Thoughts Wanted: layout staging-interchange yard

[Gary S]

Hoping to get some feedback on the following:

As my layout building nears completion, I've been thinking about the layout. My original thought was that I wanted a point-to-point because it is the most "sincere" arrangement for a model railroad.

The following diagram (Layout idea #1) shows what I have been thinking. The removable bridge would only be needed when I wanted to do continuous run - it isn't needed when actually operating, meaning the door would not be obstructed. Both of the staging - interchange yards would be scenically complete. Rollingstock would be stored in drawers under each interchange, and would come on and off the layout between sessions.

Advantages:
point-to-point like the real thing
no need to block the door with bridge

Disadvantages: takes up more layout space which could be used for other purposes



As I was working on the sheetrock, I had this thought: If I placed both interchanges on the left side of the room (layout idea #2), I could open up more space for industries and such.

There is a total of 170 feet of shelves in the room, so saving 12 or 13 feet may not be all that important.

Advantages, disadvantages = opposite of above



What do you guys think?

[MountainMan]

Layout Idea #2 makes more sense for many reasons; however, you seem to have a lot of switching capacity for a "point-to-point" layout.

[faraway]

If you can afford the space I would stay with two yards. It is simply more fun to build two different yards than one.

[tetters]

Hi Gary. Is this a single or multi level layout? I cannot remember if you mentioned your original plans.

[Gary S]

Tetters, it is single level, a total of 168 feet of shelves.

[Sumpter250]

Two Questions:
What is on the right hand side of both "ideas"?
If it is what I think it is, a blank wall, why not a point to point, ending at the door opening?
You could call the door opening the " take your pick of names" (Typon) Ocean.

If the RH side isn't a blank wall........connect the two separate legs of a point to point, with a "car ferry" across the door opening . Literally, switch one leg, load the ferry, and move the cars across the "door river", and switch the cars on the other leg. A days operation can start at one end, go to the other end, and return.
The "car ferry's"...."river" could be a table, adjusted for the height of the rest of the layout.
You have a point to point, with no permanent blockage of the doorway, and the added interest of an "operating" car ferry.

[doctorwayne]

I like the car ferry idea, although I'd still keep the bridge/lift-out at the doorway. It offers continuous running, good for breaking-in locos and for entertaining your non-model railroading friends who "just wanna see some trains run".

I'd put both staging yards below the layout - one on each side of the entryway, but with the tracks to the carferry at an angle to the front of the layout - if they were extended, they'd form an angle across the corner of the room where the door is located.
Then, build the "carferry" as a rolling interchange, with its "deck" easily adjustable in height, so that it could be "cranked-up" to layout height. You'd need a storage track or two at the interchange points on the layout, but you could, if the main layout is high enough, also model the staging yards as sceniced parts of the layout, albeit on their own level.

I'm not a big fan of yards on a model railroad, unless you've got excess room to spare for what is essentially a parking lot. I know that they can be switched, but then they're not usually considered a staging yard, which, in my opinion, is more useful for a home layout than a classification yard.

I've chosen to stack my staging yards atop one another, although I don't recall if that's because the layout is meant to be double-decked or if the layout is double-decked because of the stacked staging. :?

Another option, especially if you decide to treat the entire layout as an industrial switching district, is to use a single staging yard to represent both SP and ATSF. Simply stage whatever trains from them as you wish, although an "on-the-layout" staging yard might warrant physically removing or adding locos to the layout as required.

Having such a spacious layout room offers many options, but some of the ones chosen before starting the layout will determine if you use that space to its best advantage in addressing your particular interests.

Wayne

[Gary S]

Sumpter, here are the dimensions and layout of the room. The room to the right will be a bunch of continuous shelves. The only break is at the door in the upper left of the drawing as shown in the original post. So, the point-to-point is from the right side of the door, all the way around the room, and then to the left side of the door.

[Gary S]

Back to my original thought... the point-to-point ending at each side of the door is what I have invisioned since the inception of the layout building. The reason I like that is that the trains really are going to distinct locations, and for me, the overall "feel" of that is "appropriate"... I mean, it just feels good to me.

But the thought hit me that I could gain even more room for industy trackage by combining the interchanges at the far left. To me, this sacrifices the realism of the layout, in that trains from both directions end up at the same place.

As for car floats and all that... very creative. My intent was to model a freelanced shortline/industrial railroad similar to the LAJ and loosely based on the industrial parks around Houston, Texas.

Wayne, when you say put the staging under the layout, you mean have a track on grade that goes down to a lower shelf with the staging?

My thoughts on the interchanges: The interchange yards would be scenically complete and would be where cars come off of and go onto the layout. I would have storage drawers underneath. Between operating sessions, the cars leaving my railroad would be placed back in storage, and new cars would be placed on the interchange tracks based on some type of waybill system or whatever. During the operating session, we would drop off the new arrivals at their industries, at the same time we would pick up loaded cars and empties and take them back to the proper interchange (later to be removed by hand from the railroad entirely). In this way, the staging isn't so much a parking lot as being a real destination where cars really leave the layout.

[Gary S]

I've chosen to stack my staging yards atop one another, although I don't recall if that's because the layout is meant to be double-decked or if the layout is double-decked because of the stacked staging. :?

Another option, especially if you decide to treat the entire layout as an industrial switching district, is to use a single staging yard to represent both SP and ATSF. Simply stage whatever trains from them as you wish, although an "on-the-layout" staging yard might warrant physically removing or adding locos to the layout as required.

That's kind ofthe idea in #2. But having the interchange yards seperated as in #1 seems more pleasing as for "doing what a real railroad does". I'm still partial to #1, but I wanted to see if anyone had any compelling reasons to do #2.

Having such a spacious layout room offers many options, but some of the ones chosen before starting the layout will determine if you use that space to its best advantage in addressing your particular interests.

My mindset seems to be much like David Barrow's with his straight shelves and "orderliness" rather than the flowing curves and such of Ian Rice. I think I want a straight-forward, easily understandable track plan which is "intuitive." But every alternate idea you guys can put before me will at least let me make an informed decision on my options.

[doctorwayne]

Back to my original thought... the point-to-point ending at each side of the door is what I have invisioned since the inception of the layout building. The reason I like that is that the trains really are going to distinct locations, and for me, the overall "feel" of that is "appropriate"... I mean, it just feels good to me.

I agree, Gary, I prefer the railroad to "go somewhere" rather than back to where it started.

But the thought hit me that I could gain even more room for industy trackage by combining the interchanges at the far left. To me, this sacrifices the realism of the layout, in that trains from both directions end up at the same place.

As for car floats and all that... very creative. My intent was to model a freelanced shortline/industrial railroad similar to the LAJ and loosely based on the industrial parks around Houston, Texas.

Yeah, I jumped on the carfloat idea because it's something that I wish I could have included on my layout. I do have one, sorta, although it's on interchange partner TH&B's trackage and is unmodelled.
If it doesn't suit your prototype inspiration, don't include it.

Wayne, when you say put the staging under the layout, you mean have a track on grade that goes down to a lower shelf with the staging?

No, the idea was to make the staging physically separated from the layout itself. The only connection would be via the "carferry", which I envisioned as a rolling cart, the height of whose top could be adjusted from that of staging to that of the layout proper. Using a grade between the two would eat-up too much real estate - a 2% grade would require 50' of track to put staging 12" below the layout.

My thoughts on the interchanges: The interchange yards would be scenically complete and would be where cars come off of and go onto the layout. I would have storage drawers underneath. Between operating sessions, the cars leaving my railroad would be placed back in storage, and new cars would be placed on the interchange tracks based on some type of waybill system or whatever. During the operating session, we would drop off the new arrivals at their industries, at the same time we would pick up loaded cars and empties and take them back to the proper interchange (later to be removed by hand from the railroad entirely). In this way, the staging isn't so much a parking lot as being a real destination where cars really leave the layout.

If your staging is meant to be visible, then scenery is a good idea. Your operating scenario is similar to what I have envisioned for my own layout, where cars will cycle on or off the layout, using car cards and waybills. Because my staging yards are stacked fairly closely together, scenery will be impractical for all but the topmost one.

Wayne

[faraway]

...The interchange yards would be scenically complete ....

That was my understanding from the beginning. We are not talking about hidden pure functional staging yards but two separate yards.
That is the reason why I suggested to go with two interchange yards. I would carefully design both yards with different track plans and different scenery. Both should have a track leading to the SP/ATSF worlds. That might be the bridge at the door or the mentioned ferry at the door.

[Ralph]

If you go with option 2 Gary how about separating the two staging yards so the back one is hidden, perhaps by the walls of buildings so you can still scenic the other one and have it visible. That would create the illusion of trains going someplace of layout to another destination.

Ralph

[TrainNut]

Thinking ahead a little bit, I can't help but wonder how deep the layout will be to the wall, what kind of radii you will be using? If you are going with 2' deep, that will give you 6' aisles? Probably a bit more then eh? Will it indeed be quite linear as you've depicted, or will it randomly freeform in and out around various industries and scenic features with access panels towards the back? Will you have any change in grade or are you going to try and keep that to a minimum?

I'm not a big fan of the point to point layouts as I like to sit back and watch 'em run... BUT it would seem logical to have one yard on each side of the doorway for maximum seperation.

EDIT: I got to thinking about this later this morning and I seem to remember you talking about how you couldn't wait to get the layout moved in. Sooo, with that said, how much of the layout that will go into this building is already built?

[Sumpter250]

Back to my original thought... the point-to-point ending at each side of the door is what I have invisioned since the inception of the layout building. The reason I like that is that the trains really are going to distinct locations, and for me, the overall "feel" of that is "appropriate"... I mean, it just feels good to me.

My thoughts on the interchanges: The interchange yards would be scenically complete and would be where cars come off of and go onto the layout. I would have storage drawers underneath. Between operating sessions, the cars leaving my railroad would be placed back in storage, and new cars would be placed on the interchange tracks based on some type of waybill system or whatever.

My other reason for suggesting "car ferry", was this; it would be a way of removing, and replacing cars on the layout (and an additional operation step) without a lot of "hands on", which can eventually lead to detail being damaged (I "hands on", place and remove all the time on the modular group layout....I gave up on detail a long time ago). At the same time, there's no permanent/semi-permanent door blockage, and no fiddling with lift bridge alignment.
Where you have a specific location in mind, that doesn't have car ferries, that becomes something that would require constant "explaining". :o