Pere Marquette & Chesapeake II

[GTMills]

Thinking about Dave's comments my my PM&C design [ https://www.anyrail.com/forum_en/index.php/topic,3037.msg21726.html#msg21726 ] I did a little more thinking and imagination stretching and came up with this re-worked design which should provide better access.  One thing I really want here is a passenger loop and a second inner loop with two reversing balloons. 

I was able to add in this design a pair of alternate bypasses to the balloons, so that the inner loop train can either run continuously in one direction around a folded dog bone, or loop in the reverse direction at any time.  Another benefit is that even the hidden trackage is 30" radius, whereas in the first design it had to be much smaller.  Grades on this are a bit easier in most places, and vertical as well as horizontal clearances are better too.  The timber trail helix was eliminated to provide a pop-up access.  The result is more room for the saw mill structures and some additional yard track to shuffle and stage loaded and empty flat cars.

If anyone wants a download let me know, I'll clean up the file layers and post it up.  Minimum radius is 30" on the two main trunk lines, with #6 and #8 turnouts.  Yards are #4, with a few Atlas Snap switches where needed.  The outer trunk is the "GT Pocahontas" (taking its name from both my initials and the Grand Trunk RR, plus the N&W famous passenger train which was also the nickname I gave my high school sweetheart), and serves primarily passenger service with rolling stock already acquired in one complete train in the N&W J class livery including 5 AHM coaches and an honest-to-gosh round-end N&W observation car (VERY hard to come by) with detailed interior, and a Pere Marquette late 1940's livery including 7 Walthers lighted coaches, RPO, diners and baggage cars with a DCC w/sound Walthers E7.

I was never interested in modeling passenger trains before, but...well, ya give a mouse a cookie and next thing ya know he wants a glass of milk. 

The inner trunk line serves mainly freight, with availability to the two passenger trains for turning them around and extending runs to add interest.

The plan is to operate with 1-3 people at a time, and I plan to take advantage of smart phone apps so my teenage daughter will want to jump in sometimes.

Although it is not prototype based, the town names are all real and dear to my heart for one reason or another, the tracks serving them are based on what was found in them for the most part, and the industries are typical Michigan for the late 1940's era and typical of the areas so named.  For instance, Plymouth was the site of a Pere Marquette 15-stall roundhouse.  Pentwater is located very close to what used to be named Pere Marquette where the famous Lake Michigan ferries docked, Ann Arbor is the location of a very beautiful passenger station that today is now preserved as a high-end restaurant, Northville never had a coal mine but it did serve a number of coal-demanding customers and maintained a large coal dump.

Mt Holly is actually a ski lodge, but Michigan was an important logging state and the origin of the Shays, and I wanted to include a special tight-radius loop & yard in which to operate my Spectrum Shay.  My older daughter is named Holly, so...obviously. 

Now Bad Axe is a tiny little town in the tip of the thumb region of the Michigan mitten.  It did have rail service, but not petro chemical and not a large yard.  The large PM yards in that neck of the woods were in Flint, and Saginaw, while the huge Dow Chemical industry is/was located in Midland. 

I had a great love for Bad Axe, and met some really sweet girls while up there in my teens blasting around on snowmobiles and snow cats (a vehicle much like a tank, w/o the guns).  Flint has a bad name due to the lead in the water found there a few years ago, and where I came from it always was considered no place you wanted to visit.  Saginaw was OK, but you always just pass through it on your way to far more interesting places.

Besides, the name Bad Axe is, well, just Bad Ass. 

Time has sure flown by us this year, and I am promising myself that I will start the open framework in the next week or two. I did a screen shot of the Anyrail workup, and imported it into a layer in MS Visio and designed the framework. 

Knowing this all is going to be moved in a couple of years, I made sure that it was a modular design with independent sections no wider than 2 feet, with the notable exception of the roundhouse which required a 7/8" x 3' x 4'  plywood base and is already done.  When it comes time to move, I will construct a rack with rails on which I can slide in the sections, stacked atop each other.  The odd roundhouse mod will go on top.

To that end, to keep it light, 2" x 4' x 8' foam board will be the base.  Sections and track elevations were designed to keep entire sections at zero elevation for ease of construction and, later, modular separation. 

Going back and forth between AR & Visio, I next tweaked the base design to work out kinks and find the best mutual matches for layout track breaks, base and framework. 

Finally, in AR I added another layer and copy & pasted the entire base in it.  I numbered all the sections in each layer, in the upper left hand corners as they lay in the completed structural design.

In the secondary base layer, I then arranged each section to fit best possible within 4 x 8 sheet sections.  With a few more adjustments to maximize materials and best fit the framework, I came up with a design that all fits in 3 4x8 sections!  The frame will require 27 each of 8' sticks of either 1x3 or 1x4, and 18 supports which I will rip from 2X4's on my table saw. Additional angular leg cross bracing will be 1x2 ripped from 1x4, and there will be no horizontal leg bracing as I need the space underneath for access and perhaps some storage.

[mrsax2000]

Visio is great for room planning. Scaling between it and AR is not trivial.  Nice work.

[mrsax2000]

Are the 2 doors on the left to a closet? 

If yes, and you don't need it for storage, it might be worth considering moving Mt Holly or Bad Axe there.  There is limited room in the middle for standing.  Using the closet could allow you to open up the center another 6". You might need a duck under near the closet and maybe relocate the lift bridge to where the saw mill is.

My suggestion would be a huge change.  Just thinking about the physical logistics long-term.

[GTMills]

Yes, the doors at left are closets.  The land leases there are controlled by the "Wife and Daughter RR", so the PM&C has no legal right to annex it. 

Once the Bad Axe yard construction is complete i will then add the two brown sections, so that this construction phase won't require a pop up.  The only need for the pop up will be for operations derailments, and routine track maintenance.  Uncoupling magnets are to be placed within reach of the regular access areas. 

Notice the escape track for the yard switcher on the top ladder track.  Strings of cars can be  pulled into that track instead of pushed, the loco can jump to the next track then run around and push the cars the rest of the way in.  This is to help avoid derailments through the tight "S" created by the two opposing turnouts at that section.   

In the first design of the brown section at left, it was like a one-sided hour glass to allow for just what you bring up here, the extra 6" or so of access space.  I changed it to a rectangle to simplify construction, it may get changed back.  I'll put those sections together and check it out in real life before I secure track & base to the framework.