One of the rural towns along the area I would like to model is Hartland, Wisconsin. I really like the track schematic as seen here:
I did a full scale mock-up of this keeping the proportions as close as possible to the picture above:
Yes, it is hard to make everything out, but all the tracks are all accounted for. The challenge is that this comes out to just under 62 feet long! This longest wall I have in my layout room is just under 20 feet, so there is some work to do to compress this scene.
I also want to use the domino/modular approach going forward. Using an 18” depth and keeping the main line in the center, I can keep a modest 30 inch radius on the corner curves and still have eight to twelve feet of straight run on most of the walls of my room.
In addition to this, because of the size of the room, a double track main just isn’t in the cards, so the first thing to do is remove the double track main and see where that leaves things.
Here is the track plan with a single track main line:
The overall length is now 53.5 feet long. Reducing the plan to a single track saved almost nine feet in the overall length.
The east and west tracks each had their own passing track. Since there is now a single track, there really isn’t the need for two passing sidings. The question now, is which one to get rid of? At the top of the diagram are industries. There is a gravel loading facility on the left industry track and an oil dealer, feed mill and freight house on the right industry track. On the bottom tracks, the passing track is the bottom-most track with a yard track between the main line and passing track.
First, let’s see what it looks like if we get rid of the lower passing track:
Ok, with this change, the plan is down to just under 48 feet. I kind of liked the track arrangement that leads into the yard track on the right side, but it took up quite a bit of space.
Now, what does it look like if we remove the upper passing track instead:
The plan is down to just under 46 feet now, and it looks more interesting to me. The down-side to this plan is that there are a lot of turnouts on the main line. Either way, the track plan is way too long for a rural town in HO. I’d like to get this plan down to eight feet, but might settle for twelve. Let’s see what can be done with twelve feet first.
Due to the size of my room, running long trains is just not going to happen. I’d like to be able to run ten to twelve foot through trains, but the siding here is definitely not going to be able to support twelve foot trains. This might be an easy fix? I will limit my patrol trains to eight feet long. This way, I can fit the whole scene in a twelve foot long space. At this point, I am also going to reduce all turnouts to #6.
The passing track is shorter now, but it really doesn’t look like the original diagram. I think that some compromise is needed here. I think that the feed mill, oil dealer, and freight house will be more interesting to model and switch than the gravel loading facility, so time for it to go. Here’s what it looks like at twelve feet long:
The flavor of the prototype has been kept intact and only one industry was lost. I think that this will have a lot of operating interest on my railroad!
One last tweak, since the is a modular layout, I’m going to make an eight foot option that makes the feed mill optional and shortens the yard and passing track by four feet.
I think even this keeps the flavor of the prototype.
What do you think?
