Layout Revision 6.0 - Final, Complete, Ready to Build!

Although I have not posted anything recently, I have been very busy moving my rail empire forward! I completed a scratchbuild project for a ’50’s style billboard [which I will post on soon], and… [Insert Trumpets], I have finally put together a track layout plan that meets almost all, if not all, of my goals / wants / needs. It is hard to describe how excited I am to finally be able to start building benchwork, and how relieved I am to finally have a layout design that I am 100% pleased with. It has taken me close to two years of revising, tweaking, starting over, and repeating everything again to get to this point.

Below is a slightly edited copy of my message thread that I posted on the Lionel FasTrack forum:

As many of you already know… I’ve been working and striving for a layout design that will make the best use of my available area. To date, I have gone through seven major changes, and hundreds of “what if” interim designs. I have finally put together a layout that meets almost all of my wants and needs. Whew!

The upper level view showing all of the anticipated scenery is just a basic concept for the scenic elements. Please keep in mind that this is just a rough approximation to make sure I had enough room for the items I wanted to have on the layout. The buildings shown are from the Lionel and MTH accessories libraries in RR-Track. I will be scratchbuilding most of the structures, so these are only scenic placeholders.

I am getting very excited because in two weeks I start building benchwork!

If you are interested, below is a lengthy description regarding this layout.

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I prefer a good balance between track and scenery, with the amount of track looking typical for the locale. From an operational standpoint, I would like to have continuous running capability, but also with enough rail customers / industries that I can keep things interesting with switching and servicing these customers. I want the layout to have a feel that the trains go somewhere and that they have a reason to be there.

Specifics:

* 16.5 ft. x 19 ft. room. This is located on the second floor of our house [typical Texas homes don't have basements], and is a finished room with the second story having its own central air and heat. The access is a stairway up to the second story. Not shown is a bedroom and bathroom opposite of the layout room from the stairway.

* The main visible track level has a 50 ft. long main oval, with 140 ft. total trackage.

* In a nutshell there is a lower level that will be comprised of two reversing loops and a staging area. A train can exit off the main upper [visible] level and travel off the layout for 185 ft. before showing back up on the main level. If it is desired to reverse a train, it can exit the upper level and travel over 142 ft. of track before re-entering the upper level.

* Layout will be set in the lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas.

* Time period will be late ’50’s to early ’60’s, as this is the time I remember while being a kid.

* Locomotives will be diesels… F7’s, PA’s, switchers appropriate for the time, GP-9’s, etc. I may elect to add a steam locomotive later.

* Operations will be passenger trains and local freight.

* Rail customers will be a citrus packing house, cannery, box plant, mechanical icing dock, hopefully cotton gin, bulk fuel / oil, and “Area 49″.

* The upper level track will have 072 and 084 curves. All upper turnouts are 072.

* The lower level track will be 060 curves and turnouts to minimize cost and space requirements.

* The decline to the lower level on the “green line” is 2.5%.

* The decline to the lower level on the “orange line” is 2.6%.

* The lower staging / reversing loops area is 18″ below the top of the benchwork.

I really wanted the ability to be able to reverse a train from either direction without needing to reverse or back-up. I wanted some lower staging, although I am conceding that I don’t have the amount I originally wanted… but, I was able to get staging track lengths of 181″ - 181″ - 196″ - 211″. I also wanted the ability to have a train leave the visible portion of the layout, and return after some time had elapsed.

Looking at the track plan more closely… A train can travel around the upper oval unassisted. A train can also travel around the upper level, disappear, and reappear later in a continuous running manner. To accomplish this, a train going counter clockwise would exit off the main oval at the upper left corner. It would decline down below the upper level [the purple track is the track that is still above the benchwork top, with the green track below the benchwork], loop back around to gain more linear footage of track for the decline, and then come back around to the other side of the layout to enter a reversing loop. If it is not desired to reverse the train but to continue on to the staging tracks or to proceed continuously to the “orange” track, the train would exit the loop and come back around to the staging area. If the train is not diverted to staging, it will proceed through the staging area and exit on the orange track that is the reverse loop for the “orange line”. From here it would travel up and back around the layout to the double back loop for the orange line, and end up going up the purple decline / incline track above benchtop level and re-enter the main oval from the other side of the crossover, traveling still in a counterclockwise direction.

If the train is going clockwise, it would take a similar path as above except it would enter the lower level from the orange line, travel to the blue staging level, and then connect up with the “green line” to travel back to the upper level.

If you wanted to turn a counter clockwise running train, the train would not exit the reverse loop for the “green line”, and would travel back on the green line to re-enter the main level now traveling clockwise. A clockwise running train would be turned by exiting off the main, traveling around the “orange line” reversing loop, and then travel back on the orange line to re-enter the main level now traveling counter clockwise.

This arrangement will provide the ability to reverse a train by going forward only in either direction, and will provide a long travel path below the visible upper level to simulate the train going somewhere.

I also think that the lower staging could be used in an operational scheme such that a local freight switcher could set out empties and pick up full cars and then disappear to the lower staging.

On the passenger station… this has always been a problematic area for me, given the space I have. I will be running A-A or ABA passenger diesels with 7 to 9 of the MTH Premier 19″ long passenger cars. With a total train length of 14′ to 17′ long, it would look funny to have over half of the train sticking out both ends of the passenger platforms in a typical pull through set-up. I just don’t have the room to get a long passenger platform to fit the train length. In the course of researching typical track arrangements for towns in the lower Rio Grande Valley, I looked at many Sanborn maps of the area from the ’50’s. While looking at the maps for Brownsville, TX, I came upon an acceptable solution. The passenger station for Brownsville serviced two different railroads, and the station was located off of a wye for one railroad, and near the end of the other railroad. This station had a stub end set-up with two tracks for one of railroads, and another pair of tracks for the other railroad. Using this prototype set-up I was finally able to provide a passenger station set-up that would provide enough track to hold nine 19″ passenger cars. Granted, I’ll need to cut the train into three sections when it pulls into the station, but it is the best compromise I have. On a similar note, it will add for some additional operational action to make the two cuts and then to re-couple for departure.