AnthonyLooks like a great

Anthony

Looks like a great  plan. I have always loved the romance of logging. Several trips to Cass West Virginia has made me collect too many Shays and other geared locos and mainline small steam. One reason I am modeling a more generic layout is more varied   operation. I always thought a loads in empties out would help, but would be tough because of the log pond so prevalent in most sawmills. The nice thing is if you use the 5 finger staging mehod reach won't be a problem. I love the looks of the McCabe sawmill. Dick Elwell has one or parts of it on his Hoosac Valley. 

A couple of photos for inspiration

One thing I see is the box

One thing I see is the box car (I assume) loading at the mill. The track pulls out directly onto the pier. This would be unusual, as in most situations engines are required to stay off this type of structure due to weight. There is always an exception to the rule....

Plan

Looks like a good plan generally.

The main concern I have is staging.  Will you have enough run to get below your logging line to clear, have access to reach stuff, be able to see things and clear wires, switch mechanisms, linkages, turn table controls, etc. on the logging line?  On both ends the area over staging on the logging line is "yards" so it has to be flat or else cars in the tracks will roll.  That means all the grade has to be in the class 1 line, which could result in some steep grades.

In both areas where the staging loops will be, particularly the end under the logging camps it looks like the benchwork is relatively narrow (42" ?) so that means very tight radius on the class 1 and even tighter radius on the staging tracks if there is more than one.  For example under the logging camp the benchwork is about 42" deep, which means a 20" radius at most and a 17.5-18" radius on the second track, a 15-15.5" radius on a third staging track.  Extremely challenging for the class 1 equipment.  At those radii, you will have issues if the class 1 tries to pass two long or wide cars in the staging tracks (85' passenger car by a 65' gon or the cylinders of a 4-6-2 or 2-8-2)

The lumber mill end is even worse, the benchwork there is maybe 36-40" deep at most so you are going to get 18" max  with the interior loops at radii like 15.5", 13".  Waaaaaaaaaay too tight.

Might need to do a one or two turn helix under each end (still would be better with wider radii)  and then a yard under the main yard or in the upper left corner.

Keep the comments coming.

Neil, great point about the engine on the pier, I will think about how to change the plan to avoid that.

Dave, thanks for your insight. I had a worry I might be trying to do too much with the staging/reverse under the layout, I do have the option of running those tracks through the wall to other areas outside the main layout room on both ends to handle those duties, which I think will be a lot better.

I know that some of the radii is tight on the layout especially the wye near the logging camp. I'm modeling the 1930's, so for logging motive power will be shays and climaxes. For the port/industrial area, shays and small yard goats. For the common carrier mid-size rod engines, but they won't be entering the wye.

Always interested in any insights.

Thanks, Anthony

Rule of thumb

If you want to run passenger cards... go with 30" radius at least.

Radius

Tight radius on the logging line is not as critical, but the concern was the class 1.

You will probably want to differentiate between the class 1 and the logging line with the infrastructure too.  For example the class 1 should have ballasted tracks and the logging line maybe cinders.  I might be tempted to reconfigure the stream and bridges on the top portion so the class 1 passes over the stream once on a steel bridge and the logging line passes over twice on a much lighter wood trestle.  That will emphasize the difference in feel between the two.  Similarly a brick/stone depot for the class one and wood buildings for the logging line.

Operationally one concern is having a switchback into such a large lumber mill might be cumbersome.  To spot and pull a car from the loading tracks on the right side of the mill, you would have to leave the inbound cars on one of the tracks above the turntable, run 7 ft away, on the other side of the peninsula, shove in, grab the outbounds, shove back 7 ft to the other side of the peninsula, uncouple, move to the inbound cars, pull back 7 ft onto the wharf again, on the other side of the peninsula, shove in to spot the cars.  Then repeat as necessary for the other tracks.  Its not particularly hard, but it has a lot of long shoves to make a simple spot or pull and you have to be on both sides of the lumber mill to do it.  That's a lot of running around the end of the mill (bumping risk) or you will need two man crews on on the yard side and one on the wharf side of the peninsula.

Nice drawing

     Looks like a lot of interesting stuff to build.  From an initial look at the plan I might change a couple of basic things. First I think I'd make the common carrier line leave town up by the top on it's own tracks and bring the logging line into town on it's own separate tracks to the mill and only connect them with an interchange track somewhere down by the turntable area. The common carrier would serve all the other industries in and the logging line only work the mill tracks. Second I'd eliminate the reverse loop up in the top right and have the logging line continue climbing as it runs past the wye and loop around the room to a high country logging site up along the top wall. Note, to minimize tree making scenic the bulk of the layout as logged over country and just add trees up in the high country where the logging spurs are active......DaveB

Access

Anthony,

Looks like a nice plan you've got there.

One area that caught my attention though was the end of the reverse loop on the right side of the layout. It looks to me like you've got a 3 foot plus depth there. Reaching the backdrop or the back of the scenery to plant trees, etc., or even to couple/uncouple cars on the short siding you have along the backdrop might prove difficult without some kind of hidden access. The same might prove true in the upper right corner of your plan as well. 

I mention this because I had something very similar to what you are planning on my last layout. I can tell you from experience that while I was excited about the scenic possibilities for those areas on my layout, the stretch to work on them was a real pain! In fact it was one of the things that factored into my decision to dismantle that layout and start a new one.  

Hope that helps with your future planning. I'll be eagerly watching to see your future progress.

Great coments

Thanks everyone who has provided their thoughts so far. This is exactly why I joined this forum, keep your feedback coming.

Cheers Anthony

The big Issue...

If you don't want to rotate

If you don't want to rotate the sawmill peninsula, perhaps you could have a small, mill owned, industrial boxcab "critter" assigned to shuffle the cars around at the mill, that way the locomotive weight on the pier wouldn't be such an issue. Something like a 4 wheel 25 ton diesel would do the trick, and I think it would look neat to see the little loco shuffling cars on the pier. It would also create another job for an operator if you are planning on having operating sessions in the future.

Mike Sulzbach

Anthony, I really like the

Anthony, I really like the plan. It is very much in line with my long term layout vision. At the timer being i am looking for segments i can build separately for the future.

The logging camp would make a nice module with the Wye. What size turnouts and radius are you looking at there?

New plan posted

Hey batey,

The wye and the radius in the first plan would have been quite small, 18". I have posted a revised plan in a new thread " round 2".

a.

Plan thoughts

I have been following your mill build on the other thread and am extremely impressed with the level of thought and detail. The plan does beg some questions such as the transfer tracks. My knowledge of logging railroads is from the western Cascades where geared engines worked the logging tricks and crawled up steep switchbacks to and from a place where the trains would be assembled for rod engines to drag to the mills, river, or sound to form rafts. 

The area of the wye would be where the rod engines would turn as the Shay's, Heisler's, or Climax would run up and back. Turning on the wye was a way to lessen the damage to the rail from the Shay pistons on the rail. The equipment generally didn't have a shed but the equipment needed repairs frequently so a shop was common. Heavy repairs would have been done near the mill. Of course every show was different so all was possible.

The idea of adding some switch backs to the logging area would add operational interest and imply moving up the mountain as areas were played out so some ties might remain but the rail pulled and re-used. Logging was a messy business and often the areas were littered with debris. The spar trees and drag lines formed a web of cables that rivaled a tal ship for complexity and donkey engines set up on sleds made moving them another interesting aspect of logging.

I like the logging camp with bunks, commissary, cookhouse, and machine shop on rails. These along would make an interesting module. This looks like a lot of fun and I am interested to see your progress.

I would change the track

I would change the track going into the industry from the turntable to connect with one of the tracks in the fore ground.

I would consider the port tracks and see if they could not be repositioned so as to connect to the yard with out the switch back or find a way to move the unit to the left so that the entire contents of a track can be pulled at one time.