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Here is the start of my new layout plan ... Dream and design
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Active Member 66 posts jlincoln7850 Active Member 66 posts
jlincoln7850

 

Hello all,

For those who are interested. Here is the start of my new plan. It was done in 3rd Planit and was a little difficult to get into a form that you all could see, but the part up top is the important bit. The yard / industrial area is based on the Yard at Mansfield, MA. If you look at Google Maps, and search for Mansfield and look wast of the junction of rt 140 and rt 106, move to the center of town and then follow the N-S line, which is Amtraks NE Corridor, you will see the yard north of the station on the west of the tracks.

 

I didn't include everything as I am working a little at a time and the rest of the plan is not "fleshed out". The only thing I am happy with so dar is this yard. Such as it is.

The yard "runaround" (what we call the track in Mansfield) will hold around 20 cars, which is what I am looking for in train length. The trackage in Mansfield only has the one main, so this will not be an actual model of Mansfield per se, because I want to model the B&M around the time of the Guilford merger. If figure that the "inside" is main is the passenger main and there will be a depot on the left by the crossovers. My plan is to have commuter service with ex-BN GP9 1921 pulling unpowered RDC's, just like the prototype was doing in the late 80's. (They pulled one engine out of them and left the other to power the lights and heat). I have photos of 1921 doing just that North of Boston. I figure the daily freight will come in on the other main. Drop its cars and run around and either make up its train or grab it and go if it is made up. Then the local switcher will get on to the business of dealing with the industries. The two sidings on the right feed one industry, as it does on the prototype. Loaded Covered hoppers are unloaded by a conveyor and each track takes a different product. The little runaround  has a truck scale to the right of it by the right switch and another conveyor for sand and cement (we call it the "Cement track" although only sand cars are ever unloaded there anymore. The track that curves off to the left on the inside of the mains will be some sort of industry, I was thinking either scrap or slab granite unloading.

Some might say, what about diesel servicing? Well, that could be on the passenger main at the right end of the track. Diesel service is pretty basic in a lot of these places and engines are loaded by truck. Sand is put in one bag at a time (they buy it at home depot sometimes, go figure), so servicing is not much of an issue. I do plan to make that end of the track the programming track for my DCC system so I have easy access to it.

This isn't much yet, but I am going to design it in pieces and build it a little at a time because I need something to run to keep me going when I get tired of wiring and benchwork. It's been a long time since I have done scenery and I would like to do some before I croak.

I am open to ideas if anyone has any thoughts.

Jim
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jlincoln7850 Active Member 66 posts
jlincoln7850

Oops ...

Hmm, I don't know why the photo is doing that. But you can see it well, though ...sort of.

Jim
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BlueHillsCPR
BlueHillsCPR

Photo

IIRC, the forum supports photos up to 720 pixels wide.  Since your photo is larger, what I do is to post a scaled down version and make it into a click-able link that will open a new window with the full size photo displayed there.

That might be what is going on, otherwise I don"t know either...
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bsmall Active Member 67 posts
bsmall

New Layout Plan

I like the yard arrangement. My only observation (which is not the same as criticism) is that the spur heading off to the left is a little close to the table edge. I operate on a layout that has two areas like this. Despite everyone trying to be careful in these areas thing inevitably got knocked over. The owner didn't want to lose the trackage so plexiglass panels were screwed to the facia to provide protection. This works but makes handling cars on those spurs a bit more difficult and the plex doesn't look the best. If your not going to be operating your layout with other people often then maybe it won't be a problem for you.

Brian

Brian S

Camrose, AB

Battle River Railway Modellers

http://brrmodellers.ca
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jlincoln7850 Active Member 66 posts
jlincoln7850

I see what you mean ...

Thanks for the observation, Brian. I have not thought about that here, but I do want to try to keep the mains in front of the scene. My problem arises in that because of the size of the room, for me to even hope to fit the 30" radius curves I want (and having the siding in this spot is pushing it because I believe it is 32") I have to shove the main to the back of the scene closer to the wall than I would really like. The room is only 11' 4" wide, so having the curves in there is tight. Since I want to run passenger equipment a little, I want to keep the radii as large as possible. The mains are going to start upgrade just past the crossovers and I might drop that siding downgrade to hopefully alleviate some problems, but I can see how it can be an issue. Maybe that's the reason I wanted to have an industry that loaded gondolas there, to keep the cars short. Something in my subconscious saying "I wouldn't doooo that ..."

Another thing that is not readily apparent (they are visible to me, but I know they are there.) There are two columns 4 inches from the wall in back of the yard (I can pass a track behind them) one 9 and a half feet away from the left wall and one two and a half feet from the right edge. I can't  do anything with them except tolerate them, so I will have to come up with a clever idea to deal with them in the scene at some point.

Jim

 
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joef MRH Founder 17,506 posts
joef

Your image is too wide ... fixing it is easy ...

Quote:
Oops ...
Submitted by jlincoln7850 on Fri, 12/11/2009 - 09:32.

Hmm, I don't know why the photo is doing that. But you can see it well, though ...sort of.

Jim

Any time that happens with an image you post, it's wider than 720 pixels.

Fixing it is easy.

Click edit to open up your post for editing. Click on your image to select it.

  • Click on the image icon in the editor toobar (looks like a mountain with a sun over it), or right click and select "Image properties".
  • When the image dialog window pops up, on the left you will see boxes for width and height, and you will see a circular arrow button. Click on the circular arrow button.
  • You should now see your image width and height in the boxes.
  • If your image width is more than 720 pixels, then overtype the width to be 720. The system will automatically change the height to be correct for your new width.
  • Click save.

Thats it! Picture all better. I just did that for your image to fix it.

Joe Fugate​
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine

[siskiyouBtn]

Read my blog
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jlincoln7850 Active Member 66 posts
jlincoln7850

Thanks Joe

Thanks again Joe,

I thought somebody must have done something while I was writing the post! I previewed the post and it was fixed. Wow! Magic! or just somebody that knows what they are doing.

For those who might be interested, here is a photo of the layout the new one is replacing,

This view is looking into the corner where the main makes its turn, it is to the left in the plan. This is getting the axe thanks to Joe's video set. All those handlaid turnouts!  Okay, I'm over it now. I just want to get some trains running again. Cursed job ...

Jim
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jlincoln7850 Active Member 66 posts
jlincoln7850

And so it begins ...

Here are a couple of photos of the start of construction. The pics were taken with available light, no flash, so I apologize for the poor quality. I am hoping to start taking some good photos soon. But this was quick.

I having installed lighting and I am using energy efficient flourescents, I am not enamored with the pink tint in the photos, but they do light the place up well. When I start doing some real photography, I will change them.

Here you can see how I have laid out a portion of the track plan printed out by 3rd Planit

 

Upon watching Joe's videos I decided to switch to L-girder benchwork, because I like the flexibility, but I also like the way that you can run the wiring in the front where it is accessible as opposed to running wires through the benchwork. I also plan to use the spine roadbed to save money on plywood.

Jim L
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