I have been quietly working on a yard track plan in my spare time (which is in short supply during Lent). However, this week's biggest accomplishment would be working with Mike on my new avatar (which will also be submitted to a decal manufacturer as the new herald of my railroad). I introduce to you Kiski Minnie. When I was a kid growing up in Vandergrift, PA, Kiski Minnie was the "weather girl" on the front of the daily newspaper (the Vandergrift News-Citizen). Depending on the expression on her face (and the state of her "feather"), various weather forecasts were depicted. Her name, of course, was a take-off from the word Kiskiminetas. She is, if you will, my Phoebe Snow. (Although Kiski Minnie was "retired" some time ago and the original artist boarded "the Glory Train" many years ago, I still received permission from the newspaper's successor to use Kiski Minnie for my own personal use in relation to my model railroading.) Thank you, Mike, for all your work. (If any of you haven't contributed to the site and taken advantage of the custom avatar "perk," I highly recommend Mike's capable work.) Thanks again, Mike!
Hi father, I've been reading through all your postings, quite a lot by you. Basically you have come up with along list of druthers and a very schematic footprint, the big M. And please, please design me my big railroad. My impression is you can have a different footprint with at least a 30 inch radius. Just apply the old John Armstrong law: use a spiral and not a multi-blob design. I did some doodling and drawing in RTS and the 30 radius went in easily. It could be made even larger; 35" or ?. Before putting effort into the design it would be nice to know if there are any restrictions. Must a path around the layout be maintained really everywhere? Must it be 40 inch wide everywhere? How do you envision staging? Loop, stub, no staging at all, double ended? Must the cross (sorry) be involved in the design; with all the legs working? With a layout that big there are so many options, it is hard find a good starting point. Maybe you could start with drawing a schematic. Just a line with some labels like (loop)staging, classification, crossing, siding or the name of the station, or even river or big bridge. Trying to twist and bent the line into a footprint is coming next. Besides labeling you could also indicate how important certain scenes are to you. In the thread by trainlover you can see a design made by me. Important however is the picture with the bubbles. In reality that drawing was done on the back of an envelope; a bit hard to post however. You will have to develop such a drawing before going to the drawing board and use your templates. I am not so sure about one of your druthers. If I remember well Tony Koester and Bill Darneby have stated that you need at least 7 scale miles for a good representation of railroading in the dark. Tony has almost triple decked his much larger space. I've to do some reading on that issue. I couldn't find back the era you mentioned. Nor how many trains you want to run at the same time. When I first saw the plan of the Maumee (by Bill Darnaby) I was afraid for claustrophobia. And I was at the other side of the big pond. Gradually when I gathered more information it became clear that cornfield meets were the exception. No bunches of sweaty guy's trying to pass each other in a very narrow and very long darkish corridor. Just a couple of trains per session are run. Glad to help you, but I need a starter. Have fun, keep smiling Paul
Love the new avatar! Will this be on some of your rolling stock? Plus we have to have a back story on the Kiski Minnie train I am sure it will be a fast mover!
Well, I submit the following for your consideration: I still haven't mastered any of the computer drawing programs yet, so this is hand-drawn. (BTW, it would seem that CTT is no longer producing their HO scale template. I had to call all over the country to find the one I received yesterday. Found one in Wyoming.) I have never attempted to draw a yard before, so this is based solely on what I have read, not practical experience. The switches are all No. 6. Since I have not tried putting this into a drawing program, I am not sure that what I have drawn is "bullet proof." However, we learn by doing. The top two staging tracks are approx. 8 feet. The A/D track is approx. 9 1/2 feet. The classification tracks range from 9 feet to 4 1/2 feet. The mainline coming into the yard from either end is 30" radius; the drill track is drawn at 32" radius. I have already determined that I will probably have to eliminate one track (probably classification track 5) in order to properly space the trackwork on the benchwork. I didn't take into account how close the bottom track would be to the edge. Also, I based this on 2" separation between tracks. Should I be looking at 2 1/2" instead? Let the water balloon toss begin!
Kiski Minnie will appear on the engines and caboose. I will probably follow the Pennsy style of centering the road name on a set of boxcars with the herald over the center of the name, and place the herald with the name on the coal hopper fleet. After that it will be hit and miss. I will have to give some thought to what might be appropriate for the "Kiski Minnie" train. Something along the lines of the old "Man O'War" that ran from Chicago to New York. Unfortunately, since this line is going to be something of a "bridge route," any livestock or perishable trains would likely be B&O or Pennsy "just passing through." I'll have to come up with something specific to the area.
I'm not really asking anyone to design a railroad for me. I simply ask a lot of questions so I can learn from the mistakes and experience of others. This leaves more time for me to make my own mistakes. I find that with the "M" shape I am considering, maintaining a 30" minimum radius will not be a problem. On the four "inside corners" of the benchwork (between the aisles) and on the two outside corners, I can easily accomodate 36" radius curves. I have played a bit with the spiral idea, but I am afraid I will lose too much mainline with that type of configuration. I can live with the 22" radius on the ends of the penisulas as this will give me a more extensive mainline in the long run. Two other considerations using the "M" shape: I can have contiunous running and no duck-unders. As for aisle width, I have drawn a 36" aisle along the outside of the "island" with 48" aisles between the three penisulas. I could reduce those to 36" as well, but I would not gain enough room for another penisula, so I might as well make use of the space for people (since I do not wish to increase the "reach" into the benchwork by making it wider). As for not using the walls, there are obstructions related to the walls that I have not drawn on my benchwork plan, since I have already taken them into account. I am basically limited to the 20' x 22' footprint in the middle of the room. I have already decided not to try modeling a functional junction...just would take up too much real estate. As for staging, I'm not sure about that yet. If I limit myself to running locals out from and back to the yard, I will not need staging tracks for through trains. However, I may need a couple tracks to simulate traffic that has been dropped off in the yard between sessions by through trains for sorting. I included two staging tracks in the yard plan I drew above, but I may need to add more. Still up in the air about this. With Holy Week, Easter, and my mother in the hospital, I have not had time to draw up a schematic as of yet. I will try to do that this evening. BTW, the era is 1957.
If anyone is new to this thread, let me save you some time so you don't have to read the whole thing. The basic information (up to this point) is found here: Layout Room: page 1, post 1 List of Givens: page 1, post 4 Benchwork configuration: page 2, post 14 List of Druthers: page 3, post 21 Yard Diagram: page 5, post 44
Question: How many of you model a freight yard on your layout, and how many simply make use of unscenicked staging?
Both modeled yards: The main P&PU Yard in East Peoria a satellite yard for the P&PU by the scrap yards and Keystone Steel and Wire Mill across the river unsceniced staging and 2 tracks of hidden staging behind the trees beyond modeled yards
Thanks, it fills my 35x40 foot basement. The upper deck represents the Peoria and Pekin area with the Peoria and Pekin Union Railway main yards, industries served in the 1970s, and the RRs that locally connected with the P&PU. The lower decks are accessed by helixes and have long runs from the helixes to the staging yards which represent the various cities the connecting RRs were coming from.
At my club we have a yet un-scenicked freight yard. The idea is that we'll eventually get some ballast and scenery to make it look a little more prototypical. At home, I haven't decided whether to include a full yard.
On my last home layout, I had 3 track open staging that was intended to be lightly scenic'd. It was visually isolated from the rest of the layout, but visible. At my club, we have staging, but there are plans to have a Yard on the layout as well.
I dont know how big this would have to be in HO scale but you could model the junction in a corner looking like this. If you staggered the height of the decks on opposing walls you can have staging from the other side of the peninsula under the main deck. It definitely helps with operations. If you ever get into really operating the layout with multiple people, through trains are the majority of traffic. Having two or three staging tracks hidden at the indicated places in the junction would provide lots of operating possibilities. Heck you could just loop it around and have a train disappear down towards pittsburg on one side of the river to just reappear emerging from "staging" on the other side of the river from pittsburg to continue on towards the modeled ends of the layout. Less operational possibilities but would make continuous running possible. Anyway, just some ideas. Ryan B
Sorry to come in late as I had not seen this thread until now. First welcome to the "board". The Van Buren sub doesn't have near the traffic volume that your plan will likely have but I do have have hidden staging as well as a visible yard. Hidden staging is a 4 track double ended yard below the Arkansas River representing No. Little Rock to the east and Coffeyville/Kansas City to the west. The opening in the fascia allows access I also have a visible yard in Van Buren to classify local traffic. I like the fact that you have a lot of industry to switch (my favorite part of the hobby). However I do not believe in contrived trackwork such as timesavers etc. On my layout the Spadra turn works three towns, each with one siding (two are team tracks). It still takes me 40-50 minutes (real time) to work the turn out and back by just running the train as the prototype would. As for radius...I would use at least 30" if you are going to run ANY long cars such as passenger equipment. Also the trains look far more realistic. I look forward to seeing your progress.
"Life comes at you fast." It seems like every time I get the materials to finish off the train room, something else comes up. I bought drywall and studs...then my 92-year-old mother moved in with us three years ago and I needed to build an additional bedroom in another part of the house. Eventually bought more studs and drywall...wife wanted the family room completely finished first (about 18 months ago). Bought more studs and drywall, got the train room about 70% done. Now we may be adopting another child (teenager). You guessed it...I need to build another bedroom. This time I will need to "sub-divide" a part of my previously negotiated real estate for the trains. (Please don't get me wrong...I love my mother and I love children, first things first.) Hopefully, I will have a plan in place in the next two weeks for the bedroom construction and will then need to reevaluate what space I will have left to build a layout. "Life comes at you fast." :tb-biggrin:
BTW, I saw one of my goals actually bear fruit. My twin sister was in a couple weeks ago. I had my avatar on the computer as a screen saver. She takes a look, takes another look, then says, "Hey, I know her!" I reminded her of our old hometown newspaper and she remembered Kiski Minnie right away. She asked if my dad's old gas station would be on the layout (Atlantic service station) as well as the drive-in theater my mother worked at when we were kids (just a few hundred yards down the road from our house). Having answered her in the affirmative, I now have another advocate where my railroad aspirations are concerned. Wonder if my sister is interested in learning to scratch-build...?
Any updates to the revised trainroom situation? I hope it wasn't abandoned entirely! I haven't posted for the longest time since life came at me fast as well, I am no longer living in my own house, and theres not enough room in my rented bedroom for much more than the bed and nightstand. But going to school is a bit more important than a hobby.
I am afraid there isn't much to report in the way of progress. The child in question has been placed in another foster home (so no need to sub-divide the space) and my mother is now in a nursing home (which requires a different type of time commitment on my part for visiting, etc.). Finances aren't so hot right now either. Most importantly, in mulling the whole layout over in my head, I have come to the conclusion that I do not want to "bite off more than I can chew" in a reasonable amount of time. My immediate goal now is to find a way to finish the room so that is out of the way when actual construction of a layout starts. In the meantime, I am re-thinking my list of "givens and druthers" and getting them "cut down to size." :tb-biggrin:
