Blue line is the backdrop and

Blue line is the backdrop and the grey lines are the module joints. Access across the openings will probably be via lift-out sections with integrated micro switches to cut track power.

Benchwork Construction: Like i said, modules will be built via Luke Towan's method. The only deviation from this will be staging and the middle of the central peninsula. As far as staging, that's just a matter of putting extra plywood cross members and plywood above that for the town. As for the peninsula, I'm going avoid the sections being bulky by basically having a floating wall. Two strips of 1/4 inch plywood will be laminated to and form a trough that the modules frame can just drop right into. That combined with the leg bracing should make everything rock steady.

Backdrop: Tempered Hardboard, the good 'ole standby, with Trackside Scenery photo backdrops mounted on the hardboard. The sheets will be screwed to pieces of 1X3 that are in turn bolted to the 2X4's. End goal of all this obviously is that when I move to my next house, everything comes apart in sections and everything bolts right back together

Track: I'm going all Peco Code 83 for this one aside from some Atlas #4's and a bunch of leftover Walther's #5's for the end of the branch. Flextrack will be Atlas. As far as attatchment, GapMasters for table joints and curves with Atlas track nails for evrything else. Latex Caulk too in case I ever need to peel a turnout up for whatever reason. Weathering will be same method I'm using now. 

Electrical: Aside from the obvious DCC, this layout will have signals via Digitrax hardware and JMRI with a physical panel to eventually follow. As far as the branch line, the plan is to take about a six foot section, double gap at both ends and then add a third double gap in the middle. The toggle to actually make the switch will be mounted behind the fascia so it can't be flipped accidentally. When in DCC, the branchline and both sections will be powered. When the branch line is flipped to DC, both sections will go completely dead. Two or three computer power supplies will be scattered around the layout to supply the various voltage needs for the major areas as well ass LED strip lighting to illuminate the boxed and black-painted staging area. Arduino-powered day and night transistions along with two 120V lines will round out the electrical.

Scenery: Stacked and carved foam with plywood for the flat areas and subroadbed. All the hills will get either a Gatorboard or plywood base to make them removable.

Image help!!

Can somebody please resize this image!! This makes me so aggarvated when I can't get the whole stinking thing to show up.

(No subject)

Nevermind, think I fixed it...maybe.

Comments

Interesting layout.  My suggestion would be to increase the 20" aisle width area.  There's alot of trackage in that area on both sides of the aisle, and unless you will operate as a lone wolf, getting two people in there to work all the track there will not be fun.  Could move the penninsula down in the direction of the 27 in. wide aisle - narrow that aisle down since there's not much switching that will take place in that area.  Will give you more aisle room where you really need it.

What are industries you'll have on the layout?

Jeff

Very impressed

Wow, very impressed. How did you measure those aisle widths to a millionth of an inch?

Tony in Gisborne, Australia

a few questions

which way does the door open, from the bottom wall to the left wall, or from the left wall to the bottom wall?  I also agree that 20" is really tight for such a busy area, is that a staging yard along the top wall?  from looking at your plan, I am just guessing here, you have a staging yard along the top wall, then you leave to the left and enter an engine terminal on the top side of the main and a small yard on the bottom side of the main.  then the train leaves the yard and engine terminal and travels around the curve on the right to a coal mine, then across the door and to a depot, then along the bottom wall where it turns back to head back to staging (maybe in front of some windows?).  there is a spur along the wall on the right, what is that?

I am a track plan fan and I like to study track plans and learn the proposed traffic flow and operating intent (if there is one).

Two lap

Have you considered a two lap oval?  That would eliminate the need for the peninsula and open up the middle, eliminating the narrow aisles.  It would also allow wider benchwork for better scenes and give a longer run.

Have you considered a two lap oval?

 That was my thought also. A two lap oval could give a decent run and allow a narrower peninsula in the center of the space if desired. A wye could be incorporated in the base of the peninsula to allow turning equipment .....DaveB

@ jridge

Thanks!! It's interesting, yes and no to me being a lone wolf. I'm not in the sense that I can drive a half an hour to the club here in town instead of having to drive nearly an hour like back in Missouri. However, the pool of people that would be interested in serious operation - AKA dispatcher, unlocking and re-locking turnouts for local control, appropriate horn/whistle usage, true CTC, etc... - are only three or four in total. 

If staging was a working staging yard or a fiddle yard then yes, I would probably move it over another foot. Stagings serial, AKA, we run the session and I shuffle everything afterward. The only area that'll get worked in stretch is the end of the branchline above staging. Logan engine terminal and the switch lead all get worked from in the corners. I will see what I can do about moving the peninsula a few inches though.

@ rocdoc

Hahah!! Thank-you! although technically I didn't do it, Xtrack CAD did!

Yard

Operations look like its all about the yard.  Trains just run from staging to the yard and back to staging.  The one major industry you have shown appears to be switched out of the yard also.  If you arrive a train or build an outbound, it blocks access to the mine.  If you run a train out of staging "to the mine" it will have to block the yard to switch the mine. 

Also if you want to automate the operation a la Marklin of Sweden's thread, the only place you have to meet trains is at the yard, so it will block activity in the yard.  Its not set up so you can switch in the yard and let the computer run multiple trains on the main (if that is even a goal.)

@man'screekrailroad

Door opens from bottom to left wall, so the first scene you'll see is the coal mine.  The window is actually on the left wall as that's an exterior wall. The openings to the right are to a jack-and-jill bath (sees more model use than anything else) and to my workbench in the closet.

Yeah, 20 inches might be tight, I'll see if I can move it over a hair. You pretty much have the trackplan right. The split by the depot is the start of the branch climbing a 2% grade while the mainline dips down on a 1.5%

And oh yeah, there is definitly a proposed flow. Go back to my early posts for details on the Hocking Valley, but the gist of it is I'm very finely proto-freelancing it as if the coal-hauler was never absorbded by the C&O. Operating scheme is to have a switcher shuffle cars at Straitsville on the end of the branch before handing five to eight car cuts of to mikados for movement down to Logan Yard where they're assembelded into trains of elelven to fifteen cars. They're then ferried westbound (counterclockwise) to docks in Toledo. Logan's also a locomotive swap point. Eastbound trains trade 2-10-2's for 2-6-6-2's and westbounds trade 2-6-6-2's for 2-10-2's. Two schedeluded freights, mine jobs, a few run through freights, and a passenger run round everything out.

Two lap oval

Yes, I have thought about that. A lot, along with other designs for about a year. one of the big reasons I changed design from an earlier one that worked well is I wanted something simple. I spent a year-and-a-half on just one level of the old layout and that didn't even get past the track and wiring stage. The other design worked, but I would have over-engineered the modules to the point that they wouldn't have been simple anymore, and that's why I'm going all plywood and foam modules in the first place. I also wanted to avoid having a train go through a scene more than once. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that, I've operated on layouts that do that and it's great, just not for me.

@dave1905