Mike Kieran Wrote:Sorry Justin,
I also meant to add that I liked your track plan.

Once you figure out what industries are served, then you figure out what cars are being shuttled in and out. One rule of thumb to keep in mind is to use no more than half of your layout's capacity. If your layout can fit 20 cars in its sidings, then use no more than 10 cars per operating session.

My layout is going to be based off of Jack Hill's layout: http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/

Industries are:
-Consolidated Container
-Premier Chemical
-I am still deciding on a third industry, It's probably going to be either a food processor or a scrap yard.

Plus an Interchange track and empty space on the Premier Chemical spur is used for Storage.

Justin ,Mr.Hill has a fine switching layout..I like the way he has modeled out of service track-a very nice touch.

faraway Wrote:

torikoos Wrote:...Of course, in your model world...

Hi Koos, I am not so sure I did fully understand your posting. I assume you did use a great deal of irony and sarcasm and agree with me that a class I RR would not assign a dedicated engine to that track. But why did you quote my answer? I am not sure... :?:

Hi Reinhard, it didn't mean it in any offensive way, perhaps I did not express myself clearly enough, so if I offended, or came across as such, I sincerely apologise. What I mean't to say was that as you rightly say, a class 1 will probably not have operated that way. What I meant that on a model railway (Justin's in this case) you (in general) can bend the truth a little bit and do operate in that manner, for a bit of fun or perhaps preference. After all it is your (in a general broader term, not you as a person) model railway.
I didn't mean to be critical, just pointing out that personal preference or enjoyment may mean that someone will choose to operate his/her model railway in a different manner , which may be less prototypical, but if the person enjoys it, there's nothing wrong with it in my opinion. I may not want to do it myself, or at least not on purpose, but someone will point that out and I learn from that.

As Justin appears to be younger than me, he's still learning (as I am too). What I want to say to him is: yes by all means learn how the prototype operated if that's what you want, but don't let it stop you enjoy a model railroad if you're at a stage that you do not yet know everything about such operations, operate it anyway you want, to get maximum enjoyment out of it. If that means you're able to do that 100% prototypical correct, then that's great, if it means only 50% correct, but you still enjoy it immensely, then that is great too!

I hope this was a little more clear? Sorry again if I offended, I really did not mean to do that.

Cheers everyone, Koos

torikoos Wrote:...I hope this was a little more clear? Sorry again if I offended, I really did not mean to do that...

Koos, everything is ok I was simply not sure how to understand your posting.

Justinmiller171 Wrote:

Mike Kieran Wrote:Sorry Justin,
I also meant to add that I liked your track plan.

Once you figure out what industries are served, then you figure out what cars are being shuttled in and out. One rule of thumb to keep in mind is to use no more than half of your layout's capacity. If your layout can fit 20 cars in its sidings, then use no more than 10 cars per operating session.

My layout is going to be based off of Jack Hill's layout: http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/

Industries are:
-Consolidated Container
-Premier Chemical
-I am still deciding on a third industry, It's probably going to be either a food processor or a scrap yard.

Plus an Interchange track and empty space on the Premier Chemical spur is used for Storage.

It's a great design. You adapted it by making it the mirror image of Jack Hill's layout.This is actually what got me started on doing an ISL design without a runaround, and ultimately my Port Able Railway. I then got Lance Mindheim's book and was further reinforced. The final push for my layout's design was that I couldn't fit 2 runaround tracks in the space that I had.

The next step is to figure out your traffic flow. By figuring the total traffic flow of cars both in and out. If anything, it's so that you can figure out a budget for the most expensive part of the layout, the freight cars (unless you are an IPD boxcar addict, like me - see another thread).

I was just reading about a small shortline that resembles your existing track plan known as the Rahway Valley Railroad. It would fit nicely into your space with reasonable compression.

The Rahway Valley has a lot of history, starting off as a bridgeline between the Delaware Lackawanna & Western in the North and the Lehigh Valley and Central Railroad of New Jersey in the South. This was incredibly profitable, and in the early 50s, the railroad retired its steam and replaced it with two GE 70 ton switchers (just like the Spectrum models), which were operated until 1989. Eventually, all the railroad lines on both ends were merged into Conrail, negating the need for a bridgeline, and causing the railroad to abandon the northern third of it's line. The Rahway Valley would operate as withering spur line until bought by the New York, Susquehenna & Western in 1986. Eventually, the 70 ton switchers were reassigned and replaced with NYS&W SW9s until the line was abandoned in 1992. Parts of it are operated today by the Morristown & Erie railroad.

In a post 1976 (Conrail Era) Rahway Valley, your track plan very much represents the section of the Rahway Valley between Roselle Park (LV connection)/Aldene (CNJ), and the town of Kenilworth, where the Engine House was located. Though the line continued north from Kenilworth, so little traffic existed that you could realistically "ignore" the rest of the line.

In fact, while on the topic of traffic, the Rahway valley switched cars as needed, so on many days it only moved a boxcar or two around in a day, though this could swell close to 20 cars on a busy day.

The Southern "interchange" track would be with conrail through its former CNJ connection, which curves in exactly like it does in your track plan. The "Transload" facility mimics the former Lehigh Valley interchange, which was not abandoned, but "Embargoed" during the Conrail years.

Your other industries could pretty much stay as they are, and many of the same sorts of industries were present on the prototype in the same area. Plenty of industries had already gone away at this point, completely justifying that "abandoned spur" in your track plans.

The only other thing worth considering is the Enginehouse. it resembled a three car garage that was only BARELY large enough to fit the two locomotives in (one in each stall), and a small collection of MoW pieces in the third, smaller stall. Modeling the full engine house wouldn't be necessary, just a flat with a set of tracks leading to the "doors" would be just fine. you could leave the 70 ton switcher "parked" there at the Northern end of the line, where it could go south to interchange with conrail and switch as needed.

nearby the engine house along the tracks was a small cinderblock pump house and above ground diesel fuel tank, and the combined footprint of the Pump house/diesel fuel rack would be something like 2" by 6", if not smaller. Even if you model your own Shortline, this sort of set up has a prototype, so it might be neat to include.

Definitely check the Rahway Valley out, it sounds like an unusually good match for your operational desires (not to mention the track plan matches roughly the same shape of the real thing).

Justin;

That's a darn good idea for a prototype to base your layout on that GEC has given you. Rahway Valley appears to have been an interesting operation. Here's a web page with some info and a good map that might be of interest http://www.trainsarefun.com/rvrr/rvrr.htm. Bachmann makes a nice DCC equipped GE 70 ton of the correct phase should you be interested in their motive power. Having actually worked with and operated 70 tonners in my career, I can tell you those little rascals can really pull.

Plenty of similar small operations used to exist around the country, but of course you can just freelance your own railroad, using ideas from many of them.

The Rahway Valley RR does have alot of possibilities for a shortline.

I came up with the idea for the Rahway Valley Industrial Railroad (RVI).

I imagine that after the line was closed in 1992 the NJDOT created the Rahway Valley Industrial Railroad to take over the line from Kenilworth to the Conrail(Ex-LV) interchange at Roselle. I think that the box plant, the chemical trans-load, and the food distributor would generate enough traffic to keep the line open.

Here is a basic map of my layout:


And the logo:

Not to kink up that idea, but there are some historical things to consider.

1). I should clarify that initially the Lehigh Valley interchange wasn't abandoned. it was however sold to land developers in the late 1980s, early 90s. Houses are currently built on it. the CNJ main is the only way in, but again, this actually matches your track plan pretty close.

2.) In the late 60s, commuter trains in New Jersey went all over the place, literally. Nearly every north jersey railroad had its own commuter terminal. In 1967, the Aldene plan was implemented, which re-routed CNJ commuter trains over the Northeast Corridor, and then onto the Lehigh Valley (which would become the Lehigh Line during Conrail), before being switched back onto the CNJ mainline at Aldene (hence the Aldene plan). In 1983, NJ transit was formed and named the route the "Raritan Valley Line", and i think NJ transit owns the CNJ tracks out west. However, the very first station on the Raritan Valley line is Roselle park, right near the former interchange, and then the line goes less then a mile west where it bumps into the CNJ interchange with the Rahway Valley.

Whats all this have to do with the Rahway Valley?

Trains were probably interchanging with the Rahway valley at night, since the stations bracketing both Interchanges create the most traffic on the entire line, so these are busy stations. This means when you stage "inbound" cars, you can assume they were dropped there overnight.

Also, in recent years, NJ transit has loaned out its freight GP40s (4300-4303), and so if you want to model strange visitor power, the Atlas GP40 might not be a bad idea. Morristown & Erie Alcos also tend to show up in weird places as long as they are not far from the M&E itself.

3.) also a tiny kink in the story (this is really just me nitpicking), NJ DOT didn't get involved with the freight end of things much. It was more about Highways and moving people. In fact, NJ DOT wanted so little to do with railroads, that it was among the first to sponsor legislation to rid Conrail of commuter obligations, forming NJ transit Rail Operations to take over the rail commuter services. as early as 1981, trains were showing up in NJ transit paint, two years before NJ transit officially existed as a rail operator.

long story short, the NJ DOT doesn't concern itself with such things. The current day Morristown & Erie operations on the Rahway valley are all because of new customers who wanted the service.

Green_Elite_Cab Wrote:long story short, the NJ DOT doesn't concern itself with such things. The current day Morristown & Erie operations on the Rahway valley are all because of new customers who wanted the service.

I read here:http://www.trainsarefun.com/rvrr/rvrrhistory.htm that Delaware & Otsego sold the line to NJDOT in 1994.
Perhaps a better story for my railroad would be that NJDOT sold the line to my RVI soon after it bought it from DO.

So here are the two track-plans I am deciding between for the Rahway Valley Industrial Railroad(RVI)

1.
Pros:
It is an entire short-line
Lots of room for scenery
interesting operation
Cons:
Stuck with modeling a short-line
Doesn't use some of my favorite rolling stock


2.
Pros:
Uses all of my rolling stock
Includes some of my favorite industries
Able to model almost any railroad I want(Including a shortline)
Includes staging area
Cons:
Compressed
No interchange
Not as much room for scenery

Well, since you apparently are not going to actually make up your mind and starting on a layout anytime soon (but you keep inching closer to an entry in the Guiness Book of Records as "person who changed his mind most times about what to model"), I might as well throw in yet another idea.

College dorms are often small. You could go the British way and build a really small layout - like 10" deep by 3 feet long (like three sheets of writing paper put end to end). Like this one:



You can see some pictures of Andrew Knight's H0 scale(!) "Garfield US" version here: http://wealden.weebly.com/show-2010-pics-3xa4.html - it is really two layouts in one - a elevated subway layout on an upper level along the back, and a small urban switching layout at the front.

Maybe this will prove small enough that you actually start to build this. It has plenty of modeling scope - scenic, automation of the subway layout, an inglenook-like lower layout for switching. You can add further cassette staging on the right (also making the switching lead longer), and it should fit into a normal sized car and into a small dorm room - it is about the size of one of those small IKEA shelves.

Smile,
Stein

steinjr Wrote:Well, since you apparently are not going to actually make up your mind and starting on a layout anytime soon (but you keep inching closer to an entry in the Guiness Book of Records as "person who changed his mind most times about what to model"), I might as well throw in yet another idea.

I have made up my mind of what I want to model (An industrial switching layout). And I have come up with two plans that completely satisfy me. I can't possibly settle on a plan until I get track and actually test these plans in real life. I was just showing you guys the ideas that I had.

Don't worry, I have gotten to the point where I know what I want, I guess I just have too much fun designing ISLs. And my final design WILL be a variation of one these plans.

[

Justinmiller171 Wrote:Pros:
It is an entire short-line
Lots of room for scenery
interesting operation
Cons:
Stuck with modeling a short-line
Doesn't use some of my favorite rolling stock

Pros:
Uses all of my rolling stock
Includes some of my favorite industries
Able to model almost any railroad I want(Including a shortline)
Includes staging area
Cons:
Compressed
No interchange
Not as much room for scenery

Justin --

Note that these concerns are not about fine tuning track placement on a plan. I would say that they are still (as they have been from the start) are about deciding on the theme for your layout.

You seemingly still have not really decided on prototype vs freelance, class 1 switching district or shortline with interchange, crowded or room for scenery, types of industries and types of traffic, staging or not. These are not really details of track placement - these are decisions on the conceptual design level.

Either of those two track plans can be run just fine - just replace the engines, cars and signs on buildings, and you can run it as a shortline industry park, or as part of a switching district on a class 1, or a modern layout or a transition era layout, east coast or west coast - whatever. And either plan can trivially simple have a staging cassette added.

By all means - have fun with drawing track plans. But recognize that what holds you back is (at least seeming) not fine turning the design, or waiting for a handful of turnouts. It still seems to be deciding on what you want to model.

Smile,
Stein

steinjr Wrote:By all means - have fun with drawing track plans. But recognize that what holds you back is (at least seeming) not fine turning the design, or waiting for a handful of turnouts. It still seems to be deciding on what you want to model.

Okay, that makes sense

This is probably a stupid question :oops:, but how do I find out what I want to model?