09-20-2009, 07:17 PM
Wiredup Wrote:
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The orange section is the benchwork as its constructed currently. I can squeeze the north section to a 30" depth if I need too... but right now I'm pretty happy with the reaches.
Couple of comments:
I assume layout is up against the walls on all sides ?
If I assume that your squares are 1 foot squares (and not 6" squares or some such thing), you seem to have too long reaches in all three corners and along the entire north wall.
Remember that the diagonal across a 12"x12" foot square is about 17" long (follows from Pythagoras theorem about length of sides of right angle triangles - longest side is square root of sum of squares of sides). So the reach in e.g the lower left hand corner is about 51" (3 x 17").
Very narrow walk-in passage in the lower right corner - looks like about 15" or so ? So you probably still need to duck under at this point ?
Yard ladder is branching away from you, rather than towards you, so whatever is on the closest (long) tracks will tend to hide from view (and make harder to access) what is on the shorter tracks further back. Doesn't help that the yard is as far from the aisle as you can get.
I can't really comment on the balance and planned traffic flow of your track plan as a whole. I am having trouble visualizing your planned traffic flow from your plan.
This level seems yard heavy, but that may even out for the layout as a whole - you seem to maybe indicate that you will have a staging level below and an industry/destination branch above.
Might be a good idea to describe the vision/goal you have for your layout - the concept behind the plan as a whole:
If you were to describe the layout (rather than track plan) to a stranger - where/what type of area is this supposed to be ? When/what era is this supposed to be ? What kind(s) of trains will you run? How long trains ? How many trains ? How often ? Where will trains come from, what will you do with them, where will they go to ? How many operators will you have ?
I think I would have held off a little on starting to build the benchwork just yet, and work a little longer on first figuring out what your layout vision/goal is. It is often easier to figure out a track plan once you have clearly formulated what you design goal is.
Stein