4X8 layouts

[faraway]

That is a very clever and robust design reusing available parts. Do you lower the layout on a support or is a swinging?

[kamerad47]

It sits on a pair of folding saw horses!!

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I see you have one of the Bachmann multilevels for your NJ transit train. Have you considered the Island Model Works multi-levels? They aren't so bad with some tweaking.

[kamerad47]

I bought the 2 of the Bachmann multi-levels & the NJT F40ph, new old stock for $50.00 to good to pass up I going to try to get by with some decals??? Mean while here is a pic of the County own Dundee transload yard ( still a work in progress ) that the PRT switches, I'll give you the back story & some more pics later on down the road !!!

[hillyard999]

Hello all,

"Tell us about your 4x8"
At last, a discussion I can contribute something to !
: )

Here's a summary of my 4x8:

What: Willamette City Belt Line
...a connecting railroad loosely inspired by Harbor Belt Line & LA Junction. Actual layout inspired by Nov 1993 RMC article ( Learning from a layout-- Model Trains go to School).

Where:
Willamette Valley in Oregon. Originally conceived as a fictional West Coast metropolis located north of San Francisco and south of Seattle. This was scaled back over time, I mostly model what I see , mostly industries in Salem , with a few from other places in the Valley.

When: "modern", 1980 - present.

How:
Schematically, WCBL is the cross bar in a capital "H". It connects between Union Pacific and Portland & Western RR. The UP is on the right vertical element and Portland Western is the left vertical.

The actual layout is a loop (surprise!) with two interchanges on one end. Trains operate as a turn. They come onto the layout from the UP interchange & yard, travel several loops between the Fairgrounds District (near side) and Front Street area (far side), finally reaching the interchange with PNWR, then reversing. I rebuilt the layout once, with minor changes, when I replaced brass track with NS.

Most trains are one locomotive, 8 cars maximum, plus caboose required by modelers license to due street running. Passing sidings will hold 4-6 cars.
Due to the modest layout size, industries car needs are selectively compressed, with the maximum capacity at 3 cars. Fortunately, there are several prototype industries in Salem which receive 4 or less cars: Cascade Warehouse and Truitt Brothers on Front Street, Ventura Foods (salad oils/margarines), and Oregon Cherry Growers (maraschino cherries).

Online Industries:
Cascade Warehouse Company(lumber shipping); Truitt Brothers Cannery; Oregon Cherry Growers (corn syrup in); West Coast Plastics ; Ventura Foods LLC (salad oils/margarines); Bridgeport Brewery; Oregon Transfer Co; Fairgrounds transload/team track.

Offline industries:
Minto Industrial Park - Esco (foundry/castings for wearable parts such as track links and bucket teeth); Don Panchos (packaged tortillas); Pacific Pole and Pilings (creosoted products out); Consolidated Supply Co; Great Western Chemical Co.; ; Cherry City Metals (scrap out); Ram Steelco (structural- in); R&B Rubber Products (shredded tires out); White Trucking (dairy feeds- in); Glacier NW (cement in). Via offline connections: Pacific Seafoods (frozen fish & canned catfood); Cascade Steel Mills (scrap in, rebar out)'; Corvallis Feed and Seed; Marion Ag Services (fertilizer in).

Operations:
In order to insert some independence and unpredictability for operations, for several years I used an excel worksheet to generate random car orders. This all changed when I found an online group that forwards cars to one another's layouts, via an internet waybill application. Since then, 95% of my traffic is via virtual interchange with members of that group. The downside to this is that I tend to use most of my RR time in operations ! Further development of scenery & structures is far below the scenic standards I see demonstrated on Big Blue, remaining mostly a representational approach on plywood. But hey, it's fun!

--Doug
Willamette City Belt Line
Salem, Oregon.

[kamerad47]

I managed to get a little work in on the layout (4x8) on a cold a rainy sunday & took a couple of pics of the only permanent building in the Dundee transload yard it is RCR Trucking & Warehousing they do rail to truck , truck to truck shipping a warehouse work. There is room for 2 boxcars to unload on a platform. (not done still a work in progress)

[faraway]

The building has very interesting shape.

[Lester Perry]

The building has very interesting shape.

That is just what I was thinking

[shortliner]

Hello all,


Operations:
In order to insert some independence and unpredictability for operations, for several years I used an excel worksheet to generate random car orders. This all changed when I found an online group that forwards cars to one another's layouts, via an internet waybill application.

--Doug
Willamette City Belt Line
Salem, Oregon.

Doug - do you still have the Excel worksheet? If you do, I'd be interested to see it please

[hillyard999]

Shortliner,

Happy to share the worksheet. I found two versions of the excel worksheet, I will look for an earlier version in my archives that might be more straightforward & could be adapted and understood easier. Due to personal commitment I'll be busy for the next week or so, will return to this topic afterwards.

The worksheet makes use of named ranges to make formulas easier, and overall is based on concept of dice roll lookup tables once commonly found in wargame strategy boardgames aka combat results tables. Each industry has a table for number of cars needed, and another dependent table for types of cars needed. A waybill switchlist consolidates the resulting random generated car demand for each industry. This worked fairly well generating car demand for a small layout. not so sure it would be useful for a larger one.

later,
Doug

[kamerad47]

To cold to do much on the layout today, But here are a couple of pics another track in the Dundee transload yard. It's a diesel motor driven auger loader that they use to unload hopper cars. The PRT brings in a car once a week to unload to trucks , with soda ash for the counties sewerage treatment plant down the road!! ( still a work in progress )

[railroader9731]

Intresting layout ideas here and some nice pics to boot. So heres my 2 cents.... my daughter has expressed intrest in my trains from watching them to wanting to run them. So I decided to build a fun yet simple layout that she can run trains around and for me to tinker with. Perhaps get her into painting and playing in the elmers glue lol.

[kamerad47]

Here is a pic of B.T.O. Enterprises, they lease the back part of the 1st St. yard where they unload gons loaded with shredded scrap iron into 20' containers to truck to the port Newark for the far east . That's my homemade container tilter . Here's my pic's of the real thing , all my industries are based on what I've seen in real life or in pictures!!! It's still a work in progress !!!!! :o hock:

[jwb]

Kamerad, what did you do to make the burned-out car in the lower right of the first photo?

[kamerad47]

It' s just a cheap dollar store die cast car that I carefully cut some parts off of it with a deremel & weather it a little !! It's in my head, But i always remember seeing a video of a conrail loco ( late 70's early 80's) going through NY (Brooklyn or Bronx) & passing a stripped 78 caddy next to the track!!! Allways like that look!!!!