Initial Thoughts

As I contemplate initial Givens and Druthers for the NNE Scenic V3, I find myself thinking of wants for things I didn't choose in the prior versions, and also of things I would potentially like to keep. Most of all, I find myself unsure of what wants are most important.

V1 and V2 both included Dover NH, and my new home will be in Dover, so I think that should be part of V3 as well.  I see the railroad as tying parts of my life and that of my wife together.  To that end, my wife grew up in neighboring Portsmouth, which was going to be part of V2, so I want to keep Portsmouth.  We lived for 5 years in Exeter, NH, which I had done all the track work for in my V2 N scale layout, so that feels like a want, but not as strongly.  I also had Rockingham Junction which connects all of the above.

But I grew up in Nashua NH and my wife and I also spent 4 years living in Manchester.

So what this seems to lead me to is:

                                                  Dover

                                                     \/

Nashua --> Manchester --> Rockingham Junction --> Portsmouth

                                                    \/

                                                 Exeter

Dover also had a line to Portland, which could add interest to be able to get to/from Portland both ways. I previously modeled North Conway as well, which I could still consider north of Dover. And if I got really crazy there was connection between North Conway through Intervale back to Portland as well.  But that seems like too many connections for feasible benchwork to be possible, and probably way too many locations without them starting to squish together even as double deck.

My difficulty with the Rockingham Junction connected set of locations is contemplating a benchwork configuration that effectively requires significant runs in all four compass directions. 

As I contemplate, here are some possible initial Givens and Druthers:

Givens:

• HO Scale
• Transition era but predominantly diesel
• DCC rail power
• Double deck (eventually), yet still sectional.
• Under layout tortoise switch machines for mainline turnouts
• "off-stage" staging & helix
• Portsmouth & Nashua for sure, the other locations probably belong as druthers

Druthers:

• Minimum radius: 24" (ideally most 30")
• Probably Peco track
• Primarily freight, but some passenger service
• Able to accommodate between up to 6 for operations.

More thoughts to follow either this week or next. Despite doing this for several years now and reading lots of these blogs on new layouts, I find myself feeling a bit lost and I don;t know why. V1 and V2 just came to me and seemed obvious to me what I wanted to do.  This time is so much less clear and yet seems like it has greater promise.

Thoughts or ideas for helping me clarify my own thinking welcome.

-Ed

Sectional but not flat

While reading another thread this morning, I read a comment that spoke to me that I need to add to my Givens. 

• Sectional, but not flat

I am unsure how I accommodate that.  NNEScenic2, since I was building sections to be movable, was designed to be absolutely flat\ and level throughout.  Since I learned my lesson with V1 not to make assumptions about never moving again, I do want to stay with sections.  This time is REALLY supposed to be the forever home.  But I clearly have been very bad at predicting the future, so I don't want to tempt fate.  But I realize that a big part of my enjoyment of the hobby is modelling New England's landscape, which is anything but flat.  So I am now pondering how to have the best of both worlds - a scenic track plan that is not flat but that remains sectional and easy to disassemble if our new forever home turns out someday not to be so permanent.

This also leads me to now question my list above of locations.  Some of the conundrum comes from the juxtaposition of possibilities between northern NH scenery and southern NH ties to the places my wife and I grew up and where we have and will be living as well as operations potential.  V1 of the NNE Scenic started in Dover NH and was north to Conway and Crawford Notch.  While I never got past Bartlett before the end of V1 it was meant to have Frankenstein Trestle, which in N scale I was going to build to scale without compression.  While that plan met my interest in scenery and even mountains, from an operations standpoint it was going to be pretty dull.  Mostly single mainline and not a lot of industry to serve.  But my new thoughts of Portsmouth to Nashua and a bit north and south of there if I have Exeter and Dover doesn't go through a lot of hill country. However, those locations around 1950 will have lots of operations potential. I am even hoping Nashua ends up including where my dad worked for many years that was a trucking company which was also served by rail.

All of this now leads me back to re-questioning the move to HO.  I really want to make the scale switch for future hobby longevity as I age.  But I know I have to be realistic about how many locations I model because I don't want to have 20 car trains in 3 towns at once.

Such a conundrum.  Anyway, enough rambling.  I really am curious how others with non-flat sectional railroads approach the sectional but not flat problem. Maybe once I understand that, it will help me consider the locations more.

-Ed

Non flat enough??

Hi Ed,

Non flat sectional layouts can be done but they require a bit more engineering thought to make sure everything stays together. 

Here's and example - Not flat enough for you??

Perhaps a look at the Brokers Nose modules might help for inspiration?? 

Definitely enough "not flat"

My engineering won;t have to be as complex since it is only sectional against a hedge of our new forever home not turning out to be forever. But that is definitely a great inspiration.  I really like how even some of the sections that have the track at the same level give it appearance of not being so due to the hills and cuts.

Rockingham Junction ... or perhaps NOT

After playing with a lot of configurations to deal with the crossing pattern at Rockingham Junction, I finally got an idea to eliminate the problem.  I have no emotional tie to Rockingham Junction.  It is, of course, a rather intriguing crossing configuration, but my only reason really for modeling it is because it is between the locations I want to model. 

But it occurred to me that since I am planning two levels, I can just skip Rockingham Junction altogether.  I can pretend that Rockingham Junction is off stage somewhere in the helix.  Portsmouth, Portland, and Dover can be roughly round the walls on one level, and Manchester, Nashua, and Exeter can be on the other level,  I just need crossovers between the dual helix tracks such that I can enter either track and exit either track as desired for my route on the next level.  It also creates an operations interest because just as would be the case at Rockingham Junction, trains will need to hold if they would be crossing at the imaginary junction in the helix.

I am not ready this week to post a diagram as I want to get the measurements right later this week first.  But I no longer needs ideas on how to deal with a configuration that includes all four compass points.

-Ed

First Footprint Design

Ok, I was not patient enough to wait for more certain measurements to start playing with footprint design for the railroad.  Here is my first cut of a design I think could be workable.  There will likely be others.

L1 and L2 designate levels with L1 being the lower level.  The drop bridges would be for access to the center area and would be left open when not operating the railroad for easy access to the center area with table and chairs.

One of the agreements with the household zoning authority is that the basement could share usage at times with grandkids playing games/etc.  First thought was to dedicate about 10' at the top of the diagram to that with the railroad confined to the lower 2/3 of the diagram.  But so far I have not come up with a good footprint doing so that would not either lose a couple locations or make a couple locations much smaller than I would like. I will play some more with that though.  However, I showed my wife this design and she likes the idea of the game table being in the middle of the railroad with trains all around.  It will also make a very convenient place to do my modelling work in the midst of it all, though it means putting all my stuff away before grandkids come over (the horror of keeping my work area clean!!!!) 

Storage will be under the lower level anyway, so it could be very convenient.

As shown, the pairs of cities on levels above/below one another would be skewed in their positions, so that for example an operator of Nashua and an operator of Portland would have most of their operations work be in different ends of their respective level along the same straight run of footprint.  There could be some overlap but generally the aim is to keep operators out of each others way while also creating additional length of separation around turns between cities so I avoid having 20 or so car trains be in two cities at the same time. I have not started on actual track plans yet, so as I do that I likely will have to tweak if I go with this footprint.

First I may play with other alternative footprints as well. Comments and ideas welcome!

-Ed

Revised Draft

I have revised the rough footprint design with several objectives:

1) Reduced number of cities to 2 per level in order to expand real estate per city while avoiding significant overlaps to keep operators for the cities from needing to be in the same spot and simultaneously increasing open space and length of runs between cities.  This should have the positive effect of also allowing me to design for somewhat longer trains.

2) Better satisfy the local zoning authority with regards to closet space. 

3) Additional drop bridge location to get to the closet.  This is a downside since with two levels it means four drop bridges to be carefully constructed, aligned, and electrically protected to avoid running a train off the edge.

The basement finished area today ends at the left edge of the stairs and includes a closet on the left side wall from the stairs to the outer wall at the bottom.  The plan is to finish more of the space as shown by the left side yellow background color to be able to extend the space including the area for the helix.  The first draft accommodated loss of the closet space by providing shelves next to the stairs.  The household zoning authority wasn't thrilled with it, but didn't veto it.  This new draft keeps the existing closet space but just pushes it back 6' from its current position to appear as above in the extended finished area. The new proposal has met with much more enthusiastic support from the household zoning authority.

The location of the drop bridges is such that point to point operations can be done on either level with operations between Portsmouth and Dover on one level and between Manchester and Nashua on the other level.  The bridges would be in place when operations that involve through trains between levels is desired.

This also widens the area between the left and right sides of the layout by about 18", accommodating easier movement around the table and chairs.  It is roughly 9&1/2 feet wide between the two sets of benchwork.  Table is 3 feet wide, so with chairs pushed in it accommodates about 30" on each side between the backs of the chairs and the layout.

-Ed

XtrackCad Start

I have started to design out the track plan in XTrackCad now.  This has of course led to some benchwork design changes to stick to my 30" minimum radius as much as possible.  So far I have the Dover side of the upper level drafted. 

The only curve below my 30" radius minimum so far is from the drop bridge near Dover to the helix which comes in at 27".  I will probably finish the Portsmouth side and then continue to make adjustments.

-Ed

XTrackCad Export

I should have used export.  Here is a better image than the way I did it the first time.

-Ed

Upper Level Full Draft 1

Here is a completed first draft of the track plan for the upper level.

Left near the helix is upper level visible staging.  I made sure all turnouts are near the edge of the benchwork for easy access.  Portsmouth yard track plan is a compressed version of portions of the 1920 Sanborn map, except I connected a runaround of the full yard near the bottom right inner curve to make operations in the Portsmouth yard easier. 

I am grappling with one flow issue which is that ideally I would flow from Dover into staging rather than from Portsmouth.  But thinking on it.

-Ed

Re: Upper Level Full Draft 1

Have you considered reversing the flow of the helix to clockwise?  Would address both staging and the curve radius from Dover.

Fixed the Flow Problem

Here it is with the flow problem fixed.  This allows staging to flow to Dover, then Portsmouth, then into the helix from where it will flow to Manchester, then Nashua then into lower level staging (or back up the helix if desired.

It required some curved turnouts to get enough staging tracks in to hold my target of> 50 cars.  Ideally I want to be able to store up to 50 cars on each staging level.  In reality I will never have 100 cars in the staging yards, because some will reside on layout in the yards in Portsmouth, Dover, Manchester, and Nashua.  But I picked 50 because then if I have up to 40 in a level I have an empty longest spur for pushing and pulling cars.

-Ed

Don, thoughts?

@Don, I was in the middle of editing my post when your post showed up so I didn't see it first.  Any other suggestions on it? I appreciate the input.

Thanks,

-Ed

Re: Don, thoughts?

Moving the drop bridge nearest the stairs down to the end of the Dover benchwork might allow use of some regular turnouts.

Sorry, presently don't have time to look over the plan in its entirety.

That Did It

@Don, thanks - that did the trick.

Here it is again with no curved turnouts required and I end up with more staging with less maximum reach from the aisle.

-Ed

Level 1 - Possibly no Manchester

As I have turned my attention next to looking at track plans for the lower level, I made a discovery that may cause me to make a venue change there.  I had planned that from the helix (coming from Portsmouth), the railroad would head through Manchester before turning south to Nashua.  Nashua is a must have as I grew up there and I want to include key locations including where my dad worked at a rail served trucking company.

Manchester seemed naturally along the way, so that was the other choice for the lower level.  But I started looking at the Sanborn maps for Manchester, and it appears to me that for a train to travel from Portsmouth to Nashua by way of Manchester, it would have had to pull into Manchester turning north, then reverse direction through some switches to branch south (presumably either changing motive power or with the motive power running around switching end of the train.

While operationally interesting, that would preclude continuous running, which I want to include.  I could cheat on it and just turn the track rather than follow the prototype, but I then asked myself if there would be alternatives for getting from Portsmouth to Nashua.  It turns out that in Epping NH the tracks from Portsmouth also turned southwest and made there way to Nashua through other towns along the way. Since Manchester wasn't a key location for me, I am now inclined to do that, placing smaller stops along the way which also means more rural scenery, something I like to include in my modelling.

Decision isn't final though.  If anyone has info on track connections in Manchester between the Portsmouth line and the tracks to Nashua without reversing direction, I would be interested in the rough track plan.  But if, as I suspect, the continuous running route between Portsmouth and Nashua would have always turned south at Epping, that works for me (and my wife likes that idea too.)

-Ed

Time period change

As I further researched the more direct route to Nashua from Epping through WIndham, I discovered that the railroad bridge crossing the Merrimack River between Nashua and Hudson was discontinued use in 1942.   As that happens to be the year my wife's mom was born, and it is transition era for B&M with both steam and diesels in use, I am now planning to switch to 1942 instead of early 1950s.

That said, everyone please cross their fingers for me.  Here I do all this initial planning, and it turns out there could be a snag with the house we were expecting to buy.  Hoping it all works out, but it might not so lots of knocking on wood and positive thoughts for us not to have to walk away and start looking again.

-Ed

Ugh - wrong again

I think I should probably stop projecting what the railroad route will be until I really complete researching.  While 1942 gets me back the connection from Nashua into Hudson, it turns out that the track from Hudson to Fremont was abandoned by B&M in 1935.  So I either need to reconsider Manchester, ignore that bit of history and pretend the line was still open, or backdate further to 1934 and go with just steam.

If I reconsider Manchester, I am going to compromise on track plan and make continuous running possible, though perhaps in a way that operating sessions would not use to not cheat that part for operations.  But I like the idea of excluding Manchester because I could use much more of the first level for a more extensive coverage of Nashua, having lived 30 of my 59 years there.

Decisions, decisions... after more research this time.

-Ed

Which is wrong, you or reality?

It’s your railroad of course, and there is something to be said for strictly following the prototype.  But there’s also a lot to be said for an enjoyable layout that ticks most of your boxes.  Don’t let reality stand in the way of that 

Lower Level Draft

Thanks to feedback both here and in my thread asking about changing history, I am moving forward with the lower level through Fremont to Nashua.  The 25 miles of track that were taken out of service and removd about 7 years before my period is just a single 30" radius single track curve on the layout.

Here is the first draft of the level which is dominated by Nashui on three sides.

The image doesn't show it, but there is a divider between Fremont and what will be visible staging left of that.  I just forgot to turn on the layer in XTrackCad that shows the divider when I did the export.  That divider is what will support the upper level of the peninsula.

I also limited the edge of the benchwork approaching the helix to where needed for the track.  That means if I need to get to the helix below the upper level staging, I will be able to easily sit in one of my rolling chairs and wheel myself right up to the helix.

Next step on these is to start to show the buildings I am planning to include at key locations.  They are accounted for in the track plan, but not added to the plan yet.

As I do so, inevitably there will be changes to the track, and feedback always welcome.

-Ed

Redesigned Footprint

There were two things I was not satisfied with about the design so far:

1) Two pairs of drop bridges - so 4 places I need to do meticulous work ensuring operation of the bridges did not mess up track alignment.

2) A lot of the lower level would have the track behind key buildings instead of in front of the buildings.

I have redesigned the footprint to resolve both of the above.

Here is a new export of the lower level.  There are already further adjustments I have in mind, but I want to get the first cut of the new footprint on here.

This also means access to the closet area no longer has a drop bridge involved.

In order to reverse the flow of Nashua, it does mean that on the upper level I have to have the tracks cross after coming out of the helix.

Here is the revised upper level:

Please excuse the fact that I forgot to hide the layer in XTrackCad for the support structure of Dover penninsula upper level. 

While I could eliminate the track having to cross if I reverse the flow on that upper level as well, I need the wide area of the peninsula upper level for Dover in order to include the roundhouse and turntable, so reversing the flow on the upper level does not work for me.  Another approach could be to just use a crossover instead of an X, but I want my mainline throughout the two levels of run to always be the through route in all turnouts, and never the diverging route, so I prefer the above.

Also, the household zoning authority has given an OK to the redesigned footprint. 

-Ed

Drop leafs

I would suggest having fewer switches on the drop leaves (are the drop bridges wide enough to get the table in or out?).

Do you need such huge sidings and yards when the staging tracks don't seem that long?

One trap people fall into is the "big train" trap.  They design a layout with longer distances between stations because they don't want a train to be in two stations at once, then increase the train since so that trains are still in two stations at the same time, defeating the purpose of having longer runs to separate stations.  Even with 12 ft trains, I don't really see a place where a train will not be over the switches of one end or the other of a siding or station area (except maybe the Main St area on the lower level and that appears to be double track.)

Drop leaves and staging

I have cleared up having any turnouts on the drop leaves.  It lessened a few staging tracks, but not enough lost to worry about it, and it eliminates a problem of control of those turnouts, since I prefer tortoise switches on all mainline turnouts. 

As for staging versus sidings, my expectation is that for longer trains I would not pre-assemble an entire train on staging.  They would likely be split over two tracks.  Pull one half, the back in and couple to pull the rest.

I do get the desirability of avoiding being in two places at once.  The one place that will happen is between Dover and Portsmouth, but those two locations are adjacent cities connected by bridges, so with some additional adjustments to Dover I think I can add visual scene transitions to make it work out well.

I appreciate the thoughts and have lots of calendar time to continue to revise as we aren't even in the house yet and it will be some months expanding how much of the basement is finished to get the space ready.

-Ed

Yet Another Redesign

I have come up with a third floor plan and redesign that I like better than either of the first two. Here would be the upper level (Portsmouth track plan has a lot of work to do, but mainly I was focused on footprint and non-Portsmouth areas of the upper level.)

There are a lot of features I like better on this one:

• More open floor area inside the layout (appealing to household zoning authority as well)
• More convenient household access to the closet (ditto household zoning authority appeal)
• More space for the Dover turntable and roundhouse with added track to the water tower
• Longer overall run length with increased separation between locations
• Longer yard tracks in Portsmouth (which will turn into more revisions of the yard layout)

Like the prior version, I have an X crossing to swap tracks going into the helix so I can still orient Nashua in the direction that will keep track mostly in front of buildings there on the lower level.

This does have to add a duck under, but only upper level, and the upper level height will be such that I will also be able to roll under it in a rolling chair like I used to under the benchwork of the prior layout NNEScenic V2. The lower level will not require connection there because of how the track comes off the helix on the lower level.  So the wide Dover roundhouse area will be easily accessible from both sides.

Another advantage of this design is that I actually could do the majority of the upper level before actually having to do any of the basement finish area expansion, because the current finished area is everything to the right of the left wall of the stairs. I just have to relocate the closet (currntly along left side below the stairs location in the diagram) and I can get all the way to full point to point operation between  Dover and Portsmouth before I have to do the basement finish area expansion for the left side of the plan with the duck under and helix area. That is an awful lot of railroading before then - probably years.  Of course, when I later do that expansion work, I will need to protect the railroad from dust, but I still prefer the earlier start.  Who knows, in that amount of time I could rethink again how I want to do that expansion.

Of course I know myself, I probably won't wait years, but it does mean the railroad work can probably start within a couple months after the move instead of possibly being 6-12 months.

-Ed