my new track plan

[nomad]

After discussing my track plan on another thread, I thought I should post it, so here goes. :oops:
This is ho. The table is actually two levels, with seven inches of height difference. Each level being one foot wide. The yellow line is the divider. The tables will free standing. This was the best I could come up with to give me the longest mainline. Staging tracks are on the upper right, with a small yard also on the upper level. The three track siding after the curve would be an interchange.
Minimum radius is 22" and the grade coming down the curve should be 2.5%.
I envision a city back drop behind the upper level yard, going around the curve it would change to a rural scene with plenty of pine trees. I am also thinking about putting a stream before the swing back curve, a small waterfall, then the stream would curve to the left and go underneath a bridge or trestle on the curved track.
Starting behind the interchange, the backdrop would change to a seedy, run down industrial area, and then gradually change to a city scene again behind the lower staging tracks. The biggest drawback I see is that all the buildings would need to be flats, which means I cut the buildings I have in half or buy new ones.
Oh, and reach on the big table is no problem, the bottom area is open. Nothing here is set in stone and can be changed.
So what do you think? Any comments or ideas are definitely welcome and needed.

Loren

[nomad]

I am thinking about moving the interchange to the upper level just after the curve leaving the table with the yard. That way the interchange would become part of the railroad connected to the yard and the rest of the layout would be a branch line. Does that make sense? I think that would help operations. Or should I make that little yard an interchange instead and not have a yard? H' mmm

Loren

[steinjr]

After discussing my track plan on another thread, I thought I should post it, so here goes. :oops:
This is ho. The table is actually two levels, with seven inches of height difference. Each level being one foot wide. The yellow line is the divider. The tables will free standing.

Not sure I totally understand your description, looking at the plan and reading what you wrote. You seem to have a room that is at least 24 feet wide and more than 20 feet long (since you comment that you have room to walk below the turnback blob at lower left).

How big a room do you really have available, and what distances to walls, doors, windows etc do you have to contend with ?

I also don't quite understand the scenic divider and those two 1 foot deep shelves separated by a scenic divider your plan.

Are you saying that your layout will be up against the left and top wall, and look kinda like two stair steps - lowest step is 1 foot deep, then a 7 inch step up, and then an upper step that also is one foot deep ?

Or are you saying that your layout stands in the middle of the floor and you can walk all around it on all four sides, so it is kinda like having two one foot deep shelves hanging on opposite sides of a small supporting wall ?

Guess what I am saying is that it is difficult to comment on a layout plan without knowing what the space the layout will be fitted into will look like, and without quite understanding what you are trying to model.

FWIW, Byron Henderson has a pretty good list of questions he asks his potensial customers before starting on a layout design for the customer. He is a "pro" in this context I guess, but the questions are general enough to be used by people who do their own design as well. Here is a link: http://www.layoutvision.com/id13.html

The Layout Design Special Interest Group (LDSIG) of the NMRA also has a pretty good primer on design considerations at their web site: http://macrodyn.com/ldsig/wiki/index.php...ory:Primer

Smile,
Stein

[nomad]

Sorry to make it sound so confusing. This shows the area I have and how much I can use. The two red areas are a man door and the garage door.
The area is 24 x24 ft. I can use 2 x 24 along the back, and 4 x 20 on the left side ( but then I need to bring the left table away from the wall anyhow, so I might as well stay at 2 ft ), with the 5 x 8 blob on the bottom. The top and left side are against the walls.
The layout plan I posted is actually built like a step, with the inside 7"s higher. I drew this up over the weekend, and now that I step back, this plan leaves a lot to be desired.
Thank you for the links, and I have read them many times. But no matter how many times I read articles about track planning, I don't get it. I will be the first to admit I stink at track planning. :oops:

Any one willing to give me some help here?

Loren

[LynnB]

I stink at trackplanning too , most of us stink at it because we really don't know what we want
Do you have any structures built or are planning to build for the layout? Do you intend to have rivers and bridges and mountains?

[steinjr]

Any one willing to give me some help here?

What is you design vision ? I mean - those questions by Byron are actually pretty good at making you consider your goals and desires and write them down. Someone else can help you with the track plan (the how), but you first need to describe your goal (the what)

As Byron writes on the web page I linked to " If you close your eyes and imagine the perfect scene, what does it include?"

You describe a layout with two city areas (one of them with a run down industrial area) separated by a rural area, with an interchange with another railroad somewhere along the way. Pine trees and a track crossing the river on a trestle.

Close your eyes and imagine your railroad being located somewhere in the US. Where would it fit in ? Are we talking Washington State ? Montana ? Ohio ? Ozark plateau ? West Virginia ? Maine ? Somewhere else ? That will help you figure out what type of railroad your railroad would be.

Are you picturing steam engines in the 1880s ? 1900 steam engines ? 1930 steam engines ? Small steam switchers and small trains ? 1950s colorful early diesel switchers ? EMD SD40-2s ? Big 6 axle diesels ?

Will passenger trains run through your town ? Modern Amtrak equipment ? Interurbans in the 1940s ? Name trains pulled by powerful steam engines ?

Do you have any favorite railroads ?

I am sure there are quite a few more questions - but I would start with your vision - where are we ? what year is it ? what type of railroad is this ?

Smile,
Stein

[nomad]

Here is my givens and druthers.

[nomad]

Lynn, thanks for replying. I actually have a small ( 2 x 12 ) switching layout now in the dining room with various structures on it now. Here is an old pic. Bridges and such would be nice, but if it came down to it, I would pick an industrial siding over the scenery. I love to operate !

Loren

[steinjr]

Here is my givens and druthers.

Mmmm - we are talking Pacific Northwest, your initial claim is "any era"/"any railroad"/"no prototype", but if we drill in a little the combination of rural area with trestles across rivers, passenger traffic with Budd RDC (Rail Diesel Cars) and local switching with maximum car length 40 scale feet may indicate something like "branchline somewhere in Washington State or Oregon sometime between 1940 and 1960s or so" ?

One town you describe as run down/industrial. What about the other - smallish town? Junction with a class 1 railroad ? Say the Milwaukee Road, the Great Northern or the Northern Pacific ? Or if later - with the Burlington Road ?

What do the little people on your layout make their living from - logging ? growing grain ? growing apples ? Cattle ? Fishing boats ? Working on an Army base ? Building airplanes ?

Are we near the coast ? Agricultural highlands ? In the Rockies ?

Keep trying to come up with a description of your fictional town - it will let you picture the scenes you want to create, and what kind of traffic you want to run through your scenes.

Smile,
Stein

[nomad]

Ok Stein, here's more.

combination of rural area with trestles across rivers, passenger traffic with Budd RDC (Rail Diesel Cars) and local switching with maximum car length 40 scale feet may indicate something like "branchline somewhere in Washington State or Oregon sometime between 1940 and 1960s or so" ?

That hits it right there !

Defiantly smallish towns, if I interchange with a class 1 I would pick the Union Pacific. I have never been interested in waterfront scenes, but like the idea of cold storage and icing platforms, maybe livestock handling? And as I mentioned earlier, I like switching industries. Not big ones where you set out and pick up 10 cars at a time, but many 1 or 2 car industries so you do a lot of setting out and picking up along the line.

Loren

[LynnB]

Lynn, thanks for replying. I actually have a small ( 2 x 12 ) switching layout now in the dining room with various structures on it now. Here is an old pic. Bridges and such would be nice, but if it came down to it, I would pick an industrial siding over the scenery. I love to operate !

Loren

So do you plan to try to incorporate this into the new layout?

[nomad]

Lynn, I do not. This was mainly an experiment on building my own turnouts. I learned a lot and will continue to build my own, but some of the turnouts are pretty rough, and I don't feel that this layout is worth keeping.

Loren

[LynnB]

Ah ok so starting right from scratch.

[nomad]

Yep. Also, I used code 83 track and really didn't like working with it, so I am going back to code 100. But, I will use the code 83 rail for turnouts in industrial areas.

Loren

[LynnB]

Ok so I'm going to try to type my thoughts here....I can somehow bet my life on the fact that you've gone through not only layout plans but also layouts that are in the works, been there still do the veiwing others layout progress and always getting new ideas. So saying that if the palm of your hand isn't already sore and shiney I'd take a bit more looking and when you see a picture in the layout you like and or a part of a trackplan you like right click on it and save the picture to a specific folder and well the part of the layout plan will need to be partially erased to keep the good part.
Now for the fun part of the trackplan editing , rather than trying to put the bits and pieces of the track plans into software tape together 4-5 double wide 8.5x11 sheets of blank paper and draw what you liked onto the sheets. The saved pictures just verify what you like to see in a layout. As for a switching operation you can still have scenery along with industry operations , I know cuz I have it on my layout. Well enough of my ramblings I'm hoping by the time you wake up from this post someone that knows what there doing will come along and pitch in.