Dan's new layout thread.

[danielb]

Greetings!

With Cane River having gone as far as it realistically can, it has reached the point where replacing it would be less work than trying to work it into a new layout.

As such, I've been working on a new layout plan that will be developed at as slow a pace as it requires to be done right - benchwork built to requirements in open frame style, hand build track and turnouts, fully wired point blades, controlled by turnout motors and fully capable of computer control.

The idea is to have a "round the walls" layout that is divided into 3 sections - 1) the mainline run and classification yard, 2) upper deck industrial switching area, and 3) lower deck switching area and hidden staging.

I have the basics of the track plan envisioned, and have gone for a much less "British" approach to the layout design and taken as much inspiration from US practice as possible.

The mainline run will be built first, with the switching areas coming later. Handbuilt track will allow me much more realism over using store bought Peco track, and will also allow me to fit the plan to the space available, and not be forced to fit the plan to the track available!

I have the track plans for the upper deck and lower deck switching areas, as well as a basic 3D rendering of the mainline run.

Track level on the two decks will be separated by a height of 10", which should give me plenty of room to work as well as allowing for a lot of mainline run to drop down the distance between the decks. The mainline section will be - in essence, a fully scenic oval style helix, with level sections at various spots to give the locos something of a break from the 2% gradient it will mostly need.

I'm not too worried about train lengths, as those will be limited by what my locos can handle on the grades in question, as well as the storage space in the hidden staging and the classification yard - plus I don't have the money for 50+ car trains!

Anyway, enough waffling from me, here are the initial track plans and 3D rendering.

Top deck industrial switching district:


This will connect to the track on the top level of the mainline run. On the 3D rendering the connecting track can be seen in the very bottom right of the plan.

Lower deck staging and switching district, with an interchange with a secondary shortline railroad:


This will connect to the track on the bottom of the mainline run. On the 3D rendering, the switching district will connect to the track exiting the main layout on the bottom right of the plan - it will be the left most of the two tracks. The hidden storage tracks will connect to the right most of the two tracks.

3D rendering of the mainline run - to show this as a SCARM trackplan from above would show nothing but a jumbled mess of tracks, it needs to be seen in 3D to see what it's all about:



I intend to add more switching areas to the mainline run, including a depot with freight house, a few mills and factories, as well as a coal mine and possibly a logging area with a sawmill. The large expanse of green between the classification yard and the tracks behind it will feature a river separating the two areas, giving an idea of two railroads running on opposite sides of a river gorge, as inspired by one of the layouts in Great Model Railways 2014 - The Virginian and Ohio (particularly the image shown on page 26).

Enough waffling from me - work will commence slowly but surely, and will kick off in earnest at the start of the new year.

Let me know what you guys think.

[faraway]

The two switching districts and the bottom 3D all over look good. I do not understand how the two switching districts attach to the overall 3D layout.
Give me a hint to connect the top pictures to the third one at the bottom of your append.

[Charlie B]

Hi Daniel.
I like your plan, It looks to have a great deal of possibilities, perhaps the only thing I disagree with is your comment about hand laid track looking better than Peco. Unless you are building a layout laid before 1890 you would have to have scale tie plates under the rails and spike every tie. I made my 3rd layout with hand laid track and was very disappointed with the appearance. I just could not do enough detailing to make it look like a mainline U. S. railroad.
I admire people that do this but the ones that look good to me are the late 1800's narrow gauge railroad models.

I admit, the 3D rendering made the layout easier to understand. Have fun. I am sure it will be a great layout. Please post progress pictures as you go along
Charlie

[teejay]

Yeah I,m kinda confused about the connection too .....'course it doesn't take much to confuse me these days ....what Forum is this ??

T

[danielb]

Sorry chaps, it made sense to me, but then I know what I mean!

Does this help?

1 = connection to Upper deck switching district
2 = connection to Lower deck switching district and secondary shortline interchange
3 = connection to Lower deck hidden storage sidings




The "missing" piece linking the two decks with the main layout will be a lift out section used to allow access to a closet containing a boiler/water heater. Hopefully this makes sense now?

[faraway]

.... Hopefully this makes sense now?

Perfect, thanks

That is an unusual layout. Lots of tracks running through scenery only and all urban and industry switching in multi levels on the right hand.

[danielb]

Cheers Faraway, glad it makes sense now!

The idea is have each deck of the industrial areas represent the outskirts of a particular town or city, and the main layout act as the distance travelling from one to the other.

I'm kind of tempted to have another - smaller - classification yard on the main layout just after the 'entrance' to the main layout itself at position 1. On the 3D mapping of the plan as it stands there's a small passing loop and a short industry spur at that position. If I extend the "mountain" (for lack of a better word) out further toward the operators side of the layout in the center of the inverted U, that would give extra space for classification tracks.

This would essentially allow me to run trains from one classification yard to the other, and have the two individual decks represent a part of the switching districts that the yards serve. This would also allow me to remove the hidden staging on the lower deck and give more room for industries.

I plan on working on the trackplan in SCARM some more over the weekend and see what I can come up with.

[MountainMan]

How steep are your connecting grades?

[Tyson Rayles]

Very interesting. I have to agree with Charlie on the hand laid track. Hand laid looks terrible compared to today's flex-track in any scale.

[danielb]

Mountain man - nothing greater than 2% all the way, with lots of sections of level track throughout the gradient to allow the locos to have a break every now and again.

Cheers for all the feedback chaps. Perhaps hand built track on the ENTIRE layout might be a bit... overly ambitious. To be honest there are areas where I am going to need to hand build crossovers and such, so figured I might as well go the whole hog!

The more I study the plan the more I feel that perhaps PECO track would be wiser. Maybe I could go for hand build track on the switching areas? We'll see what I settle on in the end.

Still, everything is in a bit of a state of flux at the moment - everything is subject to change! I've not even started building it yet and I've already tweaked the plan!

For the setting, Georgia is possibly the setting for the upper deck at least. Not sure about the lower deck, mind you. I'm definitely open to suggestions. I do like the idea of the Appalachian mountains as a setting, as I've always been fond of layouts set there. Help and advice would be most welcome.

I have been sitting and studying the plan and it seemed a little one sided, so to speak - all the action (hidden staging, classification yard, etc) was all on the bottom deck.

I figured it's probably wiser to have a reason for the main line trains to be running whilst the operators of the switching districts on the two decks are doing their thing.

As such, I've removed the passing loop on the top deck before the transition from main layout to the switching district and have replaced it with a slightly smaller interchange yard. This will give 3 visible staging tracks on the top deck and 4 on the bottom deck, allowing for the main line operator to run a sequence of 7 trains over time.

Start one train from the bottom deck and one from the top deck heading toward each other. Hold the train from the bottom deck in the passing loop part way along the main line, and allow the descending train to pass it before proceeding.

When the trains reach the other yards they will be broken down and switched to the various industries, whilst the switchers set out another train for the locos to take back in the opposite direction.

To give the main line operator something a little more interesting to do, there will be industries and depots along the main line route, allowing for a local train to be sent out and switched should the switching district crews need more time to finish switching out the cars from the arriving trains to form the departing ones.

In addition, it will allow for a more challenging schedule to run from having to weave the local train in and out of the mainline run whilst the through trains are moving directly from yard to yard.

Due to this new plan, I have also removed the hidden storage altogether as it is no longer required, and have filled the space on the lower deck with more industries and a depot.

As for the line at 3. on the initial plan that fed into the hidden staging, I have turned that into a reversing loop for storage of the local train.

Except for these two changes, the rest of the plan remains the same.

New 3D rendering of the main layout, as well as a new trackplan for the lower deck industrial district are below. As always, feedback is most appreciated.





Also, here are a couple more images to help with seeing where everything is. First the track plan for the main layout:



Plus another view of the 3D rendering, this time from the location of the upper level staging:

[MountainMan]

The upper level staging looks a bit odd without any industry or supporting reason for being there. I assume there will be something along those lines?

[danielb]

There will indeed.

Hopefully more will become clear as I build the layout.

[faraway]

Dan, after looking at your plan again and again I have tow doubts looking at the green part.

- All the tracks running at several levels and having 180° curves at the end my look like a multilevel wedding cake. The center part my sendup like the stacked rice fields in China. I see a lot of larger US layout with a (rocky) mountain scenery where the tracks run one over the other at a very steep slope.
- If you fight the above mentioned concern with lots of tunnels you may end up with a swiss cheese.

I think you should design a scenery where the huge amount of tracks fits nicely in. That might be a complicated task and it may be hard to plan in advance with a truck planning program. But the raised tracks need a lot of support to be constructed in advance when no scenery is available.

May be you should assess the tracks from point of view of absolute required functionality and try to end up with some less tracks.

[danielb]

Thanks for all the feedback guys, it's been taken on board, and it's helped a lot. I think I've been a little (read: very) over ambitious with this plan.

The final nail in the coffin for it, was that someone reminded me at the weekend that I live in a rented house, and really can't be diving into a multi-decked railroad empire considering I could end up moving house at any moment.

As such, I've gone back to the drawing board.

Reading through How to Build Small Model Railroads, I came across a plan designed to fit on one 8'x4' plywood sheet, forming a shelf layout of 8'x9' when the board had been cut to shape. The plan - the Housatonic Valley Railway, is simple and neat and yet has plenty of scope for operations and scenics.

The question is, can I compress it to fit the space I have?

If so, this might become my own 'Gulf, Atlanta & Eastern'.

After compressing the plan considerably, and taking a few liberties, the answer is yes - it does fit. The detailed plan is below, but please note that the hidden staging at the back will be concealed inside removable scenic modules, and - though it is straight and pressed up against the rear of the board, when I build it, it will actually be curved toward the front of the layout, so as to enable it to be relatively easily reached from the front of the layout.

Enough rabbiting from me - here's the plan. Let me know what you think?