GEC's Layout Progress

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Wow, I just remembered a plan from a really old, probably 1950's, model train mag of, of all things,(pretty sure) a Reading commuter,island/donut, style layout. It may well still be in my stuff somewhere. I think it probably had a lot of elevation changes though. I'll do some digging. It'll be a good baseline, as I'm not very familiar with urban passenger ops.
The module idea is a good one, and 8'x9' is a decent chunk of space to work with. My current layout(s) are transportable modules , although I haven't devised any connection systems yet for expanding them.
Increasing your curve radii as much as possible is a good initial goal as well. Make life as easy as possible for those huge cars and their drives, as well as look a lot better.
Thanks for posting the overhead pic. I love seeing others' take on the classic 4x8. Really neat! The wheels are turnin here.
That pic with the conrail loco is so ironic. On the last rail trip I can remember from Philly back to Reading, the RDC's broke down and there was this big delay. I didn't realize until we got to Reading that they had added a geep like that one to get us home. May have even been an impromtu push/pull arrangement. Very cool.

That sounds like a cool layout, though i hope its better than the usual commuter stuff MR has.

I remember they gave me a free PDF on "commuter layouts", and they were not for me. They were the "Vicksburg & Eastern" and the "Union Metropolitan Transportation Authority". I won't say they were bad, they accomplished the "operations" they were designed to be- running interlockings and routing trains on a tight schedule. In this respect, they are very interesting track plans. However, They try to squeeze in two terminals and one terminal and a maintenance facility respectively. Both have many "up and overs" and stations on differing lines that are just north of each other.

I believe these track plans sacrifice a realistically flowing track plan for the operations. Again, this is fine if thats what you want, but i'd almost feel better leaving out a terminal altogether, or if you do have one, make it small. Not all commuter lines need to be big. Chestnut Hill on the Reading being a good example. its only two tracks these days. I think when it comes to commuter trains, you just can't really have enough space to actually run them a real distance on a model layout, and so its almost better just to have one or two GOOD scale size stops, and maybe an interlocking somewhere between destinations and perhaps diverging freight tracks. "implying" a larger system seems to me to be the best route, since you can still get operations in with the commuter trains, without snuffing everything else out and without the commuter lines dominating the small amount of layout space left.

As much as i like the commuter trains, one will notice there is more Conrail blue on my layout then there are Silver commuter cars on that over head shot. Ultimately, i plan to run 4 car Arrow III MU trains, or three car locomotive hauled push pulls, but that would be the most of it. Until i get a huge space for an NEC layout, the passenger stuff will have to take a back seat.

I have a more defined sketch of my ideas, but its just a concept. I gotta get it into the computer first.