Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - Printable Version

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Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - steinjr - 12-18-2009

faraway Wrote:Stein, thank you for the detailed explanation.

LOL - some of my friends claim that they need a big wrench to make me shut up sometimes - a quick bonk on my head, and then maybe they can get in a word edgewise while I am still dazed ... Goldth


faraway Wrote:Under the standard condition running trains on free track in open space I would not recommend to do 4% in a 22" radius. But this is a very special situation. It is a ramp used by short cuts for switching in an extreme dense old fashion industrial area. I can imaging it will be a visual perfect fit and the short cuts will be no problem in operation on the ramp.

I've been having second thoughts about the ramp in the upper left corner. I decided to cut it back to 2%, and only go up 0.5" around the upper left hand corner. That way I can use the three tracks closest to the wall along the lower wall as a yard, and hopefully be able to back up the curved incline with fairly long (for this layout ...) cuts of cars - maybe 7-8 cars.

Next question is what I want the most - to have the main rise higher up above the barge terminal scene (but not have a crossover from the main to track no 2 out from the wall), or to accept less height difference between main and the barge terminal scene.

Having the three tracks closest to the wall at an even elevation from the middle of the left wall to the door would be best operationally, since the three tracks then would form a flat yard (even though the lead in the upper left hand corner would be on a 2% incline), and I could have a crossover from the main to track no 2 from the wall.

[Image: corner_alternatives.jpg]

But I did a quick mockup to see how things would look with the main at elevation 0.5" vs the main at elevation 1.0" behind the barge terminal scene, and I still don't know ...

Lower left corner, if I let the main rise a further 0.5" (2%) around that corner corner:
[Image: curve_hi.jpg]

Lower left corner, if I keep the main (and the two yard tracks behind the main) flat at elevation 0.5" (2%) around that corner corner:
[Image: curve_lo.jpg]

Same scene with trains to give it a visible scale:

Rising main around lower left hand corner:
[Image: curve_train_hi.jpg]

Flat main around lower left hand corner:
[Image: curve_train_lo.jpg]

View from the ground level in the barge terminal, main rising to 1" above barge terminal:
[Image: harbor_hi.jpg]

View from the ground level in the barge terminal, main staying at 0.5" above barge terminal:
[Image: harbor_lo.jpg]

Have to sleep on that decision, I guess.

What do you think, guys ?

Stein

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - faraway - 12-18-2009

Well, it is a trade off between
1. a level three track yard with a small 0.5" step to the barge terminal
or
2. three tracks going uphill not to be used for storing cars but a beautiful step of 1" to the barge terminal
Did I get that right?

I would clearly prefer the additional three track yard (a) at the wall. That is a real asset to be protected for additional operating.
The higher step seams to look better but that problem can be be solved or relieved by a very strong and visible step. e.g. a thick and robust concrete wall with a fancy brick top and forged handrail as it may have been build 75 years ago.

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - steinjr - 12-18-2009

faraway Wrote:Well, it is a trade off between
1. a level three track yard with a small 0.5" step to the barge terminal
or
2. three tracks going uphill not to be used for storing cars but a beautiful step of 1" to the barge terminal
Did I get that right?

Not totally. Choices are

1. A level three track yard at elevation 0.5" with a small 0.5 step to the barge terminal
or
2. Two level staging tracks at level 0.5" elevation along wall, main on raised 1" embankment between staging tracks and barge terminal
or
3. Let all three yard track rise around lower left hand corner, yard level at 1" along most of lower wall

So the main casualty of letting the main rise higher is that I either (if only main rises and the two tracks closes to the wall stay at elevation 0.5") lose the crossover at the right end of the main, just before the bridge, which costs me in operational capability, or (if all three tracks rises around lower left corner) get shorter yard tracks.


Quote:I would clearly prefer the additional three track yard (a) at the wall. That is a real asset to be protected for additional operating.
The higher step seams to look better but that problem can be be solved or relieved by a very strong and visible step. e.g. a thick and robust concrete wall with a fancy brick top and forged handrail as it may have been build 75 years ago.

That's a good point - make it visually higher without it actually being higher.

Smile,
Stein

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - steinjr - 12-19-2009

steinjr Wrote:Choices are

1. A level three track yard at elevation 0.5" with a small 0.5 step to the barge terminal
or
2. Two level staging tracks at level 0.5" elevation along wall, main on raised 1" embankment between staging tracks and barge terminal
or
3. Let all three yard track rise around lower left hand corner, yard level at 1" along most of lower wall

So the main casualty of letting the main rise higher is that I either (if only main rises and the two tracks closes to the wall stay at elevation 0.5") lose the crossover at the right end of the main, just before the bridge, which costs me in operational capability, or (if all three tracks rises around lower left corner) get shorter yard tracks.

Having slept on it, I realize that there is a fifth choice (in addition to the 0.5" step with fence on top of wall Reinhard suggested):
5. Level three track yard at elevation 0.5", 4% (1") downgrade to a barge terminal at elevation minus 0.5".

4% incline is not so bad for a short ramp where cars will be pushed downhill and pulled up hill. Hmm - I don't think I can get 1" thick styrofoam here - we only seem to have the 2" thick kind. Wonder if I can cut the barge terminal area down about 0.5" with a knife if I rig up some kind of guide for the knife ?

Will have to experiment on some scrap foam.

Time to head down for my workout - maybe half an hour on the threadmill will give me more ideas (apart from "keep breathing" ... :-)

Grin,
Stein

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - steinjr - 12-19-2009

steinjr Wrote:Having slept on it, I realize that there is a fifth choice (in addition to the 0.5" step with fence on top of wall Reinhard suggested):
5. Level three track yard at elevation 0.5", 4% (1") downgrade to a barge terminal at elevation minus 0.5".

4% incline is not so bad for a short ramp where cars will be pushed downhill and pulled up hill. Hmm - I don't think I can get 1" thick styrofoam here - we only seem to have the 2" thick kind. Wonder if I can cut the barge terminal area down about 0.5" with a knife if I rig up some kind of guide for the knife ?

Will have to experiment on some scrap foam.

The obvious solution (once I figured it out) turned out to be to just cut away all the foam in the barge terminal area (instead of trying to cut away a 0.5" thick layer from the 2" thick foam, and then use WS risers to put in some height again.

Roughing in things after cutting away the foam:

Overview of scene:
[Image: DSCN5986.jpg]

Train coming up the ramp from the barge terminal:
[Image: DSCN5983.jpg]

Difference in height between main and barge terminal area:
[Image: DSCN5985.jpg]

Okay - time to measure how to make the end profile boards on the two sections this will run across, glue them to the two sections and bolt them together, before fasting down risers etc.

Smile,
Stein

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - faraway - 12-19-2009

That gives you the best of both worlds. The three tracks are level and have the cross over and the step to the barge terminal is a very well visible divider. The steep grade for short cuts down to the barge terminal is not a problem at all.

Just an after thought:
How much is the barge terminal street level above the water level now? I think the top of the barge should be below the street level. That is not a must but is gives a more mature impression of the quay as quay walls of the prototype are mostly tall structures. e.g. this moderate quay wall http://www.ub.uit.no/baser/arkinord/details.php?image_id=1069

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - steinjr - 12-19-2009

faraway Wrote:How much is the barge terminal street level above the water level now? I think the top of the barge should be below the street level. That is not a must but is gives a more mature impression of the quay as quay walls of the prototype are mostly tall structures. e.g. this moderate quay wall http://www.ub.uit.no/baser/arkinord/details.php?image_id=1069

Right now it is like this, but I can move the water level up if this gets to be too far down - it is not fastened to the rest of the layout yet, so it is easy enough to slip some kind of spacer underneath it:

[Image: dock.jpg]

Smile,
Stein

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - faraway - 12-19-2009

steinjr Wrote:... Right now it is like this, but I can move the water level up if this gets to be too far down - ...

I would not recommend to move the water level up. It's fine as it is. I was afraid it would be too much up because the street level comes down. That's reason why I did ask.

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - LynnB - 12-19-2009

Differnt track elevations adds real character to a layout, at least thats what all the cool modelers are doing. Cheers On the other hand operations is a must to make things interesting and a bit challenging.

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - steinjr - 12-20-2009

Btw - a friend in a different forum asked me if I had reconsidered my operating plan since I had decided to move my yard from the aisle of the top part of the layout to the rear at the lower left corner/lower wall and dropped my hidden staging, where transfer runs from other railroads could have hidden.

He also asked me what industry I was going to have at the aisle side along the top of the layout, and why I wanted to to have the bridge across the door opening tying together the layout along the right wall and along the lower wall, despite those two areas supposedly being far apart.

I had to think a bit about that. After thinking about it for a bit, this is what I came up with:

My very first staging idea was to just use a plain cassette there to bring short trains (an engine and five cars) in and out of the layout. Like this:

[Image: DSCN4390.JPG]

Dropping that cassette in favor of a bridge gets me nothing operationally, and the bridge is not a core scenic element for me.

Actually, as my friend point out, scenically it is a distraction rather than an enhancement. The scene on the right of the door (milling district) is supposed to be on the same side of the river (and quite a bit upstream) from the scene on the left of the door (barge terminal).

OTOH, having a cassette there gives me far more operational flexibility. It gives me a place to have trains (and cars) enter and exit the layout.

I have room just outside that door for quite a few shelves of staging space, if I transfer cars (and short trains) from staging to layout using that cassette (or several cassettes like it).

I'll replace that bridge scene with a staging cassette again. It kills several birds with one stone - it allows me to get trains from other companies in and out, and it allows me to replace cars with a minimum of handling when getting ready for an operating session.

By not being scenicked (sp?), it also encourages me to not leave the cassette in, except when I need to get cars on or off the layout, or if I am just running trains round and round in loops (which is what my youngest kid likes to do).

The main reason why I wanted to drop the yard at C-D was that it feels like it is way too small to have cuts of cars being dropped off or picked up there by a second train - the place can barely fit 10 cars on the two yard tracks (if I cram them), without filling up the double ended siding as well.

If I use the three tracks in the bottom left hand corner as a yard, max capacity for the yard is on the order of 20 to 30 cars (depending on whether I consider the main to be a yard track sometimes, when I am running the layout in point to point mode - cassette not used - instead of continuous run mode - cassette used).

I could feed in trains on the cassette heading counterclockwise around the layout, possibly dropping off inbound cars at the double ended siding along the aisle in the top part of the layout, then continue counterclockwise to go get outbound cars from the yard at the lower left hand corner before heading back clockwise to the staging cassette (and then off layout).

As for the industry along the aisle side along the top, I was thinking more something along the lines of a team track, with various types of unloading equipment, like some of those old portable conveyor belt thingies, maybe an end ramp and such things.

My friend also suggested that I needed some way to get trucks into the barge terminal area, so I am thinking tracks embedded in concrete, and maybe an access road for trucks and cars under the yard tracks along the bottom wall.

That leaves me with a track plan that looks like this:

[Image: warehouse63.jpg]

Smile,
Stein

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - faraway - 12-20-2009

Good morning Stein,
I read your discussion on the other board. I would not bother with the short tracks at the C-D yard. A "train" on your layout is defined by the cassette length of 5 cars (my long "trains are 6 cars). From that point of view is a track that can hold 2-3 cars are track for a half train. That is not bad at all.
I take your posting on 26 Sep 2009, 07:46 as a reference to the "old" C-D yard.
How about moving the turnout in front of the yard office to the right side of the bridge and get two much longer stub tracks. You may omit the very short stub at the run around track if it is intended for car storage. On the other side it might be fine place for a switcher waiting position.
The tracks in front of the ware houses are much better in the new layout. I have had a turnout configuration as you have it in front of Lindsey. That is a pain to do switching. The new one with a centered stub at the left side is much better and more prototypical.
I did always assume the barge terminal would be paved with street running track. The road might come out of the "off" from the cassette side. However I would be carefully with the tank terminal. The old layout had the tanks in the back over the hidden staging tracks. The new layout cramps the tanks on the barge terminal. I wonder if that is really necessary or might make the place to busy. You might omit the tank terminal, pave the road and have the barge terminal for goods like bulk cargo (coal) and general cargo.

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - steinjr - 12-20-2009

Good morning to you too, Reinhard --

faraway Wrote:I read your discussion on the other board. I would not bother with the short tracks at the C-D yard. A "train" on your layout is defined by the cassette length of 5 cars (my long "trains are 6 cars). From that point of view is a track that can hold 2-3 cars are track for a half train. That is not bad at all.

I am assuming from context that you probably mean that you wouldn't be "bothered by" the short tracks (ie that you are not concerned about the short tracks - that having short tracks there are not so bad), rather than you "would not bother with" them (which means that you think having short tracks there is not worth doing) ?

You are making a valid point about train lengths.

The way things are set up in plan 63 (the latest plan), transfer runs from staging has a max train length of an engine and 5 cars, or possibly 6 cars, if the engine is not the cassette, but just runs up to the cassette, couples on to cars and drags them onto the layout.

Longest cut of cars that can be run around on the longest runaround in front of the warehouses is 6 cars, which should be adequate for switching the industries whose tracks branch off towards the right.

The longest yard track (by the wall), and the double ended siding along the front of the upper right hand side of the layout can hold an engine and 11 40-foot cars, and it would be possible to run around about 9-10 cars by the yard tracks in the lower left hand corner (if the runaround is empty of cars, of course), so it ought to be feasible to run trains of say 9 cars or so as well.


Quote:I take your posting on 26 Sep 2009, 07:46 as a reference to the "old" C-D yard.
How about moving the turnout in front of the yard office to the right side of the bridge and get two much longer stub tracks. You may omit the very short stub at the run around track if it is intended for car storage. On the other side it might be fine place for a switcher waiting position.

I guess I was for some reason being obsessive about having a switching lead off the "main", so I wouldn't have to use the main for switching. That's kind of wasted on a layout of this type, where there won't be any through traffic on the main while I am switching - of course I can use the main around the right side as a switching lead for a yard.

Something roughly like this, you mean ?

[Image: warehouse64_part1.jpg]

Hmmm - I will have to do a little testing to see how that works with the section boundary (red lines) - it looks from the plan like it would work, but the section boundaries are a little thicker than a thin line in reality.


Quote:The tracks in front of the ware houses are much better in the new layout. I have had a turnout configuration as you have it in front of Lindsey. That is a pain to do switching. The new one with a centered stub at the left side is much better and more prototypical.

Of course, no matter how I do it, cars at Robinson (the middle of the five industries) will have to be pulled to switch any of the other industries - but that's the nature of those kinds of track configurations - with several neighboring industries along the same track.

Quote:I did always assume the barge terminal would be paved with street running track. The road might come out of the "off" from the cassette side.

True enough. Truck access to that area is not a biggie either way.

Quote: However I would be carefully with the tank terminal. The old layout had the tanks in the back over the hidden staging tracks. The new layout cramps the tanks on the barge terminal. I wonder if that is really necessary or might make the place to busy. You might omit the tank terminal, pave the road and have the barge terminal for goods like bulk cargo (coal) and general cargo.

Good point. Were you still thinking more or less the same track configuration - just not the tanks ? Or just a single track past the dock and the warehouse ?

Stein

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - faraway - 12-20-2009

Hi,
Sorry for the confusion. I mean the track length fits the train length perfect.
The new partial track plan looks good. I did not understand the implication of the section boundaries. Do you plan to have some kind of modules? It looks very solid on the pictures.
The new tanks are so small on the new layout. May be they would be fine for a small oil dealer at the country side but how does that fit into into an industrial area? I really don't know. May be you need to make a real life test with some dummy (glass, bottle etc.) so see if they are to cute to be realistic.

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - steinjr - 12-20-2009

faraway Wrote:The new partial track plan looks good. I did not understand the implication of the section boundaries. Do you plan to have some kind of modules? It looks very solid on the pictures.

Yes, the layout is made from 6 sections. Section 5 (the corner by the chimney in the upper right hand corner) is an L shaped area from 22.5" to the left of the smokestack to the other red line. I don't want to put turnouts in where they cross section boundaries. The curved turnout for a longer yard along the front of the warehouse district would cross such a boundary. But that could always be fixed in some way, with some creative use of turnouts.

Not sure whether I want to do that, though. Looking at both of the last two plans, I for some reason feel more tempted to a team track setup than to do a three track yard in that area. Obviously there must be some other reason than "yard tracks too short" that make me feel that things are too cramped with a yard along the front of the warehouse district.

I'll sleep on it and see how I feel about doing a larger yard along the front of the warehouse district tomorrow

Quote:The new tanks are so small on the new layout. May be they would be fine for a small oil dealer at the country side but how does that fit into into an industrial area? I really don't know. May be you need to make a real life test with some dummy (glass, bottle etc.) so see if they are to cute to be realistic.

No, I quite agree with you. It would be too cramped with tanks of a reasonable size there. If I keep a track designated the "tank terminal track", then I would have to model it has having just some kind of rack with pipes for filling RR tank cars from tanks that are off the layout (maybe off to the right - towards the door).

One could just postulate that the tank barges would be unloaded through pipes that run under the tracks and over to the storage tanks off to the right, or some such thing.

But the type of facility is easy enough to change, if desired. I'll think about it some more before making a decision here.

Thank you for your help!

Smile,
Stein

Re: Stein's Minneapolis Warehouse district 1957 (HO) - steinjr - 12-22-2009

Just a quick little update - finally got a chance to sneak into my train room (in between Christmas preparations - we are having quite a few family members over for dinner on Christmas Eve) and do a proper test run of my ramp up from the barge terminal.

With nice cars (properly weighted, free rolling metal wheels, good couplers) my RS-3 pulled a cut of 5 boxcars up the curved ramp with no problems, despite 19.5" radius, 4% incline and track not properly fastened yet.

It was a sweet little moment seeing the train creep slowly up the ramp. I might invest in some sort of railing or something to prevent derailments in that corner from being fatal, though - it is a significant drop there if something should ever happen :-)

[Image: DSCN6007.jpg]

I'd better get ready for work and then more Christmas preparations when I get home again this afternoon.

Merry Christmas, people!

Smile,
Stein