Another Miami Layout

[Justinmiller171]

After Seeing CNW1961's Wonderful Miami Switching layout I decided I would try my hand at building an East-Rail switching layout of my own.

My Layout room is only 8x11 feet and I have doors on both sides so the most I could get away with was a straight shelf with some extensions, I am currently working on benchwork and I should be done with that in a few days.

Here is my layout design thread on Trainboard, I even got Lance Mindheim to give his input
http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/show...p?t=121705

Here is the Track-plan, its not very visually appealing but it works

Minimum Radius is 24" and turnouts are Walthers code 83 #5's and a couple of #8's

[Gary S]

Congrats on your first post at Big Blue, Justin. I like the plan and it is cool that Mindheim commented on it. Definitely keep us posted on your progress.

[ocalicreek]

Who says it's not visually appealing? Isn't that in the eye of the beholder?

Anyway, welcome to The Gauge! Tell us a little more about yourself and the plan.

Galen

[ocalicreek]

Okay so I just followed your link over to the trainboard forum. Minor uproar indeed! :o

If you take a look at Pinto on my Bonus Room shelf layout plan, you'll see it has no runaround. This was an intentional choice. It's not based on any prototype since the road is freelanced but strictly on the lack of space for a decent runaround without crowding the scenic divide between Pinto and Andrews (a creek) or seriously limiting the number of cars I could bring up to Pinto or haul back down.

PLUS, I like geared steam, and I planned the branch for a nice little 3 truck shay to be able to shove the cars uphill and pull them back down, with the sidewinder gear action visible the whole time...well, except when it's in the tunnel. But that also necessitates a caboose with a keen eyed crewmember on the platform, hand on the brake line to 'signal' the engineer.

SO trains are blocked & sorted (cars for the BTLC interchange grouped together, cars destined for Pinto grouped together) in Watson, creating another job for a little switch engine to do. All in all, it adds to the operational fun and that's the whole point, isn't it?

Stick to your guns and confound the naysayers - leave out the runaround!

Galen

[steinjr]

Okay so I just followed your link over to the trainboard forum. Minor uproar indeed! :o

Hi Galen --

Where do you see a "minor uproar" ? I have followed Justin's design threads for quite a while (in several other forums, e.g. this thread: http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/show...p?t=118794), and in my opinion, there was no "uproar" in the thread you read.

Justin just got told that even though his current track plan is perfectly fine prototypically, it might create more interesting switching (on a *model* railroad) to include a runaround.

It was also pointed out (politely) to him that when he used the excuses "there isn't enough room for a runaround" and "I can't afford an extra turnout", those excuses were fairly weak - there was room for a runaround, and a turnout would cost fairly little compared with what he needed for all the buildings in his track plan.

Nobody had any problem with: "I don't want to have a runaround" - that is a perfectly legitimate design decision.

Justin - design is looking good. Now get started on building it (says the man whose progress on his own layout is rather slow at times) :-)

Smile,
Stein

[nachoman]

I assume that operationally, the area to the upper left will serve as a "staging", and you will pull cars from there to place at the various industries (I havent read the other thread you linked)? I think it is a good plan, and has good possibilities for urban scenery. You really don't need a run-around if this is how you plan to operate, as there is no reason the locomotive ever needs to be on the other side of the cars (all sidings face the same way).

[ocalicreek]

Hello Justin,

It looks like you’ve put together a pretty realistic plan that would be both straightforward to build and fun to operate. I have to chuckle when I think back about the mild uproar that has arisen about the lack of a runaround track on my East Rail plan. You’d think I’d slighted the Pope! The omission was intentional and done to accurately replicate the way operations actually transpire in that specific area.

Before anyone gets confused, that quote is from the trainboard forum thread Justin linked in his post here. I did say 'minor' uproar, and Lance Mindheim uses the term 'mild uproar' in his reply to the discussion regarding the lack of a runaround on his own plan, on which Justin based his. Uproar doesn't necessarily mean a negative response. Perhaps I should have said 'caused quite a stir' or 'wow, that really stimulated discussion'. But we're not here to debate whether or not there was actually an uproar about his design choice, minor or otherwise. The responses were thoughtful and insightful and I hope he found them as helpful as he will the suggestions here.

No, I think it's a cool plan, and I want to encourage Justin to stick with his design choice. Ditto to Kevin's response, and I second Stein's motion - get building (and let's see some pictures!)

Justin, I'll give you one I got way back when I joined the other incarnation of the Gauge:

:needpics:

Galen

[Sumpter250]

Justin just got told that even though his current track plan is perfectly fine prototypically, it might create more interesting switching (on a *model* railroad) to include a runaround.
Smile,
Stein

First, to Big Blue, Justin !!

If your plan is perfectly fine "prototypically", then it is perfectly fine.
Looks like a fun switching layout to me. " its not very visually appealing but it works "
but it will be with buildings scenery, and whatever small details you can think of to add. Looking forward to seeing what you do with this.

[Russ Bellinis]

I assume that operationally, the area to the upper left will serve as a "staging", and you will pull cars from there to place at the various industries (I havent read the other thread you linked)? I think it is a good plan, and has good possibilities for urban scenery. You really don't need a run-around if this is how you plan to operate, as there is no reason the locomotive ever needs to be on the other side of the cars (all sidings face the same way).

If I understood the discussion on the link, there is no staging on the layout proper. I think Justin is going to have the staging on a separate "fiddle yard." All of the spurs on the layout are industries.

[Justinmiller171]

My Idea for staging will be a removable staging track on the right side. Once again I got that Idea from Lance Mindheim.

The reason I didn't want to include a runaround was that I will not need one except to use as a storage track during switching, but I can store them on any unused piece of track, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Pics are coming, I will post some after I complete Benchwork in a couple of days, so stay tuned

[Justinmiller171]

I got Pics !!!

Even though I still have to finish parts of the benchwork, I decided to take some pics of what I have so far.
All Buildings are temporary and most will not be used at all, The curves will be replaced with code 83 24" when I get around to buying them

So here are the Pics! I have yet to fix up the trainroom so don't laugh too hard at the Last pic

Here is The Door In my Train-Room:

Here is the Beginning of my layout

Here are the rest of the pics of my layout so far


The Tracks Leading of the table will go to the extension I have yet to build

Something seems to be wrong with the roof

[ocalicreek]

Lookin' good! Yes, something is wrong with the roof...but I can't tell from the picture just what it might be.

Those are really l-o-n-g turnouts! Thanks for sharing your work-in-progress.

Galen

[Russ Bellinis]

Looking good Justin, but I would fix the roof before going too much further. It looks like you might have some mice living in that insulation! The other thing I noticed is that the Western Pacific is a long way from Miami!

[Justinmiller171]

Luckily there are not rats in the insulation, but I have had one of my cats fall through though

I live near the Feather river canyon, that's why I have the WP logo on the door, sometime I should get a CSX sign to hang on the door too.

[Ralph]

Hi Justin,

Welcome! I like your plan and see that you don't really need the run around discussed above since all of your spurs come off the main in the same direction. Looks like you're on your way. That roof pic makes me want to suggest that you take care of that before going much further on the layout. You'll be happier with a better looking and better maintained space for your layout. Room remodeling after the layout is scenicked is not fun.

Ralph