Track Plan

Someone asked for a track plan. The track arrangements have been developed using XtrackCAD. Double deck around the room with a center peninsula design.

Inside the center peninsula is a hidden (accessible by duck under) staging yard with a return loop on each deck.

Also within the center peninsula is a 3 lap elongated helix. The center lap of the helix becomes the scene at the of the peninsula (sheep creek canyon).

Upper deck:

Lower Deck (edit-- correct file):

Scale: HO
Size: 16 x 18 feet
Prototype: Burlington Northern
Locale: Eastern Washington
Era: 1970s
Mainline run: 165 feet including helix, 110 visible
Minimum radius: 30" inch main and yard / 24" inch sidings
Minimum turnout: #6 main / #5 industrial and yard
Maximum grade: 2.5 percent

The branch line was nick named "the snake" due to its curves. Some might want to replicate this with many tight curves. However, prototypical curves are much broader than models. The tightest curve on the prototype is 10 degrees (and there are many). A 10 degree curve in HO scale is roughly 79 inch radius. I stayed with minimum 30 inch radius curves in the yard and on the main.

Isle width has been an important consideration, minimum of 30 inch clearance, typically 36 inches or more.

Most tracks are at least 6 inches from the backdrop to allow space to integrate the scenery into a photo backdrop. Tracks are at least 3 inches from the fascia.

More details to come...

Design stage - layout tour

Let's follow a train over the planned layout.

Hillyard is represented by the upper staging yard in the peninsula. A train leaving upper staging proceeds counter-clockwise on the graphic, starting on the upper level in the upper left...

• Dean - the train appears from staging at Dean, there is a cross-over to a siding where a trailing point spur extends to serve the Kaiser Aluminum smelter at Mead. The old mainline continues behind the station and a low hill (view block) toward Sandpoint Idaho. The branch line track extends from the siding on to Loon Lake and Deer Park.
• Kaiser Mead - (on the peninsula) I have driven by the The Aluminum Smelter on Hawthorne Road (south side) thousands of times in the 70s and 80s. The model will represent the north side of the smelter where rail service took place. Service Building #34 measures roughly 1800 feet on goggle maps (about 20 feet in HO scale). I've got about 6 feet, so roughly 70% compression was necessary here - but 6 feet long (and about a foot high) should still provide for a massive industry. In addition to the rail service building, the model is envisioned to include the alumina unload building, the pump building, the caustic soda tanks and the pet-coke/carbon materials unload building. The track arrangement generally follows the prototype but omits the tracks beyond the carbon materials building due to space limitations. I expect the scene to be a challenge to model.
• Loon Lake - Following the branch north from Dean, our train crosses the Little Spokane river on a trestle and continues north to the Loon Lake scene. The Loon Lake scene is expected to include lake itself, granite point park, Larson Beach Road overpass and Harry Tracy's cabin.
• Deer Park Pine - The Deer Park Pine sawmill is out of sequence but fits better on the peninsula. The track arrangement here does not match the prototype but keeps most of the main elements and should function similar. The scene is anticipated to feature a massive sawmill complex, the large log pond and log dump, two lumber loading tracks and a wood chip loading track.
• Sheep Creek Canyon - North of Loon Lake and Deer Park the line enters Sheep Creek canyon represented by a hidden three lap elongated egg-shaped helix. The middle lap of the helix is herniated at the end of the peninsula to reveal the train. The canyon scene breaks up the helix. The 2 hidden sections of helix are estimated to be 32 feet and 22 feet. A long train can disappear into the helix but should not stay away from view for too long. My hope is this design makes the helix into a feature or at least limits the negatives.
• Valley - Exiting the helix our train passes Lane Mountain Silica Sand near Valley Washington. This was a destination of the valley local, that switched the plant. This is a rural scene below the Kaiser Aluminum smelter plant heavy industrial scene. The track arrangement follows the prototype except for length.
• Colville - Continuing counter clockwise on the plan (now below where it started - lower level upper left) the train enters the town scene of Colville. Colville is laid out like many other Great Northern towns with a house track on the far side of the station and I wanted to keep this feature. In addition to the station, the scene will include the historic flour mill and the grain elevator with red storage buildings on both side. The Vaagen Bros lumber facility has been flipped to the town side of the track next to the backdrop. Vaagen track arrangement matches the prototype functionally with two lumber loading tracks and a wood chip track. The oil dealer has been omitted.
• Kettle Falls Yard - The track arrangement in Kettle Fall yard closely follows the prototype but omits the turning wye and one service track. The yard includes 4 classification tracks, engine service facilities, a caboose track, the station and track scale. Yes the yard lead is too short but there is no yard switcher, the locals do the work. At the south end of the yard a crossover is shown on the 1941 track plat that does not exist today. While playing around with train meeting movements in XtrackCAD I discovered this could be needed and included it. Next to the yard is the apple warehouse and grain elevator - which were flipped to be next to the backdrop.
• Evans - Evans Washington is on the way north to Nelson B.C. and included along the peninsula below Deer Park. Evans includes the Ideal Cement limestone quarry siding and a log loading ramp for Deer Park Pine industry from Lake Roosevelt. The model track arrangement here omits the siding (will use Kettle Falls yard instead) but otherwise replicates the track arrangement (except length) of the early 70s. Since the Deer Park Pine scene will be modeled directly above Evans, log cars can shuttle back and forth realistically.

North of Kettle Fall the line enters the lower staging yard representing both lines into Canada - one to Nelson B.C. - the other to Grand Forks B.C. and back to Republic Wash.

Sorry for the length of this post. Thanks for reading!

Layout Design Metrics

A discussion of layout design assessment formulas is in the October 2014 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist (#56).

The author (Joe Fugate) wisely limits discussion of the value of these formulas but does discuss some aspects of operating potential.

• Total Room area: 378sq ft
• Layout Space: 297 sq ft
• Layout Area: ~374 sq ft (126%)
• Number of Turnouts: 62
• Total Track: 555 ft / 1110 cars
• Total Mainline: 165 ft / 330cars (30%)
• Visible Mainline: 113 ft / 226 cars
• Storage Track: 197 ft / 378 cars (35%)
• Staging Track: 165ft / 328 cars (30%)
• Service Track: 10 ft / 19 cars (2%)
• Connecting Track: 19 ft / 55 cars (3%)
• Maximum cars: 556
• Max to visible main: 250%
• Max to total main: 171%
• Cars moved: 284
• Target Train Length:  ~13 feet: 4 GP units, 10 feet of cars (17-20), caboose

The article notes that the max to main ratio is a key factor in determining the emphasis of the layout:

• Balanced would be 81% to 120%,
• Switching emphasis is 121% to 150%
• over 150% is switching focused

Therefore this planned layout is oriented towards switching. Yet it does not have the short sidings one may typical think of in a switching layout. Also the layout will have about a 165 foot mainline run when I just want to run train or awhile. This is a medium sized layout of large industrial scenes.

Overall, I've stuffed a large layout into a medium sized space and likely should have omitted more.

Thanks for reading...

That's the trick with track

That's the trick with track planning, as Bob Seger said, "What to leave in, what to leave out."

I think you have a fine theme, well thought out track plan, and a great mix of heavy industry and small town scenes. You obviously have a good idea of how the GN built things and the BN ran things.

Colville Scene

I realize my tour was fairly brief. I can document the features of each scene as I work on it.

Colville is the small town scene on the layout.

Track Plat map from around the time of the BN merger:

The depot (no longer present):

The flour mill:

The grain elevator (no longer present):

The scene is anchored by the large Vaagen Lumber complex:

Developing a model inspired by the scene and fitting into the rest of the track arrangements was a challenge. The plan follows the prototype track arrangement based on the plat map except for length. The model scene will omit the oil dealer tracks and flip the flour mill and grain elevator to the same side of the track as Vaagen. This flip places the large buildings along the backdrop. I did not want large buildings isle side.

Colville Track Plan:

The grain elevator and flour mill should be full height and length but only about 5 inches deep along the backdrop. The intent is for the peak of the smaller building roofs to be modeled. The track in front of the buildings will use code 55 rail. The road should be wide enough for full size vehicle travel lanes.

I do not have accurate measurements of the depot that is now gone. If anyone does please let me know. The intent is a full size uncompressed depot model. American Model Builders, laser kit No. 133, appears to be a close match to the depot and one of the few places I've found a kit that matches the actual structures on the layout. The house track was behind the depot, flipping the major buildings requires reorienting the depot so it will face the viewer and the house track, rather than the branch line main.

Vaagen Lumber will include the wood chip track and two lumber loading tracks. The Vaagen complex is significantly compressed but the intent is to include the mill building, the lumber wrapping building, a lumber loading yard, the railcar wood chip loader, the truck wood chip loader and a wood chip pile.The track plat map above says "Spur Trk 1623". Measuring on google maps, I get the north spur at about 1000 feet and the south spur at about 1300 feet. The switch for the two spurs is roughly 550 feet from the branch line main. It seems likely the track configuration has been adjusted. Lumber yard:

The model will have two tracks each about 40 inches long. They ought to hold at least four bulkhead flat cars each (60 footers). I do not know when the lumber yard was paved. More information about this scene in the 70s' would be appreciated, particularly when was it paved.

I plan to model the wood chip track consistent with the plat map as a single ended track, but it is now a double ended siding. It will also be significantly compressed, but should still hold several wood chip gondolas. The wood chip track, with chip loader and interesting wall holding the chip pile.

 

The crane was added later (in the 80s) and is now a dominate feature on the Colville skyline. I continue to debate if it will be included on the photo backdrop. I'm likely to try both with and without the crane before making that decision.

Staging area redesign

The staging area part of the plan above was never really drawn up correctly and was bugging me. The plan for the staging area is to provide remote operation from the isle. However, the tracks must be accessible for maintenance and actually staging trains.

No duck under or access to the inside of the staging loops is even shown above. This needed to be addressed and I've had an idea on how to fix these issues for a long time and the plan above mostly just estimated track length. I finally drew it up in XtrackCAD last fall. I always leave a bit of extra space in the design as a buffer to ensure I have enough room (I hope) and CAD drawings are not intended to be exacting. Easements are to be incorporated and the curves are bit oversized to allow for the transitions.

The old staging area design is above. Ugh.

The goal of the redesign was to continue to provide access to all track but minimize the duck-under and provide enough space to stand and move while staging trains or whatever. Here is what I came up with:

Lower level

The staging return loop turnout is the main change that allows this to work. The turnout to the loop track was moved to be accessed from Kettle Falls (roughly 20 inch reach under a full deck, 15 3/8 inches above) rather than from the mole. I envision this turnout to be controlled from the staging yard control panel(s) but TBD.

Other adjustments include, the Evans switch was moved closer to Kettle Falls yard but maintained similar length and car capacity.

There are 4 staging tracks:
outside / return loop:  26 feet
track 2:  13 feet - Nelson Local
track 3:  13 feet - Republic Local
track 4:  12 feet - extra

The lower staging tracks are shorter than the upper staging tracks. The lower staging yard represents the Nelson and Republic branch lines which combine at the Kettle Falls yard.

Upper staging

This graphic also shows the current thinking for the Loon Lake scene. The Kaiser and Deer Park scenes are not displayed on this graphic as it gets too busy and confusing. The Kaiser industrial scene was shorted a bit and Deer Park has a few minor adjustments as well. The main intent of these adjustments was to expose the Sheep Creek scene in the helix below the upper level.

There are 4 staging tracks:
outside / return loop: 20 feet - Kettle Falls Turn
track 2: 18 feet - Valley Local
track 3: 17 feet - Mead Local
track 4: 16 feet - extra

Helix

This diagram shows the tracks between the upper and lower deck. The 3 turn helix is longer now, at ~82 feet total (ugh). The helix needs to clear the staging tracks on each end, I'm assuming a 4 inch minimum clearance. The result is the helix needs to be a bit steeper on the ends with a lower grade between. I'm leaving room for transitions. I think it maxes out at about 2.6% grade but might be a little more with the transitions. The egg shape of the helix adds straight sections between the curves. Therefore, the compensation factors should be reduced because it is not a continuous curve.

Sheep Creek:

Sheep Creek drains Loon Lake into the Colville river. The actual sheep creek canyon is entered by a horseshoe curve. In the drone footage posted on my prototype information thread starts with a train coming out of the horseshoe curve next to loon lake gravel. Sheep Creek canyon is steep with several 10 degree curves. Actual grade on the prototype is reported as 1% compensated. At one time helper engines used were used.

The angle of the helix in the sheep creek scene was adjusted. The sheep creek scene was given more depth - it actually was drawn wrong above. The first turn of the helix goes below the sheep creek scene and the lower staging yard follows inside the first turn of the helix.

The Sheep Creek scene is part of the second tier of the helix at the end of the peninsula. Visible track is a little more than 6 feet long. The scene should be about 5 to 6 inches higher than the lower level at a great viewing height for a single deck layout. Noting the height of the upper deck, I adjusted the Kaiser scene fascia / buffer extends to the track but not beyond. This allows for 10 inches clear for the canyon scene and part of the canyon to be completely open. The idea is to allow the viewer to see into the canyon. This is going to need to be reviewed in full scale in three dimensions to determine if the viewing angles are satisfactory and may take some tuning. I'm hoping it turns into a really neat scene.

Mole:
The dedicated staging area is known as the mole. These changes create room for a 30+ inch wide duck under into the mole space. Clearance is under 2 tracks with the lower one at about 44 inches from the floor - the other one is lowest track of the helix. The access should be an easy roll under given my current age and bloated condition. Aging and future deteriorating physical condition has been considered and one of the main reasons I focused on improving the access. Standing up, one will need to avoid the upper staging yard (~59). Visitors wishing to see the mole area may be required to wear a hard hat.

The result is a little bit bigger of a small area in the middle: about 3 feet wide by 7 feet long. I'll build some shelves in there and should have plenty of access and space to comfortably store and adjust trains. The helix tracks have been pushed to the back to facilitate access to the lower staging tracks.