LDA use

On Joe Fugate's Siskiyou Lines website, he has a discussion of Layout Design Analysis, or "how to determine if the layout is functional, while you're still in the pencil and paper stage (or in my case the CAD drawing stage).

http://siskiyou-railfan.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.32

Since I have a commercial CAD program that is not a model railroad design program, when I've drawn a design, there is no way to run virtual trains to see if my design really works.  The best I can do is plot the drawing and then slide toothpick trains around, squint a bit, and try to envision the operations.  So when I read through (a couple of times) Joe's Layout Design Analysis (LDA), I knew I'd at least give it a try.

Joe mentions analysis done by Roy Dohn back in the 1960's.  I remember reading the article in Model Railroader magazine.  I even saved it as part of my resource collection, but without really understanding the ramifications.  There has been a lot of writing about operation, that as a new modeller, went right over my head.  (Doug Smith's car cards in 1959 come to mind.).  When I joined an N-scale club in the 1970's, and actually got to operate real length trains with other operators, the light started to come on.

So now, with a new layout in the design phase, I applied LDA to it.

When I first ran the analysis, I found that I had two deficiencies, storage capacity and passing capacity.  I was reduced to about 1½ trains per session.  So the design was reworked.  I ended up with a bit more mainline, and I was forced to think more about what industries I was serving, and what their needs were.  That, in turn, sent me on-line and to the local library (it's across the parking lot from where I work) to find out more about those industries.  In my case, oil production and distribution, and agricultural harvest, processing, and distribution for selected row crops and field and orchard-grown fruits.  That, then, revised my eroneous notions about what to provide on the layout.

For instance, my idea, from childhood, of a dream layout is portrayed by a photo of a cab-forward on the point of a block of PFE reefers (Walter Thrall photo, in John Hungerford's book:  "Cab-In-Front").  So, I thought, icing station, reefers, cab forward:  this is easy, load the produce, ice the cars, run it.  Not so fast.  lemons are pre-cooled to about 55°.  So, the cars are loaded, then the load is pre-cooled either with refrigerated air, or the car is pre-iced, then on-board fans cool it on the trip from the packing house back to the icing station for the half-grate ice load, prior to the road trip.  How about lettuce or celery:  they going to be down in the 30°'s.  Or strawberries:  they get frozen before they're even loaded.  Then the cars are fully iced, and then salted, to maintain freezing temperature.

So, I've got the ice plant and platform, a precooler building and hydro-vac cooler unit outside, liquid nitrogen tank piped to the quick-freezer inside the warehouse.  

All this, because the LDA analysis forced me to do some more critical thinking.         More later.

 Rincon RR stats:  car length is based on 40’ HO cars, \ 2 cars/ft.

Summary

Room Area (sq ft):      184
Layout Area (sq ft):      82 (45%)
Number Turnouts:         32
Total Track (ft):           612
Train Length (cars):       11/12/15
Maximum Cars:             57
Trains:                             5
Dispatching Threshold: 11 car trains

Perimeter Class I main line:  3 trains, or two, with one staged.

Regional:  two switch jobs: 

one for Ag, Oil, and interchange;

the other for PFE-served industries.

One to five operators.

Since I'm using visible passing sidings as staging, there is no data for staging.