# Newbie looking for feedback on my track plan



## dboone (Mar 22, 2021)

Let me know if you have any thoughts.


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## BigGRacing (Sep 25, 2020)

Looks pretty nice to me!


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## Dave NYC 1962 (Oct 17, 2020)

dboone said:


> Let me know if you have any thoughts.
> 
> it is a nice design. Your sorting tracks look pretty short to me though. How many cars will they hold? I like the collocated industry service with the yard.
> What is your plan for the lower left? It looks like you could lengthen and add a switch track for a more interesting industry but that depends on what is going on there of course.


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## J.Albert1949 (Feb 3, 2018)

My suggestions:

At the top...
The left-hand side crossover... move it more "to the left" to where the curve begins... adjust the "inner curve" (upper left) a little "to the left".
Reason: so that you can extend the length of the yard tracks for another car or two.

The long straight spur we see just above the cutout:
You might eliminate this.
Instead, start it midway down on the right side (inner track), and bring it "up and around" (if it's going to be for industry).
Reason: if you leave it as it is now, you'll have to leave your "last yard track" empty all the time, just to access it.


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## cbishop (Nov 26, 2018)

What guage?


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

dboone said:


> Let me know if you have any thoughts.
> 
> View attachment 556848


dbone;

This will be quite critical of your track plan, and pose some possibly uncomfortable questions. Please consider the criticism as it is intended, as constructive criticism. The questions are intended to get you to think about some points you may not have considered. None of my comments are intended to hurt your feelings. At the end of the day, this is your layout, not mine, and all decisions are up to you. 

A bit of description below your name says this plan is "HO-scale freelanced, based on the Frisc...." I find it a bit hard to believe that the Frisco, or any other prototype railroad, used this track plan, or anything much like it. The plan looks like a lot of model railroads. A loop of track that trains can circle endlessly, and a bunch of short sidings with little obvious purpose, or need. It also contains several other classic model railroad mistakes. How do you plan to get into the center "operating pit"? Will this be a mater of ducking under the table, or is there a lift out, or hinged, section not shown in your diagram?

Why are there so many turnouts 14? 15? Do you realize the cost involved in that number of turnouts and the switch machines to operate them?
What brand, and type, of turnout do you plan to use? They look like Atlas "Snap Switch" turnouts, with one curved route, and one straight route. This is not an especially good choice. They are likely to cause derailments, unless modified, and possibly have the coils of their built-in switch machines burnt out, unless protected by a CDU (Capacitive Discharge Unit) There are much better turnouts available.

If my guess is correct, and these are Atlas snap switch turnouts, then your plan includes a reverse curve at nearly every turnout. Reverse curves are another potential cause of derailments, and should be avoided. Your plan does include two passing sidings, which is a very good feature, but they are both somewhat spoiled by an unnecessarilly complicated route through a gaggle of turnouts, and a lot of reverse curves, at the top of your plan. The inner track of your passing siding on the left side of your plan can be moved to the left, closer to the outer track of that left siding, like the other passing siding on the right side of the plan.

What is the purpose of all the short spur tracks jutting out in all directions? Some of them may be industrial spurs, which is another very good feature, but do you really need that many? They tend to fill up nearly all the available space with track. This leaves little room for scenery, structures, roads, or anything else. By moving the bottom turnouts of both your left, and right, passing sidings down into the curves below them, you could move the upper turnouts down away from the yard. This in turn would make it possible to simplify the yard, and lengthen the yard tracks, which, as Dave points out, are too short.

The very bottom track and turnout of the yard could be eliminated since it serves no legitimate switching purpose. This is equally true of the top center spur track above the yard. I would also eliminate the right hand spur above the yard and the crossover that feeds into it.
It would be good to establish a clear, distinct, single-track main line, passing above the yard, rather than through a complex arrangement of turnouts within the yard.
A few long yard tracks might be better than a lot of short ones. To lengthen the yard tracks further to the left, you might consider raising the left lobe of the main line to pass above the yard, rather than looping around the end of it. To get the needed vertical separation, you may need to slope the yard tracks down as well as the main line up.

Finally, other than something sharp to impale your rib cage on, what purpose does the projecting square corner sticking out into the lower left part of the operating pit serve?
I suggest eliminating it, or at least angling it, or rounding it off, before you injure yourself on it. 

Of course you don't have to accept any of my recommendations, let alone all of them. Its your layout, so you decide. 

Good Luck & Have Fun with whatever you choose;

Traction Fan 🙂


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## dboone (Mar 22, 2021)

I'm modeling the 1930's so most of my cars will be 40'. I can fit 3, 4, 5, 6 on the sorting yard. I might be able to modify the switches I use to fit more.


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## dboone (Mar 22, 2021)

cbishop said:


> What guage?


HO


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## dboone (Mar 22, 2021)

Traction Fan. Great questions. I know a lot of what you addressed in questions I have considered, but of course I didn't put it in my description.

The sidings at the top will service industries, concrete plant, lumber mill and and grain mill. The siding on the left will service a lumber camp and the siding at the bottom will service passenger and freight service for a small town. 

The "Operating pit" will be accessed a lift out. The jutting notch is part of that lift out. I like your point about hitting your side on it. I might want to consider easing that corner.

I am planning on using Micro Engineering track. If you've got other suggestions I'm open to them. I have considered the cost of these in my budget. 

The shelf on the left and bottom are going to be more rural scenes, so I've kept them sparse. This area is less about operational accuracy for me and more about fitting in some nice landscape.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I need to think on them a bit and will probably take a few to improve my plan.


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

dboone said:


> Traction Fan. Great questions. I know a lot of what you addressed in questions I have considered, but of course I didn't put it in my description.
> 
> The sidings at the top will service industries, concrete plant, lumber mill and and grain mill. The siding on the left will service a lumber camp and the siding at the bottom will service passenger and freight service for a small town.
> 
> ...


dboone;

Micro Engineering track and turnouts (I'm assuming by "track" you mean both) are both excellent. They have the most realistic appearance of any track & turnouts I've ever seen. The tiny spike detail makes the track susceptible to any upward pull on the rails, so be carful when handling the track & turnouts. Micro Engineering turnouts come with the "DCC friendly" configuration built-in. This includes a metal, isolated, frog that can be powered if you plan to run short, switcher-type, locos with few wheels picking up power. Something like an F-unit, or Geep, with 8-wheel pickup should sail right through with the frog left unpowered. Their turnouts are available in # 6 only in my favored N-scale, but in your HO-scale, Micro Engineering also makes a compressed yard throat which might help you if you want to lengthen your yard a bit. What switch machines do you plan on using to operate your turnouts? 

I use Micro Engineering, N-scale, code 55, flex track for all the visible track on my layout, and though I scratchbuilt most of my turnouts, I also have some Micro Engineering ones. The Micro Engineering flex track is considerably less flexible that Atlas flex track. M-E flex track is stiff, and more difficult to form into a smooth curve. However, once curved, it stays in that curve. Atlas is just the opposite. It bends very easily, but won't stay bent on its own. It springs back to straight the second you let go of it. Some love one & hate the other, others just the opposite. Your choice.

I don't know what the scale of your diagram is, but it still looks awfully track heavy to me. However, I tend to lean toward the "less track more surrounding "world" approach, so maybe that's just me.
I'm also not a fan of lift out sections. The part 3 & 4 PDF file I sent you explains why. Near the end there are four sketches of layouts for a small room. The fourth sketch is followed by a detailed discussion of lift outs & other methods of getting people into, & out of, a "doughnut-shaped" layout.

Good Luck & Have Fun;

Traction Fan 🙂


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## dboone (Mar 22, 2021)

traction fan said:


> dboone;
> 
> Micro Engineering track and turnouts (I'm assuming by "track" you mean both) are both excellent. They have the most realistic appearance of any track & turnouts I've ever seen. The tiny spike detail makes the track susceptible to any upward pull on the rails, so be carful when handling the track & turnouts. Micro Engineering turnouts come with the "DCC friendly" configuration built-in. This includes a metal, isolated, frog that can be powered if you plan to run short, switcher-type, locos with few wheels picking up power. Something like an F-unit, or Geep, with 8-wheel pickup should sail right through with the frog left unpowered. Their turnouts are available in # 6 only in my favored N-scale, but in your HO-scale, Micro Engineering also makes a compressed yard throat which might help you if you want to lengthen your yard a bit. I use their N-scale code 55, flex track for all the visible track on my layout, and though I scratchbuilt most of my turnouts, I also have some Micro Engineering ones. The Micro Engineering flex track is considerably less flexible that Atlas flex track. M-E flex track is stiff, and more difficult to form into a smooth curve. However, once curved, it stays in that curve. Atlas is just the opposite. It bends very easily, but won't stay bent on its own. It springs back to straight the second you let go of it. Some love one & hate the other, others just the opposite. Your choice.
> 
> ...


Yes I've seen good reviews for ME and I've played around with their compressed ladder system. Given the feedback on the size of my yard I'll plan look into it again. My dimensions are approximately 8 feet by 10 feet. I'll review the lift out. I'm not sold on any one approach at this time and I know that anything other than a duck under poses some increase risk of derailment. I was looking to have a pretty track heavy layout.


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## Stejones82 (Dec 22, 2020)

dboone said:


> Yes I've seen good reviews for ME and I've played around with their compressed ladder system. Given the feedback on the size of my yard I'll plan look into it again. My dimensions are approximately 8 feet by 10 feet. I'll review the lift out. I'm not sold on any one approach at this time and I know that anything other than a duck under poses some increase risk of derailment. I was looking to have a pretty track heavy layout.



Modeltrainstuff just shipped my order of the ME code 70 HO ladder system. My plan for the yard ell is pretty much complete. Still playing with ideas for the loop et al. Found a LHS with Walthers/Shinohara code 83 #6-1/2 curved turnouts, 1 each R&L. Opinions on those? I am running DCC.


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## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

Looking at the plan it occurs to me that your "main" through the top part of the layout is going to be the track I've highlighted in red. Given all of the spurs you have up top, the outer loop through that area will be occupied with switching ops. And the outer loop to the left and right would be a good place to assemble/stage cars for pickup. Plus you have that spur off the outer loop to the left, so that's more switching going on on the outer loop.

I would take J.Albert's suggestion and remove the long straight spur just above the cutout. Then I would put a curved turnout about where the yellow X is. The diverging route from that turnout would lead right into the four-track yard. Entry to the yard would be via three 'Y' turnouts, as I superimposed in the 2nd pic, because it looks like that's going to afford you more track feet in the yard than the ladder.


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## dboone (Mar 22, 2021)

Stumpy said:


> Looking at the plan it occurs to me that your "main" through the top part of the layout is going to be the track I've highlighted in red. Given all of the spurs you have up top, the outer loop through that area will be occupied with switching ops. And the outer loop to the left and right would be a good place to assemble/stage cars for pickup. Plus you have that spur off the outer loop to the left, so that's more switching going on on the outer loop.
> 
> I would take J.Albert's suggestion and remove the long straight spur just above the cutout. Then I would put a curved turnout about where the yellow X is. The diverging route from that turnout would lead right into the four-track yard. Entry to the yard would be via three 'Y' turnouts, as I superimposed in the 2nd pic, because it looks like that's going to afford you more track feet in the yard than the ladder.
> 
> ...


Good idea Stumpy! Wow, I'm loving all this input!


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## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

What _really_ I like about your plan is that you can have a train running around the main line (well, what I'm calling the main line) and you can be doing switching ops on those upper spurs and the outer loop at the same time w/o stopping the "thru train".


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## 65446 (Sep 22, 2018)

OK..You asked...
~A circular main could become boring. An exception could be you have 2 or more trains going in opposite directions, lending some urgency to the passing siding on the right..Or, RR is a 'belt line' around an urban district..
I'll say this and leave you to reflect:
Real RRs, other than belts, trolley, certain subway systems, don't go in a huge circle..
They are mostly 'point to point' with turning facilities on one or both ends via either wye trackage, turntable, or a balloon track (usually a loop to turn passenger trains at major terminals).
Maybe you know all this; just not your cup O' tea..
~T'wer me I'd, off this main line, introduce a winding spur which climbs up and over the main somewhere to a mine or logging camp...If copper, say, a dedicated train can back its way up (say loco +5-6 ore cars (jennies) to a mine or logging camp, cars loaded there (2 track yard) and then heads forward, down hill to other spur off main, to a mill of any number of kinds,..cars dropped there / loco heads to shops, perhaps..See what I mean ?; some obtuse RRing activity to handle, coupled with the continual type main line activity you prefer..The lone spur on the left could begin such a grade...
But, that's me...
M


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

Stejones82 said:


> Modeltrainstuff just shipped my order of the ME code 70 HO ladder system. My plan for the yard ell is pretty much complete. Still playing with ideas for the loop et al. Found a LHS with Walthers/Shinohara code 83 #6-1/2 curved turnouts, 1 each R&L. Opinions on those? I am running DCC.





Stejones82 said:


> Modeltrainstuff just shipped my order of the ME code 70 HO ladder system. My plan for the yard ell is pretty much complete. Still playing with ideas for the loop et al. Found a LHS with Walthers/Shinohara code 83 #6-1/2 curved turnouts, 1 each R&L. Opinions on those? I am running DCC.


Stejones82;

Many long years ago, I belonged to a club with about a hundred Shinohara turnouts. They looked good, and operated well, as long as the little copper contacts on the point rails didn't get snagged while track cleaning, and start bumping into the stock rails, so the points couldn't throw all the way over. We had several cases of this, but I suspect it was due to heavy-handed track cleaning by some of the club members.
The Shinohara turnouts also required that some sort of switch machine be attached. They were not set up as reliable manual turnouts, like the Peco, and Micro Engineering, turnouts are. We solved both problems by pushing the copper contacts down out of the way, and mounting Hankscraft motors on Rix Racks mounts with micro switches to power the points instead of relying on the copper contacts.
The Shinohara had a metal frog, and the point rails were attached to a common metal plate on top of the throwbar. Thus, to install the full "DCC friendly" configuration would require cutting the plate on top of the throwbar, cutting gaps in all four rails entering the frog, and installing jumpers between each point rail, and its nearby stock rail, plus powering the frog with another micro switch or a frog juicer circuit board. Now that's a whole lot of modifications to convert the turnout to the DCC friendly configuration.
Two important points though. First, these were very old design turnouts from the 1980s. Pre-dating the use of DCC. Second, Shinohara has had an "on again/ off again business relationship with Walthers. I don't know if current Walthers turnouts are actually made by Shinohara, or not. Even if they are, the design may well have changed a lot in 30+years. Most, or even all, of the modifications I listed, may be included in the current design. Well worth checking, before investing your money. Hopefully some other member can provide us with some up-to-date information.

Traction Fan 🙂


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## Jscullans (Jul 8, 2019)

If you do end up doing the wye style yard I would also consider making a run around track in there somehow. I wish I would have made more opportunities to run around trains on my layout instead of having to use my outer main line at all or use a spot on my layout where I would have to re-sort all the cars at a couple industries.


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## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

Jscullans said:


> I wish I would have made more opportunities to run around trains on my layout


Ditto. 

And the two I have are too short.


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## traction fan (Oct 5, 2014)

dboone said:


> Yes I've seen good reviews for ME and I've played around with their compressed ladder system. Given the feedback on the size of my yard I'll plan look into it again. My dimensions are approximately 8 feet by 10 feet. I'll review the lift out. I'm not sold on any one approach at this time and I know that anything other than a duck under poses some increase risk of derailment. I was looking to have a pretty track heavy layout.


dboone;

Well you titled this thread "Newbie" looking for feedback on my track plan" but I used your link to your you tube site, and as a modeler, you definitely ain't no newbie!
Your automobile model is absolutely fantastic! Your locomotive weathering job is also excellent.
Your layout will be about 8' x 10'. is that the size of the room, so your layout will be against the walls? Or, is it a free-standing, "island" type layout in a large basement? I'm wondering if you could expand your benchwork out, with a bigger opening in the middle? In any case, given your impressive modeling skills, this should be quite a great-looking model railroad someday!

Traction Fan 🙂


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## Mr.Trainman (Apr 7, 2020)

I got pictures of taking my HO scale trains outdoors... no expense paid to creating bench work or scenery needed. Plus my track plans can be as big I would like. Just a idea before you spend a bunch of money on this hobby.


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## dboone (Mar 22, 2021)

traction fan said:


> dboone;
> 
> Well you titled this thread "Newbie" looking for feedback on my track plan" but I used your link to your you tube site, and as a modeler, you definitely ain't no newbie!
> Your automobile model is absolutely fantastic! Your locomotive weathering job is also excellent.
> ...


Thanks so much. I'm a pretty good modeler, but I don't have much experience with operations and layout planning, so I am definitely a newbie there. 

For now, 8 x 10 is the space I have. I'm trying to plan ahead a little bit so I can expand eventually. I also think that anything bigger will be a little daunting at this point. Two of the shelves will be against walls, but given that my basement is a multi-use space, it's what I've got. My next video will come out on Friday about how I've approach planning the layout and the track plan. It is definitely still a work in progress though.


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## Stejones82 (Dec 22, 2020)

dboone said:


> Thanks so much. I'm a pretty good modeler, but I don't have much experience with operations and layout planning, so I am definitely a newbie there.


Ah, then let me be the first of many to suggest:









Track Planning for Realistic Operation: Prototype Railroad Concepts for Your Model Railroad (Model Railroader)(3rd Edition): Armstrong, John: 9780890242278: Amazon.com: Books


Track Planning for Realistic Operation: Prototype Railroad Concepts for Your Model Railroad (Model Railroader)(3rd Edition) [Armstrong, John] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Track Planning for Realistic Operation: Prototype Railroad Concepts for Your Model Railroad (Model...



smile.amazon.com





This is an excellent book which will give you solid insight and ideas to train operation and planning. A very good read! 

Steve


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## dboone (Mar 22, 2021)

Stejones82 said:


> Ah, then let me be the first of many to suggest:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks, Steve.


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## Mr.Trainman (Apr 7, 2020)

dboone said:


> Thanks so much. I'm a pretty good modeler, but I don't have much experience with operations and layout planning, so I am definitely a newbie there.
> 
> For now, 8 x 10 is the space I have. I'm trying to plan ahead a little bit so I can expand eventually. I also think that anything bigger will be a little daunting at this point. Two of the shelves will be against walls, but given that my basement is a multi-use space, it's what I've got. My next video will come out on Friday about how I've approach planning the layout and the track plan. It is definitely still a work in progress though.


Your "White River Railway" reminds me of the Alaska Railway.


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