UP SD40-2's NEW Layout

[UP SD40-2]

Gus, GLAD your still here, THANKS!! :mrgreen:

Steve, I wish I looked that good . I quit smoking cigarettes and have gained a lot of weight :oops: .

Now tell me about that beautiful furkid in the picture.
Charlie

Charlie, that's Phoebe, shes a Shiloh Shepard, they are bigger then regular German shepards and have a lot more hair. She is extremely smart too. On a scale of 1-10 my wife and son like trains at a -12 , but Phoebe is always ready to help, why every board that hit the floor she would grab and run off with, see, great help... . Don't let the innocent face fool ya, she loves people but her prey drive is off the charts, she is the bully of the neighborhood.





Oh yea, your right about the room too Charlie, I cant wait to run all the big stuff I have again, the Big boy, 2 Challengers, 2 Cab forwards, Veranda gas turbine, Y-3, Northern, Mountain, DD40AX etc. :mrgreen:

[BR60103]

Deano: minor suggestion on the planning.
A triangular piece inside each corner will let you increase the radius quite a bit. You can move the main tracks out from the back, or leave them there and have a huge curve.

[UP SD40-2]

David, BRAVO! that idea is slap awesome

thank you!

[UP SD40-2]

Had enough time to open one box tonight in hopes I had switches in it, no luck there but I did find two items I completely forgot I had....the AEROTRAIN and ZEPHYR!! Christmas in April I tell ya :mrgreen:

[Steve]

I loved that AEROTRAIN!, and of course the ZEPHYR is always a hit...great find. I have a feeling you are going to strike gold in pretty much every box you open

Beautiful dog!

[Charlie B]

Deano, Phoebe is beautiful, and playful is great too. Our furkids are past the play stage, but being Samoyeds, they only play with dogs, they are not interested in too much human interaction other than cuddling.
Charlie

[BR60103]

Deano:
I just did a small calculation. If you have a 30" radius curve, mounted exactly at the layout edge, the mid-point will stick about 12.5" out from the corner. [formula: 30*(sqrt(2)-1) ] a bit more or less to allow for the width or the ROW.
Similarly, a 30" curve from the back wall could be accommodated in a one-foot shelf with a little bit extra on the inside corner.
When I did my corners, I cut a 4x8 sheet of Homasote with a 2' radius curve at the inside corner, which fit well with the 2' shelves I was making.

[UP SD40-2]

Thanks for your input/advice David

I'm a little disappointed tonight, made a cardboard 30 radius template, placed two of my Milwaukee pass cars on it, wow, not convinced the curve is big enough to make the cars look good going through it . It takes so much space to do too, I have to start the curve 3.5' from the end of the board to give enough room for the double mainline to make it. Doing that gives me just 7' of straight track on the 16' sides of the layout. I am strongly thinking of doing the outside main at 32R, means less room but... :cry: .

I could go 2' longer making the layout an 18'x 11' rectangle, that brings the cost up a bit, but the extra 2' in length might be worth it :| . So is the problems with big stuff to run, its so awesome to have but you just need so much room to run it.

Just two oddball shots...

[Twist]

Hi there,

so welcome here and I think you´re off to a good start...Great room to build a fine layout.So keep things going.

It´s a nice dog you have there.

Cheers,Chris

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Thanks for your input/advice David

I'm a little disappointed tonight, made a cardboard 30 radius template, placed two of my Milwaukee pass cars on it, wow, not convinced the curve is big enough to make the cars look good going through it . It takes so much space to do too, I have to start the curve 3.5' from the end of the board to give enough room for the double mainline to make it. Doing that gives me just 7' of straight track on the 16' sides of the layout. I am strongly thinking of doing the outside main at 32R, means less room but... :cry: .

I could go 2' longer making the layout an 18'x 11' rectangle, that brings the cost up a bit, but the extra 2' in length might be worth it :| . So is the problems with big stuff to run, its so awesome to have but you just need so much room to run it.

Just two oddball shots...

Deano,

I'm not sure if the same specifications apply to those Milwaukee Road cars, but I know from my own research, that the 85' Jersey Arrow commuter cars have a minimum prototype radius of 250 ft. This translates to just about 36" radius in HO scale.

If these cars are like my commuter cars, They would likely need closer to 36" to begin to look prototypical.

This doesn't help your space predicament any, but then I'm sure there is a way to adapt to this.

[UP SD40-2]

David, thanks for the "add a corner triangle" idea, wow, it will really help a lot .

Chris(twist) , Thanks for the complements, if my layout comes out even half as good as I see yours is coming along I would be more then happy .

Chris(G_E_C) Thanks for the input on the 36r curves, your so right, but ugh...it takes so much room .

UPDATE:

Well, I got enough wood to do two more sections on the layout this last weekend, just finished putting it up too :mrgreen: .



I thought ok, well, 30r wasn't good for the curves so how about 33r?, as you can see, it really didn't make a big difference, still the cars going through the curve doesn't look great :cry: . To put an end to the insanity I am going 34r and moving the whole thing down a bit so I will need the triangles David mentioned on the corners to make it work. Sadly it will eat up so much room the straight sections wont be that long, but the heck with it, I will make due and be thankful I have what I have. 8-) (both pics below show 33r curve)





Double mainline, inside track at 3.5 inches in from inside edge, outer mainline will be set at 6'' from inside edge.

Till next time, stay on track folks

[Charlie B]

Keep the faith Deano, It's looking good, and you will achieve terrific results. We have seen your pictures.
Charlie

[BR60103]

Deano:
My target radius is 30", but I have templates for 24, 36 and 60 as well. (plus a few for the radii around 30). I had a weird problem when I was trying to lay track around my loops, which I had cut and painted for the 30" radius and it didn't seem to want to fit. I'd almost done the whole thing before I realized I was trying to use the 36" template.

I have two 6' wide corners (wall to door opening) so the 30" radius fits with a bit to spare.

I have a long bridge - 4 1/2 feet - that my wife likes to see in the layout. On a previous layout there was a dimension of 10', so bridge plus 30" radius left nothing for anything else along that side.

[doctorwayne]

I built my layout without a trackplan, in an oddly-shaped room which needed lots of curves. I decided on a minimum mainline radius of 30", and cut-up a sheet of plywood, starting across one end, with two 30" curves, followed by a pair each at 32", 34", and 36". I then spliced the pairs together to gain a more useful length, and simply went around the room with each, laying them in-turn on the benchwork to see which ones fit best and where the ends of the curve would fall. Placing one end nearer the wall and rotating the other suggested options on where the straight sections would lie.
Since you're working on a solid table top, you could cut out cardboard from some large boxes (ask at a place selling appliances - they should have lots of large boxes free for the asking) and see what looks best and which sizes place the straight sections where you want them.
It's usually visually more appealing if the straight track doesn't parallel the edge of the layout, so if the straight track enters a curve near the wall, you'll get the broadest curves but the shortest sections of straight track. The cut-out cardboard curves will help you choose which compromise looks best.
In most places, I angled the track towards the wall as it approached a corner and then brought it closer to the front as it went around the curve.



As soon as the curve ended, I curved it in the opposite direction, back towards the wall.



In this manner, I had the 30" minimum in only one place, and not on the main, either. Most curves ended up at 34", with a few larger.
While tight inside curves can make long cars look awkward, tight outside curves, like this one, can really make long cars look bad:



Wayne

[Charlie B]

This is how I handled the need for broad radii. I built in the center of the room so I could walk around and reach everything . You don't have that option, but I did as Wayne is suggesting, with some exceptions. This is only the center section, the layout makes a complete loop. I have one mainline curve that had to be 34 inches. It is the inside track on a 4 track main, the others increase by 2 inch increments.    

I had a basic plan, but there were many changes that had to be made to make it work.
Charlie