The wife said I can have a model railroad layout (YAY), but it has to be in N scale (uh, boo?). So, after booting up the Atlas RTS software, version 7.0, I did some fiddling & finagling, and came up with this: This 9-foot by 5-foot layout, 2 feet depth, 11" radius curves. The ArkLaTex is a fictitious Class III line operatiing branches cast off from the Kansas City Southern and UP, from Minden, LA north to Hope, AR; a branch north to Nashville, AR; and from Texarkana, TX west to New Boston, TX. The layout above depicts part of the Minden-Hope line, and includes a paper mill, flour mill, and a feed mill for the area poultry industry. Hidden interchange is there to hide the Frisco, which comes down from Hope (its real-life east end of the A&A Sub). Cars will be no larger than 60 feet, and four-axle diesels will be used, so the 11" radius curves are no major issue. A switcher will be located at the paper mill, and will sit on the spur when not in use. Cab control is the order of the day, and visible track will be code 55 with hand-thrown turnouts. Hidden track will be code 80 with electrical turnouts.
I would try to make the bench width 30". That way you won't be confined to 11" inch radii which is very narrow. You'll be able to extend that to a 14" radii and then you could use some larger six axle diesels if you wish to. Those extra six inches will allow you to develop some nice industrial sidings as well as a bigger yard. Have fun.:teeth: Stay cool and run steam.....
That's a neat plan, Bob. By increasing the benchwork depth to 30" you would need to add an additional 9" to each end of the 'L' to maintain the track layout as is with larger radius curves. If you have the room, then that would be a good move. A best move to date though is having the Frisco hidden...
N scale does not = BOO. N-scale = yeah! Welcome back to the fold, Friscobob. There better be some Mopac on that layout, too! :shade:
Space is an issue with me- this is the maximum I could get from the BUreau of Land Management. ANd yes, it is in a cormer of the room, against both walls. The main door is on one end, while the back door to the patio is on the other. As I mentioned, this is a short line, and to accurately model the KCS branch that is the basis for the ArkLaTex, no six-axle diesels will be used. I can always write it off to low Cooper's ratings on the bridges and lightweight rail...... (Incidentally, in real life the KCS line north of Springhill, LA to Anthony, AR is embargoed, and the SSW diamond at Stamps removed- Kiamichi RR operates the Anthony-Hope section). Speaking of Frisco, it will be seen both as interchange trains and borrowed power. Since this branch does come close to the MP main in Hope, I might sneak in a MP diesel now & then, most likely a Geep. I have two GP7s, both undecs, reserved for ALTR road power. The switcher I bought off of Hemi will be the paper mill switcher (it's in BN colors, and all I did was paint the cab sides black with a felt tip pen to cover the BN logo- it'll be lettered SRLX for Siembida Rail Leasing). I think I can squeeze one more shipper in there off that siding behind the flour mill..... With the hidden staging, I can use the 0-5-0 to rearrange cars, locomotives, and cabooses (yep, ALTR will have cabooses- no we don't have F-units like neighboring L&NW, but ya never know). The timeline is 1980, so Frisco, MP, and even some ICG off their Shreveport-Meridian line will be seen as motive power.
Oh yeah, Matthew- I'm primarily an HO guy, but now that there's more cool (read-locomotives with motors that do nnot have half-lives measured in minutes, and that don't run like scalded cats at low speed) stuff available in N, I've been amassing a small collection of N gear. I really like that code 55 Atlas track, as well as the lo=pro wheels they came out with. I've been converting some cars with MT trucks & couplers, replacing wheels with Atlas. If that guy in Delta, CO who started up Trainworx was still churning out code 40 track & turnouts, I'd have him on speed dial. In my book, it's all model railroading, so it all gets a big YAY!! I don't get into that scale vs.scale crap- that's all a waste of time & energy best spent on playing with trains.
I think I'd worry about where the staging is if you plan the 0-5-0 switcher there. You said the layout is against two walls. You'll be reaching across the layout to get behind whatever you use to hide the staging. Might I suggest using something like casette staging off one end or the other?
No offense to anyone, but whats with the reverse loop love fest we have going on here? Thats a very nice british style single location layout, and a reverse loop would add nothing to it. It's plan is very realistic and a reverse loop would detract from that.
Thoughts and freeform layout ideas. Take 'em or leave 'em: -I would agree with all above about having a slightly wider footprint atleast as little bumps where your curves come out to the edges. Even 26 inches would allow for a slightly wider curve. -Nice a minimal is very good. -Your mainline as it goes from left curve to inside curve to lower right curve. The visible tracks. I would be tempted to make those parts of the main more curvy and push that inside curve toward the back of the layout. Tracks running parallel to the layout edge are not as pleasing to the eye in my book. -Why not just daylight that yard. Decorate it like a real yard, but use it as staging? You could even add an engine house. - Make the plan slightly more convoluted and create a sort of oblong figure eight complete with cross over. you could add a cut off for reverse loop operation and use it as a interchange track. It would look like a junction then. -The addition of Illinois Central on your layout has to be about the best idea yet! Hard to pass up that orange and white. (Please don't tell me you like the death star scheme ) ICG inherited some F's in the merger with GM&O, so you may end up with some F''s rolling on the layout anyway.
It's your layout Friscobob. But the Mopac is the best railroad ever. Frisco's nice, too. :shade: Geeky, that IC "death star" scheme is a whole lot classier than the ICG "I don't know what to call it" scheme, both of which are better than CN.
The scenic divider would be no more than 6 inches tall- I could make it 3 inches, or perhaps just a very dense strip of trees. I'm pretty much stuck at 24 inches wide, so I may put some Masonite along the side, having it jut up about an inch or so to keep derailing rolling stock from making the Big Drop to the carped floor 4 feet below. Again, the era is 1980. No Arkansas & Missouri for another 7 years, no IC "deathstar" locos for longer than that. It's ICG orange & white, KCS white, Frisco Mandarin orange & white, and MP Jenks blue. And again, it's all four-axle territory. I may do a little fiddling & finagling with some of the main line between the flour mill spurs and paper mill siding to, say, put in a swamp scene or a small wooded hill- maybe do a hill thru which the L&A built a cut back in the day. No engine houses, no fancy yards, none of that- just simple shortline railroadin' at its best. And I'm modeling a small part of the line as it may have existed. But somehow I'll devise a way to "separate" the staging area from the rest of the RR. The ideas of staging cassettes is intriguing, and I could add a spot at one end or another which would be used only when the railroad is on operation. No unit coal trains, no double-stacks, no hi-horse AC diesels, and NO FREDs- just shortline railroading with a little CLass 1 RR action.
I like it like that. That is a layout I could be happy with if I had to. If it was mine instead of staging I'd put a yard along a front edge but that's just me. Definitely no reverse loop. That would crowd it and complicate the wiring. Hmm, guess that rules out bullet trains.
I'd add an industry on the right side off the siding for one more industry. Gotta have you a grain elevator. The old style wood type!
I have one already, but I could either add another one or perhaps a plastics plant. Another site to set out covered hoppers, a la BlitzUSA in Miami, OK. Maybe two elevators on the layouts for poultry, or one could be a farmer's supply similar to some I've seen on the PNWR's Westside line. I gotta put something there, and your suggestion has started me to thinking. Not sure where I'd put a reverse loop on this thing, and since I'm keeping the wiring simple, I'm not sure I really need one. With staging, I can have two trains- one going one way, one another. Running a locomotive "backwards" is another thing seen on shortlines, so I'll do that.
I agree with Second Moss and JKD on the reverse loop idea. It's adding trackage for the sake of it and I don't feel it would add the the operations as designed. As it stands, the design makes for a neat point (staging) to point scheme with the option of continuing on back to staging. You can have through running plus a local or two. Another thought - moving the passing loop switch behind the feed mill to near the flour mill (short of that switch) to lengthen the passing loop and then possibly move the paper mill switch to a position closer the flour mill, too. This would increase the loop length and give another spot or two to have additional spurs without cramming it in.
