It's been a while but as I have said numerous times, life comes at you fast. I purchased a late Christmas present for myself from the B&M Historical Society written by Rick Kfoury and entitled, Queen City Rails, Manchester's Railroads 1965 - 1990. This was exactly the time period I was hoping to model, and Manchester was a city I would frequent a lot throughout the 1970's - 1990's. I remember the city back then as a typical old mill town that had track seemingly running everywhere. The book brought back a lot of memories and answered a lot of questions as to who had rail service and what they got and how. I have subscribed to a YouTube channel, BoomerDiorama who is a pro at modeling a specific time and place. His 8-foot HO scale shadowbox was the inspiration for what I'm presently working on. He said something in a recent video that struck a chord with me when he said, pick a signature scene and build off from that. For him, it is a brewery, for me, inspiration came in the form of page 95 of my new book. A picture of Central Paper with three spots off the main with a B&M and Detroit & Mackinaw box cars. On a rainy, cold February morning, I grabbed my book, fired up the computer and brought up Google Maps and my AnyRail program, and with a hot cup of Early Grey in hand, I set out to design a new track plan. Here are the parameters for this 6-foot industrial layout inspired by Manchester New Hampshire in the 1980s. The layout base is made from two T-Trak 3-foot modules. Track needed to but up against the ends of the two sections. Why not make it one piece? Because the 3-foot module will fit on my 2X4 workbench, and the layout will transport easily in my 1965 Ford Falcon should I decide to display the layout at a tabletop show. The layout would be set in 1975 - 1983, before Guilford. If I wanted something after 1983, industries would be served by the New England Southern. Current operations are set up as a dead-end industrial track, hence the run around. Staging is off to the south (right). While this is an industrial layout in only 6 feet, customers who are served by rail must be big enough to justify rail service in an area that is seeing a lot of truck traffic. The layout would not unrealistically cram a bunch of tracks in a small setting. A spur that serviced a small industry for one box car a week would likely not be rail served by 1975 as trucks were already using 40- and 45-foot trailers. In this era, we see medium sized industry that have multiple spots for rail cars and loading doors for semis. While my previous track plan looked esthetically pleasing, it did have some pit falls. I'll be using the scale couplers with my equipment on this layout so even broad curves could induce some mechanical issues, and the turnout was in the center of the two modules. I felt I should concentrate on track reliability over esthetics. Finally, after much internal debate, I decided on modeling the "feel" of Manchester NH rather than model what I saw exactly especially since I now had a track plan for the actual Brown Ave. Industrial. So now I present you with The Granite State Industrial Spur. As mentioned above, the focal point is Central Paper, a company that is still in business in Manchester although, they no longer use rail. I measured this building on Google Earth and added the overhangs for unloading boxcars based on images. I will scratch build this large and almost entirely to scale building by using Boomerdiorama's method of wood for the internal structure and Evergreen styrene for the outer layer. The dead end is the north side (left) just past the Granite Street overpass. I hope to camouflage the dead end with the overpass and trees. The second large building served is also to scale as far as width but is cut for depth and that is the former Sweetheart Plastics building. There is room for two to three spots here. Last but not least is the team track with loading and unloading platform. There is also two non-rail industries and a Gulf gas station. Online Customers: Central Paper. They receive 1 - 3 boxcars of rolled paper of various weights. All shipments are made by truck on the south side of the building. Railroad picks up all empties. Cars in the process of being unloaded will require the crew to replace any of those cars that have to be moved. Sweetheart Plastics. They will receive 1 -3 covered hoppers of plastic pellets or an occasional boxcar for other raw material. All shipments from the plant are outbound by truck on the south side of the building. Team Track. Can receive all manner of freight cars thanks to its loading platform, overhead crane and access to fuel trucks. Can also be used as a storage for freight cars. I love a team track as it can be the wild card of operations and sometimes may create a special movement in operations for large loads that require a buffer car or two. Operations: While small and with only a max of three customers, operations can be tricky as the passing siding is not very long and the main surface road cannot be blocked for long amounts of time, sometimes requiring the crew to split up the train. Typically, the switcher comes from Manchester yard with a loco, usually an NW-2, GP7 or GP9 and heads north with box cars of rolled paper bound for Central Paper, covered hoppers for Sweetheart Plastics and a flat or gondola or some freight car for the team track. Typically, the B&M will switch out Central Paper first as the head end is pointed the correct direction. It will leave the train and gain access to the Central Paper spur and add any empties to the train and add any loaded cars to the designated spots. Sometimes cars will have to be moved back to their original spot as unloading from the previous day is not finished. With Central Paper finished, the crew locks the gate and the switch and performs a run a round and places the buggy (that's caboose for you non-B&M folks) just under the Granite Street overpass. The loco then adds the empties to the buggy and switches out Sweetheart Plastics, placing empties on the main with the buggy and Central Paper empties. Access to the team track is made through the siding. Layout Track and Features: Track will be Micro Engineering Code 55 on the main and sidings. All spurs will be Micro Engineering Code 40. Central Paper and Sweetheart Plastics will be scratch built while the two other buildings will be from Pikestuff and the Gulf Oil will be a City Classics kit. The main road will be centered between the two modules to help hide the seam between the modules. Grade Crossing signals will be NJ International and functional. All turnouts will be servo controlled by Tam Valley products. Scenery will be static grass, foam for mowed office areas and real dirt around the industrial areas. Roads, parking lots and truck loading areas will be styrene, airbrushed and weathered. Control will be DCC with NCE and an Iowa Scaled Products Proto Throttle. Locomotives will be Kato NW-2 custom detailed and painted in the roads only Bicentennial switcher scheme, or an Atlas GP9 #1715, a loco I super detailed and painted way back in 2004. When I run 1980's I will use New England Southern's former Rock Island GP18 that I plan to super detail and paint as it appeared in 1985. Freight cars will be a mix of ECM shops, Athearn, Trainworx and whatever else fits for the time period. All cars and locos will have the Micro Trains scale couplers. So, there you have it, I know a long thread but that is what I'm working on and now I plan to print the plans to full size and start the process of laying track. More to come.
I really look forward to seeing this come together. I like the fact that you limited the customers as appropriate for the time period, but at the same time appear to have plenty of operating potential. Do you anticipate primarily 50' cars? It was interesting to see the layout oriented such that South was at the top of the layout. So often (I do this myself in fact) layouts are oriented it seems the way we read a map - North to the top, East to the right etc. How much staging do you plan to attach when you operate?
I like it. It also shows that you don't have to have a lot of track and structures to have a lot of operation. Sounds like everything has a place and purpose. That's the great thing about following the prototype, and the real railroad already made the decision of what you're going to need and why. I wish I had done better planning, instead of buying a lot of what I didn't need so I could have put the money towards the quality items better used to operate it. I'm looking forward to seeing more on this. Ralph
Thank you for kind comments guys, I know this is a bit different in N scale from the typical layout but I want to prove that N can have the same prototype switching operations as HO. My layout started out as two 3 foot by 14-inch T-Trak modules. I tried T-Trak for a bit but never really got into it as I prefer operations, although I did enjoy the company and going to shows with the guys. I had purchased these two module kits from a company that unfortunately is no longer in business. I figured since I had them, why not use them to make a switching layout. Here you see one of the two modules getting built on my workbench. Yellow glue, clamps and painters tape was all that was really needed. Since the track is industrial, I wanted to follow the prototype and lay the track down on the ground. I learned the hard way that laying the track directly to the wooden surface would be loud. That module acts like a speaker box and really increased the volume of my locomotives. Since my locomotives will have sound I wanted to insulate the sound. I found a roll of 1/8-inch cork at Hobby Lobby and here you can see I have already attached part of the roll to the base of the module. I used good ole yellow carpenters glue and a lot of flat weights. Here is a close up of the 1/8-inch cork. The module top is painted from the first failed attempt of a switching layout. Both modules had the tops completely covered in the cork. Up next, the start of track work.
Those modules look great Jim. That roll cork is a good way to get the results you are after. I had used some of that sheet cork on my previous layout as a base for a yard. Worked great. I also like the super organized peg board set up in the background. Nice stuff.
Good looking plan! I think you can forget operating your modules with other T-Track modules at a show. Both mainline tracks are required on all modules, and their positions relative to the front of the modules are strictly controlled for inter-operability, especially when trying to set two modules back-back on the same table. If that's okay, and you do not wish to show them as part of a T-Track club's layout, then disregard the following ideas and recommendations to bring your modules into compliance. I would NOT put a track switch at the end of a module. These are the most vulnerable locations for tracks, and the module-module joining tracks are often damaged due to many reasons when (dis)connecting modules. I would recommend a 62mm section of doubletrack on both end of all modules. This section is easy to replace if damaged, and also maintains the 33mm track-track spacing at the interface to other modules. This would require you to slide the switch serving Central Paper to the left by 62mm, but that is probably doable, if you swap out the 718R curve with a 481R. This will put the siding slightly closer to the mainline. You can declare that your two modules are part of a fixed set, and therefore only maintain required track locations at the outer ends* of the module set. This would give you a lot more flexibility to transition the existing (would be rear) mainline between its current depth to the standard depth at the far ends of each module. You could still run the front mainline straight across the front at the standard location on both submodules, in the standard location. You could replace the first curve of the transition to the rear mainline with a switch to feed the team track from the far right end. You may even want to move the team track over there to the right-hand module, between the mainlines. *I would still use replaceable 62mm pieces between your two "sub-modules" since they will be subject to the same forces and abuse during assembly, showing and disassembly (unless you securely bolt them together, so that only you will be assembling and disassembling them. Note that you need to maintain the same overall length by using a spacer between them when bolting them together.)
This layout will be a standalone layout and not intended for use with other modules except of my own design. I'll forgo Unitrak for Micro Engineering code 55 for the bulk of the layout and code 40 for the three industries. Keep in mind this will eventually be a standalone layout in a shadowbox with an outside staging track. While I am a huge fan of Lance Mindheim, the track layout credit goes mainly to the B&M. I should not that the spur for Central Paper is to scale of the actual location give or take a few feet. I played around with the trackwork for a bit then thanks to AnyRail program, I was able to print it out in full scale and set it on the two modules and "operate" it if you will. With what you have said however, with some changes and keeping with T-Trak standards, it could easily become a set of modules that would allow independent set up and operations as well as setting up with a group.
I was able to "transform" your layout into a pair of fully-T-Track-compliant modules (only as a pair), but you'd lose the Gulf station, unless you wanted to move it in front of (to the left of) Central Paper. And the two main industries would get more shallow front to back. I'll clean it up and post it here later.
Okay, here is a T-Trak compliant, two module implementation of your plan. Free of charge, and worth every penny! Of course, it uses Unitrack, but you can adapt to anything else, except at the module boundaries. The Team Track could be swapped or extended to the other (left) side/module.
While I appreciate your efforts, this thread is regarding the Granite State Industrial which is a stand alone, proto themed switching layout, and not a T-Trak set of modules. The only thing T-Trak here is the fact that I used two T-Trak modules and re-purposed them for this layout after I left our local T-Trak club. While I realize many N scale modelers enjoy T-Trak, this build thread is not that topic. For the sake of the original thread, lets stay on track of the build thread and keep T-Trak to other threads.
Track work on the south module: With cork down on both the modules, it was time to start laying track. As mentioned earlier, the track is all Micro Engineering with the main spine track being code 55. I started using Micro Engineering a few years ago and have since used it as my preferred brand in both HO and N scale, plus it's made in America. I really like the Micro Engineering turnouts and while in N, you are limited to just a #6 turnout, for a layout of this type, it really doesn't pose a problem. I printed the track plan full-size which really helped in track laying and planning. Here you can just see the lines I placed on the module after carefully measuring and checking from the full-size plans. The one dark line is the seam between two pieces of cork, not to be confused with the track lines. The first turnout laid is for the passing siding. You can also see why I like these three-foot modules. This is my old 4-foot workbench that has since been relegated to garage duty. These bite size modules make tasks like wiring much easier. Here I have all of the "main" laid on the southern module. Still to do is the feeders and adding the ties to all the gaps. The passing siding will be code 55 but the spurs will be code 40. The first turnout facing us will serve Central Paper which has a spur that will allow three car spots. It is very close to scale of the actual building in Manchester NH. All my turnouts are set up using Tam Valley Servo mechanisms. Next, I'll talk about how I wire them up and later will show I installed them to function with the Micro Engineering turnouts. More to come.
THERR is oriented to the front of THE RV. Example: If I am parked facing North then so is the layout orientation. Parked facing East...then the layout would reflect that orientation.
I think it has to do with more practical aspects. Heavily used tracks are often "up front" on a layout, for easier reach and vision, without regard to compass orientation of a prototype. In this case, the tracks are in the foreground, and (most of) the industries are in the background, "behind" the tracks. The plan orientation depicts the layout's orientation while in use. When I was a teenager in Houston, I took a boating and navigation class from the local Power Squadron (Civilian Auxiliary of the Coast Guard,) where we learned how to use a naval chart (map), including plotting courses of travel, etc. The first thing the instructor taught us on using a chart on the water was to orient the chart such that where we were looking/headed was at the top, so that it would be easier to translate what we saw in front of us to what was on the chart (what was to the left on the chart would also be to the left on the horizon, etc.) Waypoints and destinations on the water (e.g. an oyster reef) were located by headings to landmarks ashore (water towers, refinery stack flares, etc.) Oh, and fog sucks. Even Google Navigation (with default settings) displays your direction of travel (and therefore the driver's vision) as toward the top on the display. Okay, that was probably more than anyone wanted to know on the subject, but now that I've written it, I sure ain't gonna erase it!
Keep in mind that since this layout is so small, I can arrange it in any order. The post above simple pointed out that the "south" module is merely a call out and used to designate the modules rather than module 1 or 2. Therefor there is a "north" module and a "south" module. When the shadowbox is completed, it will be along a north wall with the layouts north end facing the west and the south end facing the east. When operated, trains will assemble off the south of the layout as on my railroad, tracks terminate on the north module. Clear as mud eh? But we are at this point dancing on the head of a needle, onward to more of the construction.
Lets talk about servos, or how will this turnout? The Granite State Industrial (GSI) will be using five Tam Valley servo-controlled turnout controls. These machines consist of a small 8-gram micro servo and micro switch all mounted to a plywood holder and mounting system, a PC board that allows operation of the servo which also provides a stationary decoder and a small PC board with a three-wire pig tail, one momentary push button and two LEDs. I used these Tam Valley servos on the Galesburg City job for a number of years and they have held up great. Some may ask, why go through the trouble of having motorized turnouts on such a small layout? I like the Tam Valley system as I can power the frogs on my turnouts and automatically switch polarity when going from the main to diverging routes. On a small switching layout such as this, I like to wire drops on all the rails of the turnouts to help with stalling. Although my fleet of locomotives will have keep alive's, I want to avoid stalling. The servos are easy to install and keep clumsy hands (mainly mine) from knocking off trackside details or scenery when lining a switch. The first thing I do to the machines is I remove the rather large actuator wire and replace it with .020 music wire. It doesn't take much to move an N scale turnout and the music wire is thin enough and springy enough to easily move the turn out. The wire is snaked through a servo horn which not only holds the wire that will actuate the turnout but slides across the micro switch but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll start with prepping the machines and then show installation a bit latter. Here I have cut five equal pieces of doorbell wire. I like doorbell wire because it contains the 22-gauge solid wire that I use for feeders, complete with the colors I use in my wiring protocol. These five wires will complete the five servo machines nicely. From top to bottom, Green is for the frog of the turnout, White is the south rail or white wire of the bus and Blue is the north rail or blue wire of the bus line. Here we see one machine that has received its wires and is ready for installation. You can just make out the white servo horn just behind the micro switch. When this moves in conjunction with the actuating wire of the turnout, it slides across the micro switch allowing the frog to be powered and in the correct polarity for the desired route. The tool shown here makes for a nice holder for clean solder joints. Here we see the five Tam Valley turnout servos ready for installation. The one on the far right shows the plywood pad that will be adhered to the underside of the layout base while the servo on the extreme left shows that it still has the heavy actuating wire. This will be removed and replaced with the .020 music wire. We'll switch back to track work, no pun intended, and when I get to the turnouts, I'll resume my discussion on setting up these little servo controllers.
Nice! Just curious, what do you plan for a user interface to control the switches? Manual pushbuttons on the front of the modules, or remote control via DCC, LCC, Loconet? JMRI GUI or physical panel? Route controls? Even with a small layout like this, the track plan is still complex enough to support routes.
I'll use the small push button interface provided by Tam Valley. In the past I have made mini control panels as the interface includes two LED lights that signal the direction of the switch. I may go that route again as it gives a nice overall view of the track plan and the orientation of the turnouts during operations. I have also thought about using a practice that is gaining popularity in the HO switching scene, that of manual locks for each turnout. The activity mimics a crew unlocking a switch stand, lining it and re-locking. I've thought about putting my own spin on it however and using the Tam Valley interface as a key. Each switch would have a socket designed for the three-wire pigtail found on the Tam Valley interface. The socket would have a sliding door that would be unlocked, then the operator would insert the Tam Valley interface wire, select the button to line the switch, remove, close the cover door and lock. This could easily be done with over-the-counter model airplane items as the Tam Valley system uses the same three wire system as model airplanes. Time will tell however which direction I go.
Interesting concept. If I understand it correctly, you have one (or a few) Tam Valley controllers that travel around, plugging into each servo as needed? What's the holding power of an unpowered servo? Can it (or the switch) maintain pressure on the switch points when disconnected? You would need good connectors that are suited for many mate/de-mate cycles, and are easily, reliably de/mated in all lighting conditions by all users. Maybe a literal key switch would be a better option. But then you're back to needing a Tam Valley unit for every switch. But I can't help but think there is a viable JMRI and/or LCC solution to this problem.
I am leaning towards the mini panel as I'm building this little layout to be portable to take to shows someday and it must fit in either the wife's station wagon, a Dodge Journey or my car a four door Ford Falcon. To answer your questions, my answers and comments are in blue:
