# Layout Design, input please



## River Rat 6981 (May 19, 2021)

I have been working on a layout design for a future retirement home we'll be building in approximately 5 years and I'd love some feedback from y'all.
The area I am working with is 7'x18', with walls on the long back edge and short right hand side, open the other two sides. We will be all battery operated locos.

The concept is a fictitious island based closed-loop railroad serving several on-island industries with an interchange track that simulates swapping freight to and from the mainland. I like lots of switching and moves, so you'll see that flavor immediately. I'm not really into just driving a train over long runs.
I'm not doing any elevations changes for the trackage for obvious reasons, but I will likely add some humps and bumps in the scenery here and there for visual interest.

We can run 3 manifest trains and there's also a center peninsula switcher job that the yard guy can go do at the concrete plant after making up the manifest trains.
The Coral Reefer South (heading "down" from the yard, CCW) manifest train services 6 locations and typically generates 20-25 moves.
The Coral Reefer North (heading "up" from the yard, CW) manifest train services 8 locations and typically generates 24-28 moves.
I can also run the Consolidator manifest train that starts Southbound, does all of the CRS work, then crosses over to become a northbound train, then completing all the CRN work. That train generates as many as 50 moves.

I currently have 104 cars spotted (not including locos). I am using JMRI for train control.
Trains are set up to be ~10-12 cars and can get as long as 17 or 18 or so for the Consolidator.
I am sticking to shorter cars as I have a fair amount of 18" curves (nothing smaller than 18"), with the outside radii being 20"-24".
I've operated all routes several dozen times and have not found any snags. For the most part JMRI approves of the design and the design approves of JMRI.

Operationally, we would plan on having no more than two operators. I don't think 3 operators is likely, but I could add a passing siding on the far right if I change my mind on that.

OPS:
Yard would build the CRS and hand it off to Manifest, then he'd build the CRN and go do local work at the concrete plant until the CRS came in and needed to be spotted.
Manifest would run the CRS then pick up the CRN and run it as well. Once the two manifest trains were run and spotted back in the yard that would be a session, and you could either rinse and repeat if more play was desired, or you could cut Manifest loose on the Consolidator which would keep him busy while Yard Guy drank beer.
CRS and CRN are 60 minute jobs, Consolidator is a 2+ hour train. Manifest trains servicing Peninsula Concrete through the wye poses some pretty fun and interesting switching challenges, particularly with Additives being serviced off the wye leg. You can't just dump your train anywhere on the main and be clear.

Anyway, all input is appreciated.


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## jackpresley (Dec 19, 2017)

Is reaching Krebs Mining and Staging/Tipple 1, 2, 3 and turnouts along the back wall going to be possible/difficult?


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## River Rat 6981 (May 19, 2021)

jackpresley said:


> Is reaching Krebs Mining and Staging/Tipple 1, 2, 3 and turnouts along the back wall going to be possible/difficult?


The tipple switches at Krebs aren't too bad actually (in the 24-30" range), but I definitely have several others that are planned to be electronic throws, mostly along the back wall as you noted. The wye switches are the worst, followed by that gaggle north of the yard.


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## J.Albert1949 (Feb 3, 2018)

A little "too much track" and not enough open space.
I'd "trim it back" just a little bit...


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

Now that is a model railroad switchman's heaven. There is enough possible
activity on your layout to provide a whole new challenge every day. I am not, however,
a fan of large scale industries on a layout. You can get much more operating
fun with more small rail freight users. They can ship to one another requiring
a lot more switching than a big industry that has perhaps only one customer.
Two or three small rail users on a spur adds to the complexity of switching.

Don


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## River Rat 6981 (May 19, 2021)

DonR said:


> Now that is a model railroad switchman's heaven. There is enough possible
> activity on your layout to provide a whole new challenge every day. I am not, however,
> a fan of large scale industries on a layout. You can get much more operating
> fun with more small rail freight users. They can ship to one another requiring
> ...


If I understand you correctly, what you are referring to is the difference between point-to-point manifest trains, (which leave the yard with cars, do set outs and/or pickups at each location on the route and then return the pickups to the origination yard) versus trains that do all of that but can also move cars between intermediate locations along the route? I've actually addressed that in JMRI.

My manifest trains do origination/termination work from the yard but they also do pick up/set out along the way at the intermediate industries. I actually also have the routes designed so that you get the occasional chunk of local moves that the manifest driver has to take care of...at Krebs Mining for instance you quite often have to re-spot ore cars from staging to the tipples, which is fairly prototypical. By defining empty/loaded behavior for various cars you can push them from industry to industry on the layout with or without transiting the yard. And you are correct, all of that does add additional interest to the routes, particularly if you require yourself to be diligent about your blocking. 

The nice thing about JMRI is you can build a bunch of complexity into the operational scheme without needing to change the layout design. As you referred to, if I don't feel like there's enough activity I could redefine any spur in JMRI to include several smaller industries to add flavor, and never move a single piece of track. In essence I've done a fair amount of something similar already because each one of the major industries is made up of several unique "locations" by spur name, and I've allowed local moves in the system.


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## mesenteria (Oct 29, 2015)

It seems you have defined your parameters and that you have met them. It's detailed to the nth degree, and rather well done. It's not my cuppa, and I think that is maybe what the others are cautioning, but...most in the hobby are 'runners' who have a couple of switching jobs. They like the scenery, designing and building it, and watching trains run. This seems to be more focused on industrial switching and 'ops'. Since you know what interests you, and that you seem to have taken pains to craft something that will hold your interest for years, I say go ahead and begin construction. As you rethink things, or generate new ideas, you can always modify your plan as you go along.


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## River Rat 6981 (May 19, 2021)

mesenteria said:


> It seems you have defined your parameters and that you have met them. It's detailed to the nth degree, and rather well done. It's not my cuppa, and I think that is maybe what the others are cautioning, but...most in the hobby are 'runners' who have a couple of switching jobs. They like the scenery, designing and building it, and watching trains run. This seems to be more focused on industrial switching and 'ops'. Since you know what interests you, and that you seem to have taken pains to craft something that will hold your interest for years, I say go ahead and begin construction. As you rethink things, or generate new ideas, you can always modify your plan as you go along.


It's all great input and well appreciated, hopefully my replies don't seem otherwise. If nothing else it makes me think and rethink things, whether I ultimately change my mind or not, and that's a good exercise. You always have to be aware of "season to taste" when looking for feedback anyway....one guy's gem is the next guy's disaster. I've got 5 years before I even build the house this layout will go into, so plenty of time to second guess myself.

I'd love to have more space where I could get some longer open road runs in between the switching jobs, but that's not in the cards and in my experience small area runner layouts are just going around in circles, which gets old fast.

Thanks for the input!


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

River Rat

I think we are on the same page. Maybe I am missing where you have a switcher build your train from the
various industries and the yard, then couple on the road loco and 'hit the rails' dropping cars here and there along the way. Then when the next train comes in you have a switcher break the train moving cars all done with specific orders as opposed to hit and miss putting a train
together. That's the kind of switching operations I used. I had a car card system, one for each car in the fleet. A post it note attached to the card showed where car is and what to do with it. It was a lot of fun
to set up a switching order board for my own operations or for a friend to execute.

Don


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## jackpresley (Dec 19, 2017)

River Rat 6981 said:


> The tipple switches at Krebs aren't too bad actually (in the 24-30" range), but I definitely have several others that are planned to be electronic throws, mostly along the back wall as you noted. The wye switches are the worst, followed by that gaggle north of the yard.












I cut and pasted your ruler after making every 12" a red hash. Unless you have remote control uncouplers or really reliable magnet uncouplers, you've got 42-48" reach required to the Krebs staging and about 3' to the tipples. I assumed the turnouts were all remote controlled. 

I raise this as an issue because you said there were walls in that corner and because of the operations you expect to do.

I do like how you went to the trouble of placing your industry on the drawing. I like the crossing north of SMH Petroleum and the reversing loop there, as well as the Y in the middle.

In five years, RC couplers and non-derailing equipment might be main stream in the hobby. Eh, probably not.


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## River Rat 6981 (May 19, 2021)

DonR said:


> River Rat
> 
> I think we are on the same page. Maybe I am missing where you have a switcher build your train from the
> various industries and the yard, then couple on the road loco and 'hit the rails' dropping cars here and there along the way. Then when the next train comes in you have a switcher break the train moving cars all done with specific orders as opposed to hit and miss putting a train
> ...


Yep, that's almost exactly how it's handled, only difference being that I am using JMRI to "manage" building the manifests rather than doing it by hand, and all cars for the outgoing manifest trains come from the yard exclusively. It is all VERY specific indeed.

It's a two job railroad basically.

Job 1 being the Yard Switcher that builds the SB train per the generated manifest, builds the NB train (once the SB has cleared the A/D track), does local switching at Concrete to keep busy (per a separate "Local Move" list) while SB is out on the layout, breaks down and spots SB when it returns from the layout and then breaks down/spots NB when it returns as well.

Job 2 is the road warrior that runs the two manifest trains one after the other.

A typical Manifest from the Northbound train I ran the other night is attached for fun.
I've simplified the program output quite a bit...for instance my manifests don't tell you to grab a loco or add a caboose, because that's always understood to be the case.


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## River Rat 6981 (May 19, 2021)

jackpresley said:


> View attachment 559540
> 
> 
> I cut and pasted your ruler after making every 12" a red hash. Unless you have remote control uncouplers or really reliable magnet uncouplers, you've got 42-48" reach required to the Krebs staging and about 3' to the tipples. I assumed the turnouts were all remote controlled.
> ...


It's a great point Jack.
Now that you bring it up, I recognize now that I've been perceiving the reaches from the perspective of throwing turnouts, and kind of forgot about uncoupling cars.....Doh!

I have magnets on my little bookshelf layout that work great but that's only because I spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort keeping the 8 or 10 cars on that switcher problem tuned and working flawlessly. Not realistic to think that would be the case with 100+ cars.

That requires some additional thought....


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## River Rat 6981 (May 19, 2021)

jackpresley said:


> View attachment 559540
> 
> 
> I cut and pasted your ruler after making every 12" a red hash. Unless you have remote control uncouplers or really reliable magnet uncouplers, you've got 42-48" reach required to the Krebs staging and about 3' to the tipples. I assumed the turnouts were all remote controlled.
> ...


Excellent advice sir, thank you.

Based on your observations I revised Krebs and Whitner to generally push the structures to the rear and pull the trackage forward. I'll likely need to revisit the structures somewhat (those aren't set in stone by any means obviously), but this gets all of the spurs and switches to less than 36" reach. A car gone rogue at the extreme end of Krebs Staging behind the tipple building might require an engineered solution (like a stick) but I can live with that. That spur probably doesn't need to stick back there anyway.

Anything that derails on the mainline against the wall will require the jaws of life, but there's no getting around that.


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## jackpresley (Dec 19, 2017)

River Rat 6981 said:


> Anything that derails on the mainline against the wall will require the jaws of life, but there's no getting around that.


Jaws of life, grandson held out over the layout, whatever it takes.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

River Rat

Your manifest looks like what my car card system would print out
if it was digital. But, does it not take quite a bit of 'keying' to
create your manifest? All I had to do was pencil the location and
destination on 'Post it' tabs and attach them to pertinent car cards.
The switchman could then sort and layout his switching schedule.
(And, like you, I also had a continuous run train going to add a little
extra concern for the switchman.) 

Anyway, what you have designed is going to be a whole lot of
fun when it gets built.

Don


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