Track Plan Thoughts
3 Caveats: (1) I'm in On30, not N, so I have a had time visualizing some how some of the elements of track planning work in your scale (aisle width vs. scene depth, true vs. visual length of passing sidings, # of tracks that comfortably fit in a given width, etc.), (2) I know nothing about the Peavine (its prototype operating scheme, major industries, or the ratios among the various commodities it handles), and (3) I don't really know your givens and druthers. Do you want an as-close-as-possible-to-the-real-thing track layout? Do you want to have areas without track to model the surrounding scenery? Where do you stand on the scale running from absolute faithfulness to the prototype on one end, to just capturing the general feel and ambiance of the prototype an the other end? In sum, my lens may be distorted relative to yours, but hey, free advice is often what you pay for it, so here goes:
What I Like:
(1) Strong focus on Operations -- if it isn't fun to switch, you'll probably lose interest after a while, and your sketch includes a variety of facing and trailing point turnouts that will require some planning to serve. If you build it, I would come and play trains with you because it looks like FUN. Great Start!
(2) You've started with a sketch instead of a real detailed plan. I know there are issues like how much track length will it actually require for a turnout, or whether you really get X tracks in a yard of Y length on a table of z width -- do you need compound vs. simple ladders in each yard, and how many tracks do you really need in each location, etc. etc), but you're really on the right track (pun intended) to focus first just on the overall routing of the main line and the general location of major yards and industries, instead of jumping right into detailed planning that you'll have to start over on anyway. I know several modelers who started building with just a sketch and never produced a detailed plan, letting themselves visualize each scene in the space available and laying out actual pieces of track on their table top however it worked to get what they wanted, and that approach worked fine for them.
What I'm not Convinced About:
(1) From an operating point of view, you've got a lot of double track main on the lower level, with crossovers to serve as run-arounds for switching moves, and some of those run-arounds aren't near the industries they'll serve. The problem is then that if you have more than one operator, they may be on top of each other - trying to use the same crossover while switching industries in different directions. Or are you always going to operate as a lone wolf? Is the number and location of crossovers important to you because it's where the prototype had crossovers, or are you willing to add others or to relocate them such that two or three operators can work simultaneously in adjacent areas?
(2) Seems like a lot of yard trackage for a layout this size. I'm sure the prototype had multiple yards, though with longer distances between them. Do you have them all because the prototype did and you're trying to be faithful (OK), because you've collected a ton of rolling stock and want to display it all (OK), because you really love yards (OK), or just because they were there on the prototype (in which case, I really don't think you need al that yard trackage, or that many yards, in order to have a fun operating schematic.) Just personally, I'd rather have less track to maintain and room for another industry or two.
What I don't like:
(1) The upper level in the bedroom on the right had side is not reachable from the aisle, so that's where Mr. Murphy and his lovely bride will take up residence -- probably frequently! The curve in the siding to the big industry in the middle of the wall is the main problem; it takes up a lot of width to get it perpendicular to the main. Are you willing to compromise on the prototype track layout by rotating that industry 90 degrees and having its siding parallel to the main? That would enable you to have a much narrower shelf there, which would also reduce the amount of trackless scenery needed in the corners of that side of the plan. If you just gotta have that scene that wide, I'd recommend you try to place it on an open peninsula in the center of the room, accessible from both sides and with no upper level above it. Let the upper level in the bedroom bypass the peninsula and hug the wall, with an aisle between it and the lower level peninsula.
(2) You've got a nearly unique and very difficult situation with your 2 room location. Your solution seems to be to just run tracks through the wall and pretend it isn't there, which doesn't work at all for me. You still have to get a 1:1 scale person from one room to the other, and on both the upper level and lower level in your sketch, you may need to run back and forth a couple of times to perform a particular switching move -- a total pain-in-the-ass that will utterly destroy the experience of being there in the miniature world you're creating. I really think you either need to tear out the dividing wall (bad for the resale value of your home), or start over on a new main line routing that has you staying entirely in one room, operating on both the lower and upper levels there, then passing just once through the wall on either the upper or lower level, and then lets you stay in the other room until you reach the end of the line. This would mean either (a) a helix in each room to access both the upper and lower levels, or (b) having only an upper level in one room with workbench and storage areas underneath, or (c) a double track helix somewhere along the common wall between the rooms, with three wall holes (one to get from den to bedroom after running all the trackage in whichever room has the helix, and two more to access the top and bottom of the second helix track from the other room.) Solution A would give you most straightforward main line routing; each room could operate in simple linear fashion, from one end of the line around the walls to a helix, up or down the helix and around the walls to the hole to the other room, then around the walls there to the second helix, then up or down to a final around-the-walls route to the other end of the line. Solution A Bonus: you could totally finish one room, from one end of the line to a midpoint, before even starting in the other. Your sketch has both ends of the line in the same room, requiring you to either build the middle of the line first (not good for operations), or to lay track in both rooms before you can operate anything realistically.
(3) Where's the connection to the rest of the world? No hidden staging, no fiddle yard, no cassettes? What happens to loaded cars when they reach the interchange?
(4) Personally, I like to just watch 'em run sometimes, and so even in a switching-type layout, I'd want to have a continuous run built into the plan somewhere - either via a removable bridge, or a loads-in/empties-out pair of industries that just happen to create a continuous loop if/when there are no cars parked at either one,or a turnout to a track running through a backdrop or behind something else that ties in way over there and is ignored when you operate, etc., etc. Even if you're saying to yourself that you don't need a continuous run, you will almost certainly have visitors who you'll want to show all your fine work to, and having a CR loop somewhere in the plan will be important when that happens. (Aunt Tilly doesn't give a hoot about the prototype, she just wants to see those cute little trains run around for a while.)
Personally, I have a lot of fun trying to simultaneously visualize scenes and imagine operations, both in a given space with a given theme. So keep on doodling, Vinny; I think you're actually at a pretty fun place in the process.
Sandy
http://www.sandysacerr.com
