proposed layout


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D94R

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This is a PRR based layout with no certain area being modeled, but based in the Appalachian mountains. It's a coal hauling branch mainly with the lower deck dedicated to the mine run. The upper deck will be the destination of the coal, along with undetermined industry. The yard serves an interchange point to generate more traffic for the industries and maybe as a sorting point for the different size coal. The lower level has a continuous loop, and can be point to point. In the upper left, the lead off the switch that facilitates the continuous run would be where the interchange traffic would "originate" from. The track continuing up off screen would be to the helix.

Only the first deck is planned as of yet, the second level is visualized but I'll more likely wing it as I probably plan to just do a once around instead of the twice around the lower deck offers. The branch for the mine drops 4" to give some elevation change. And the placement of the mine is not exact

Size is 12' x 26.5'
30" min curves on the main "loop"
26" min on mine branch
2% grade
#6 Fast track switches on the main.
#5 Fast track switches in the mine's pool yard and mine
Code 83/70 (would like to do hand laid)
Era will be anything from the 40's to mid 60's
Engine facilities are yet defined, but would be incorporated in bottom left area



So, critique, suggest, criticize, please.


layout.png
 
Thought I'd offer a suggest for the coal using industry. A coke plant would use up plenty of coal. The coke might then be sent to a transfer yard for a steel mill. This would mean you'd need a steel products train too. The coke plant also produces side product chemicals, mainly tar, but a few others too.
 
Nice looking layout. I don't have one of my own, since my kids have yet to move their stuff out of the basement. I have started to buy PRR stuff and have 5 cars of the Broadway Limited. Will be happy to make a passenger stop, once I have all the pieces and MTH ships the GG1.

Good Luck
Joe:)
 
D94R said:
Good idea's. I was thinking a coal fired power plant or something, but I like those too.
Click to expand...


Just thought I'd continue with my operations musings. A coke plant would produce tar. You could have an asphalt plant somewhere else on the layout as a destination for the tar.

The coke could go to a steel mill which only needs to be represented with the transfer sidings. A full intergrated steel mill would be a big project and would use up lots of space. It would look very cool though. I'll recommend just the transfer yard with a track leading off table and some background images of a steel mill to represent the mill. The mill also needs ore, limestone, scrap metal and sulfuric acid going in. Out going is steel products of various sorts (coil, structural, nails/etc, slabs, blooms & billets, sometimes even hot metal, and crushed cold slag which goes to cement plants).

You might have a foundry or auto plant. The auto plant would receive coils. It produces auto parts and scrap metal.

Note scrap metal is graded. The sort of scrap a stamping facility like an auto plant produces is top notch scrap. You could have a scrap yard to grade scrap and then send it on to the steel mill transfer yard.

So let's look at some frieght moverments:

Coal: mine - coke plant (converted to coke) - steel mill transfer yard.

Tar: coke plant - asphalt plant

Ore: staging - steel mill transfer yard (or assume it arrives by ship)

Limestone: as above

Steel: steel mill transfer yard - auto plant(convert to parts and scrap) - staging for auto parts, scrap yard for scrap - scrap yard to steel mill transfer yard


Cars needed:

-a whole train or two of coal hoppers

-a train or two of coke hoppers ( you could use the coal hoppers instead of coke hoppers: coke is lighter so coke hoppers have raised sides to increase volume to meet weight limit)

-possibly a train of ore hoppers or assume arrives at steel mill via off table boat. You could use ore hoppers, ore jennys, or coal hoppers to haul it.

-limestone is transported in coal hoppers usually. The RR's really ought use covered hoppers and sometimes they do. Cement hoppers would be ideal. Or assume it arrives at steel mill via the boats.

- gondolas and steel coil cars. With scrap and steel products rolling around, you'll need good numbers of godolas. A few coil cars always look nice.

-auto parts box cars: early ones were 50', later 60' and even 85' existed. Depends on your period.

-tanks cars for thick loads. There were special tar tankers but the funnel flow ones ought to do the job also.

-tanks cars for sulfuric acid. Steel mills use it to clean steel products before shipping. This is called 'pickling'.

-additional boxcars for various tasks, delivering tools, parts, refractory lining (special bricks) to steel mill and taking small products like nails away again. The coke plant produces smaller amounts fo chemicals which might be bagged and removed in box cars.



Phew, this is getting quite long winded. Well, the efficent approach would be to use the coal cars for many tasks. Even iron ore was often hauled in them. How many trains of coal hoppers do you have?

Finally, you'd have other industries too, such as team tracks, frieght houses and various private industries. Looks like plenty of waybill action there.
 
Wow Paul, you have thought this over more than I have lol. I like the ideas. A lot of that stuff could come in/out for interchange too, which I've added staging under the first deck using the helix, just haven't uploaded a new image.

I don't have enough coal hoppers, as I have a problem with collecting engines before rolling stock. That, and other than Bowser, there aren't a lot of PRR type hoppers out there for "my" pricing. It helps getting them at cost through my uncle, but still, it seems like 10 years ago everyone made some version of a PRR coal hopper, but I digress.
 
I am a bit of a nut when it comes to dreaming about operations. I find working out what industries and what type of traffic and how much helps to figure out the sidings needed and they size. Then it is just a question of figuring out where to fit them in.

I've refreshed my knowledge of cement works. They are a possible customer for the coal mine too. Another customer is the railroad itself, if running steam. The railroad is also a steel customer.

Cement needs limestone, slag and gravel. Often coal is used for fuel. What do you think about having a limestone quarry as well as a coal mine? The steel works needs some limestone as flux while the cement works would need lots of it. Both the steel works and cement works could be modelled as transfer yards only on the top level, with background photos of the actual works. I was thinking maybe the coke plant could be assumed to be in the steel works, so you wouldn't need a seperate coke train.


Let's start talking train lengths.

I noticed the coal mine loops are about 6' and the yard loops are about 8'. In the PRR period, coal hoppers are about 6" in HO. So 12 hoppers is about 6'. With loco and caboose, a typical train will be 8'.

Now we can think about numbers of cars.

You might need two or three coal trains. Plus some hoppers for limestone and slag. Say 50 hoppers to be sure? You would need about 25 gondolas. Maybe a dozen each of covered hoppers (cement) and auto boxcars. Then there would be a decent number of general purpose box cars. Hmm, that is already at the 100 car mark. Phew!

What about passenger traffic. Any ideas about what sort of passenger stuff you want to run?
 
A few notes.

I absolutely despise back round images. While this is a model in all senses, back round images ruin any semblance to realism. The horizon is never right, the foreground's never mesh, the angle of the picture's are almost always wrong, and size is usually anything but close. Plus I like the focus to be on the train and scenery, not the detail in the back round.

This will be a mostly rural route, with little to nothing more than hill/mountain/trees and the cut for the railroad for scenery on the bottom level (the upper level is still up in the air).



I figured the service to the mine would be a couple out and back trains a day just to supply the demand. Figure the area for the mine is cramped and very limited on real estate, so lack of space dictates multiple trains instead of one per day. Take them to yard, then break them out per customer for ease of switching on upper deck. Lime stone, gravel etc can all come from staging for interchange, then run to the upper deck to be switched out.

I also think I might have the spur at the mine just continue off into a tunnel to down the helix to be the connection with staging. Then anything from staging would just be run-through on it's way to wherever and the mine run would just be a local.



No passenger service. I'm not a fan. My T1 though will be demoted to general revenue service just to give it a purpose.


As for number of cars... well, that remains to be determined I guess.
 
What? Modelling the PRR and no passenger trains!

Some passenger trains of the period were quite interesting and suitable for a branch. A local passenger train would consist of headend stuff like reefers, REA boxcars, baggage cars, an RPO and a few coaches. The whole train would be no more than 6 cars long. They would switch the headend cars at various stations along the route, so these trains are very interesting for operation.

Another type is the night train. These would be mostly reefers and milk cars, picking up the milk at every depo along the line in the wee hours of the morning. They would have an RPO and a single chair coach at the tail end. The coach was there to pick up off duty railroad personel on their way home. A very good train for rural layouts.

A doodlebug might be another idea. So you'd only need say one combined coach, two or three chair coaches, an RPO or two, a couple of baggage cars and assorted REA boxcars, reefers and milk cars.

Anyway, I think you need to work out your operations in more detail before you can put more detail into your plan. Maybe researching a few PRR branchlines of the period would help to fomulate your ideas?
 
Nope, passenger service just doesn't do anything for me in terms of visual stimulation when operating a model railroad. It could be that being 27, I've grown up with the unattractive Amtracks, metros, and subways?

It's most likely the fact that one can't possibly model every facet of a railroad, and therefore passenger service is at the top of my list to dump.

As for operations, I have it all in my head, but I'm not trying to nail down 100% prototypical operations to recreate a specific time/place/date/schedule/route.

I'm a rail fanner more than a prototypical modeler :)
 
I would think modeling passenger trains depends on the layout. Tighter turn radii, i.e. 22" will produce that terrible overhang. Passenger trains on the HO layout in the San Diego Model Railroad museum look much better in the sweeping 60" plus loop of the Tehechapi.
 
D94R said:
A few notes.

I absolutely despise back round images. While this is a model in all senses, back round images ruin any semblance to realism. The horizon is never right, the foreground's never mesh, the angle of the picture's are almost always wrong, and size is usually anything but close. Plus I like the focus to be on the train and scenery, not the detail in the back round.
Click to expand...

What? I have to take exception to your comments about backdrops!! I think backdrops make a model railroad look real. Photo backdrops are the key. If done correctly, they completely change the look of a model railroad.

And some of your comments make you sound snobbish.

Like mine, are you saying my railroad doesn't look good, and the backdrop ruins the look for you?

P1010032.JPG


P1000990.jpg


P1000040.JPG
 
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Motley, I'm sure he didn't mean for it to sound the way it did to you. In many ways I agree about the use of photo backdrops. If the wrong one is chosen, or not installed properly, a photo backdrop will stick out like a sore thumb, and instead of enhancing a scene, will completely ruin it.

Not all of us have the eye to pull something like this off.
 
Motley said:
What? I have to take exception to your comments about backdrops!! I think backdrops make a model railroad look real. Photo backdrops are the key. If done correctly, they completely change the look of a model railroad.

And some of your comments make you sound snobbish.

Like mine, are you saying my railroad doesn't look good, and the backdrop ruins the look for you?

P1010032.JPG


P1000990.jpg


P1000040.JPG
Click to expand...

An exception to every rule no doubt. These are fine looking backdrops. Who are you buying them from if I may ask? I am wanting to find some industrial and urban backgrounds for my layout and money is no object.
 
I agree they have to be done correctly. But I must say, before I put the backdrops up, staring a white walls made my railroad look strange to me.

I created these backdrops by myself. I took the photos using a $200 digital camera and a tripod. The photos were "stitched" together using Photoshop, into a large panoramic photo.

Then I had them printed at a local print shop. The paper is vinyl with an adhesive backing. There were expensive. Just call your local print shop and tell them what you want.
 
Reason I don't like back drops.
Take the back drop in this picture for example. All the buildings are quartered in one direction. This is ok if you only view a layout from one direction, but it's not dynamic so if you stand in another spot, you can feasibly have foreground and back round buildings quartering in opposite directions. Dimensional stuff does not work well with my eye because of this. Since I'm modeling rural area, sweeping hills and mountains with lush vegetation represented work because there are no hard lines to break up smooth dynamic characteristics.

100_1407.jpg



Plus I want the background to disappear into, well, the back round. I don't want detail in it.




This sort of background is what I'm after. No detail, but depth portrayed with different subtle color to give the hills some distance. Does it work for all? Maybe not, but it doesn't draw your eye directly to it allowing it to mesh with the layout and not create visual disturbance.
DSCF1701.jpg
 
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First of all, I love the examples you just found. LOL Alrightythen.

The way you came across with your opinions did feel like you were generalizing all layouts with photo backdrops.
To each his own, I should've kept my mouth shut.
 
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