Background

I have been wanting to build a large model railroad since I was a kid. I always wanted to represent my home town of Wheeling, WV. I used the term represent as I was planning on freelancing the line much like was done on the Virginian and Ohio.

The V&O was a great inspiration to me for a couple of reasons. An exact replica was not required for one and it allowed for building what could have happened instead of what did happen. Lots of things can be eliminated that have a negative effect on a community.

Another thing that was impressive to me was the fact that the V&O actually represented moving goods to customers. That was a huge jump to realism. This was back in the 1960s and I suspect many of you were not around then.

A wee bit about me and why I wish to do the what could have been more than what was. Due to my work experience from law enforcement and some other things like federal service and having my own investigation company I have seen lots more reality than many people ever get to see. I have seen lots of things that most folks are only a bit aware of and have no desire to model things that have negative impacts on folks. There will be no failed businesses, crime, corruption, etc depicted on my layout. Think of the last time you thought the future was going to be better and that you had lots of good things in store for you, your family and your neighbors. That will be what is portrayed.

Most important design feature

Now with that out of the way lets look to our goals for the layout and some things that we want to consider. This layout is not an end goal but a journey. I am not under a deadline to finish by a certain time. I am quite comfortable to be having several things going at the same time from completed scenes to plywood pacific along the way.

I will not have to do everything myself. I have lots of model railroading friends in the area and it is very likely they will stop by to operate or help build things or lend their expertise if they are far better at something than me. So I am very well off in this regard.

I think the most important thing for a model railroad is wide aisles. I have seen some with too small aisles and they were not enjoyable to view, let alone operate or maintain. If adequate space is not available for the people the layout will not be enjoyable. One thing must be considered regarding layouts, a strictly one person layout will be able to relax this a bit as no one will need to get by him. He will still need to get tools and supplies to where they are needed for building, operating, and maintaining the layout.

Multi level layouts may need to expand things a bit in case some folks operate from chairs. This idea puts one deck at a good height for standing and another for sitting. Mushroom style layouts try to do this with different floor heights but must then add another aisle to accomplish this. Is it more economical to have a foot added to an existing aisle than to add another 3 foot minimum wide aisle? Depending on the configuration of the bench work it might be.

More considerations for aisles. There have been lots of things written about controlling views and forcing folks to walk down an aisle. Limiting the view is I believe a detrimental thing, allow me to explain why. A layout is expensive to build and maintain and run, why eliminate any of the ways it can be enjoyed? If a layout can be run in a continuous fashion why not have at least one location where most if not all of it can be viewed? Many folks will relax watching an aquarium or fire in a fire place, a model railroad can do the same thing.

So my take Aisles are the most important aspect and will be used more than anything else on the layout. They must be wide for easy movement and to facilitate work as well as running of the layout and visitors. For me 4 feet is a good minimum with an occasional pinch point of 3 feet if absolutely necessary. If space permits wider areas will be appreciated.  

What about operating schematic

Now so far we have determined we want wide aisles but what do we want to put around the aisles? A model railroad of course.

Now many modelers will say point to point is the most realistic and I will disagree. What blasphemy is this? As modeled most model railroads just end in the point to point scheme. Rails stop trains go no further. The place where they end does not represent a place that could use all the stuff the train brought into the terminal with some exceptions.

Lets hit one exception now, The layout of Tim Warris, of fast tracks fame does just that and does it well. I am sure there are some others but most places do not look like they could use all the things a model railroad train would bring in.

In reality the end of one railroad connects with another. Even at ports for example there is the possibility of interchange from one railroad to another in many locations or the option of some goods moving on to another destination. With the idea of freight coming into a place and continuing on to another in the system modeled or not needs to be addressed.

In a lot of cases freight cars go someplace and return and get reloaded and go again. Sometimes they are sent back with a load so they can haul freight both ways, what a deal.

Our model railroads are much smaller than the real things both in scale and in depiction of reality so there needs to be a way for us to represent this. We can run trains from our modeled portion to staging and back and if we have each end of our modeled portion connected to staging we have a way of modeling the rail system no matter how much we model of the real system between staging yards.

Let is consider the staging yards. They need to be able to hold a train, and to keep most of us happy several trains. It is also noteworthy to keep track of the fact that trains cost money, and the longer the train the more money it costs. Now if anyone reading this has read any of my other things on here they will know I like long trains. I have actually worked on my equipment so I could run prototype length trains. So far I have run 187 car trains with no issue on our club layout. That number depicts all the cars that were available on that day and I suspect more would have been an easy feat.

So back to staging and trains. Since our model trains represent an investment of time, skill, and money, if we wish to have them operating well and looking good, it stands to reason we might want to be able to reuse them with a minimum of fuss.

That eliminates glad handing trains in a fiddle yard and putting them in drawers. I suspect there will not be lots of model railroaders looking forward to showing up at an operating session and spending hours doing the equivalent of stocking shelves at a grocery store.

Could this reuse of trains be in some way automated so a minimum of unrealistic activity can be done and the trains used more than once in an operating session?

Is there an operating schematic that will allow this out and back operation and facilitate changing the consist of trains with a minimum of time and effort. Can it also be done with out the trains actually leaving the rails? Can it be done with out lots of fancy electronics so that those of us with out an electrical engineering degree and computer programing skills can manage it? How about the guys that run strictly dc control could it work for them as well?

The simple answer to all these issues is yes. A loop to loop schematic with the portion modeled with scenery in the middle will work out just fine. From an operating standpoint what does that do for us.

We can run trains into staging, drop a train load of cars and pick up a new train load of cars for the return trip. So our train that leaves our modeled portion of the layout can return later with a new train of cars that can be sent someplace else in the same fashion as the real thing.

Now this can represent several trains and events with the staging tracks being reused. This will allow multiple use of the staging tracks and the trains. That is saving money over the one time use of dead end staging by reusing the trains in a session and reusing the tracks, more on that later. I will post some staging sketches later that will show how to do this simply and effectively for folks interested.

It also saves a lot of time for doing staging on the layout, with this system the layout is self staging and requires very little effort.

Sounds fun...

Looking forward to the journey.   

Let's go! 

Randy

I Thought

Rob,

I thought this day would never come. Glad to see I was wrong. Looking forward to following your journey. 

I particularly enjoy listening to the railroad philosophy you've shared. Great wisdom and food for thought.

Staging

Loop to loop is point to point.

The consideration of point to point and continuous running one has to take into consideration what the traffic is and how much the owner wants to interact with the trains between operating sessions.

Assuming that you are wanting to model something between Virginia and Lake Erie, based on your profile, then actually the easiest operation might include a loop/continuous staging rather than point to point/loop to loop.  The reason I say that is that your profile would indicate you probably will be operating coal trains.  

Normally with coal trains, loaded trains operate in one direction and empty trains in the other.  With loop to loop/point to point operation a loaded train gets to staging and when it comes back out, it should be an empty train.  That means all the coal loads in the train must be removed to make it look right.  On the other hand continuous staging, in a big loop, allows loaded coal trains to operate in one direction and empty coal trains in the other.

On the other hand, the point to point/loop to loop staging works well for general merchandise, mixed freight trains since boxcars, reefers, covered hoppers and tank cars look the same loaded or empty and there is more churn to their movements.

You can combine the two types of staging and use the continuous staging for open top bulk trains (coal, iron ore) and the point to point/loop to loop staging for the general traffic.

Okay Rob!

So happy to hear that you are going at it

So.......in designing a layout the available space is obviously a huge factor. What are your plans and wishes for that?

Blocking

Blocking is putting the cars in groups in a train so the cars moving along a certain route will move together.  If the entire train is going to run from staging to a classification yard and be completely switched, then blocking isn't an issue.  The entire train can be scrambled as far as destinations go and the yard with sort it out (that's what yards do).

On the other hand, if the trains has to set out cars at more than one place along its route, then its more problematic.  For example if you have a railroad that runs from Cleveland to Norfolk, out of Cleveland it might have a block for Norfolk, a block for Wheeling/Pittsburgh, a block for Staunton all on the same train.  In that case you have the train blocked, all the cars for Norfolk are together, all the cars for Wheeling are together, all the cars for Staunton are together.  The first problem comes when you turn the train in staging is finding destinations for the cars to keep them in the right blocks.  For example, in our imaginary train the Norfolks would be on the rear and the Wheelings on the point.  Operationally, there might be more gons on going to Wheeling (Wheeling/Pittsburgh being more steel oriented), but if all the gons are in the rear portion of the train, if you send them to Wheeling, they will be out of block.

The other challenge is will the car forwarding system handle the blocking.  The vast majority of computer based systems will be a challenge because they don't maintain the concept of "standing order".  They can bill the cars, but since they don't know where the car is in the train, they can't maintain blocking (which is dependent on the knowing where a car is in the train).  Unfortunately traditional 4 move car cards and waybills (CCWB) does no better, because the next move of the waybill could be any block.

Options to reduce manipulating the bills would be to drive trains into a yard to be reclassified (don't need to maintain blocking out of staging), or to limit set outs to a few specific "working" trains, leaving the rest solid through trains that run staging to staging.  Then the only trains that need to be "touched" are the few working trains that set out cars to feed the locals and on line industries.

Thanks for all the comments

Thanks for all the comments so quickly and it is interesting to read the discussions so far.

Dave, your comments are appreciated a great deal and I have things that will make the operating scheme of the railroad more clear in later entries. At that time I would love to hear your comments regarding operations then and see how things evolve regarding the points you brought up.

I am going to add some more to this discussion later on and appreciate everyone's comments.

Rick, space constraints are very generous. After the new house gets taken care of a garage and pottery studio for my wife will need to be built. Since I am going to combine those two items into one large structure I will add a second floor for the train room. Nice thing about that is I will only need to add floor and walls, the roof that would cover the garage/ pottery studio will just be placed above an additional floor. The shared space will also make utilities easier as many things can be shared. As to size consider a width of 27 feet inside and a length of between 50 to 60 feet. I consider that quite generous and it will contain the railroad as well as some storage and model building spaces.

Now I understand if one is living in a more built up area on a typical city lot that kind of space sounds huge and would likely be insanely expensive. By comparison I am in the city limits of a small farming community and have 35 acres so I have lots of space and doing the equivalent of a 4 car garage is not out of the question. My back yard is 1/2 a mile deep.

The main layout in my model railroad club is about this size and it does not seem out of the real for a home layout.

Now vs. later

Its way better to think about how things operate before cutting wood than after.

What route or in which area will you be setting your layout?  

More influences

I just got back from physical therapy (torn rotator cuff) and sat down to look at the forums and after trying to respond to the comments from earlier I thought I might add a wee bit more in the way of information.

I have been designing my free lanced line for years and every time I was unhappy with what I designed. It seemed that no matter what I did it did not allow me to do what I wanted or to model things the way I wanted. I did not build any of them as why build what is unsatisfactory to begin with?

Now after years a concept was dropped on me that really solved most of the issues with the layout I wanted to build. The one town layout. Now in my case I will call it the one metropolitan area as it will include two towns Wheeling and Benwood WV. The two towns actually share a common boundary. This is one of those locations where one part of the train can be in each town, in reality a person could stand in such a way as to have one foot in each town at the same time.

The big issue with everything I did up to this point was I tried to put too much into the typical basement filler of a layout and nothing worked. So instead of trying to represent the typical 100 mile division I will represent about 9 scale miles of railroad that went from Benwood to River road in Wheeling.

The layout will include a representation of the Benwood yard and represent several sections of the line that run from there to the north. In reality there were lines running east, west north and south and multiple railroads were involved. Duplicating that would not lend itself to a continuous line that progresses from one place to another with out bridging aisles with multiple duck unders and other multiple routes and complications.

To overcome these issues I will use modelers license to move things around so they can be assembled in a route that fits my space and allows me to model one line that connects all of these areas. The layout will be a walk around style with easy access to things.

Now I actually have visited a layout that depicts about nine miles of mainline in the city of Dallas. I have several entries regarding my visit in the club blog. They begin below.

https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/18644?page=106

For those of you that prefer video coverage Art of Grande Pacific fame filmed a bit of the layout and an operating session.

I hope those links came out ok.

With any luck the layout visit and video might help some folks understand what I am trying to acomplish with the design I am working on. For actual history of the area my delving into the past blog has lots of photos and discussion of the area. More to come.

second floor

Rob,

 Are you planning on installing an elevator for humans or a lift for materials?

Sorry if this is an insensitive question but for someone like me........well, mobility issues are something I never thought I'd be affected by and now I'm so glad that my little space is an easy, flat walk from the house interior.

Response to Dave. I could not

Response to Dave. I could not agree with you more. The layout will be in the city of Wheeling and include Benwood yard, portion with scenery. Your question sounds very simple but does not have a short answer. I believe your thoughts on the matter will be of great value. I think in order to be fair to your input efforts I will need to provide you with more information that will require a fairly lengthy entry for you to be on the same page as me with relevant information.

Now I was going to go in a different direction with the blog but Dave has brought up a great point and discussion topic that might get covered next. I do want to clarify I was planning to address this but after some other things were covered but the order is not important right now so my next entry will deal with operation questions and information that will facilitate figuring how the railroad will operate. It seems that responses and reads are frequent so this might just be a topic of interest to lots of folks.

Now I will need to go do some things so I will take up from here later on, possibly later on today.

Again any and all questions are welcome think of this as all of us sitting around a table with our favorite beverages discussing things and we will go where the discussion takes us. The only thing to keep in mind is the time delay due to our chosen venue and I type slow. I will make an effort to address every question or comment that gets posted and thanks again for the thoughtful responses.

Aisles and second floor

I like your points about wide aisles and access. I am running a shelf layout at present along two garage walls.

You can stand right up to the trains for in your face railroading, but you can also step back or away and view your train in a broader perspective. The option is there to switch your viewing angle and go from engineer to railfan and back in seconds as the mood strikes.

I agree with Rick Sutton that the second floor deserves full consideration after watching my in-laws age out of being able to access the upper floor of their house. They were still highly mobile and got around town but those stairs were too narrow and steep.

Rick, no to the elevator

Rick, no to the elevator initially however there will be the option of adding one of those things that allows one to ride up a flight of stairs if needed. I have thought of a couple of things for lifting materials to the second floor as I am not getting any younger. Right now I am going through some treatments for a torn rotator cuff which is the result of lots of heavy lifting over the years. When I think of the amount of plywood that will be needed for this layout a definite means of getting the goods up stairs is being considered. I have not finalized any plans for this so if you have suggestions don't hold back.

Kent your points are well

Kent your points are well taken and you and I are in violent agreement.

Hi Rob, that’s great to hear!

Loop to loop is a very fine way to operate.  That is what mine is.  The electronics of the turn around can be very easy out to quite complex including an Arduino to monitor the local situation and beyond.  I look forward to see what you are up to!!!  Enjoy!!!

Nick good to hear from you, I

Nick good to hear from you, I hope you and Sue are well. One of the things that is a major item is keeping things simple. For reverse loops I am looking at one of those auto reversers controlling the reversing section and a spring switch covering the return connection to the main line. That should easily maintain the chosen direction for staging and eliminate anyone running through a switch the wrong way at the reversing section.

The layout is to be a source of relaxation so designing it so it involves the absolute minimum of complications is a major design goal. Sometimes when your goal is to put a nail in a piece of wood you don't need to get fancy just smack it with a hammer.

Hahahahaha!!!

Good idea!!!  

If you’re smarter than I was about cutting the gaps, a Wabbit or a Hare from Tony’s might kill two birds.

On the other hand, your method is the easier and more elegant!  

Consider the DCC Specialties PSX-AR auto reverser.  It has been very dependable and acts as a circuit breaker too.

You and Marcy be well and enjoy!!!  See you soon.

Same but different...

Hi Rob - a lot of your design philosophies mirror what I did with mine. Mine is loop-to-loop and (mostly) reasonable aisles. I went with a multi-level deck because of the somewhat limited space I have (20' x 21') and the fact that I wanted to maximize the run. A side benefit of this helped keep the aisles wider.

I initially tried to develop a track plan to model the SP between Tucson and El Paso and quickly found out that in my given space the towns would be too close together resulting in the end of the train still be in one town while the head-end was entering the next town. As such, I pared it down to be between Tucson, AZ and Bowie, NM. This still provided two interchange locations and enough industry along the way to make operations interesting. I'm still going to have to create some additional industry, because, after all it is the desert southwest and there isn't just that much industry along that line. So that's where some proto free-lancing will come into play.

Looking forward to following along!

Materials and mobility

You're so lucky to have the space to do that size of layout as proposed.

You're also lucky you don't have an HOA restricting you as to how you can expand on your lot.

As for getting layout materials up to the second floor, consider initially having a double door to nothing on one side of the garage second floor. North or east is preferable. Then calculate out what you think you'll need in building materials, and add some figure to it. Order all or a part of it at once and have it unloaded near the double doors. Either rent or borrow a fork lift. Take it from there.

We all get older (well, most of us, and those who don't don't care.) Physical restrictions of one nature or another are part of being an aging human. Ergonometrics is always in play, for good or bad. Yes, the wider aisleways are good for operations and not doing damage to something behind you when you're in close quarters.

Good luck. I'm enjoying your thinking on this.

Wheeling

If you are doing Wheeling, that does give you the opportunity to run loads in both directions, favoring loop to loop  operation.

You can have Ohio coal going to tidewater and Virginia coal going to the Lakes.  That potentially allows loads and empties in both directions.  

The wild card becomes Pittsburgh, if you choose a model a junction with a line to Pittsburgh or a major interchange with another road to Pittsburgh.  Those would be more of a loads to Pittsburgh, empties away, UNLESS you are saying whatever line goes to Pittsburgh also ships Pennsylvania coal to either Lake or Tide.  That would give you a more balanced flow of loads in both directions.

Modeling more or less a single terminal also makes the staging easier from the standpoint that you can clearly define a limited set of trains as trains that terminate and classify at Benwood and the remainder just pass through with no set out or pick up.  That would really simplify the car forwarding system, whatever it is, because only a select number of cars would have to worry about changing destinations.  The through trains are just all through and aren't really a problem.

At that point, it may be the cars that give you the most trouble are gons that are going to Pittsburgh, they would definitely be directional loaded out, empty in with regard to Pittsburgh.  But limiting them to specific trains would contain that problem.

Once you figure out the flows, it should give you an idea on staging yard size.  How many trains of each type on each route into the yard?  It doesn't have to be equal, it just has to match the volumes.  If you can do the mix of Tide/Lake/PA coal, and separate the through and switch trains, that will reduce your staging needs sine then trains can be "recycled" without having to rebill them.  Train NOCL runs Tide to Lake, then becomes CLPI Lake to PA, then becomes PINO, PA to Tide.  3 trains, one set of power and cars, no rebilling other than changing the train card.  Plus you can divert on the fly if PA staging is jammed but there is an opening at Tide, you can run a CLNO instead of a CLPI, wither its coal or manifest.

You can also have the manifest trains "block swap", that is groups of cars change trains without switching them per se.  The CLNO sets out the head 10 cars for the NOPI to pick up and take to Pittsburgh.  The actual destinations really don't matter, you just say those head 10 cars are for Pittsburgh and beyond.  That can happen outside Benwood at a junction if you want.  It can also be an interchange cut, the CLNO sets out 10 cars to the B&O and 5 cars the WLE and then picks up 15 cars at Benwood.  Since all the cars are going to staging more or less, there is no need to match car types or industries or commodities to the cars in the trains.  Just say the head 10 cars are BO, the next 5 are WLE.  Doing something like that would give the road crews something to do more than just getting a train at staging and running to another staging.

2nd floor?

Any good farm boy should be able to get things up into the hay loft? .....DaveB

  "instead of trying to

Hi Rob,   What were the key features of this nine mile stretch that captured your interest? What has to be included to make the layout  those nine miles?  I'd start by figuring out how to fit in these signature aspects scenically and operationally then make the rest of the layout supporting infrastructure. Even in a large space don't try to include too much complication or layout for layout's sake , focus on the main goal ,as the years roll by faster as we age and the tasks take longer. Acres of scenery,miles of track, and dozens of trains sounds great til one has to actually build it and maintain it. I though my new layout was sized pretty well for my needs but as I proceed with construction  it seems too big at times. .....DaveB