ATLANTIC CENTRALIn my opinion, the best layouts are those that are planned in advance for the types of operation the owner desires. In my case, that is all types - switching, mainline CTC/timetable, and simple display loops.
That's what I tried to do with the club layout, despite my lack of experience with model railroading. I will say that John Armstrong's 'Track Planning For Realistic Operations' was a huge help in figuring out how to do things.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Hi guys!
I've been on vacation so please pardon the dearth of posts. Had a great time.
The club is going headstrong into getting an operations system set up! We asked for volunteers to sit on the Operations Committee and half the club signed up! That's a first! These guys really want to do some serious train running.
However, now we are faced with the problem of having too many chefs in the kitchen. Design by committee often does not lead to the best possible outcome, and the more members in the committee the worse things get and the longer it will take to make decisions. To be fair, some of the members have very detailed knowledge of how a railroad works because they actually worked on them in the real world, and others have operated enough on their own and other layouts to have a good understanding as well.
To avoid death by committee, we have decided to change the plan a bit. We will begin by having a couple of the members of the Executive Committee do some research ourselves. We have a few offers of assistance from local modellers and clubs. The tricky bit is that the people who have offered outside assistance do not want to be innundated by having a dozen people show up on their doorsteps.
Once we have some suggestions prepared we will present them to the Operating Committee for their consideration. We will allow for a couple of weeks of cogitation, and then we will ask the members of the Operating Committee to come back to us to present their operating suggestions on an individual basis. They may or may not base their suggestions on what the Executive Committee has presented.
Hopefully that will give us a broad range of choices, from which the Executive will choose or design an initial operating scheme. I say 'initial' because there will be nothing preventing us from trying other systems down the road, but we need to establish and work with a single method to start.
I invite you to suggest systems as well, as some have already done.
Sorry for blathering on!
There are a whole bunch of operating layouts in Western PA that mostly use tab on car. Here's a thread with a decent explanation of how they do it from the late Bob Hartle (cmrproducts on the forum, he was one of the organizers and active members of the rotating operating group in that area).
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/38241.aspx
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thanks Randy,
I have seen articles on that sort of system, and obviously the tab systems work. However, personally I think that having the coloured tags or pins on the cars is totally distracting. I don't want to watch coloured tags go around the layout. I want to watch train cars. That's just me. I will present the option to the Operating Committee, but I think we have already decided how to proceed.
We had a very good impromptu conversation on Tuesday night with regards to operating options. The members seemed to all come to the same decision without much disagreement (contrary to my fears). We decided to start with a simple card system without any frills. JMRI can wait, as can any other options, until we have learned how to use the cards. Down the road we can explore other options.
There are still some details to work out as to what card design to use and who will do the work, but we have moved forward significantly.
We were also able to 'complete the map' more or less by deciding on place names for all the communities and industrial areas, as well as various spurs and junctions. Previously we had been referring to them simply as "Area #...". In most cases the names we chose pretty much reflect actual locations in central and northern Ontario. Some are a bit whimsical like "The Cowpath" which we used to identify one of the reverse loops, but there is an actual section of track located close to Hamilton, Ontario which officially bears that name.
We also honoured a bit of history. One of the areas will be called "Thornton", named after the business magnet who gathered several dozens of tiny local railways together to form Canadian Pacific National (thanks Wayne).
Another spot will be called Reesors Crossing. That was the location where several lumber mill workers were killed and injured by some of the local farmers in 1964 because of totally unsubstantiated rumours that a huge pile of lumber that was waiting to be transported to the mill was about to be burned. The lumber had been gathered by the farmers over the winter. Whomever spread the rumours told both sides that the other was about to torch the pile out of spite. Neither side had any intention of doing so, but the potential loss got people pretty worked up. Word got around and both sides showed up at Reesors Crossing to protect the lumber pile. Unfortunately the farmers showed up with their shotguns loaded. Things errupted before anyone could address the issue. The incident is rarely mentioned in history books.
We also got all the spurs numbered, although there may be some revisions to the system we chose.
Cheers!!
hon30critter Thanks Randy, I have seen articles on that sort of system, and obviously the tab systems work. However, personally I think that having the coloured tags or pins on the cars is totally distracting. I don't want to watch coloured tags go around the layout. I want to watch train cars. That's just me. I will present the option to the Operating Committee, but I think we have already decided how to proceed. We had a very good impromptu conversation on Tuesday night with regards to operating options. The members seemed to all come to the same decision without much disagreement (contrary to my fears). We decided to start with a simple card system without any frills. JMRI can wait, as can any other options, until we have learned how to use the cards. Down the road we can explore other options. There are still some details to work out as to what card design to use and who will do the work, but we have moved forward significantly. We were also able to 'complete the map' more or less by deciding on place names for all the communities and industrial areas, as well as various spurs and junctions. Previously we had been referring to them simply as "Area #...". In most cases the names we chose pretty much reflect actual locations in central and northern Ontario. Some are a bit whimsical like "The Cowpath" which we used to identify one of the reverse loops, but there is an actual section of track located close to Hamilton, Ontario which officially bears that name. We also honoured a bit of history. One of the areas will be called "Thornton", named after the business magnet who gathered several dozens of tiny local railways together to form Canadian Pacific. Another spot will be called Reesors Crossing. That was the location where several lumber mill workers were killed and injured by some of the local farmers in 1964 because of totally unsubstantiated rumours that a huge pile of lumber that was waiting to be transported to the mill was about to be burned. The lumber had been gathered by the farmers over the winter. Whomever spread the rumours told both sides that the other was about to torch the pile out of spite. Neither side had any intention of doing so, but the potential loss got people pretty worked up. Word got around and both sides showed up at Reesors Crossing to protect the lumber pile. Unfortunately the farmers showed up with their shotguns loaded. Things errupted before anyone could address the issue. The incident is rarely mentioned in history books. We also got all the spurs numbered, although there may be some revisions to the system we chose. Cheers!! Dave
We also honoured a bit of history. One of the areas will be called "Thornton", named after the business magnet who gathered several dozens of tiny local railways together to form Canadian Pacific.
rrebellFarmers were armed but union was not.
So it was a pitched(fork) battle?
rrebell...We also honoured a bit of history. One of the areas will be called "Thornton", named after the business magnet who gathered several dozens of tiny local railways together to form Canadian Pacific.....
Sir Henry Thornton, an American, was responsible for the formation of the CNR, not the CPR. There's a very informative thread on his many achievements (most of them formerly unbeknowst to me) to be found in this thread in the Classic Trains Forum. An absolutely amazing individual.
Wayne
rrebell,
Thanks for correcting the story. I was getting it third hand from one of the other club members, and we all know how that works.
None the less, it is an interesting piece of Canadian history, somewhat in contrast to our usual passive mannerisms.
Oops, another goof up. Actually, I was told that it was CN but my wee brain got it backwards when I was typing. I corrected the post.
And thanks for the article on Sir Henry Thornton, Wayne. Very interesting! Amazing talent!!
Hi folks,
I got another control panel completed tonight. This one was a tiny bit more complicated in that two of the toggle switches have duplicates on the control panel on the other side of the peninsula. The double set of toggles control access to a passing siding that is positioned so that the operators can only see one end of it at a time. I can see this making things complicated if someone doesn't ask for permission to throw the turnout on the other side of the peninsula before it is clear.
One of the other minor complications is that we need to drive four LEDs for each turnout, two on each side of the peninsula. We have been driving the switch position LEDs through the tortoise motor feeds. That works fine for two LEDs which is all we have needed so far, but I am told that when there are four LEDs involved, the tortoise will move very slowly. If the problem is serious enough I guess we can simply drive two of the LEDs off of one of the tortoise internal switches (the other is being used to control frog polarity). I'd rather not do that however. I would like to have the tortoise switch available for signals.
I'm going to start a thread in the Electronics/DCC forum to get some clarification. Edit, I think I've figured out at least part of the solution. We are using redundant LEDs in that we have two LEDs for each mainline turnout. One is on the main. The other is on the diverging route (where else would it be?). If the main is clear the LED is green, and the LED on the diverging track is red (suprise!!) All we need to do is eliminate the diverging route LED. That gives us enough power to install another LED elsewhere without slowing the tortoise down. If our members can't figure out that if the main is clear then the diverging route isn't and vise versa, then we are all in trouble!!
More progress at the club on Tuesday night!
We have started to install the scenery base in earnest! We actually now have a couple of layers of 2 1/2" foam in place in the peninsula, and what is even better is we now have a hole in the foam that will become a quarry!
Sorry, I didn't have my camera with me. My hands were full because I delivered two more control panels to the club and I had my briefcase with me as well. Besides, the quarry hole is still pretty crude right now so please give us some time to develop the scene a bit better.
Speaking of the control panels, all of the panels that I have built so far are 'draft versions'. I'm glad I didn't spend the time making them fancy on the first try because almost all of them will require some modifications before we make the final panels. Making the panels has kind of been like shooting at a moving target. In several cases the track arrangements have been modified slightly without me being informed of the changes. That's not a problem at all. Making changes is a natural part of installing track, especially in tight spaces. When the final 'deluxe' versions of the control panels are produced they will hopefully match the track patterns properly.
I'm looking forward to making the final control panels. I have some really nice poplar 1 1/2" square stock that I will mold with my router and radial arm saw to make the frames. We were talking on Tuesday night about what colour to use for the background. I love the look of control panels with a black background but I'm leaning towards a white background with black track. The reason is that I can easily print the diagrams in those colours and they look super crisp and clean. I can use 110 lb. stock instead of regular printer paper so there will be no bleed through of the colour of the masonite back panel. The temporary panels have been built so that the toggle switches and LEDs can be easily removed without having to unsolder any connections. It will be easy to transfer them to the new panels. The only soldering will be to correct the minor changes in the control panel arrangements.
Here is an example of one of the temporary panels:
I have to figure out how to eliminate the gap in the printing but that's just a matter of adjusting the printer controls.
Take care everyone!!
You probably can't eliminate the gap - on the printer. Very few printers can print right to the edge, there's a minimal margin needed for the paper transport to grab the paper. But you can remove it after the fact - I'd use a paper cutter if you cna find one, a straightedge and knife would be a poor second choice. Trim up the edges square, removing the margin space, and then the two pieces should line up nicely. It won't be completely invisible, for that you'd have to have the panels printed at a shop or office supply place where they can print it on paper large enough that one piece does it.
rrinkera straightedge and knife
Mike
rrinkerTrim up the edges square, removing the margin space, and then the two pieces should line up nicely.
Hi Randy,
I was hoping that would be the case, but it isn't. If the margins are cut off, the pages do not line up properly. If the margins are left in place, everything lines up nicely but there is a gap in the printing as you can see.
I will play with the margin settings. Right now they are set to '0'. That may be the problem because of the limitations of the printer. I'm thinking that if I add in a small margin then the printing might line up with the margins cut off. I'll play with it tonight and let you know.
Thanks,
Okay, success!
I widened the margins a bit and the pages will line up without a gap after the sheets are trimmed.
Trimming the sheets accurately will be the next challenge. Thanks for the suggestions on how to do it. I won't have to worry about that for a while. We are going to use the temporary control panels until we are fully satisfied with the track arrangements. That may be months or years. We already have a list of possible modifications.
That brings up another interesting issue with developing the layout. The layout is already pretty track intensive but that doesn't seem to stop people from suggesting that we add another track here or there. I'm trying my best to prevent people from adding tracks where simple operational methods will address the challenges. The prototypes did not add another track every time they had to do a little manouvering to get at a car!
Don't misunderstand me, some of the suggested changes will add greatly to the operating possibilities. We have decided to operate for a while before we make any changes, which is exactly what I'm sure many of you would have suggested.
Hello group! (I almost added 'ies' to the term group, but I actually don't want to feel quite that close to all of you!)
Sorry for my sick sense of humour.
We supposedly held an operating session on Tuesday night, but in truth it was the same old round and round while trying to avoid head on collisions. It still astounds me how many people haven't yet learned to look at a turnout before going charging through it!!! I still have faith that we can conquer that mountain!
In response to previous requests for more pictures, here are a few shots:
The first is a view of the roundhouse floor placed loosely with a couple of trial track sections temporarily dropped in place:
Thanks in advance for all the wonderful comments on how nicely the floor is weathered, but that's not the point of the picture. If you look at the two pieces of track that have been dropped into place between the turntable and the roundhouse, a good eye will recognize that one is Code 83 and the other is Code 100.
Here is a closer view:
A couple of our more cost conscious members had suggested that we could use Code 100 track here because we had run out of Code 83. Placing the two codes beside each other answered that question pretty quick! The difference in rail sizes is visible but not overwhelming, but the difference in tie sizes kind of slaps you right up the side of the head. Problem solved! We ordered more Code 83 track!
Here are a couple of other shots from Tuesday night:
The staging yard is under construction. It is also a huge mess! It would seem that this is the area where all the crap has been deposited over the last few days! You all know how that works!!
See the hole in the foam? That will be the quarry. The backgound hills will be built up about 9" to 12" behind the quarry so it will look like it is built into the mountain. The other side of the mountain will have a ski hill with a small chalet. The forground scene will feature the Walthers Glacier Gravel Company:
Here is a group shot during our operating exercise in avoiding collisions session:
What you may not notice is that we have have five additional double tube LED overhead lights installed. The room is much brighter! The landlord was nice enough to cover half the cost. The (predictable) problem is that now the original single tube fluorescent fixtures look rather dull. We plan on changing those a few at a time over the next year or two at our own expense. It won't be huge bucks.
Finally, I would love to show you a video of this wee beastie in action:
It is a Rapido and it was working beautifully, that is until I pulled out my camera. Then it just quit moving. It still had all the sounds and lights (lots of lights!), but it refused to budge. I will leave it up to others to comment.
Cheers guys!! Thanks for your interest!
hon30critter Hello group! (I almost added 'ies' to the term group, but I actually don't want to feel quite that close to all of you!)
With Rush retired, we need some Canadian group to follow, eh?
hon30critter Thanks in advance for all the wonderful comments on how nicely the floor is weathered, but that's not the point of the picture. If you look at the two pieces of track that have been dropped into place between the turntable and the roundhouse, a good eye will recognize that one is Code 83 and the other is Code 100. Here is a closer view: A couple of our more cost conscious members had suggested that we could use Code 100 track here because we had run out of Code 83. Placing the two codes beside each other answered that question pretty quick! The difference in rail sizes is visible but not overwhelming, but the difference in tie sizes kind of slaps you right up the side of the head. Problem solved! We ordered more Code 83 track!
Hi Dave,I like the yellow caution zone around the pit rails.
As far as the size of the ties in front of roundhouse, wouldn't the normal situation have the ties amost buried flush in that area?...so no worry about size of ties or code of track??
Brian
My Layout Plan
Interesting new Plan Consideration
railandsailAs far as the size of the ties in front of roundhouse, wouldn't the normal situation have the ties amost buried flush in that area?...so no worry about size of ties or code of track??
Hi Brian,
Good point! The ties won't be quite so obvious once the scene is finished. I actually thought about 'paving' the whole area between the pit and the roundhouse floor but I like your suggestion better.
rrinkerWith Rush retired, we need some Canadian group to follow, eh? --Randy
Bigjim7Nice pics. Looks great and fun. Thanks
Thanks to you Jim for your positive comments!
Just a short update. (Ha you say! When has this guy ever made a short post?!?)
The bridge between the staging area and the main layout is up and running. When I designed the staging yard, which was a later addition to the main layout, my initial plans for the connection from the layout to the staging area were cumbersome to say the least. I imagined a monstrosity of a hinged bridge that would have been quite complicated to build and rather heavy as well. Fortunately my fellow club members ignored my suggestions and came up with a very simple, much smaller liftout that works perfectly. I'll get some pictures in the next week or two.
We are diligently working on coming up with a simple operating system. We have a couple of layouts in the area which hold regular operating sessions that a couple of our members routinely attend, so we are basing our initial plans on the methods being used by our neighbours.
I have been trying to work on the mountains in the center of the peninsula but I'm having a bit of trouble envisioning how I will build them. I think I'm just going to start carving foam and gluing it lightly in place to see if I can build the profiles I want. The space is a bit tricky. On one side of the mountains there is a gravel pit, and on the other side of the mountains there will be a ski chalet with a couple of slopes. There isn't a lot of space to build a mountain between the two scenes so therein lies the challenge. I want things to look as realistic as possible so I will have to take care to keep the slopes' 'angle of repose' correct. The angle of repose is the technical phrase used to measure the angle at which a particular material will form a slope without collapsing. However, I want to make the mountains as tall as possible so I have some experimenting to do.
We are going to have an invitation only open house on October 8th so we can show our families and friends exactly what we have been talking about non stop for the past two years. I would like to extend the invitation to any of you who are in the area. Please send me a PM if you would like to attend, and I will give you the address and times. Don't get your hopes too high. It is still a plywood paradise.
We have decided to host an invitation only open house on October 8th. We will be primarily inviting family and close friends so that they can see what we all have been babbling about for the past two years. I have taken the liberty of inviting a few other people who have been in contact with the club over the past few months as well.
By that date we should have completed all of the industrial sidings, and the liftout bridge to the staging yard is already operational which was one of the things we wanted to accomplish before the open house.
Perhaps more importantly we will have had a couple of real, or more accurately, 'attempted' operating nights under our belts. Maybe, just maybe, we might be able to have a night without any cornfield meets!!! It's a little way off but I will let you know how it goes.
Cheers again!!
An open house is an excellent idea, Dave. I don't recall our club actually doing something like that. We had the annual "flea-market/train show" at the high school gym but other than that we were pretty much cloistered in the basement under the B&O depot. Out of sight — out of mind.
I believe a community "outreach" goes a long way toward being a "good citizen" and letting the local folks know that you folks are a welcoming bunch.
I hope it turns out very well for you and the club.
Regards, Ed
gmpullmanI hope it turns out very well for you and the club.
Thanks Ed!
This time round it will only be family and a few close friends. Once we have some reasonably decent looking scenery in place we will open things up to the general public. That will be in a year or two.
We got a great start on the mountains and related tunnels on Tuesday. I'm going in on Thursday to do some more work on the mountains and I will take my camera.
Tomorrow will be a bit of a test for us. We had some new lights installed a couple of weeks ago and they are great. The electical inspector is coming in tomorrow to approve them. That should be a no brainer. However, we might have a problem with the position of part of the layout relative to the electrical panel. We, actually I should say "I", cheated a bit when planning the layout by putting the loop around the service area right beside the panel. If the inspector goes nuts on us I will only take part of the blame. Everyone else approved the plan, so we are united in our risk taking.
If the inspector finds fault with our design it's actually not a hugely insurmountable problem. We will have to make a cut through the top of the return loop where we won't be interferring with any of the service area structures, and then make the section removable when necessary. The cutoff piece will be fairly large so we will have to design a way to make it stable but I have confidence that we will be able to come up with a workable solution.
I'll tell you more tomorrow after the inspection.
Over the past couple of days I have been working on the 'mountains' that will go in the center of the peninsula. I will be using Woodland Scenics Shaper Sheets to cover the foam structures. Sorry, the pictures are a bit blurry because I was using my iPhone and my hands were shaking:
This will be our skiing scene. There will be a small chalet in the middle and three or four ski runs down the slopes.
The next shot is just around the corner from the ski valley. There will be a fairly deep rock cut on the upper track and a tunnel on the lower track. The 'mountains' (should more accurately be called 'hills' if they are in Ontario) appear to be cut off quite abruptly on the left side. That is actually where the joint between the removable sections will be. The slope will be carried forward on the other section.
Also, on the far left of the hill you can see the opening for the rock quarry. I'm not happy with how the quarry scene looks. The hole in the mountain where the quarry sits doesn't look very natural, so I'll redo that once I figure out how to make it look better.
This is a shot of the tunnel construction. Note that the tunnel construction is not being done by me. I build things rock solid. The shape of the hill over the tunnel has to be adjusted to make it look more like a rock cut than the rounded mound that it currently resembles. I'm trying to be patient!
This is another part of the hill system. One side will be a pulpwood foresting scene and the other will be a background for a small industrial scene.
The ribs still have to be shaped to add a little more variation to the slopes, but I'm happy with the progress so far.
Last night I wrote about the club having an electrical inspection for some new lighting, and how we were worried that the inspector might not be too happy with the position of the layout relative to the electrical panel. Well, we got really lucky today. The inspectors were too busy to bother making a trip just to look at five new lights, so they passed the inspection sight unseen. In other words, they never got to see the layout/electrical panel issue. I told everybody to run right out and buy some lottery tickets!!
Cheers,
The club has just been given a free layout! All we have to do is get the layout out of the house.
The layout is 4' x 16' and it has a ton of very nicely built structures on it, more than we could ever use on our layout! There is also some rolling stock but we haven't had a chance to evaluate the quality of it yet. Getting the layout out of the house will be easy. It is built in two 4' x 8' sections which will be easily separated, and there is a patio door in the train room so we can take the layout outside to chop it up.
When we got the new clubhouse two years ago we decided that we didn't have enough room to accept donations. That was rather short sighted. (Read - 'stupid'). We were offered an HO collection shortly after that and it was too nice to turn down so changed our rules. That collection netted us about $250.00, and we didn't have to deal with the layout itself.
We will attempt to sell what parts of the donations that we don't use ourselves to the used train dealers rather than set up our own tables at various shows and compete with them. That only makes sense. We won't get as much money as we might if we sold them directly to the public, but we won't be taking business away from the dealers upon whom we rely for the success of our own show in February, and as a bonus we will have no leftovers! Everybody wins.
We also get approached fairly regularly by people who have collections that they want to sell. The club is not in a position to buy the collections, but I always make sure that I forward the information to the dealers at our show who do buy collections. They seem to like that!
Let me know what you think of the mountains hills in the previous post. I'll take all the compliments comments I can get! How's that for chest pounding and begging for praise?!?
Couple of the clubs aroound here usually have a table set up when they have public open houses to sell off donations or otherwise surplus stuff, anything from a train set box car to a structure kit to books. Caters to the "impulse buyer" who has just finished seeing a room full of trains running. Doubt it makes much money, but every little bit helps, and reduces the stoorage requirements. Most of the time its one or maybe 2 of the six foot folding tables, not a huge 'store' type of thing.
Our group, we have an actual sales group that sets up alongside the layout, with mostly all new stock items that can also be foun din our museum store. Pretty much any venue that allows us to set up allows the sales table as well. There are some of the latest models, mugs, books, calendars, etc. And yeah, people do buy stuff, not just members because they get a discount We do not in any way replicate a fully stocked hobby shop.
I'd be surprised if any of the regular dealers you work with would be upset that the club would be selling off donated items to raise money for the club. Especially since you are passing on those offering complete collections to them.
The old club I belonged to, they actually opened up a hobby shop, became a Walthers dealer, and everything. Mostly to get supplies for the club layout at wholesale cost, but they did keep a stocked store, pretty much 100% trains, for a number of years. That made the accounting rather complicated, since the store was a registered business and had to pay taxes, and the club was tax exempt. To avoid issues with property tax (since they own the building) and also because they really don't need the income any more, I think they took the simplest route and shut down the store. Last time I was there, the main HO scale layout had expanded so much that the smaller tinplate and N scale layouts now occupied the former store space. They just expanded the HO layout even more - I really need to get back there and check it out.