Hawaiian Railway

I'm open to ideas! Hawaiian based mainline layout with visible staging in On30:  https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/designing-a-one-town-hawaiian-railway-12209471

I'd like to make it more like a piece of furniture in the room so shallow with lighting valance but the sloping ceiling may cause some challenges. Maybe seated for switching and standing for watching trains?

A section across the door must be swing away or removable for storage when the room becomes a space for other activities - however small. 

It would be fun to have it use some automated trains using JMRI so that a manual train could operate alongside through freights or passenger trains.

I might be interested

I'm working on a short micro-layout right now (and it might grow over time just a bit), but I have an 8' x 12' space that is earmarked for a future Iowa, Chicago & Eastern (or possibly DM&E) layout.  That'll be probably ten years down the road, but I'd be keen to see an operations-oriented trackplan.  Let me know if that might be of interest, and I can share more details...

Thanks so much guys!

All right, thanks for the responses! I'll check out some history and plans Umauma Railway! I hadn't heard of the prototype before. Brockpaine that sounds like just the kind of thing I'm interested in so I'll try to get you a plan soon. Could you maybe tell me a bit about what kind of era or industries you're interested in?

Sorry about that

Let me see about those Hawaii sugarcane railroads... I'll do some research and see what I can see

IC&E

GeorgiaNorthern, sure can!

My current space is down in a basement; I've negotiated about 1/3rd of the total space: one of the 12' sides is open to the rest of the room.  Ceiling is pretty low, so I don't want a double-decker.  I can provide a diagram of the dimensions, if you prefer.

At the moment, the micro-layout I'm building is basically a proto-freelanced industrial spur, based on Muscatine, Iowa.  I'll have a small Cargill plant and a storage warehouse.  I also have a thought about expanding the layout a couple feet to add the HJ Heinz plant in Muscatine.  So at the moment, I'm starting to collect mostly boxcars and covered hoppers, as funds permit. 

A sand plant (such as Pattison Sand, in Clayton Iowa - on the Dubuque Sub) would potentially be of interest.  Likewise grain - potentially even a rail-to-barge setup? - or chemicals.  I'd prefer to avoid large industries that would cover half of my available space, though.

I'd really love to have enough room to run my SD40-2s as part of my motive power.  But I also have a four-axle units to pull switching duties.

Edited to add: I could go with a continuous run for a longer train, although I don't absolutely need it.

Neat Stuff

All neat to read, I'm already thinking about what I can factor in and how. The rail/barge setup does sound like it would be neat to model and I would love to incorporate. Seems like we're on the same page in a lot of places, if you're interested in small-to-medium sized local industries. I've found that packing plants work great for that kind of thing, as they can typically generate a lot of traffic as well as being small. If I'm not mistaken from what I've read on your blog you have an 8'x12' space? Chemical plants, packing + food processing plants, grain elevators, barge transloads and a sand mine all sound like they could be really interesting to switch and provide a mix of traffic. Accomodating the locomotives ought to be completely possible. This might be of interest to you for the rail/barge shipments: The Monon planned to bring coal off the L&N at Nashville, carry it through Indiana and load it onto barges in Northern Indiana to supply power plants in the 1970s. The plan was ultimately abandoned because every Indiana railroad under the sun opposed it, but they made some diagrams on how they would build the area. If you can find these (I know they're in George W. Hilton's fascinating book on the Monon, but they may be in some public Indiana records because they were filed with Indiana's government and the ICC) that would be idea-inspiring to see, but it was basically a big tower that coal hoppers on a straight track dumped coal into, the coal flowed down the tower (Down a hillside) and into a barge. All on a straight track. Anyway, keep in contact on the pan

Space

Interesting note about the Monon.  I actually live a mile or so from what I think is the former Monon line to Dayton - I believe it's operated by Norfolk Southern now.

I made a quick sketch of the space that I can conceivably fill.  I don't have it all available yet (and I'm skills-building with a micro-layout first), but eventually, it's earmarked for model railroad use.

I'd be interested in track plan

Whatever You Want

KHaus, whatever you think you I should know. Industries you want would certainly be helpful, era, facilities you'd like to have (Turntable, roundhouse, etc.) and probably certain features of the layout. I'd love to design something for you.

Brockpaine, I'm almost done with edition 1 of the track plan. When I am, I'll put it up here and you tell me what you want differently. Not long.

Umauma, sorry it's been a bit. Hawaii Sugarcane railways are something I don't have much knowledge of, so I've been digging around, especially on the sugarcane modelers SIG. We should be able to talk more soon.

I'd be interested as well...

Since I have been struggling with proper operational relationships between staging, main class. yard and the rest of my railroad (things like where would be the meet-up points for both trains and operators, connections between staging and yards, etc).

If you use AnyRail that will make all of this much easier, as I can give you my files with complete layout details.

Sugar Cane Railways

@GeorgiaNorthern: Just check out the Oahu Land and Railway Company on Oahu. It is a mainline, class one, railroad that was fully signaled and had locomotives that riveled those of Colorado for size and character. The plantation railroads were another animal altogether. 

My space is surprisingly small and equates to an HO layout of only 12 1/2' x 8 1/4' room with an open space inside. Granted, an On30 layout needn't have more real estate so the interior space will be larger but the mainline is quite short.

CN Track Plan in HO

It looks like you have several takers on your offer. That said I don't know if you have time or ambition for more, but if you do I could really use some help with a design as designing layouts is not my strong point. I am wanting to come up with an HO track plan to fit a future space depicting the western terminus of the CN at Prince Rupert BC in the current era. I have a great interest in this area as it has a lot going for it for the modeler: Car float operations (interchange with the Alaska railroad on the Aquatrain), Inter-model service, Coal,  lumber and several other industries. In addition there is great scenery to model...what is there to not like? If you have time and ambition to help me with this I will hook you up with more information as far as layout room size and restrictions.

Thanks for making this offer to all of us here!!

This sounds like a great

This sounds like a great thread and could be worthy of several articles. I know things like this were done in the print mags for a long time. It might be nice to see a new series in the press regarding layout design based on prototype lines. I will be looking forward to your postings and discussions.

the Continental Connector

....not exactly prototypical, but what I am working on right now. I have hit some stumbling blocks in details of the track plan itself. I could use some help

Brian

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/interesting-track-plan-tupper-lake-faust-junction-12208132

I'd take some input

I'd like to get your thoughts on a plan for an N-scale layout. I've been planning (for far too long) a layout based on the Des Moines Union Ry in Des Moines Iowa.  I've got to read up on how to attach images, if I may give you a visual of what I have for space and what I've been looking for. It's a J shaped space 19'x 12' x 13' around the walls, single level. Looking forward to following this thread as it develops!  Thanks again for the offer.

Interested

How can I contact you off list and get you some data about what I am looking at doing?

Jason Greene

Updates

Brockpaine - I'm done, let me digitize it, and you'll have the plan!

Umauma - I had no idea Hawaii operations were so large... I'll look at that too.

manofkountry - now that I'm done with Brock's, I'll see what I can do for you

Virginian & Lake Erie - Thank you! 

railandsail - Let me see about what I can do. Is there anything you have thus far that I can see?

montrak - Thanks, sounds good. I'd love to help!

jg290 - Contact me at rippergercustommodelrailroads@gmail.com with what you're interested in.

Thanks for the interest! I'll also do timetables, in case anybody's interested

GeorgiaNorthern railandsail -

I thought perhaps I explained the stage I was at in that referenced subject thread I submitted above.

Track Plan Project of mine, Part3
https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/interesting-track-plan-tupper-lake-faust-junction-12208132
 

i didn't want to re-post that info over on this subject thread as it would clog it up.
 

I will do up a few other sketches and explanations, and post them on that other subject thread that deals with my specific layout,...again not to clog up this subject thread. likely I may not get to this today as i need to go help a friend with his boat trailer.

Did i see that you are in Maryland? I use to live up there in Annapolis and Kensington. Retired to Florida. miss that Timonium Train Show

Did I get bumped out of the

Did I get bumped out of the queue...just because?

Really Sorry

OH! Trainzluvr, I'm so sorry about that, I was just looking at the second page when I was typing that last post. I'm really, really sorry. Regarding anyrail: Is there anything else you can do that would work? I have a personal Mac, so I can't use Anyrail there. I use a PC for an organization, but the organization is a bit restrictive regarding downloading applications. I might be able to do something, but in the meantime is there any other option? Again, I'm really sorry about missing you there.

More Updates

Been a little busy with other things, but the IC&E plan is done and (almost) ready to go. Just have to make labels more readable with the magic of technology and I'll put it up here (hopefully) tomorrow.

Railandsail, sounds great, I was a little confused by your original post. I am in Maryland and the Timonium Train Show is always something to look forward to.

Cool

Looking forward to seeing what you've come up with!

No worries, I was just being facetious

It does not have to be AnyRail, I can render JPG images from it and pass that along.

I have complete room details with benchwork decks along with main items such as staging, classification yard, helix... What I lack is plan finesse e.g. placement of cities and industries, major scenic elements, etc. and how all these things interact with each other (ops).

I think it would really help if you actually created a queue and tell us when you need us to send you details and information, so we don't bother you every day.

Ditto

Sounds like a good plan. I imagine it takes some time to work thru some of this individual planning as well.