Nice

Looks like a good plan, I like switching, this is my kind of layout.

Will the location of the EL dock line and Thompson Street restrict the train lengths / # of cars in North Tonawanda Yard?

On the right path

Hunter,

Wise move finishing the basement prior to starting layout construction.  Too many beautiful layouts reside in an unfinished space.  One word of caution regarding suspended ceiling tiles:  Try to by the plastic ones, not the pressed from pasteboard ones.  They shed snow on the layout each time a tile is moved, or even when people walk on the floor above.

Your overall plan looks very sound and you may well have considered doing this, but here goes:  If you are using a hand drawn or simple sketch program on the computer it may not give a reliable indication of clearances between adjacent tracks and structures.  I took the time to draw a full scale sketch of the right-of-way on butcher paper and laid it on the floor to judge lengths, radius, clearances, etc.  Several key issues were revealed that would have caused operating problems or required relocations.  On the other hand, if you are using a CAD program that will accurately scale your drawing, you can zoom in and detail the right-of-way clearances in a separate layer and thereby reveal the issues that way.

Finally, I think your approach is spot on.  Start with a reasonable goal, and build in the capability to expand.  There is a tremendous gratification in a "completed" section to show off, and avoids the drudgery of working on a impossibly big project.

Really nice

I really like this Hunter!  Small enough to be achievable without being overwhelming, and big enough to provide a fun to-do list that'll keep you busy for years, even without expanding further.

Looks Good

Hunter -

I agree. You're plan looks good & should keep you busy working all of those industries for quite some time.

Isle space

If I'm reading your plan correctly, you've got about 18" wide isles.  That seems awfully narrow to me, especially if you plan on adding anything (waybill boxes, turnout controls, throttle pockets, etc.) to the fascia later on.

Other than that, I like it.  It looks like a lot of fun to operate.

Looking good

Hunter,

I like this!  As Joe said, small, but workable and challenging.

My only question would be in terms of the switching of the International Paper mill.  What are your thoughts on how this would be done?  Is the lead at the top end of the drawing long enough to allow you to pull a string of cars up and switch them to the woodchip and tank car leads?  What about picking up empties/loads from the mill if you've pulled into the mill with a train behind you?  Or are these separate jobs for the crew?  I have a similar mill arrangement where trains run from a yard to the mill (instead of having a mill yard per se) and I've found having a dedicated runaround track invaluable.

Geof Smith

Aroostook Valley in N Scale

Isle is too narrow

If I am reading your plan with my old eyes properly you are using 8 inches to a square, 3 x 8 = 24. I think your isles are too narrow for you to enjoy the layout. The turn outs at the end of the yard area look to be too steep of an angle. You will likely get them all in but your ladder tracks will be shorter in length. The concept is nice and should be lots of fun to operate.

For comparison our club's layout has isles that are predominately 42 inches wide and I think the narrowest spot is 28 inches for an isle and that is for a distance less than a foot after which it expands back to nominal dimensions. After running trains on the layout for a few years even by myself or with one other guy I would recommend these sizes for a home layout if possible. The ease of moving around, working on, operating, photographing the layout is much better and more enjoyable with wider isles.

Rob in Texas

Aisle Width, Track Spacing, and Building Offset

Thanks for all the feedback, especially on the potential pitfalls with aisle width.

If you enlarge the image, you'll see that I didn't draw an edge of the benchwork on the North Tonawanda side of the aisle.  That's because I wanted to sketch in some of the surrounding features before I made the decision about exactly how wide the benchwork will be.  Judging by my sketch, I can probably accommodate the same track geometry with bechwork that's 24" wide.

I've taken the suggestions under advisement and mocked up the benchwork on that side of the room with some boxes and totes (it looks like bomb went off in a rummage sale).  It feels like benchwork between 18" and 24" is ideal for me, given my size and the layout height.  The aisle certainly feels more comfortable when the benchwork is 18" or less. With that in mind, I'm going work toward building the narrowest benchwork that will accommodate the tracks and some of the buildings immediately next to them.  

With respect to the building-to-track offsets that I've drawn, I recognize that I should have been more diligent with my drawing pencils.  I might take another run at drawing this better.  It occurred to me that if I draw this again, I can double the scale and split the layout onto two pages.  Or I might plan by laying HO turnout and curve templates on the floor beneath where the benchwork will be.  With that, and a few pieces of flex track, I'll be able to move things around until I get it right. 

Thanks for the help!

-Hunter

How to switch International Paper

Geof, you bring up an excellent point.  I haven't actually operated the International Paper plant yet, but have all the ties in place, so I'm able to simulate an operating session by moving things around by hand.  

Generally, I imagine a flow rate of maybe 2 to 6 cars inbound and about as many outbound per operating session.  There would be fluctuations during times that the plant might be stockpiling certain materials.  Such a time might mean a large flow of woodchips or coal to the plant.  I'll need to work all of that out as I learn more about the traffic flow at the prototype, and I gain experience trying to match that to my layout.

A big part of the train crew's job on the prototype was to move cars around the plant according to production needs from one day to the next.  I see the crew doing some of that by moving cars to and from off-spot locations.  So it doesn't seem at all limiting (from the perspective of creating an interesting operating session) to be working with a relatively small number of cars moving into and out of the plant.

The train crew that works the plant also puts their own train together before they leave the yard.  They don't know what they have to do inside the plant until they get there, but if they can anticipate some of their moves and block their train accordingly, they'll make their work at the plant easier.  For instance, if there's a particularly large inflow of woodchips, they could block those cars at the head end and do that work first.  If they have some facing point lifts to do at the plant, they could break their train and leave part of it outside the plant gates in order to be able to use the runaround track more effectively.   

On the prototype, the yard was about 800 to 1000 meters by rail from the plant. The plant itself was pretty congested, so it's plausible that the crew would have made a couple of trips between the yard and the plant. I'm not sure that will be necessary though.

I don't anticipate a problem with the amount of runaround space I've built into the track plan, but that's partly due to the traffic flow I'm planning for.

-Hunter

Thanks for the tip. I'll have

Thanks for the tip on the ceiling tiles Morris. I'll have a look for various materials.

I like your butcher paper method of track planning.

-HH

I love the drawing but.....

Have you considered some type of track planning program?  I don't want to overstep because some people hate track planning software and love pencil and paper.  If you are at all interested in trying some track planning software though, I'd like to suggest SCARM. It's free and I find it simpler  to use than any of the others out there and very intuitive.  Once again, I do love the drawing and I think you have a great plan started there but planning software might better allow you to be sure everything you want will fit and give you decent aisles.  Personally, I like a bare minimum of 24 inch wide bench work but then again, I build mountain railroads and I use a lot of that width for scenery.  For a plan like yours 18 inches or even less at some places might well suffice.

Michael

Thompson Street obstruction

In response to Pat Miller's earlier question, both of those obstructions absolutely complicated things for the Penn Central.  I want them included because of that fact, even thought the EL crossing will be a dummy track.  I'll have to plan their exact locations very carefully.  I might have to eliminate the dock line multiple diamond fiasco, or I may have to make the yard a bit longer.

If I can incorporate those obstructions, they'll provide some interesting operating restrictions.  I'm told, however, that Thompson Street was avoided by locals because there always seemed to be a train blocking the grade crossing.

I forgot to add that I

I forgot to add that I thought your pencil drawing was nice as well. As to drawing your trackwork so that it fits if you allow a minimum of 2 inch centers on tangent track you should be fine with what will fit. Just make sure you have at least an inch from the edges, more would be better, and the tracks will fit your bench work. As to turn outs almost every one draws the frog angle of the turn out to steep but that is the easiest thing to correct. Allow 1 foot of length for each turn out as long as you are using 6s or smaller and you will be ok there as well.

And if you think you maybe working on making several changes to your plan you might want to take Michaels suggestion under consideration about scarm. There was a thread that has been since deleted that was posted up here about a model railroad plan and it's critique that resulted in a long thread and considerable evolution of the plan. The thread and discussion would have been a shinning example of how to use the group on here to refine a design through frequent feed back and discussion.

Rob in Texas

software

Michael, I have a couple of issues with track planning software.  First, I use a Mac.  Are there programs that I can use?  My second issue is that I drew that sloppy sketch in about 45 minutes.  I could take a bit more care and draw a detailed plan in maybe 90 minutes.  I don't want to invest too much time learning a layout planning program that I will seldom use (I don't plan many layouts)

I'd be up for trying layout planning software if it doesn't take too much work to learn how to use it.  I'm lazy that way.  I'd sooner spend that time reading a book or painting a boxcar

No Mac suggestions....sorry

Unfortunately I have no Mac suggestions as I'm purely a IBM PC clone/Windows guy. There are Mac guys around here though so maybe someone might suggest something.

I'm with you there which is one reason I love SCARM, it's so much simpler to learn and use than anything else I've tried but unfortunately, it's Windows based.

MIchael

More than 13 feet of paper mill -

Now THAT will be impressive!  Please keep everyone posted on your progress!

Use a Template

More than 13 feet of paper mill

 Rog.38, I'm hoping it will be impressive.

I've already built the benchwork on that side of the room, and the ties are glued down.  You can see my progress on that part of the layout on my blog.  If you click here, you can read about my simulated ops session that I did to ensure that my track plan would work the way I envision it.  I also posted an update back in April that shows the paper plant from the end of the aisle.  You can see that one by clicking here.

My goal is for the buildings to be substantial.  Also, I've laid out #7 turnouts and relatively natural looking curves that form spirals which don't go tighter than 30" radius. All of that eats up space pretty quickly.  The track geometry that I've shown in my conceptual drawing is pretty much the way it looks on the layout.

The track plan in post one is

The track plan in post one is not showing - it's a broken link.  I can' t see any track plan.

I wouldn't say I hate track planning software.  I used graphics software back when I was doing figures, maps and drawing for my masters thesis.  But I still like graph paper such as 11x17 with all the room boundaries and features drawn in.  With a scale rule and the grid, I can visualize best what will fit in a given area.

To wit:

Yes, my aisle are too narrow, but so far as I've been working on it with the benchwork up, they soom ok to me.

Not seeing this plan

I am not seeing this plan, only an empty box. Anyone else having this problem?

Broken image

Note that the original posts are from 2014, so the photos are moved or not there anymore.

Here's his actual blog, with content:

https://theniagarabranch.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/layout-concept-drawing-north-tonawanda-new-york/