New layout and new to the hobby


Its good to see there is other people modeling upper michigan as well!!!:D

The "u p" is a awesome place to model, as well as live. That makes 2 of us living in the upper peninsula hey jason!

I like all the paper mills around me, i have family working at 2 diff paper mills within 30 mins of me, we are in lumber country :)

Jason, if you get a chance take a ride to escanaba/gladstone. You can check out the Gladstone yard, pretty neat, along with mead in escanaba
You can also check out the iron ore dock in Escanaba.

Lots of cool, different things to check out up here in da u p-ehy
 
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Jason the plan is to do Marquette ore docks and LS&I all the way passed the mines in Republic,possibly more freelancing after that but its on hold till I get my room back maybe after the holidays :mad:.Wife and kids have taken over my room again lol.That and I keep beating my head on a wall with a track plan I am not to good at them things lol .
 
jason412 said:
Well I actually waited to add the suggestions you guys gave me because I wanted to post a smaller version of the layout. This one is 10x15. I shaved a foot off the width and 4 off the length. The yard isnt as long but I dont know if I need a yard that long although the space cant hurt right? I dont know think I would regret giving up that 4 feet later on? I didnt smooth out the curves or grades I just threw flex track in there quickly just for an overall idea so if tracks dont look exactly right thats why.

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Hi Jason,
One place I see where your going to have problems is in the yard area. The squares are 12"s and counting just the tracks inside that area I counted 6 with the upper most track showing a space between it and the lower five.

While it looks good on the monitor you wouldn't be able to conveniently put 5 tracks as you've shown along with a wide spot and the 6th track. The reason being each track requires just about 2"s of space per track and that maybe be a bit tight if you need to reach in and grab a car for one reason or another.

So at 2" in width each, just about the bare minimum, that in itself eats up the entire 12"s without any extra space as the program allowed you to draw the plan. The programs are not always correct or maybe you need to set a parameter differently.

Hopes that helps.
 
Good point trussrod!

I have my yard tracks set at 2 1/4 on centers, this is pretty good.
When i was deciding it was between 2 1/2-2 1/4 on centers. I just went with what looks good to me for the distance between each track.

I would not go less then 2 inches or you will have problems
 
Ill definitely have to get down there and see that yard Joe. Thanks for the suggestion on the yard Trussrod I really appreciate it. Just a quick picture of how the room is opening up. Tomorrow I insulate most of it except where I still need to redo some of the electrical as seen hanging on conduit and eventually after everything drywalling this weekend. I also have to remove that really old sink which should be interesting. So making progress.

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Well I was messing around with anyrail and I made a few slight changes. I took Trussrod's advice and spaced out the yard better. I believe I checked them all and from centerline to centerline is almost 2.5 inches now. Also if you noticed from the previous drawing the yard tied into the mainline on 2 occasions. I went and changed that to only one. I dont know if this improves operations or not as I dont know enough about that. If it was better how the Maine Central had it please tell me! I have been considering doing another trackplan and make it more prototypical and not so around the room over and over but I dont know I really like this design for me at this stage. I am going to upload 2 images. One will be with the over all trackplan with the minor changes. The other will be with all of the track that isnt seen removed to kind of give an idea to the space I have to scenic and populate with industries, etc. I couldnt get rid of some of the hidden track without losing the visible as I just did all this with messing around in the Paint program. Your opinions/suggestions/comments are always appreciated :)

smallmaineversion11_zps26cddf76.jpg


Whatisactuallyseensmallmaine11_zpsd8fb8770.jpg
 
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So you basically have one good area for a industry? What is this industry going to be on peninsula area?

Have you thought about making all your corners to your bench area not corners?? make them like all rounded instead of being sharp. It will give you more room to scenic. So inside your layout isle/area i would round those corners , i personally think this makes a huge difference, especially when you attach the fascia to your layout, it makes everything flow together nicely

The bottom left corner, the staging area, is this below the rest of the layout? Will this be a area for another industry?

I like your mainline run, you have a good chunk of running room. Im not sure how many or what type of industries you want to have on your layout, but i suggest you have a few so you can have fun switching at these locations.
 
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Hey Joe,
Im hoping to be able to fit more than one industry on here. I altered the plan some more to more of a visible twice around with the third trip being completely hidden now. I deleted most of the hidden parts off the plan to make it easier to understand. I hope it makes sense. I will definitely round the corners I just couldnt find a way in Anyrail to do that so I just used rectangle boxes to be a placeholder of the space inside. As for industries I have been back and forth so many times. I am leaning more towards a paper mill and lumber mill as I worked at both so very familiar. If I modeled the mills I worked at if I followed the prototype to best I could I would have CSX as the railroad serving both. They used 2 SD-60s?70? maybe? to switch both.it had the newer wide cabs on the front and wasnt a GE unit thats for sure. The paper mill would be the plant in the southeast corner of the layout. It used a huge crane as you can see on the map.

I dont know if this link works but its shows both the paper mill and the saw mill I worked at across the street.


http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.1355325884,d.aWc&bpcl=39967673&biw=1336&bih=629&wrapid=tlif135559767470510&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=International+paper+riegelwood+nc&fb=1&gl=us&hq=International+paper&hnear=0x89aa3e8aa3e1301b:0xa3e2146015289fc1,Riegelwood,+Ransom,+NC&sa=X&ei=eMfMUMucGKSayQHNpIHwBQ&ved=0CI4BELYD

You can zoom in and see the crane I am talking about. Im not sure where I would want to put the saw mill yet. I am thinking on the eastern part just north of the paper mill.

Kinda feel like I am all over the place with this but hoping to get it figured out. Also I am having a bit of a problem lining up an access track to the peninsula without it being off of what I think is the yard lead? Let me know what u guys think.


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Maybe I will try my hand at one of those loop to loop trackplans at some point. From what I understand its more prototypical but seems like alot of wasted space with the loops you need to be able to run continuous if desired. I atleast want to get this one somewhat complete and then weigh the pros and cons.
 
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That is one huge paper mill complex.

The paper mills in upper michigan are pretty good size but that one just looks very spread out!
 
Well has been quite a busy week for me. Not as much time as I would have liked to set aside for the layout but I am sure with the holidays around the corner Im sure Im not the only one with that problem. I havent drywalled yet due to all of the other things going on such as laying tile downstairs and rebuilding the subfloor in a kitchen. I did finish insulating and its all ready so maybe Ill drywall this weekend. Anyways, I started on a new alternate trackplan. As much as I really liked the other one I think after delving more into operations this may serve as a better plan and also reduce the amount of track laying etc. Its basically a loop to loop. I am considering the idea of placing a helix there for a storage level but havent decided yet. Regardless I think it would give a more prototypical operation as trains look like they leave and come back in same direction while including continuous. Thanks John Armstrong haha. Anyways, let me know what you guys think.

dunno11_zpsed81965b.jpg



*** Forgot to include a question I had. Is it ok since the loops are hidden that I went with a 26" radius curve on those? also does 26" work with a helix? Figure since its not visible maybe the curve could be tighter to save space.
 
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Yes a 26 radius will work great for a helix. A 26 inch radius will have a grade of 2.45% if you rise 4 inches between each loop. Make sure you cut your roadbed no less then 5 inches wide.

So cut a inner radius of 23.5 the middle of where track goes is 26 and the outter radius is 28.5 which would be a 5inch wide roadbed. 5 inches gives you plenty of room to attach your 1x4 spacers.

This radius is basically the radius im going to be using for my helix im building

Alot of people will say go bigger for a radius, but 26 is fine. If you have the room then by all means go bigger if you want to, it will make your grade percent less if you go bigger.

btw- jason, are you liking all this snow? we got hit down here in the southern upper peninsula
 
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Ok good deal thanks Joe. I kept the main radius at 30" but the helix and/or reverse loop (still on the fence) and the curved section of the yard in the upper left is 26" as well. I think I may leave the upper loop as a reversing loop and maybe make the bottom loop the top of the helix that leads down to the staging. This is how far Ive gotten so far tonight figured its a good time with all this wonderful snow... not sure how I feel about it Joe havent had to really go outside yet today haha. This trackplan is really starting to grow on me.


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Feedback always welcome!
 
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Ashlin Designs makes a 2 track helix kit, with 26" and 28" radius. It has an 11" rise if you use all the pieces.
 
the price of those helix kits is alot more then one a person can build.
There is lots of info out there on youtube or google
They are alot easier then some people think

Jason, from the sounds of it you are remodeling your house, if you can do that you definitely can build a helix.

The only downside in my eyes to a helix is they are track hungry they chew up track quick. Other then that they are awesome
 
hey guys if I wanted to put a storage yard below what would be a good distance between the storage yard for easy access for maintenace, derailments, etc? Thinking maybe like 6-12" between the storage deck and the rest of the layout if that would suffice. Let me know! Thanks
 
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well ive done it....I built the first 2x8 section of the layout!! Felt great haha. It probably wasnt the greatest of ideas to do it since the house isnt complete by any means but I just had to. More to come..

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Im not going to bother finishing that wall until I move out since I have to demolish the other side of it anyways. Plus the layout and backdrop will cover most of it. Why install drywall fill it with holes when I can leave it bare till i move someday!
 
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I would recommend putting the drywall up first. Even if you do not tape it. It will be impossible to put up later and will still help keep the dust down. Drywall is pretty cheap also. $5 a sheet here in IL.

Steve
 
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