Gotcha, I think that I understand what u are talking about and think that I have that with the long lead coupled (pun intended) with the fact that I was hoping to have room for a small engine house out on the top right corner. That would make it so that the engines were kinda pulling through an A/D line or left out on the far side of the yard, waiting to grab the next one out. Any way that you could scribble the escape crossover that you are talking about. I would hate to plan something out and leave out what could be simple. Thanks again so much for everything Jerry (Paul too of course!!) Stew
Paul put in the crossover(s) in his last track plan. Paul designed a crossover for every yard track. An alternative is to put in one crossover from the A/D track to a dedicate run around track (usually closest to the mainline). Jerry
Rest of the main line is drawn out full size. Switches and spurs are in place. That long A/D & Lead return around the back of the main is drawn in. Started the yard layout just before the youngin had to go to bed. Kinda happy about those inner loops. I had said the other day that the left one had a grade of 2.7. Once I do a gradual lead in/out then I will not max out over 3. Once I finished the mainline tonight, the right one ended up one inch larger than the left. Pretty happy with that. Hope to get some more done tomorrow. Hopefully i get to post some pics of the full size deal for any final tweaking by the sages up on the hill! Thanks guys! Stew
I just stumbled onto this thread today. I believe you have it in your garage. if so, why not make it a 2-ishx16-ish bench a shelf layout along the wall ? Surely your car can fit next to this. Make a point to point RR and run in reverse when reached other end. Many small RRs do/did this. Or have a turntable/wye at one or both ends. Running more prototypical might give you more enjoyment down the road. The figure 8 thing is too wide for reaching across. And main line going roundy-round gets old. Sorry,call it tough love.... Mark
Hey Mark, Thanks for the input!! Don't mind the "tough love". If I wasn't looking for suggestions/advice......I would not have come here asking for it! We have kinda made up our minds on a final design (very close to earlier ones discussed). The layout is in the garage. Being that the garage is a functional garage which ebbs and flows car/truck/carpentry work, I wanted to keep everything as portable as possible. The table is 5'10" wide by 10' long and sits on 9 legs, all of which have casters on them. The rear most legs have one way (non steering casters). the middle three legs have spinning casters. The front three have spinning casters with toe locks. The height of the table is high enough to fit over my powder coating oven and a couple of benches and recycled oil area. The casters make it so that the table can pull straight out and straight back easily, utilizing the straight casters. Once out in the open, the steerable ones make it so that it can be rolled around easily. The table is also able to be easily broken up into 4 pieces so that (some year) when we do an addition, the table can be broken up and carried into the new basement (our house does not have a basement right now). The reach for the middle of the table is just over what is the suggested 30". The thought process here was that there is very little track which is over the 30" mark. Less than 4' total with no switches. While there is it would be a pain to reach there, not impossibly, just a pain, it seems to be a minimal percentage compared to the rest of the layout which is within 24" of the table edge. Don't know about the figure 8 thing getting old. I have never tried it. I do know that at my son's age, I was bored out of my mind with the oval that I had at home. Two spurs for a rail yard and one spur to store an engine do not make for much rail running fun when a boy wants to do/see stuff. My goal was to give him as "long" and/or interesting of a mainline as possible then as functional of a yard as possible within a small area. Doing a double figure 8 gives him over 60' of mainline which will be three layers of track. Obviously we will have to have some grade to do this, nothing over 3%. Also we will have to have a lot of turns, all of the curves in the layout (except for 2 on an interior industry spur) are 22" radius or more. There were also some concessions as to proximity of track to the edge of the table. Without pushing that, we would have had a minimal rail yard. If it is a choice between plywood on the back of the table with scenery glued on or a 10' long piece of lexan/plexi glass on the front/side and not have much of a yard, then so be it. We do know that this takes away some of the realism (layers of scenery). We do know that having a larger area with which to play with would make for a lot more layout. Kinda doing the best we can with what we have an picking our concessions. Thanks again for your input Mark. As always, input/ discussion/ suggestions welcomed and appreciated!! Stew
Hey Mark, Yes, there has been some progress (albeit minimal). 1) the aforementioned bench work photo. Next we have been transferring the layout from the paper which we used to figure it out, to full size contractors paper taped over the whole table. Doing that allowed us to figure out gentle curves leading into the figure 8's as well as the curves into and out of the rail yard. All curves (except the two leading into the interior, industry, spur) are 22" Rad or more. This also allowed us to figure out exactly which switches we need to get (ask for as Christmas/birthday presents ). Next we will transfer the layout to the table with a pounce wheel to be able to assure exact location. Then transfer the layout to plywood the same way to be able to cut out the 3" wide pieces to support the track. I already have 4 4X8 pieces of 7 ply Luan (nice and smooth) in my trailer, ready to go. I cut the paper off the table, and laid it on the floor for this pic. Still could not get the whole thing in frame with the camera/phone against the ceiling. The darker (Sharpie) lines are the track center. The fainter (pencil) lines are the edge of the plywood that I need to cut. Hopefully we will get some plywood cut this weekend. Thanks for all the support everyone! Stew
Layout drawn on 1/2" Luan Plywood strips cut. Bottom and edges of plywood have all gotten a coat of exterior paint/primer to try and inhibit moisture infiltration and then warping since this is all in a garage.
I'll nag one more time: You being a carpenter is a fabulous asset in MRRing. What you've done thus far looks solid, pro. I guess I'll simply say that I'd like to see you employ a layout in one of the many "how to build a model RR" books out there. You said the oval bored you as a kid. The figure 8 is not that much diff. I had that too when I was 7. I, nor my dad didn't know better. He built the 4x8 and I added the snap track. He didn't like trains so much and I didn't know anything yet. I just keep meandering back to wanting to see you make this RR longer and thinner and to copy a tried and true one in those books or the many in this forum. Because, looking back if I'd paid more attention to the prototype's activity and to the 'pro' hobbist's layouts I'd have gained greater knowledge of 'how to be' a railroader and a good modeler of it so much sooner. Again, no value judgment here. More of a 'heads up' as to your endeavor..
Thanks Paul. Thanks for the kind words Mark. Compared to what I do every day, model railroad construction/bench construction is quite simple. Safe to say that I overbuilt it A LOT! We have given a ton of thought and consideration to layout. Yes, including yours, up to and including this last post. We just talked about it while waiting for the bus this morning. In his words, "this is only my first layout and your (my) second." "We are not looking for exact prototypical but have a layout that will look cool and have a lot to do." The double figure 8 will give us a cool looking three tracks high in the middle. We have one siding for an industry which will be next to (part of) the mountain. We have another siding which will have a passenger station and an industry. We wanted to do it as a pass through design but that made the curves tighter than the 22" minimum which the passenger cars that he picked out require. Then we have another pass through style siding off the main which is tighter than 22" for another industry or two. His yard has four spurs, all about 7' long, an A/D, a yard lead, a spur for passenger train storage, a caboose spur (albeit off the A/D) and a spur with a triple switch for an engine house. All things considered, we got a bunch into a 5' 10" X 10' layout. Making it longer was not an option. There is only so much room in the garage. We are right at capacity now. He did set a 22" minimum radius as a requirement for us since he really like the Kato Amtrak cars. That much having been said, we could not go longer (space) and we could not go narrower (passenger car restriction). We do know that a back and forth mainline would be much more prototypical. Trains are designed to bring things from one place to someplace else. A long thin mainline (east/west north/south kinda thing) is far more prototypical. We know that. It just looses a bunch of what a 10 year old wants, a cool looking mainline with three layers of track with bridges, his 22" min. radius and a big 'ol freight yard (or at least big to him). We really do appreciate your compliments and your input. His face lit up like a Christmas tree when I told him about ( I guess I'll simply say that I'd like to see you employ a layout in one of the many "how to build a model RR" books out there.) As for input, if we didn't want it, we would not have asked for it! We actually made a bunch of changes based on the wonderful input from you guys here! As for progress, about the only thing we have more is a small piece of 2" thick foam glued in under the lowest spot of track. That way we can dig the terrain down below where the track grade starts for a stream or something. I also took one of my old wood step ladders and reinforced the %$^%$ out of it so that he can reach up and over the layout with a ladder that can stay home with him and not travel on my trailer. Hopefully, by this time next week, we will have all the plywood set and maybe some bridge construction started. Speaking of which, any suggestions on where to find some good "how-to's" on bridge weathering? Thanks for everything Paul and Mark. please Please PLEASE keep it coming. Stew
I had this book out from my local library (one of only two model railroad books they have ), and it covered quite a bit, including weathering. Might be worth checking out: http://books.google.com/books?id=Y0...a=X&ei=lUmjUreqD6uQyQHvw4GIAw&ved=0CFEQ6AEwBQ
Thanks Mark, Already checked out the on line preview. Some very cool stuff in that book!! Thanks! Stew D
ok, so it's been a while since we have been able to post any progress pictures. First....I plow snow and live in New England.....nuff said. Truck has broken, Plow broke three times, small blower broke twice, large blower once, push salter broke once. Not a fan of THIS much snow. Second....as a carpenter, I had two huge jobs that required 12-18 hour days Third.....just haven't had time to post pictures but HAVE been getting stuff done. Not terribly exciting to see one or two more pieces glued to a bridge. so here we go. These are the supports for the freight yard. With three levels of track, and the freight yard falling somewhere in the middle, it all had to be elevated. Overall picture of the sub-road bed. With this being built in a garage, the floor is sloped so you can see how the freight yard slope changes with the table. The table follows the floor but the slopes on the track are spot on. The freight yard is completely level. Being a layout with such gradient changes will obviously require bridges. Bridges done but not cut to size or weathered yet (in this pic) Now we went to a train show in MA and my son became enamored with a non DCC engine, which we then spent time converting it to DCC with sound. Those pictures will be over in the workbench section since it does not pertain to "layout" stuff. This is the beginning of foam scenery. We had to start that before finishing track since bridge supports will need to sit on it. Do you like my choice of weights to hold the stuff down? :0 This is the start of bridges going into place. There is some slope to the bridges and some curve to them too. Took a lot of widdling (sp?). I felt like Gepeto from Pinnochio. We still have to make the concrete blocks to support each leg (hoping to do that tonight) and have a bit of work to do on the top of the bridges (my skill at building those micro engineering bridges needs a "bit" of work. The walthers bridge was a TON easier to build but reasonably less detailed. I have varying thicknesses of styrene strips to make it so that the bridge sections can be perfectly level in the middle and start the super elevation slope at the ends. This picture also shows the two concrete supports that we made to hold the large bridge and the inside ends of the tower span bridge. We made those a couple of weeks back out of oak and poplar. Took a couple of attempts to get them to look like concrete. When we weather the bridges, we will drybrush some weathering and rust onto them. They look very "new" right now. Upcoming "plan" is to do the concrete supports for the tower and bent tonight. Weather the bridges this weekend. Attach bridge flex track onto the bridges. The flextrack also came with what appears to be walkways for each side. Is that typical (prototypical) on a more modern bridge or should we leave them off? Glue roadbed. Start track. Super elevate the curves as the track goes in. Power up mainline. Daughter is looking forward to this as she is my little EE. Experiment with tortoise motors on switches. Lay track and switches for yard and A/D lines. Make control board (project in itself with what we are planning) Power rest of switches. Should easily be spring by this time and a lot of my focus will switch to the outdoor kitchen that I started a while ago.........that's a different forum though! I want to get him a functional layout before then (track but not scenery) to keep the boy content.
