Tracks next to wall

djrail,

Thanks for sharing your concept. . .

You may want to using a few less sidings and moving the tracks that are close to the wall an inch or two towards the center of the bench work.  This will give your scene more depth of field and add visual interest.  You can put "half buildings" against the walls (industries for switching, etc.).  

Good luck and keep us posted!

Sean 

Does this give you any ideas?

I doodled this in 3rd Planit... Perhaps it gives you some ideas? FWIW

Turnouts: Atlas code 55 #5

Min radius: 10" oil dealer, 12" branch, 13.75" main

Track-to-track separation: 1.75" min

Grid: 12"

Hope this is of some use to you...

Charlie

I certainly prefer Charlies

I certainly prefer Charlies more flowing arrangment.  One thing to consider are industries that are not directly modelled on the layout, simply a spur that heads under a bridge, behind a cut of trees or even just angling off of the layout. The spurs could also be imagined to supply several industries increasing the type of cars you can drop off. You can imagine that a local industrial switcher actually places the cars to the specific industry, "behind the scenes", thereby making your layout even larger.  With a car card and waybill system set up I think you can have some serious fun.  

Steve

Good start

Good start. I think Charlie's plan is an excellent riff on your original idea.

I am a big fan of not having track tangent to the facia and Charlie's plan does that at the top but I think you could do that along the left side too..

Still, it was an excellent first effort and I look forward to revision. I think you already showed you have a realistic appreciation of how much you can fit in your space..

Chris

Looks Good

I too like Charlie's version a tad better. Especially on the left hand side of the layout. The tracks making slight turns instead of perfectly straight lines will add visual interest as well as give the illusion of a greater distance as it slightly breaks up your lines of sight.

Office fun

I must agree with everyone else, Charlie came up with an improved design. With a layout like that, I wonder how much work will get done. He-he! 

3rd Planit

Charlie,

You mention that you use 3rd Planit, how do you like it. I am in the process of getting a software to design layouts. I've been looking for one for a MAC but they really don't have any that I really like. And I was wondering about 3rd Planit and to use it on my PC.

Awesome!

Charlie,

Thank you for the added inspiration.  As I mentioned, I too was "doodling" but in the Atlas program.

I'll go back in and use some of your suggestions, if you don't mind?  I mentioned I was going to make the plan "flow" a bit more as I set down roadbed.  Thank you for bending some of the rails to further that thought.  I like the opposing spurs in the first "town" on the branch and I like the concept of the lefthand town much better, while trying to maintain as much runaround siding as possible.

If I may, one of my original dilemmas was where the main joined the yard.  You have indeed cleaned up that side of the plan, but I'll take another run at the main and branch configuration to try and allow access to that far right "mainline track".   I can visualize pulling second track over, but if you stay on the first, I see the train being stuck.  No problem, that would be the biggest concern with your revision.  The rest is outstanding...

Got it!  Crossover at roughly that point!

Charlie, I'm an even bigger "fan from afar" now!  Must say that I own both of your "BCSJRR Ops" videos and I can't wait for an update on your peninsula expansion or a new video with the full layout trackplan in action.  If I wasn't across the continent and in a different country, I might even drop by...

Thanks again.  GREAT feedback, plenty to think about and exceptional "doodling" on your part!!!

Point of clarification

"Home" office.  An important point  as I doubt "work" would allow me to indulge...

3rd Planit

Nick,

I won't comment on the other model rr cad programs. Let's say that I started using 3pi around 1998 or so when the other cad program I was using (no names please!) was revealed to have a nasty bug which they refused to address. I moved to 3pi out of frustration and it seemed pretty good. Then I blew it, and told everyone I knew how great it was. At that point the cockroaches started crawling out of every corner of the program complete with frequent crashes. I felt guilty for recommending it to all my buddies so instead of trashing it I started sending in bug reports to El Dorado software. It was amazing! When I sent in a bug report with a test case I'd have a fix the next day, sometimes later that evening! Over time Randy got rid of many, many problems and the program become more and more robust and full featured. I spent some time crawling around in the swamp of 3-D modeling because it could do it (detailed 3-D modeling/simulation is a whole different branch of the hobby that can suck up so many hours you'll get very little done on your railroad).

I've designed the last two Bear Creek and South Jacksons with 3pi (dozens of different track configurations!). I drove the architect of the roof over my current train room nuts with cad drawings of what might go above it. I've lost count of how many other layouts I've drawn/doodled with it. I produced the 3-D benchwork fly-through in issue 3's Up-the-Creek with 3pi along with a bunch of other techie diagrams, and I've used 3pi to draw finished track plans for Jack Burgess, Ed Loiuzeaux, George Selios, and (in issue 7) Jim Dias layouts (not as pretty as MR's track plans, but decent).

Yes, it still has some issues but crashes are now few and far between and it can be configured to autosave to minimize work lost. I haven't upgraded in a couple of years now. I believe Randy still spends some time on the 3pi users e-group. If you elect to try 3pi it will seem like a rather steep learning curve but if you keep at it, you'll get to the point where you seldom spend much doodling time with paper and pencil.

I figure I got my money's worth out of 3pi about 9 years ago - now it's all gravy...

FWIW, YMMV, IMHO,

Charlie

Questions that need answers

If you already know the answers to these great, otherwise you need to find out.

The answers to these will help you evaluate the value of a track plan. (I apologize if I'm preaching to the choir!)

Charlie

Thanks

Thanks for the reply, very helpful.

Regarding Charlie's last point,

If you don't find an n-scale layout to practice on, you could make an N-scale time saver or even Inglenook, and use it for practice.  Something small would be be light weight and portable enough to try at different heights to see what view you like best, and what is the most practical compromise between eye level viewing and being low enough to work.  In addition you could also make some card board mock ups of N-scale buildings to see how much clearance you need for fingers as well as what height and clearance allows you to do normal rerailing and uncoupling operations without bashing stuff with your hands,elbows, or other body parts.

Regarding space between adjacent tracks for fingers, I suspect that the spacing for ho of 2-2.5 inches between track centers is probably the same in N-scale since full size fingers don't change just because the scale is smaller.  Unfortunately, the much spacing between industry tracks may look grossly out of scale.  What you may need to plan to do for rerailing cars is to actually lift the car off the layout and rerail it someplace where there is more room, and then use your switcher to put it back where it belongs.  

Track centers

The space is not the same because the cars are narrower.

1.5" is plenty big for centers.. often we use quite a lot less, especialy on tangents where you can see 1"-1.25". However, if you are going to run modern cars on a tight curves you will need to be very careful about clearances. I used 1.25" as my standard and opened it up a bit on curves. A bigger issue then fingers is a sight line to car numbers on multiple rows of cars. This is impacted by how high the layout is.. some experimentation is in order if you plan to use car cards.

Hopefully you will not need to do much rerailing.. incoupling requires no space.. just a skewer between the cars.

Many N-scalers like to have the layout pretty high to bring the small cars up close. Chest height is a nice comprimise between appearance and functionality if you are doing a lot of switching. Experiment with a mockup shelf for what works for you.

Chris

One trick to help ops would be to copy the prototype.

It would required more paperwork, but could be generated by computer to save a bit of time.  Real railroads number every track in every yard.  Then every car is listed by number and track location. 

I remember being called out in the middle of the night to repair refrigeration units on the U.P.  They were calling from Omaha, and didn't even know where the yards were located, and the track numbers weren't posted.  The people calling me would give me gps coordinates for the yard they wanted me to go to, and a track number to find the car!  I don'tr use GPS coordinates, so I would have to look at the map to try to figure out which yard they were sending mew to and then drive there and hope I could find the car!

Obviously the railroad personel on site knew every yard, and every track in every yard, so when they were told to go to track 5 in the Los Nietos Yard to pick up a car, they knew where it was.  Big yards like Dolores, Wahsington Street, Industry, and Colton have towers and permanent operating crews, but small yards like Los Nietos, and Terminal Island didn't have any on site personel.  Switch crews just knew which track was which.

The first layout (pre-Home Office Shelf Project)

As I mentioned, I do have a small 3x5' N-scale layout constructed and operating.  I am still populating with structures and I'm refining my "operation".

Brief description of the plan.  I assume I interchange at the two-track "Staging/Main Interchange" which brings cars on to and sends them off to the real world.  Yes, it's in the middle of the layout, but suspend belief please.

• First job is to bring out the Geep and "switch" the yard to block several "trains"
• Depending on the car cards/waybills (which again I am perfecting as I go)...
• I can run one train out to Town 2 and switch the town
• I can assemble an "Interchange to Interchange" transfer to Town 3 (usually my US foreign road name cars) and move them between the interchanges simulating loads/empties to and from the US (I live in in eastern Canada, but I'm from the prairies and I envision the layout running between outside Winnipeg - the two-track interchange - down to the US border - the other interchange via DW&P - through southeastern rural Manitoba - I know, quite the stretch in 3x5')
• I can assemble a grain train and run to Town 3 to switch the elevator
• I also "assume" that the non-grey part of the loop doesn't really "exist" and this is a point-to-point from Town 1-3 BUT will run my train around the loop a couple of laps just to pretend I'm going somewhere before pulling into town to do my work (then repeat on the way back)

It's purely a starter/experimental layout, allowing me to practice scenery techniques, do some switching, develop a car card/waybill scheme and run some trains.  But, because it does take up a bit of floor space in the room, I submitted the first plan as something to graduate to around the wall to better utilize home office space, allow a longer run and also allow longer trains (the one below has short runarounds in town only allow 4-5 car trains).

Next stop...entire basement , but the current basement simply will not allow that...next move maybe.  And yes, I should indeed seek out a few more N-Scale layouts and even an operating group to learn more and more and see additional ideas.

Atlas sectional...basic turnouts...11" min radius curves.  I use a GP and mainly 40' cars (but have recently added some Canadian cylindrical hoppers and some tank cars for added interest).  Like I said...starter/experimental...!

Thanks, by the way, for ALL the responses.  Every one adds knowledge and inspires hitting the layout to do a little more work.