I wonder if I could get some thoughts on which way to go with a layout I want to build?

The base board is built and just over 5 feet by 15 inches is quite small, plus another couple of feet for staging/fiddle yard.

Period - current
Theme - Shortline
Location - North West, New England, New Hampshire, Vermont or Maine

The question is on layout this small would you try and model 2 or 3 separate industries or would it be more plausible to model a single industry, most likely representing only part of larger industry?

My idea for a single industry is a chip mill and log yard, which means:

Traffic in

Logs

Traffic out

Wood chips
Veneer logs for Export (perhaps in container with a canvas top?)

I could add a team track to the above to make it more interesting and may be put the shortlines facilities on the edge of the yard, loco storage, spare stock etc.

If went for 2 or 3 industries the real question is how do I make it plausible in the space I have?

Regards

James H

James - Just to prove it can be done - although it is in N-Scale rather than HO , take a look at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://dawson-station.blogspot.com/2009/10/welcome-to-dawson-station.html">http://dawson-station.blogspot.com/2009 ... ation.html</a><!-- m --> which could be situated in any of your locations
A search on Youtube for Hull-Oakes should pull up 4 prototype videos of the actual line. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Hull-Oakes&oq=Hull-Oakes&aq=f&aqi=g-C1&aql=&gs_sm=12&gs_upl=4625l10547l0l56015l10l10l0l0l0l0l187l1048l7.3l10l0">http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... 8l7.3l10l0</a><!-- m -->
Together with videos of the model
You could also look a Jack Hills blog - not been updated for a while though for a carton manufacturing plant that would work in B-Scale in your space too <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/">http://oscalewcor.blogspot.com/</a><!-- m -->

Thanks Jack very useful links.

Forgot to mention I am working in HO scale.

5' X 15" is ......limited?......just a bit?
If I had to work with that, I think I would go for 1 ( spread out ) industry, or maybe two small industries, and move rolling to and from the location by car float ( some, of the "couple of feet for staging/fiddle yard", could then be added to "industrial usage").
Just a thought.

Sumpter250 Wrote:5' X 15" is ......limited?......just a bit?
If I had to work with that, I think I would go for 1 ( spread out ) industry, or maybe two small industries, and move rolling to and from the location by car float ( some, of the "couple of feet for staging/fiddle yard", could then be added to "industrial usage").
Just a thought.

I have worked with 12" x 5 footers its not that hard if you remember to think small like a Shay,Climax,0-6-0Ts,boxcabs,44 tonners,70 tonner and 40' cars.

There are small RR that have a small yard next to old factories where they transload hopper cars or tank cars put a small dock in you can unload boxcars , I even have seen a small RR transload scrap iron from trucks to gondolas!!! All you need is piece of track & park a truck next to it & you're transloading. An really if you are modeling modern day stuff thats the way it is done the container trains have replaced alot of things!!!!

I didn't see in your post what scale your in, others have mentioned HO so I'm guessing that's what it is. Being you are in the current era ( desiels) I would switch to N scale and build a RR empire!

Have you looked here for layout ideas yet?: http://www.carendt.com/

Here is one from the site I think you might be interested in:

Justin beat me to it ....I was going to say DO check out the late Carl Arendt's Small Layout Scrapbook . Save it on your "favourites" !

Terry

Consider only modelling as much of the industry as is on the other side of the fence, enough space to put a car in, and paint the rest on a flat.
Also, a traverser (pivoted section of track) instead of switches.

BR60103 Wrote:Consider only modelling as much of the industry as is on the other side of the fence, enough space to put a car in, and paint the rest on a flat.
Also, a traverser (pivoted section of track) instead of switches.

This is the good advice. The challenge with combining larger modern cars and H0 and on-board switches in 5 feet of length is that the turnouts/switches and the necessary clearance section beyond the switch (so a car being pushed into track 2 doesn't hit a car on track 1) quickly eats up five feet of length.

I would also suggest seriously considering either backdating your layout (so you can use smaller 40' cars and small engines, as suggested by Brakie), or switching to N scale (where 15" x 5 foot is the equivalent of about 27" x 9 foot in H0 scale)

Some 36" x 18" H0 plans illustrating various ways of moving an engine and a car or two between tracks "off board" - engines shown are 40' cars, engine shown is a small diesel switcher:



And here is a quick sketch of a possible largish industry on a 5 foot H0 scale layout with a 3-foot movable switching lead:


Smile,
Stein

Thank you very much for the replies.

As much as N scale tempts I have to much HO stock, vehicles and kits to change to N at the moment.

Thank you for the plans Stein, the last one is very helpful indeed.

I think the idea of single industry will work better in the space I have. I think i will stick with my idea lumber/chip mill, I can tap into the biomass energy market!

James,

For the space that you're planning on, I would consider an Inglenook Layoyout. Just remember that if you go with modern, a 50 foot box car is 8 inches long and a 40 foot box car is 6.5 inches. 5 foot long layouts don't give you much room for play.

When I have time on Monday, I might be able to give you a quick plan to look at.

jhock Wrote:I think the idea of single industry will work better in the space I have.

For modern times - sure.

jhock Wrote:I think i will stick with my idea lumber/chip mill, I can tap into the biomass energy market!

Well, the market is pretty much irrelevant for planning a small switching layout - when you have room to spot one or two cars at a loading or unloading location during an operating a session, it doesn't much matter whether those two cars are two out of 30 car loads a year (i.e. a couple of cars every other week), or two out of 3 000 car loads a year (10 cars a day for 300 days a year) or whatever - it is two cars to be picked up or spotted that shift.

You obviously can designate car spots any which way that fit the vision you want to create, and model whatever loading and unloading facilities you sensibly can find room around the tracks in 5 feet x 15".

You also can use the old trick of pretending that some of the industry's loading or unloading facilities is "further up that way" - and just spend time sorting the cars for the next couple of locations into the order they will be needed for the next couple of (not modeled) buildings and processes, before leaving them at a track that goes off the end of the layout.

Good luck!

Smile,
Stein

James, I think you can get a little help from the continent.

Just watch, what my mate Alex built - enjoy the track plan!

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://frankenmodell.de/xstreet.html">http://frankenmodell.de/xstreet.html</a><!-- m -->

Regards Thomas