Diesel era? Ditch the engine

Diesel era? Ditch the engine house. The engine can sit out in the rain thinking engine thoughts.

One word of caution.. I would be careful about "too busy". Do consider how you will fit the industries you want to place and still have room for a road and other scenic details that make the scene plausible. I found this aspect a significant challenge to my planning.

Chris

overdone...

I hear you there.  Definitely dont want to overdo it.  Im happy with the track plan thus far & prolly will not change much, save the idea of possibly placing a switch on the Shaye Mtn Coal mine to have an area for empties on one spur & full hoppers on the other side...  Maybe.  I like the idea of keeping the Shaye Mtn side very simple & having the Dayton side be small town flavor, plus my budget is very small & one more switch may not sound like much, but may set me back as far as a month on purchasing them (getting them all at once will save a bundle on shipping).

JT

I would be careful about "too busy".

Chris,

Excellent advice !! You don't want it too busy. Also another great advice is the engine house. If you running diesel make the engine house to an industry.

Schematic

OK now it's REALLY obvious I'm blowing off my afternoon in the office. I was able to put together a VERY crude schematic of what Iwas describing above using MS Paint. Since the mainline is represented with an oval the relationships between different elements of the layout are distorted, but I think it helps get across the broad idea of what I was trying to communicate in type. As I said, I think it adds some operational flexibility to your layout and is a reasonably sound design.

Now back to "work"!

~rb

The only change I would make

The only change I would make to that schematic is to make the Interchange track contine off both ends so this little shortline stubs into the middle of another railroad - that big railraod could care less for thi feeder except it provides traffic!!

And If you have a station, i would put it on the upper right or upper left between the shortline curve and the mainline straight.  We're talking a small country fare here, just big enough to give your little community of loggers and coal miners some place to catch the train!!    I'd suggest the right most yard track as a team track so you can get the most flexible industry in the space.  And then further right, company row houses and such; perhaps even have the whole right side from the team track on as an incline large enough to justify the tunnel on this side as well as the other side.

new design

.

As far as the tracks crossing on the bottom... I didnt put it in b/c I havent designed a crossing template in cadd.  May have to get that done if I can't make the industries fit well down there...

The spur at the coal mine extends under the mountain for additional hopper storage.  I'd like the mine to be right up against the mtn with the track dissappearing underneath.

JT

Looks good

Looks good! One more suggestion.. slightly turn the oval in the table so that the track is not tangent to the front of the layout.. this will make it appear more natural.

Chris

I agree with Chris

If you rotate the whole thing a little bit, it will give it just a little extra because the tracks aren't running parallel with the table edge.

it does look

It does look good.  My only concern is the interchange being so close to the edge...

portable module...

My next question has to do with a portable module.  One that I can drive a train on, then carefully "unplug" & transfer down to my under-table staging.  Here is an image of my table...

My current trackplan...

& my under table shelf staging plan...

Does anyone have any experience with a small (32 inch or so) module I can drive a 5 or 6 car train on using my interchange track, then unhook and re-attach it to the right side of my shelf staging?  It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen, I know, but with the serious space constraints I am under, I'd love to make it work somehow.  This would allow my train to leave town to a switching / staging yard, & then return for another session.

Only change I would make is

Only change I would make is to continue the mainline [the interchange track] so that it goes all the way across and put a very small station or stand there for regional pass/freight service.  As alternative this could also be a spur, giving you one more industry to swtich.  The "Building" could exist off layout where you are sitting.

One way to handle the

For moving cars on and off the interchange look into "Cassette Staging". Its a way of storing entire strings of cards or trains on a cassette that can be stored under the layout in lieu of tracks. Just hook it up, roll cars on and off.. and you will be able to simulate your off-layout traffic. Your layout will become an operating layout.. Its very popular with British layouts. I first read about it in one of Ian Rice's books but it is covered elsewhere..  a recent model railroad planning I think by the same author.

Back to the trackplan.. one way to handle the interchange would be to have it come out of the other side of the siding.. then it is going more up.. you might even have room for a dummy track it would seem to be merging with "up ahead" to represent the mainline that is being interchanged with.

Alternatively, if you want to keep all points in the same direction, you could have the interchange you have drawn now curve more up. Its a little inconvenient to uncouple on a curve.. but you can get around that using delayed uncoupling feature of micro-trains style couplers. There may even be room for that dummy track which really doesnt need much distance from the edge at all..

At some point you just have to say "good enough" and get started. Track plans tend to not survive first contact with the plywood anyway. There is no theoretical end to suggestions you will receive !

Chris

Looking good!

The whole layout seems to be coming along nicely - the tweeks suggested above give it that extra edge.

I addition, your base is a work of art in itself!  Lovely rich colour (color)!  Be a same to cover that up with ballast and scenics, but it's got to be done!

Cassettes are the way forward if you want to juggle whole trains on and off the layout - simple to store them beneath.  They are the system of choice over here (UK).

Finally, I've probably missed it somewhere, but I assume your modelling in N Gauge?

The small section you have

The small section you have drawn [the yard throat] could be a valuable module in the future when you get more space; It doesn't allow as much as simple cassette tracks because the real expense of switches is present.  If you have room to slide the table of either the railroad or the cassette surface back and forth, your cassette could even become a transfer table.

Now if your mainline continues off in both directions, you can run cars in one side of the layout and then run the cars through to the other end of the layout - by going through the layout - as if there is more between point A and point B where the Class 1 has business.  By this means you could run any variety of trains through your layout beyond those with a specific industrial purpose.

This also allows this small layout to be included in a larger layout down the road, Sort of like the original 4x6 Gorre and Daphetid.  Yes, that monster started as a little 4x6...