10-06-2011, 01:37 PM
Looking back over some of the previous postings thought I'd again show a prototype industrial spur that really appeals to me and one that I've based a couple of my track plans on. It's located on the Florida Central (FCEN) northwest of Orlando, FL and the track arrangement really appeals to me. Here's the Bing Birds Eye view: http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=nrx23y8...2713&sty=o
The portion that I have based my plans on would be between the switch off the main line up to the edge of the second street crossing. Note that you first have a bit of an open area with plenty of trees and what appears to be some sort of junk yard, then you enter the industrial area where there are five industries packed in close together and the tracks are arranged to make the most of the available area. First and foremost, it almost perfectly fits my available layout bench work with very little compression required and that's a big plus.
Of course the one thing about this industrial spur, along with most, is that you have structures on both sides of the switching lead and to me that really makes it interesting. So, what do you do? Do you change what some of the industries are and eliminate the structures so that you don't have structures on the front edge of the layout or do you think outside of the box and include them?
There are some tricks you could use such as only modeling a long open loading dock in place of the warehouse (suggested by Lance Mindheim), but with out at least modeling a canopy over the loading dock, that just doesn't look right. Another idea that has been proposed on another thread, would be to to model the warehouse so that you would have a detailed interior and then make the track side warehouse wall from a clear material and apply tinting to that so that you could see the cars behind the wall when you look inside the structure; while at the same time giving the appearance that it isn't see through.
Or ultimately, do you simply model a low relief structure (3 or 4 inches deep) and look over the top of the structure to couple/uncouple your cars? I have experimented with doing that and haven't found it to be that much of an issue other than from a display point of view. I have always manually uncoupled my cars and do not like using track magnets. To me, it just adds to the experience of operating the layout in a prototypical manner. When I did have the large chocolate plant on the front edge of the layout, I had no problem at all uncoupling cars on spot behind the structure, but I did take care to place that particular industry at the front, because of the way the track is spaced away from the main structure. Worked out very well, but had it been your typical warehouse structure, it might have been a bit more of a problem because of the cars being closer to the structure.
I have gone back to a plan that does include a team/transload track, and even reduced the number of individual industries, but right now I can't say for sure that I'm going to really be satisfied with it, although operationally, it does provide for prototype destinations for all my equipment and looks a little less crowded. Will just have to try it out some and see how well I like it.
If it ends up that I'm not satisfied with this arrangement, then I'll go back to something similar to what I had before or perhaps make up another version of the spur shown in the Bing view. I may even have to bite the bullet and mothball a bunch of my cars if I can't find a realistic destination for them and fit them in to my plan. Many model railroaders will stretch the bounds of believability in order to have a certain industry on their layout or to justify having this or that type of car on their layout. I tend to look for prototype facilities that would actually use my equipment types and base my industries on those. I also base what I do on my experience on the prototype and what I see on the prototype when I travel around or spend countless hours on Google/Bing maps looking for interesting industries and/or track arrangements.
Just thinking out loud here I guess, but also throwing out some things to consider if you're interested in this type of layout.
The portion that I have based my plans on would be between the switch off the main line up to the edge of the second street crossing. Note that you first have a bit of an open area with plenty of trees and what appears to be some sort of junk yard, then you enter the industrial area where there are five industries packed in close together and the tracks are arranged to make the most of the available area. First and foremost, it almost perfectly fits my available layout bench work with very little compression required and that's a big plus.
Of course the one thing about this industrial spur, along with most, is that you have structures on both sides of the switching lead and to me that really makes it interesting. So, what do you do? Do you change what some of the industries are and eliminate the structures so that you don't have structures on the front edge of the layout or do you think outside of the box and include them?
There are some tricks you could use such as only modeling a long open loading dock in place of the warehouse (suggested by Lance Mindheim), but with out at least modeling a canopy over the loading dock, that just doesn't look right. Another idea that has been proposed on another thread, would be to to model the warehouse so that you would have a detailed interior and then make the track side warehouse wall from a clear material and apply tinting to that so that you could see the cars behind the wall when you look inside the structure; while at the same time giving the appearance that it isn't see through.
Or ultimately, do you simply model a low relief structure (3 or 4 inches deep) and look over the top of the structure to couple/uncouple your cars? I have experimented with doing that and haven't found it to be that much of an issue other than from a display point of view. I have always manually uncoupled my cars and do not like using track magnets. To me, it just adds to the experience of operating the layout in a prototypical manner. When I did have the large chocolate plant on the front edge of the layout, I had no problem at all uncoupling cars on spot behind the structure, but I did take care to place that particular industry at the front, because of the way the track is spaced away from the main structure. Worked out very well, but had it been your typical warehouse structure, it might have been a bit more of a problem because of the cars being closer to the structure.
I have gone back to a plan that does include a team/transload track, and even reduced the number of individual industries, but right now I can't say for sure that I'm going to really be satisfied with it, although operationally, it does provide for prototype destinations for all my equipment and looks a little less crowded. Will just have to try it out some and see how well I like it.
If it ends up that I'm not satisfied with this arrangement, then I'll go back to something similar to what I had before or perhaps make up another version of the spur shown in the Bing view. I may even have to bite the bullet and mothball a bunch of my cars if I can't find a realistic destination for them and fit them in to my plan. Many model railroaders will stretch the bounds of believability in order to have a certain industry on their layout or to justify having this or that type of car on their layout. I tend to look for prototype facilities that would actually use my equipment types and base my industries on those. I also base what I do on my experience on the prototype and what I see on the prototype when I travel around or spend countless hours on Google/Bing maps looking for interesting industries and/or track arrangements.
Just thinking out loud here I guess, but also throwing out some things to consider if you're interested in this type of layout.
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"