News:

Due to heavy spamming attempts on this forum, automatic registration has been disabled. We will approve registration requests as quickly as possible (unless you're a spammer of course :) )

Main Menu

Darley Junction - a new Railway

Started by IanR, March 08, 2019, 09:50:38 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

IanR

I'm busy planning a 2 level layout for my garage. Any constructive criticism is welcome.

Ian

chaz

#1
Hi IanR,

I recommend looking at George Booth's Great Western because he is a good writer, with lots of pictures.

http://users.frii.com/gbooth/Trains/GreatWestern/index.htm

Tic on the topics under the CONSTRUCTION topic on the left. Write ups on topics with a "-" are empty.
MP 525.25 on the Prosser Subdivision of the North Kansas Division of the MOPAC Railroad.

Keesoldscool

Maybe I'm wrong, but all trains will ride finally in the same direction or is it intended?
Grtz. Kees

Tom Springer

Ian,

Do you have access to the track from all sides of the layout, or just from the center of the "U" configuration (the open area)?  Specifically, is the "helix" track accessed only from the center of the "U"?
Tom Springer

(Unintentional Pyromaniac)

The Track Planner

General Comments...
It appears the room is approximately 10' wide. If so, that is enough width to go with one peninsula running from the right wall (east wall) approximately 13' through the center of the room. To get proper aisle widths, I would slightly reduce the width of both top (north) and bottom (south) benchwork. Having one center peninsula, in my opinion, has multiple advantages 1) following trains around the room is simpler and with less pinch-points, 2) the added length of the peninsula more than makes up for the lost of the short (north/south) peninsula, 3) creating a view block through the center of the peninsula will make the layout feel larger and operators will get the feeling of going somewhere as their trains traverse the room.
Helix vs. Nolix... I fully understand peoples aversions to a helix, but in two decades of designing track plans, I still haven't come up with a better way to get between levels. Here is what I would do and why, 1) I would use one of the turn-backs along either the north or south walls, to contain a helix, 2) you have enough room width to widen either turn-back, by simply narrowing the entrance to the layout from approximately 36" to 30", 3) this will give you enough room for a helix with an acceptable radius, 4) I haven't run the numbers, but based on the existing design, I would bet you will use less lumber and more importantly possibility less track with a helix as opposed to a nolix, 5) the helix gives you more operating possibilities and a more linear track plan arrangement for better prototypical operations, 6) the length of time it takes a train to traverse the helix as opposed to the nolix, would be about the same.
Another big advantage to the helix idea... you could easily design (into the plan) stacked helix's. One would go to the upper level while the other one would take trains to lower level staging. This would give you the benefit of having real prototypical operations, where trains come from somewhere and trains go to somewhere. No need to use up valuable space on the main level for a staging yard.
Freight Yard... if you went with stacked helix's, I could incorporate a sorting yard in place of the staging yard (yellow tracks). I'm assuming (bad thing to do), that the yellow tracks are staging. If you went with a freight sorting yard, I would move it to the front of the benchwork and move any mainline tracks to the back side of the yard. This way operators are not reaching over trains running on the mainline.
Short peninsulas... as you can probably tell, am not of fan of short peninsula, in my opinion, they do not offer much in the way of operations and leave little room for industries or trackage. Again, a single long peninsula will afford you more space then having two short peninsulas.
Again, these are my opinions, based on if I were suggesting to a client the best use of the space.