YouTube Channel
Ok, take 4...
So this is an adaptation of your switching shelf layout.....with some more space. So, I added a few things, stretched it...ect. I think I will start with this. build a mockup, and then see what is missing. There is room for the backs of housing or city commerce....ect. I think this will be fun. notice I re-arranged the room to give more length to the industries side.
I'm glad my designs and articles have been useful for some of you. The track plan book project is still planned, but deferred until at least late in the year.
Mike, I had forgotten about the model NW-2s, that's a good example. But I think it's one of the exceptions -- I still believe that most mass-produced HO models negotiate tighter curves than would their prototype counterparts.
As far as adding length and a yard to the Alcos in the Alcove design, that certainly could be done. Designating one or two yard tracks as the interchange connection would be typical of many real-life situations and most efficient, although a separate interchange connection appeared in many places.
An important thing in any design intended for operations is understanding how the cars will be moved. As was noted, you want to avoid situations where you must runaround an excessive number of times and/or haul one car at a time through a runaround or switchback move. Real railroads avoid that and most modelers should too, as it can become quite tedious.
If you add the yard, think about what lead you will use to switch it. Can that same lead be used for some industrial tracks too, perhaps through a crossover? Can you pull a full yard track length on the lead and still make a switching move or runaround if required? (Real-life railroads don't always have leads as long as the longest yard track, but it does make switching a bit smoother.)
This compact switching layout design is an example of a yard at one end of the layout adjacent to the runaround. Something similar could be bent around your corner.
As far as adding some city structures, there are already some along the left-hand side of the Alcove design. If you wanted to add more buildings, placing most of them along the wall behind the operating trackage is often a good idea, as it makes for less interference when you reach into the scene while operating.
Since the land adjacent to the railroad usually wasn't prime real estate in real life, I think it's often neat to model the "backs" of the buildings along the tracks. This may not meet your cohabitant's "cuteness" requirements, so maybe split the difference, with some quaint storefronts along one leg of the layout and grittier trackside scenes along the other.
Best of luck with your layout.
Oh man..... Paul is quick!
ChadStrat Byron, I really like the second layout you posted. a lot. I think if I extend the top by 3', I can just angle a small yard and that would be perfect. except one thing.... The executive chairman of the housing space comity has requested a City on the small shelf layout in the terms outlined in our original negotiations taking your second layout, adding a yard to the top right, where could some city-esk scenery fall? Chad
Byron,
I really like the second layout you posted. a lot.
I think if I extend the top by 3', I can just angle a small yard and that would be perfect. except one thing....
The executive chairman of the housing space comity has requested a City on the small shelf layout in the terms outlined in our original negotiations
taking your second layout, adding a yard to the top right, where could some city-esk scenery fall?
Welcome back Chad....
If I may be so bold as to offer a suggestion before Byron. I would put a small yard up in the corner, where the ACB building is and move the interchange to the NE corner, angling the green main line track to accommodate.
If you put the yard in where ACB is, access to cars would be no worse than what it is now, and since a yard implies moving a longer cut of cars than an industry does, most of your uncoupling would be down towards the throat, where there is better access to couplers. L shaped layouts have a natural viod in the corner, so yard tracks stacked there make sense. You can add a mirror if you think that scenic trick will visually extend the yard, if you know what I mean.
Specifically, I would eliminate both of the turnouts to ACB as they are now, and use the CCO spur as the yard lead, with the yard tracks splitting off of that track back up to the corner. You'll lose the small townish buildings of course. You may have to shove the CCO/lead turnout one track north (where the ACB turnout is now) in order to get enough length out of the lead relative to the yard tracks, but my eyeball doesn't see that as a need for sure. Operationally, you don't want to run around the cars every time you store them, so having the yard and that corner and the interchange the NE corner would be efficient, since you can just pull the cars from the interchange around the corner and on to the lead, then push them into the yard in the corner. Then, you'll only use the runaround when you switch industries, not every time you interchange and store.
If you splice in an extra 3 feet along the top wall, you may be able to move the ACB and CCO over there. Perhaps even the small townish buildings too. I wouldn't touch the grain elevator or its lead.
I would lean heavily on the use of backdrops and building cuts to represent the city scene. Perhaps you could angle the main and yard lead tracks away from the wall in the SW corner and put more 3 dimension city structures down there. The entire backdrop around the layout could be a city, in fact.
BTW: This post has been edited to actually make some sense.
hi chad
by adding two tracks at the lower part the top right can become a town.
smile
cuyama
Dear Byron,
It took me less than 60 seconds to see that plan of yours is a killer! And the next moment I said to myself "no, not again back to the drawing board!" since I'm kind of finished with the planning and ready to start building :).
I will, however, look into incorporating the idea I like most about your plan - the curved approach to the mainline serving as an interchange WITH the dummy peace of the actual mainline.
Thank you for sharing!
Cheers,
Edmunds in Latvia http://www.edmundsworld.net HO Transition Era modular layout being built with Faller Car System, DCCar, German Style Signalling, Computer Control and Automation
Byron, the BLI NW2 switchers and some of the newer models don't operate on less than 18 inches (or so I was told). Many model railroad publications have also stated the same in their reviews. There are still some switchers that can be used on smaller radii like the Atlas S Series, the Kato NW2, and Bachmann Spectrum GEs .
__________________________________________________________________
Mike Kieran
Port Able Railway
I just do what the majority of the voices in my head vote on.
UncBob There is enough short rolling stock freight available--55 ton coal hoppers --ore cars--short tankers--40ft box, gondola, reefers, --short covered hoppers---34 ft and 40 ft Billboards to make a 4x8 with 18/22 radius look pretty good It is the desire to run passenger trains unless 50 ft Old Time Overlands that is the problem Personally unless running FanFare Old Timers I would stay away from passengers trains on 4x8s
There is enough short rolling stock freight available--55 ton coal hoppers --ore cars--short tankers--40ft box, gondola, reefers, --short covered hoppers---34 ft and 40 ft Billboards to make a 4x8 with 18/22 radius look pretty good
It is the desire to run passenger trains unless 50 ft Old Time Overlands that is the problem
Personally unless running FanFare Old Timers I would stay away from passengers trains on 4x8s
Agreed. Using equipment even up to 50 foot cars can work. I was actually planning on doing a layout based on Atlas Trackplan HO-13. It just didn't work into my portability needs.
51% share holder in the ME&O ( Wife owns the other 49% )
ME&O
Mike Kieran Byron, I'm a big fan of your work.
Byron, I'm a big fan of your work.
Me too. And I don't think we're the only ones!
When are you going to write a book?
Colin
Colin 't Hart Frösön, Sweden http://www.flickr.com/photos/cthart/
cuyama cthart: What's the 1:3 ratio? Layout Design SIG curve radius rules-of-thumb
cthart: What's the 1:3 ratio?
Layout Design SIG curve radius rules-of-thumb
This is the one I used mostly. The NMRA standards and RP's are a bit dryer :-)
I don't know why I couldn't figure out what Paul was talking about, since I used these ratios myself in trying to decide on a suitable minimum radius.
Mike KieranCuyama, are you Byron Henderson?
Guilty as charged ....
Sorry Edmund. I was talking about North American prototypes. Chad, the individual who started this thread was trying to design a plan based on a North American prototype.
Paulus, sorry I thought that the siding was a runaround in the upper left. You're right, putting that siding on a curve, especially in the back corner of the layout can be troublesome.
Cuyama, are you Byron Henderson? I was talking about an 18 inch outside track and a 15 inch inside track. It can be troublesome. With larger radii and proper spacing, the problem can be cut down if not eliminated.
The Switchman's Dream is a perfect example of space utilization. You can even do away with the backdrop if it's run as an industrial switching layout.
Mike KieranAnother problem is many HO switchers being sold only run on an 18 inch radius or more, even though their prototypes would have been able to run on sharper radii.
I can't think of a single example of that, except perhaps for brass switchers. Which models are you thinking of?
Often the issue is coupling to cars of mixed lengths, not only the radius the switcher will negotiate. The prototype had the same problem in the tightest spots. The Bronx Terminal operation that is often cited sometimes had to use chains or poles to move cars because they could not be coupled to.
Mike Kieran. I've seen trackplans with the same curved runarounds and what you said about not putting the runaround on a curve gets amplified even more with these same sharp curved because of overhang and the danger of a viscious side swipe.
Using 90-degree and 180-degree curves for runarounds can work fine and is often a good use of track length that might otherwise be wasted. One just needs to be mindful of track-to-track distances, minimum radius and the type of equipment being operated. Paul showed one example that worked well day-in and day-out for its builder, here are a couple more.
My design from MRP 2011
And this HO switching layout that would probably fit the Original Poster's space and could even be extended a bit for longer leads. [As drawn, it can handle fewer cars than if the layout were extended a bit toward the bottom of the track plan.]
Note the overlap of model railroad operating elements: runaround, leads, industry tracks.
cthartWhat's the 1:3 ratio?
Since Chad has lost his thread anyway :), I just wanted to drop a couple of words from Europe here. First, European trains indeed run on a lot smaller radius than American prototypes. I believe this is mostly a modeling tradition, where manufacturers are careful in selecting a prototype that would run and look better on small layouts and also because they don't hesitate to loose a little bit of a prototype to make it shorter or able to run on small curves. If you pick up a European track plans book, you will have a hard time finding a layout that does not include a couple of 15" curves on industry spurs. The same goes for grades - most small layout plans offered here are two or even three level plans. Clearly, if you want to take a train up 4" in less than 4'- this is a serious climb/descent. But the equipment seems to be made just for that. So when we discuss plans on these forums, it is essential we pay attention what equipment is being used.
Another realization that hit me recently was about the "real" size of 4x8. For me, without doing the actual math, I thought 4'x8' must be about equal to 1.00mx2.00m. Probably, because I heard 4x8 is coming from the size of a door. All the doors I have seen here are about 0.70-0.95m to 1.90-2.10m in size, so this felt reasonable. Still, a lot of things that people magically managed to put on 4x8, did not make any sense on 1.00x2.00m for a long time. I was also a bit dubious about why 4x8 was such a bad idea in terms of reach and moving around. Until I realized that, what I was talking about was 3.3'x6.6' while everybody else here was going on about 1.22mx2.44m! That is a very big difference in HO and another switching layout worth of a difference for N!
hi mike,
i did not talk about double tracking in curves in general. The extra run-around at the upper left corner was intented to serve some industries only. It was tucked away behind scenery and an overpass and is not needed at all. A simple spur would do fine, beside creating more space for the yard, the spur could be straightened out, so (un)coupling might be done more easily.
On Byron henderson's California Layout the minimum radius is not under 18" , more important however upfront, so (un)coupling can be done without having to reach in the deep. The double tracked curve is the only longer passing siding. Both legs of this run-around are used too as seperate drill tracks, for the upper and lower " yards ". The short run-around at the bottom can be handy for the "lower" switcher; he can run around his train, without hindering the "upper" switcher a lot.
Smile Paul
P.S. Lets see if we can break 100 postings for this thread.
Agreed. To use less than an 18 inch radius can lead to major problems. I've seen track plans for 15 inch radius curves or less and unless you are doing an urban environment layout (such as the Bush Terminal Railroad/ New York Dock Railway New York Cross Harbor Railroad/ New York & New Jersey Railroad) going through building corners (such as the corner of 41st Street & 2nd Avenue), there's no need for them.
If you are modeling a former traction line, only city streetcar lines would use these radii. Interurbans outside of the city would rather open them up to speed up transit times.
Another problem is many HO switchers being sold only run on an 18 inch radius or more, even though their prototypes would have been able to run on sharper radii.
Paulus, I think it was you who mentioned earlier that Chad should not have used the side by side curves for a runaround. I've seen trackplans with the same curved runarounds and what you said about not putting the runaround on a curve gets amplified even more with these same sharp curved because of overhang and the danger of a viscious side swipe. Our railroads cannot afford to make repairs for damage to other railroads' rolling stock.
Oh yes, that ratio. I myself don't like the look of longer cars on sharper curves... so have limited myself to just a few 60' cars as the longest I have. I have many 54-55' covered hoppers.
I plan on using a minimum radius of 30" on at least one through track of the main, 24" elsewhere. Slightly sharper radii possibly used within industries, where you want it as much for the effect as for saving space.
#6 switches on the main, #5 in the yard and in industries.
Now we should really let Chad have his thread back ;-)