Hello! I've been tinkering around with a layout design for an alcove I have in my master bedroom. I like hoppers and mining, as well as intermodal cars.. two opposing car types it seems! I'd like some feedback on this layout. It fits in an alcove that is 74" deep and 66" wide. The intermodal yard is across the top, and there will be a quarry on the bottom right. The idea is that the quarry will mine marble or something, and load it into containers as well as crush some that is distributed via hopper cars. The containers are then trucked up to the intermodal yard and loaded onto the train for their trip to market. I'm wondering if there is some way I can work some more switching into this layout, since running a train in a circle would get boring fast. I do, however, like that I can run it in a loop if I want to have something moving. Does anyone have any ideas for improvements? Does this layout seem realistic enough? I didn't base this on anything in particular, but I'd like to have realistic operations either way.. I'd appreciate any and all comments!
If those squares are 1' x 1', then you're going to have some serious reach issues for some of your switches. Nevertheless, I believe the plan a good start, so long as it's utilized to run on narrower shelves.
If you wanted to work more switching into the layout, I'd suggest possibly adding a town. From what you said, the Quarry is on the bottom right. I would take the left wall and use it as a town that would have a line going to the intermodal yard, creating a full loop (perhaps hide one of the entrances with a tunnel) and then have the quarry be on more of a branch line that goes downhill. I'd draw it up for you, but I'm currently at school. Having a town would give you more switching options and some more cars for your yard.
It appears you have a duck under there. Most would strongly advise you to avoid it if you can or to put in a lift bridge of some sort. I would suggest putting * The inter-modal yard and frieght yard along one wall * Use the same Arrival / Departure tracks and such * The mine on the opposite side of the room from the yard. You could even obscure the approach to the mine such that it would not appear that you were delivering the coal back to the mine. Hope this helps.
Hello, Yes, the grid is a 6 inch grid. The shelves are about 21 inches deep. This will be n scale, but a string of five intermodal well cars is about 33 inches long. Each spur in the intermodal yard is about 40 inches long to accomodate them. The lead into that yard is also about 40 inches long so that I can have a full string of well cars on the siding too. I fear that if I put the yard and the intermodal yard on the same side, there will not be much room for anything else there. Due to the length of the well cars, I am trying to keep the mainline at or over 15" turns. The inner loop uses 13.75" turns. Do you think there is actually enough room over there for both and a mainline passthrough? I love the idea of a town on the left. I could move the quarry over there as well, that doesnt matter that much. . Im afraid there won't be much room for anything scenery wise there though. I do plan on having a lot of flat or nearly flat scenery up against the wall. Id love to see ideas for a town with industries
Oh, also.... yes, that is a duck under. There is no way around it if I want to allow a loop to just have a train or two running. Im certainly not opposed to making that track removable or otherwise mobile so that you do not need to crawl into the layout. I'm 6' 2" so I do understand that issue I also wanted to use tortise switch machines for most, if not all, of the turnouts on this layout. I really don't like the look of the manual throws. Obviously on the mobile bridge at the entrance we would have to compromise and use manual throws... but everywhere else I would like to have machines. I also wanted to control this layout using DCC, which will be new for me. I understand that you can control switches with DCC too, which is something that is very interesting.
Ah, yes, I see now how the curve / straight meet at the duk / lift out. If it remains a duk then maybe you could shift the curve. The main advice here will be for you to avoid a duk. By the way the track on the duk is very very close to the edge. That could be a serious issue. Still, I personally do not like the "appearance" of the yard. The way the ladder comes off the yard lead bothers me - on a visual level. On a practical level it probably works best that way. Suggestion, in your software remove the yard altogether, print it out and then sketch possible variations. Do a bunch of them. Then try putting it back in with the software. Just a thought and probably not a big deal. I notice the curved turnouts. I'm guessing they are readily available in the track you have selected to use. Good luck with everything.
That's a good point about the yard lead. I saw that too. I'm sure that's not how they would be in "real life". One other thing that I could do, which might work better, would be to move the yard into the center of the layout near where the Quarry is.. and put the quarry out there where the yard is. This arrangement would give a lot more space for the quarry, and the yard seems like it would fit at an angle there without too much trouble. I could probably even have a proper arrival and departure track/runaround using this method. I'll see what can be done. I agree that anything is better than having the duck under in place without being able to move it. My idea was to make the part completely removable, and use the barrel-style electrical plugs you see at Radioshack to connect the + and - to it when needed. That's why the curves end right there at the seam with the removable section. One thing I think I am lacking - well, I know I am lacking - is easements around the curves. I know I should add them, but I'm not really sure exactly how to do so. I'd also like to find a way to allow for some grade or elevation change on this layout, but everything is so tied together I can't really do much. I am planning on using Atlas code 55 track, which has curved turnouts available.
hi Inktomi, A lift-out would probably work well. A few notes about easements. During planning the only thing you have to do is adding some length between a curve and the first turnout. A carlength (your longest) is sufficient. If you really need them is something else, depends on the cars and the speed of your trains. If I remember well Lance Mindheim always uses 6" of lengrh for his easements. I've been playing a bit with your plan, i would prefer a larger operating pit. Three feet wide would be great. BTW adding underground staging and some grades too. Paul
Those changes look pretty awesome. I was trying out various ways to get a staging level underneath - you succeeded! I also like that there is some variation in the height of places. I'll have to work on incorporating some of these ideas - the only one that doesn't seem to be very prototypical is the intermodal yard. It seems like they are almost always a dual track mainline (with a crossover or two) that goes through a series of wyes to split up into however many tracks are needed. (that said, we can't have /everything/ be exactly as in real life). Perhaps I can run a double mainline and connect it back into one track near the quarry. I also really like that you'd found a place for a mine. I grew up around long coal drags, and they have a special place in my heart. The only downside to having the mine as shown is that I'm planning on modeling "today" - and so they would be using a flood loader which requires a siding that the whole train can be pulled through. I believe they simply enter the siding, and then slowly advance through the flood loader till the whole train is filled. Perhaps I can find a way to do that somewhere. I wanted to do easements (and super elevated curves on the mainline) because that is what is done in the real world. Where possible I wanted to keep it as close to reality as I can. I'm into photography a bit, and I wanted to make this sort of a large diorama that is as close to reality as I can make it. As for easements, I thought they were anywhere the track went from straight to curved? My list of "little details" is as such: - Easements - Super elevated turns - Electric turnout motors to avoid having the hugely over-scale manual throws - Working signals for every place they would be in reality - Working crossing gates / lights I have a big list of "wants".. but I am in no rush. The fun is in building and getting it right, then enjoying it some years down the road. That's why I'm trying to involve as many minds in the design phase as I can. You know more than me! I've been looking at the CSX Dixie Line (http://csxdixieline.blogspot.com/) and drooling over that work.. it's an amazing source of inspiration! If only I had the space. [edit] I currently have the following cars for this layout: - Kato SD80MAC - Fox Valley GE ES44DC - Kato Bethgon Coalporters - Kato MAXI-I well cars ordered
hi, the mainline is hard to model on a small pike like yours. Looking at the Memphis intermodelyard you need at least a track and a good sized road beside it. Stacks of containers would help too. Paul
The need for so much space for the IM yard was why I figured it'd be good to have it against the wall. I could just pave some concrete up to the backdrop and then stack containers along the wall to simulate the storage part. I may have some room around the corner from this alcove to use as well. The other available space in my house is a wall in my office where I could have ~100" wide and 40" deep. I'm not sure if that space is any better - though it's a rectangle rather than a U shape. The other shape I could do is wrapping around the wall outside this alcove a bit.. something like this. It would have to wrap around the edge of the alcove, which has a bit of an inset in it. (the 100x40" rectangle looks better and better heh)
Hopefully you can see the photo. If not, I'll scan it. I drew the plan up before I realized you had that bit of extra space. I had trouble squeezing everything in the layout and making a prototypical plan, but I used two interlocking lines to give you a continuous-run option, a line to staging, and something to justify the yard being there. The intermodal yard kind of got squished next to the yard, but with that extra space in your room, you could move either the mine/quarry or the intermodal yard to there. Simply create a branch line off of the town. That would allow space for engine facilities at the yard or a small industrial block. Oh, and the lift-out section's switches would fit much better with a double-slip switch, but I don't know if you really want to use one of those. I just wanted to throw some more ideas at you. Alex
Wow. I can't believe both of you would take the time to draw all that out (even by hand!) for me. That's very gracious of you both! I like what you've done with the town there, and I think if I made it somewhat of a mining town, it would even work well with the mine being so close. I'm going to take both these designs and see what I can do with a bit of a wrap-around into the bedroom. In theory, if I use wall brackets and spline roadbed going around corners shouldn't be too hard.. I just attach thin plywood to the back and curve it around corners as a backdrop. It's a 90 degree turn, but I can take it as easily as I want if I give up a few inches more in space. I'll post the design once I have something I'm happy with. If I string all my bethgons together and use both locomotives to pull it, I'll have a train around 45 inches long. If I pull ten well cars, that'll put me around 75 inches long. In theory, I'd like to be able to run both of these trains - but I'm nearly certain that I won't be able to pull off the full intermodal train in the space I have. I don't want to get in too deep. Perhaps I have the intermodal yard and a little runaround for it at one end, the town in the middle with the mine, and the yard with it's runaround at the other end. Somewhere in between in each direction staging could split off and descend, and perhaps... maybe... there will be enough room in the bedroom to have a turnaround. I'll have to see how much space I can steal away from the bedroom without causing too much trouble. I'm guessing 36" wide and a few feet long wouldn't be a big deal - the space right in front of the layout would be wasted anyway since you won't be able to use it. We just use the room for sleeping anyway after all!
Yes, that was why I decided to put the mine and the town together. It would be most realistic, and give an interesting character to the town. I would definately try to move the intermodal yard to the extension you proposed earlier, and if you possibly extended the layout forward by maybe a foot, it would really get rid of some of that 'ovalness' in my plan. I would also recommend using staging in your plan, as you can model trains coming and going more easily. I prefer designing layouts by hand, by the way. Anyways... I'm supposed to be preparing for finals, and opening a notebook to my parents looks like studying.
I worked on getting the layout into that around-the-corner business last night. For refernence, this is the shape I'm trying out: 66" wide by 75" deep alcove 10" wide by 13.5" deep cutout to get out of the alcove 51" wide by 20" deep (40" along the wall + 21" to get to the center of the operating area and have a flat edge) It's next to impossible to get around that corner and have reasonable radius curves, so I was messing around with 15" curves and the yard on that extension, but it just wasn't working out. I need to mess around some more this weekend and see how I can work it out. Using the long intermodal cars means I don't want to go below 15" curves as a general rule. I did play with the 40" deep by 100" wide rectangle I can use in another room, and it seems like I could get quite a bit of operational interest going on that layout. It's long enough to have 60" trains going around without too much trouble or looking silly, and in theory I could have spurs along the way that go to industry / a town, along with a decently designed yard. Ideas, ideas!
If you can find a copy of it, John Armstrong wrote an excellent book that had a section that detailed his idea on how to model a modern flood loader, where empties go in and loads come out. It required some grades and tricky scenery but would be perfect for your needs. I would have to dig through my boxes of books to find it but I'm almost certain it was Track Planning for Realistic Operation. There is a SOO train model that transitions into benchwork sketching on the front cover for reference. ...here http://www.kalmbachstore.com/12148.html Since those coal drags are the main reason for your rail line to exist, it may be worth your while to check out. You could then work the intermodal element in the left over real estate. Also, is that 100x40 rectangle in close proximity to the alcove or no?
I just measured the rectangular space again, it's 145x40 that I could totally devote - but it's in a different room. That space is basically one wall in our office, where there's really only a litter box at the moment. I've been playing around with that space, and discovered that woodchip cars look a lot like coal cars while the modern loading equipment is much smaller (and available). Something to think about, at least. I discovered this while looking for a decent flood loader to use if I couldn't get the Walthers one. I still really like the intermodal train look.. it just takes up so much space! I may have to go for a single track-siding yard like they've got near that Toyota plant (I forget exactly where..). I agree that the whole point of this track existing would be to move coal from point A to processing to client... so that would be the focus over intermodal (unless coal is woodchips). I can always run my intermodal train from staging and around the layout back to staging. I'll export some very raw track progress to show sort of where I am.
Here are the two "shapes" I am considering at the moment. The first should look familiar, and, well.. the second is a rectangle! I wasn't sure what to put on the part that sticks out of the alcove, so I tried to put a yard in there. The turn required makes it very difficult to achieve, and I really don't like the overall "look" of having that peice of layout stick out of the alcove. If I go with this location, I think I will stick inside the alcove and reposition some things as the two suggested designs show. This second is one that fits into the 145" wide and 40" deep area I have available in my office. Obviously there is a lot of extra space still on this layout, and I probably would want to make the mainline curve around a bit more than just go in a loop - but this is where I was headed in this room space. Pros of the alcove: Interesting overall shape lends to an interesting layout. Cons of the alcove: not big enough for any lengthy trains, not "deep" enough for much scenery if I pack track into the layout Pros of the rectangle: big! Easy to grade for scenery. Cons of the rectangle: the shape is somewhat boring, lends itself towards a long loop. I'm going to continue to work on both designs. I don't think I've found "the design" for the rectangle yet. I'm pretty happy with the design we're getting to in the alcove.. it just won't let me run 60" trains and not have things look crowded.
