My new basement, or, how to fill it
#1
So if you happened to catch my "I'm still alive and I'm back" post in the Lower Berth, you'll know that I now have a basement to work in, maybe not as ideal as I wanted, but the rest of the house that goes with it makes up for a lot. So it's what I have to work with, and I plan to make the best of it. Probably going to need two decks to get what I really want.

Some things have not changed: still modeling the Reading, era mid-50's. I do not plan to make this layout in any way duplicate exact Reading trackage anywhere, more of a "Reading feel" to locations and operating practices. Switching to Peco Code 83 track this time around, in my down time I picked up some samples of different stuff (used Atlas lat 2 times) and I prefer the Peco, plus they have a decent variety of turnouts. Plan is for #6 for yards, #8's for any mainline crossovers, #5 in industrial sidings. 28" minimum radius - I don't run long cars, don't currently have any passenger cars but even those were shorties on the Reading. Mostly first generation diesel, have a couple of T-1 Northerns, and they handle 28" radius with no problems at all, even with the drawbar in the close notch.

The tricky part is the stairs - they come down from the top center, and then split left and right at the middle wall, with a landing and 2 steps down to either side to get to the floor level. I was trying to avoid duckunders, but this arrangement let me fit more track with the penalty of a liftup section right at the stairs to the right.

I made up a few variations before I hit on this one. It's by far not complete, just the lower level so far, and a lot of tweaking is needed. I've been gradually refining it to fit. One thing I worry about is that maybe I'm stuck on this arrangement and am just trying to make it work, and a different one would fit the space better and I'm just not seeing it. Best place I can see for a yard with engine facilities would be in the upper right, around the curve.

Without further ado - this is what I've come up with so far.

[Image: basement1.jpg]

So, blast away...

--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad of the 1950's in HO

Visit my web site to see layout progress and other information:
http://www.readingeastpenn.com
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#2
Yep, that's a tough one .. lost of walls in the way. But I think you're on the right track,, ( ha, ha, stupid pun intended)
 My other car is a locomotive, ARHS restoration crew  
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#3
There is actually another wall running vertically splitting the lower half which I didn't even draw as it is DEFINITELY coming out. It's a weird half wall, with a saloon type swinging door in the middle, and a roof over each of the other sides. I guess they were going for a western saloon theme, there's also a bar in the lower right that is coming out, very poorly built.
The big fat wall in the middle - my intention there is to take out the right half of it, back to the stairs. That track there wouldn't run through the wall. The part of the layout there would mount to the wall, so the left half of it would stay, also keeps anything going down the stairs from running right off the edge instead of making the turn on the landing there.

--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad of the 1950's in HO

Visit my web site to see layout progress and other information:
http://www.readingeastpenn.com
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#4
If all those inner walls are staying looks like you'll have a bunch of duckunders.
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#5
The wide wall in the middle will be cut back, to the stairs. There will be one liftup section - I saw an article in one of the publications about doing a 2 level liftup with drawer guides, so for running the layout, you would come down the stairs, turn to the left (right in the picture), walk under the raised up section, lower it in place, and then you will stay on the interior of the layout with no further duckunders. I had a previous iteration that has no duckunders or need for a raise up section like that, but it had 2 problems. The first was that the helix then reversed the direction of travel - so you went around the lower level right to left, ran up the helix, then the upper level was left to right. I suppose I could get used to that, but having East be one way on one deck and the oppiste way on the other was a bit disconcerting. Second issue, it was less than half the length of run.
To get from upstairs into the garage or outside (I have 2 front doors - one up on the porch, on right off the driveway at the lower left) you come down the stairs, turn right (left in the picture) and that area with no layout is fully open to move about. There's an outside door, door to garage, bathroom, and the laundry on that side.

--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad of the 1950's in HO

Visit my web site to see layout progress and other information:
http://www.readingeastpenn.com
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#6
That makes things so much better w/o that wall in the middle. If that' a staging yard in upper left suggest you make it double ended/run through so you don't have to worry about which end your locos are on. Can that room in lower right be removed? It would give you a wider aisle there or maybe another peninsula.
There being a gazillion track plans on the internet, on this forum & many other MR forums, check them for ideas for individual industries & yards for your layout. You can always change them to meet your needs. As a RR civil engineer type told me " Think of lines on paper as a bowl of spaghetti. You can move them around any way you want for your own purposes."
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#7
Lower right is the mechanicals - water heater and furnace in there. Can't move that. But I can probably get 6 inches or so from the top of it. While investigating and taking detailed measurements, there is a 6" wide faux timber 'wall' on the outside, built on top of the wall that you see from inside of the room. I'm thinking I can rip that downa nd just drywall over the then exposed studs. Not much, but every few inches counts.
Can't extend the staging, it's already pushing it to put it in there - that's the laundry area until I have the money to do the big remodel and move the laundry upstairs - then I will have the space to use, although it doesn't open up much more in the long run - the small room in the middle left is a bathroom, which actually extends into the laundry. So even if I was able to tear out the walls around the laundry, I'd have that bathroom smack in the middle of the left wall to work around. Or through, ala Bruce Chubb's "Pottersville". Problem there is then making the turn before getting to the door to the garage - can't block that.
Keep in mind this is just the lower level, to get a truly decent run I was planning to double deck the whole thing. Staging would be stacked on top of one another. I will probably also add a cutoff for continuous run, either on the lower or upper level, or maybe both. I'm thinking the helix needs to be double tracked, so it does not become a bottleneck - can have an 'up' and a 'down' train at the same time.
Once I have the basic main line - then comes fitting in yards and industries around the place. Got a good suggestion to put the yard back along the bottom and just put the engine facilities in the upper right. That could work.

--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad of the 1950's in HO

Visit my web site to see layout progress and other information:
http://www.readingeastpenn.com
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#8
Randy
Forget the staging in upper left. Put it along wall in upper right. You can then have upper level staging there also. Have the lower level big yard along bottom wall but move the peninsulas up a couple feet to give the yard 1-2 feet width. Keep the engine facilities near by as most RR have them that way. You got plenty of room for industries & sidings along the way. You could have the upper level big yard above the lower level one but crews working both yards will always be in each others way. With some good planning the upper yard could be along the peninsula.
You should be thinking about the length of the trains you want to run. They can't be any longer than your longest sidings or you'll always be doing saw bys. :-(
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#9
Randy
Forget the staging in upper left. Put it along wall in upper right. You can then have upper level staging there also. Have the lower level big yard along bottom wall but move the peninsulas up a couple feet to give the yard 1-2 feet width. Keep the engine facilities near by as most RR have them that way. You got plenty of room for industries & sidings along the way. You could have the upper level big yard above the lower level one but crews working both yards will always be in each others way. With some good planning the upper yard could be along the peninsula.
You should be thinking about the length of the trains you want to run. They can't be any longer than your longest sidings or you'll always be doing saw bys. :-(
Since you're modeling the '50s are you doing both steam & diesel? If so you're going need both types of engine facilities including turntables & roundhouses.
Your layout being the Reading have you found out what kinds of industries they served
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#10
Hmm, what benefit would there be to moving the staging from otherwise unusable space into prime railroad space?

If I push the peninsula up more to make more space along the bottom for the yard, I more or less would have to eliminate the entire extra bit there as the aisle width would compress a whole lot. I did consider a much simpler run like that, but it really shortens the mainline run. Right now it's somewhere around 2.8 scale miles (just the lower deck main) so doubling it gets me a fairly decent run end to end.

Train lengths are 10-12 40' cars, any longer and I think it would be too cramped, plus I'd be having trains spill over between stations. Not to mention the siding lengths and all that good stuff. If I want to run long trains I guess I can always go to one of the club modular displays, I have a 28 car train I run there, and once in a while we empty the coal yard and run 100+ coal hoppers, though even on a layout 140+ feet long, that is a bit much.

--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad of the 1950's in HO

Visit my web site to see layout progress and other information:
http://www.readingeastpenn.com
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#11
Randy
What are the overall dimensions of your basement &/or what is spacing of the grid lines? Without that kind of info on the plan it makes it difficult for us to know what the actual space you have available. Also what scale is your MR going to be. If the grid spacing is 1' you have plenty of room for HO scale. Would recommend making the staging yard double ended so your locos can "escape" around its train. If need be have the right end in the next room. Or maybe the right end could be a yard extending all the way to the upper right corner.
Andy Jackson
Santa Fe Springs CA
ATSF/LAJ Ry Fan & Modeler
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#12
It's HO, and those a 1 ft grid lines. Forget what I've posted in various places at times - 28" minimum radius, mid 50's era, LOTS of 2 bay coal hoppers, 40 foot cars mostly, few 50 footers tossed in for some spice. No passenger trains at the moment, if I do, they will be shorty cars per the prototype, no 85 foot Pullmans here.

Having trains essentially trapped in staging at the end of a run isn't a huge deal to me, at least in the way I think of staging - it's somewhere else, so unless the train only goes another town or two past the modeled area and is really a local turn, I don't see a train that has exited the modeled portion as ever coming back in the same session. Maybe the next session it would head back the other way, but that's what just running trains with no set schedule to follow is for, restaging things for the next formal op session. If I even have them - I figure most of the time I will actually just be operating alone. But even if I do manage to get enough interest to have a regular op session, never in a million years can I imagine my layout laying idle other than some restaging and maybe any needed repairs. I know there are some people who are like that, their layout never gets touched between monthly op sessions, outside of continuing construction or fixing any problems that came up in the last session. I don't see myself ever being like that, I like to run trains too much. Maybe too much - once the track gets to the point where I can run trains, more often than not I end up picking up a throttle when I go tot he train room instead of finishing scenery or other activities.

--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad of the 1950's in HO

Visit my web site to see layout progress and other information:
http://www.readingeastpenn.com
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#13
Less is more? I greatly simplified the main line run, leaving plenty of width in the bottom half for yard operators. I'm trying to fit the yard in here, but it's still awfully tight. I have 2 A/D tracks plus 6 class tracks and a lead. Still haven't been able to cram in a caboose track and a lead to a possible service facility (in front of the lead, I think).
Downside, this cuts the mainline length to under 2 scale miles (this is just the lower deck, so total would be double this).
Upside, lots of room in the upper right to locate what will likely be the biggest industry, a cement plant.
All tracks are longer than the expected longest train - I might be able to shorten things by up to a foot and still have a long enough track even on the shortest one to assemble the longest train that would run. All turnouts in the drawing are Peco Code 83 #6. With mostly short cars I might be able to get away with #5's in the ladder, but definitely I want the turnouts off the main and the A/D tracks to be #6 to handle mainline power.

[Image: Basement2.jpg]

--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad of the 1950's in HO

Visit my web site to see layout progress and other information:
http://www.readingeastpenn.com
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