# Opinions on HO/HOn3 layout?



## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I think I'm close to finalizing my plans, but wanted to see if there were any more suggestions, especially around the yards.

The general purpose of my layout will be coal and timber hauling. Both products will be loaded around Black Creek, then hauled to Mammoth for final processing. The setting is around 1904, with Black Creek being a small mountain town and Mammoth being somewhat modernized with brick-paved streets and even some electric lighting. Much of the mainline has been converted to standard gauge but there is still a regular passenger train and some livestock freight being run on the narrow gauge. In the images below, standard gauge is in black and narrow gauge is in brown. There is a steep mountain range running between the towns, from the lower-left to upper-right, but I've tried to keep my grades to a maximum of 3%.

I think I have a fairly decent switching yard in Mammoth, although due to congestion some of the switching will run across the mainline... That'll certainly make for some interesting signaling when I build the electronics! Black Creek also has a yard with long runs for loading coal, plus a small yard in both gauges for dumping and loading incoming lumber.

The green lines are at 1-foot intervals. The entire layout is 12x12 feet and will split apart in the center. I realize I have nearly a 4' reach across some of the center regions, however I have some ideas to work around that. Note that if you zoom in to the full-size images, I have added a lot of notes about various aspects.



















So as I mentioned, my biggest concerns are with the yards. For example, I think I've provided for a lot of complex switching, but are there any bits that would be completely useless in real operations? Are there any crossovers I should add to make switching more robust? Any other suggestions?


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## 1905dave (Sep 18, 2016)

The yard at Mammoth looks like it has one yard laid over the top of another, I can't tell if the three tracks across the bottom are under the yard or through the yard (yuck).

Also its tough to tell if the yards are good without knowing what the train operation will be. Since both gauges duplicate each other's routes for most of way, its tough to tell what each railroad does and why there should be both gauges.

I think the reaches are going to be a real problem. Is this layout in the middle of a room or is it in a room? Are there walls around the outside? If you don't have access along all sides it will be darn near impossible to operate.

You have way too much track on the layout for my tastes. Its very hard to figure what the yard or operations might be, its very hard to tell what's narrow gauge and what's dual gauge (screen resolution issues). It looks like its so intermixed that anything the narrow gauge does will block the standard gauge and vice versa.

Scenic issue, don't have a road down the entire bottom side, having a road running from one edge to the other will make the town look like a "train set". Consider using backdrops to break up the scenes visually.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Thanks for the feedback. Honestly I've already cut back quite a bit a track from what I originally had, but I do understand that it is a rather busy setup. There are two mainline tracks running across the bottom, but the lowest track near the edge is meant for staging some cars. Maybe I can just chop off the right half of that track, leaving a short spur for staging and breaking up some of the uniformity of all the parallel tracks running through there.

Yes there's a lot of overlap between standard and narrow gauge, but as I said I'm trying to show a transition from one to the other when there are still a number of operations happening on both. In some places the routes were separated due to a crossing that can't easily be done in dual-gauge, such as through a double slip (although I believe I *can* accomplish it through a single slip).

The layout will be suspended in the garage, so there is full access on all sides, but that of course means backdrops are not possible. Part of the goal is to make it transportable, so I'll be trying to keep it lightweight as well. Because of this, at least for working on the scenery, I can split the base in half and actually lay it on the outer side, with the center standing upright... so working on the scenery will be a bit like painting a wall. Of course during operations it will be difficult to deal with derailments. Maybe I'll make a remote-controlled crane. 

That's a good point about the road spanning across both sides, I'll have to look into other ideas there. The idea was to try and suggest that the town continues off the right side, but maybe I can take the left somewhere else. Something I didn't mention before, the yellow track along the road is for a small trolley.

OK I've got some ideas to play with...


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

I'm with Dave

It's difficult to read the drawing. I think I'm seeing
crossings from the HO to the HOn3. Is that correct?
My recollection is that the rail gauge is the same.

Ever on the alert for reverse loops, there are several
it seems to me though, again, I can't clearly make
out parts of the drawing.

Before you finalize your plans be sure to draw them
out using right rail red, left rail black so you can
clearly identify where you'll need to set up an
isolated reverse loop section. 

It's a very interesting layout and should provide a lot
of enjoyable train sessions.

Don


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Yeah I need to update the insulated joiners in the layout, but essentially there are two reverse loops at each end, one for each mainline, and with the insulators in position I get a length of 80-90 inches of track where the reversing circuit can operate. Think of the layout as a large Z shape, made into a double mainline with reverse-loops at each end for continuous operation. Everything else around it is just filling in yards and spurs.

There is quite a bit of track that will be dual-gauge, and nearly all will be code 70 (I'm thinking of dropping some of the HOn3 spurs down to code 55?). There are places where the narrow gauge splits off from the mainline and runs parallel, but other than the obvious spurs the narrow line does run continuously.

I have an updated plan I'll try to get posted later this morning.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Been playing with it all day, I chopped out some extra track, reworked some spurs, reduced the size of the roundhouse... I still haven't finished re-checking locations of the insulated rail joiners but most of them should be pretty close.


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