Hi Everyone
We have finally moved into our new home after too many delays. Most of my honey do list has been taken care of so it's time to get back to model railroading. Had to explain the concept of staging to the wife, I told her that the closet in the spare room was for my staging area, so she decided that was a good idea and staged all of her junk in there so I now have to put some shelves up in the other spare bedroom closet so I can reclaim my space, just a minor setback LOL.
Anyway I fired up anyrail and took another look at my track plan and something still does not seem right, it all appears to flat and I can't seem to figure out how I can get some elevation into it.
Hoping that one or two of you track guru's can come up with some ideas.
Thanks Paul
Paul,
You can introduce a bit of a slope on the south side, but why? (How does it fit on to the operation?)
Understand that grades are something railroads dread. And modelers probably should, as well. If they enhance operations, that's one thing. But if you want it simply for scenicking, think about varying the terrain before you think about adding grades. For example, instead of establishing a grade on the south side of the layout, think about creating a canyon valley in the scenery.
Mike
Mike
Are you saying maybe I should lower the entire baseboard on the south side and then lay the track on top of some hills, or just part of it maybe around the river area and increase the bottom of the valley a liitle wider and have gentle rolling hills back up to zero level.
As you said it's not for any other reason than just to have some imagined variations in the terrain for scenic purposes.
Paul
Quote from: Old Steamer on November 05, 2012, 04:15:46 PM
Mike
Are you saying maybe I should lower the entire baseboard on the south side and then lay the track on top of some hills, or just part of it maybe around the river area and increase the bottom of the valley a liitle wider and have gentle rolling hills back up to zero level.
As you said it's not for any other reason than just to have some imagined variations in the terrain for scenic purposes.
Paul
Yes, basically. (The latest MR has a piece on building and scenicking a rocky gorge - the important part here is how he did the table work). You can do it anyplace, but the south side is where you had the stream and mountains.
The other thing you can do is build rolling hills with the track passing through cuts and over fills (remember that, ideally, in 1:1 scale, the stuff taken from a cut equals the stuff needed to build a fill) to give some vertical variation without introducing actual grades.
Or, of course, you could just tell folks you were modelling somewhere in the plains states... :D
There were quite a few suggestions back in the original thread http://www.anyrail.com/forum_en/index.php/topic,1609.0.html And the gist of it is: keep things on one level and let the scenery suggest all the ups and downs of the mining district the river crossing and all the rest.
(http://www.anyrail.com/forum_en/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=1609.0;attach=3374;image) The tunnel through the divider is the "new line" which they built when they had more money and wanted a straighter main. They got it!
Putting a lot of the stuff on the scenic divider of the Mining Branch will do the rest.
Mike
Ok that makes sense, maybe just need to move the river a little to the right. I just wanted to create something that was no completely flat.
HJ
I changed the original plan to eliminate the loop that was going to go to the upper deck when I decided to have just a single deck, also adjusted the top right to get rid of the slip switch and made the passing siding just a bit larger in the bottom left, but in doing so messed up the south exit from the island a little. In looking back at the original I think that's what does not look right so maybe need to mess around with the bottom left corner some more so as I can keep the longer passing loop but still have a smoother flow into it and through the mountain.
Paul