Hi everyone, I plan on starting a model railroad in N scale on a 2'x4' sheet of plywood with 2'' foam. So far, I want to model the transition era. On my layout I would like to have a large industry deserve by a yard that can bring a lot of different cars. Across this yard I would like a smaller industry to had variety. I would also like an interchange so it looks like my layout is connected to a larger line (class I railroad). My questions are: Do you have suggestions for a large industry to model? Do you have an idea for a track plan I can get inspiration from? Thank you
well, that won't be much room. I would look at an Inglenook as a track plan, and I would probably have a large freight house, that way you can switch a lot of box cars....
I realize that a large indsutry is too big, so let's make it 2 small industry deserve by a yard. I hope this offer more possibility since I don't want a switching layout.
2x4 feet is not much room to work in much of a "yard" if you're going to go round and round. 18 inches by 6 feet might work...but would be primarily a switching layout. I built a layout for a girlfriend's kids, 2 x 4 feet, divided down the middle to make 2 one foot deep scenes. One side was a BIG industry, a port terminal grain elevator, with a switchback siding to serve an open dockside space. The other side was a farm town with a local grain elevator spur (2 cars max) and an interhange with a trunkline railroad. But no yard. I also have a 2x3 foot layout that is the trackage aboard a Navy blimp base. There are spurs for helium unloading, a Naval stores warehouse, an outside open unloading area, an endloading ramp for vehicles on flatcars and a fuel dump. One more spur is the connection that runs off the layout to interchange with a trunkline railroad. The oval is not a mainline but a circulation loop that allows a switcher to get around to various spots, AND to make a runaround- by going all the way around the loop. You don't HAVE to use this plan for a Navy base. I originally considered a paper mill with pulpwood, chemicals and possibly kaolin clay in, and paper out. But a paper mill has been "done before." You can model a HUGE industry on a tiny layout if most of it is on the background. My 2x3 layout includes one of the world's largest wood-framed buildings, 180 feet across and 900 feet long.
Well, sir, this should keep you out of trouble for a while: http://carendt.us/scrapbook/linkindex/index.html There are a lot of HO "4x8" plans that are generally useful as well. Remember that the accepted minimum curve radius on N is 9 3/4 which doesn't always translate well from N to HO 18" radius. If you can come up with even just a little more room - even 3" more on a side - things may go a lot easier in the adaptations. My first micro-layout in N was 18" x 36", my newest one is 21" x 42". Both are based on logging themes, and they plug together. If you want two distinctly different feelings, the vertical divider idea work very well. Larger industries have the advantage that they often take entirely different types of cars in different areas of the 'plant'. That's the advantage to that approach, and many manufacturing industries still follow that approach. Single-industry prototypes abound. If you want to see one of the most unusual, do a Google Earth search on Portland, OR. Find the I-5 and NE Oregon Street intersection by the steel bridge, that elevator track plan combines as yard, a mammoth elevator, a dock scene, and the UP main line all in one fell swoop.
This is cheating, because it's bigger than you asked for. But I started with one hollow-core door (2.5 feet x 6 feet, 8 inches) with a basic oval. One the back side was a meat-packing plant. On the front was a two-track yard. The plant was served by four tracks with seven distinct car spots, and shipped and received reefers, stock cars, box cars, hoppers, tankers, gondolas and the occasional flat car. I switched it as a point-to-point. It took five round trips from the "yard" to the plant and about one hour and 45 minutes real-time to accomplish a "day's" worth of switching. Kept me plenty happy for about a year until I expanded the layout. Now I'm even happier! Good luck! Jim
Have you considered a team track? (A track with a simple unloading dock used by multiple industries.) You could have a variety of cars unload there but it takes very little real estate as the industries are off layout. You could also put something like a grain elevator which makes a nice industry and it could even share the same spur as the team track. I've always been partial to this 2'x4' layout. It's designed for Kato Unitrack but that doesn't mean you have to use Unitrack. There are a couple of places that could be used as an interchange and places for small-medium sized industries. Kato 2'x4' layout plan. Andy Tetsu Uma
Every time I see these ideas with a scenic divider, I start thinking it might be time to build an HCD.
I'm thinking about using a ridge and trees to achieve the same effect. If you have a Menards close to you, they usually have cull HCDs or plugs for filling in a door for cheap.
I think the key to making something like this work, regardless of the industry, is modeling most of it as "flats" against the backdrop. In place of a "live" interchange you could consider hidden staging with a transfer run instead. The inbound cars are brought to the yard from "somewhere else" by the transfer locomotive, and the outbound cars are taken out at the end of the operating session. According to an article in a recent Model Railroader, in the 1950s transfers were usually "one way" only-- the crew couldn't pick up, just could drop off, and vice versa. Things were starting to change around that time toward "two way" transfers with new work rules and agreements between railroads, so you could play it either way.
DOUBLE-QUOTE: I had a 2-sided 3x7 layout that used trees-- LOT of trees- as a scenic divider. Layout had a town scene almost 2-feet deep one side, a lumber mill branchline only 10 inches deep other side-- and mill buildings hid three staging tracks accessible only from town side. I must admit a serious flaw. My mainline was 9 3/4" radius. I should have gone with something broader, perhaps 11" and built a little less on the layout or made "table" 3 or 4 inches wider.
