Ottawa Valley CN/CP

[MasonJar]

I am helping a friend with his first major layout - he's had a 2x6 switching and 4x8 continuous run previously. He has negotiated rights to a room all his own and we're kicking ideas around.

Locale: Ottawa Valley
Era: 1975-85
Type: Round the walls
Purpose: Operations and continuous run

Please let me know what you think of this:

   


Thanks!

Andrew

[Catt]

Plan looks good to me.It is fairly simple and not crowded with to much track.Since I like bridges the two water ways please my eyes too.I do have a few questions

1)- what is the overall size of the layout ?

2)-what is the era ?

3)- will there be space for a town or at least some houses for the LPBs ?

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

Looks like 11.5 x 7'. HO I assume?

[MasonJar]

Thanks guys. Catt I like your overall assessment.

It is indeed HO, and is 11'6" x 7'. The era is mid-70s to mid-80s.

There may be space for homes or shops in the Almonte section, behind the Town Hall. Good idea!

Andrew

[Canadian Atlantic Railway]

I like the overall look of it myself and will offer one suggestion that is something I wish I could do for my own set up. If you have that extra 6-8" around the room I would use it for a staging track to get the trains on and off the layout using the Ottawa and Toronto tracks.

[Catt]

Andrew, I am re designing my N scale layout and this is the second HO plan I have discovered that could be altered to fit my area.The space I am using is 10'6" x 9'.So this plan is definitely food for thought. It needed to be flipped left to right for my space which I did and it looks like I have some serious thinking to do before April rolls around. :mrgreen:

[Brakie]

First I like the design of your layout and open pit layouts in general.

One thing you may wish to consider is a lift section so, you won't have to crawl under the layout.

[MasonJar]

Railnet - Thanks for the reminder about surround staging. It might be possible, although most of the curves at at 18" radius as it is. But definitely something to think about.

Catt - If it can help you, then by all means, please use it as you see fit.

Brakie - There is a lift out at the lower left defined by a red rectangle. It's a complete lift out, not a drop or hinged/swing section. Is one preferred over the other?


Andrew

[Brakie]

Brakie - There is a lift out at the lower left defined by a red rectangle. It's a complete lift out, not a drop or hinged/swing section. Is one preferred over the other?


Andrew
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Andrew,I suppose that would be a personal preference...I would favor a lift out myself.

Yes,I see the red square area now..I missed that when I looked over your plan for possible operation scenarios-I started visualizing operation scenarios with MR's Doug Smith's track plan for Car card/waybill operation back in '61.

[MasonJar]

I started visualizing operation scenarios with MR's Doug Smith's track plan for Car card/waybill operation back in '61.

So this is really a point to point (Smiths Falls to Renfrew) but with continuous run possible. I've marked the beginning and end of the point to point with the red arrow. Trains going north/west from Smiths Falls yard go counter-clockwise (except trains to Toronto or Ottawa which are represented by staging tracks in the upper right). The sole destination south of the yard is the Hershey chocolate factory.

I had pretty much thought of the Smiths Falls - Renfrew job as a "turn". They are miles apart in real life (83km or 50 miles), so a return trip would be 100 miles, or what I think is about one shift. The run around is to help with putting the engine on the front of the train for the return trip, and so the Foundary and Textile mill can be switched as trailing sidings on the way back to Smith's Falls.

The other job is to switch the Hershey plant. Again, the run around could be used, but since the plant is actually within the town of Smiths Falls, it wouldn't necessarily be out of the question to back from the yard (layout is set within the caboose era).

I know my friend Dave also wants to run continuously just for enjoyment of watching the trains, hence the continuous run capacity.

What sort of operations could you visualize for this layout?

Thanks,

Andrew

[BR60103]

My wife insisted (backed by one of my modelling friends) that I add a continuous run to my previous layout. She felt that I'd run more trains that way.

Except for Smiths Falls itself, that's all track that I don't remember being on.

[jcj380]

I have an aesthetic issue with main route(s) running through the diverging side of turnouts, IOW, I prefer the spur on the diverging route. However, there's at least one proto example about 4 miles from me where the main route takes the diverging with a spur on the through route, so...

I would try to add some staging if possible.

[MasonJar]

Thanks JCJ,

That would be my preference too, but not 100% sure I can make it fit that way. Software says no, but software also can't trim turnouts and fudge radii (17.8" vs 18").

There was an earlier suggestion about surround staging that I might try to incorporate.

Andrew

[Brakie]

Andrew,I would operate that layout as a point to point short line. I would start the day by picking up cars off the interchange and then proceed making up my train in yard A and would head clock wise out of the yard and would make two laps before switching the first industry and make 2 or 3 before switching the next industry in line.I would turn my train at yard B and switch Hersey on the return trip.I would put the outbound cars on the interchange track before tying up for the day.

I would use the tracks to Toronto and Ottawa as my interchange tracks and of course yards A and B are the same but,its being used as two separate yards--that's a old school operating thing.

[Engfanuk]

Nice plan. I would suggest trying to increase minimum radii as even though rolling stock might negotiate 18" it won't look great on exposed areas of the layout.

Are you planning manual or electrically operated turnouts? If the layout must be operated from within then some turnouts are a bit of a reach. On the same topic if you want to manually decouple then the CP scrape yard is going to be a reach and might damage scenary if those trees are going to actually be in those positions. My preference is for any decoupling to be on sidings closer to the position of operation in relation to the main.

Hope this helps,

Steve.