American O Scale: "Portway Terminal Short Line, MN".

[F-UnitMad]

Re Trackplan - back on page 7 or so, I think. My original disappeared in the Photobucket Fiasco (no I hadn't kept a copy!   ) but Jacky here had copied it & did his version...

Just imagine the plan with the mainline out in the open past the sidings, not buried underneath.

 

Re the yard corner, yes I'd thought of something like you both suggest, & thanks Jack for the visualisation. I also thought about trying a mirror, to try & give the illusion of a longer yard, but hiding the edges would be difficult. I guess I want to try & make the place look more open. An "end on" warehouse flat closes things in a bit. I also thought about doing my own backscene, like I did for the portable Portway Center layout, which was quite effective at giving the impression of open space.

[F-UnitMad]

These are the best photos I have from that layout to illustrate what I mean.

 

[F-UnitMad]

7 hours ago, JAMO said:

The idea 

 

Using the last 'blank' I had from the food processors.....

Needs work if I do use it. 

[JAMO]

That's nice Jordan!!!!

[JAMO]

A trackplan for you all

 

[F-UnitMad]

Thanks Jack for such a neat plan I've made sure to save it this time!!

It's probably worth repeating some of my comments from page 5 about the trackplan...

A sobering thought is that the area I have is only just a bit longer than a "sacred sheet" 8ft x 4ft board in HO Scale, albeit with a great hole in the middle. This puts things into perspective when it came to trackplanning. Some modellers can throw track down and build a layout in a week - or less!! I am not one of them, & as I said earlier, I thought long and hard about what I want from this layout, and sketched many variations of it before I was completely happy with the plan I have.

 

There is no hidden staging. When working the Freight Branch, one is mostly facing the one side of the layout, and when exchanging trains at the Interchange, one is facing the other way. True, trains on the Main have nowhere to go in the strictest sense, but if you are only looking at the Interchange, where they have come from (i.e. just the other side of the room) as they enter the yard is really irrelevant - if you use your imagination!! Which, like it or not, is exactly what we are doing anyway, when we actually get chance to play trains!!

[Regularity]

When I look at your layout, Jordan, I see a small interchange yard for an industrial branch, and an open staging track that just happens to form a complete circuit.

[298]

An idea I picked up somewhere to add depth and interest is a false boxcar end, behind optional plastic curtains ( and red light ).  The building is about 10mm deep but the track continues through the backscene for a possible extension, and the severed Railbox end is actually stuck to the carrying board. 

 

This is HO, luckily I had the same liveries to hand...

 

 

Edited November 6, 2021 by 298

[Boxcab]

23 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Using the last 'blank' I had from the food processors.....

Needs work if I do use it. 

 

How about brining the building forward a couple of inches to make it a low relief and narrow it so that the door is in line with the second track? You could also put a second door in where the Evans 53 ft car is with plastic curtains as suggested by 298.

 

MDF is quite good for buildings especially in O Scale.

 

What is the make of the white COE tractor unit in the left hand corner? Is it 1/43 scale?

[Keith Addenbrooke]

10 hours ago, JAMO said:

A trackplan for you all

 

 

8 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Thanks Jack for such a neat plan I've made sure to save it this time!!

It's probably worth repeating some of my comments from page 5 about the trackplan...

A sobering thought is that the area I have is only just a bit longer than a "sacred sheet" 8ft x 4ft board in HO Scale, albeit with a great hole in the middle. This puts things into perspective when it came to trackplanning. Some modellers can throw track down and build a layout in a week - or less!! I am not one of them, & as I said earlier, I thought long and hard about what I want from this layout, and sketched many variations of it before I was completely happy with the plan I have.

 

There is no hidden staging. When working the Freight Branch, one is mostly facing the one side of the layout, and when exchanging trains at the Interchange, one is facing the other way. True, trains on the Main have nowhere to go in the strictest sense, but if you are only looking at the Interchange, where they have come from (i.e. just the other side of the room) as they enter the yard is really irrelevant - if you use your imagination!! Which, like it or not, is exactly what we are doing anyway, when we actually get chance to play trains!!

 

7 hours ago, Regularity said:

When I look at your layout, Jordan, I see a small interchange yard for an industrial branch, and an open staging track that just happens to form a complete circuit.

It’s really helpful to see the plan drawn out, thankyou to @JAMO.  @Regularity’s description is really helpful - if I look at the plan as I would a contemporary Mindheim-style switching layout, I think it works well for today’s modelling world, even though the basic dimensions of the space (in HO equivalent) might have suggested to me something from a Linn Westcott-era / Model Railroader starter layout 8’ x4’.  Very informative.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Keith Addenbrooke

[F-UnitMad]

53 minutes ago, Boxcab said:

 

How about brining the building forward a couple of inches to make it a low relief and narrow it so that the door is in line with the second track? You could also put a second door in where the Evans 53 ft car is with plastic curtains as suggested by 298.

 

MDF is quite good for buildings especially in O Scale.

 

What is the make of the white COE tractor unit in the left hand corner? Is it 1/43 scale?

Yes as I said the 'shed' blank would need work if I use it there, where it wasn't designed to go

No idea what make or scale the cabover & trailer are, I got them off ebay & suspect they are 1:43 as they're a bit big next to the rolling stock, & 1:48 vehicles are rare things indeed. Maybe for US O, it'd be better to go to 1:50 vehicles.

[F-UnitMad]

33 minutes ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

 

 

It’s really helpful to see the plan drawn out, thankyou to @JAMO.  @Regularity’s description is really helpful - if I look at the plan as I would a contemporary Mindheim-style switching layout, I think it works well for today’s modelling world, even though the basic dimensions of the space (in HO equivalent) might have suggested to me something from a Linn Westcott-era / Model Railroader starter layout 8’ x4’.  Very informative.

I suppose the thing about my trackplan is that it looks too simple & 'boring' on paper, without an insight into the thought process behind it, or the concept of 'car spots' being more important for operating potential than the amount of track.

 

[JAMO]

44 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

I suppose the thing about my trackplan is that it looks too simple & 'boring' on paper, without an insight into the thought process behind it, or the concept of 'car spots' being more important for operating potential than the amount of track.

 

Maybe too simple on the paper but in O scale, we love to look at the locomotive switching its cars slowly. The presence and the illusion of big weight are there. You don't need to have a big layout.

It's different than with HO scale.

Both scales have their advantages of course. I like both  

[Regularity]

If you look at James McNabb’s “Grimes Line”, his interchange/fiddle yard, when brought out into the open, was little more than a loop siding, plus the connection to the branch: just lacking the circular connection on the main.  The Portway Terminal lacks the run-round loop of the industrial track, being somewhat shorter, but still has three spurs. (The Grimes Industrial Track only has 3 active regular customers - denoted in red.)

Edited November 6, 2021 by Regularity

[Regularity]

6 minutes ago, JAMO said:

Maybe too simple on the paper but in O scale, we love to look at the locomotive switching its cars slowly. The presence and the illusion of big weight are there. You don't need to have a big layout.

It's different than with HO scale.

Both scales have their advantages of course.

Split difference: go for Something in-between!

Edited November 6, 2021 by Regularity

[JAMO]

1 hour ago, F-UnitMad said:

Yes as I said the 'shed' blank would need work if I use it there, where it wasn't designed to go

No idea what make or scale the cabover & trailer are, I got them off ebay & suspect they are 1:43 as they're a bit big next to the rolling stock, & 1:48 vehicles are rare things indeed. Maybe for US O, it'd be better to go to 1:50 vehicles.

 

Yes, 1:48 scale vehicles are very difficult to find. And who knows if the scale is exactly respected????? We don't know.

Now we can find some nice models in 1:43 thanks to IXO Models (for Altaya) or else.

 

I was lucky to find this nice truck in my newspapers/tobacco shop:

 

Peterbilt 352

 

Found this one too: a Mack B61T

 

 

and this one: an International

 

 

 

[Donw]

People who do not understand about loading spots think you need more sidings whereas if you plan loading spots it can be interesting switching  a longer single spur. This is true either side of the pond. A coal siding in a UK country station could have two or three  coal merchants each with their own spot.

 

Don  (hoping my terminology passes muster). 

[F-UnitMad]

13 hours ago, Donw said:

People who do not understand about loading spots think you need more sidings whereas if you plan loading spots it can be interesting switching  a longer single spur. This is true either side of the pond. A coal siding in a UK country station could have two or three  coal merchants each with their own spot.

 

Don  (hoping my terminology passes muster). 

Indeed, I'm always disappointed at Shows by the lack of attention paid by the Operators to goods yards on a lot of layouts.

[F-UnitMad]

17 hours ago, Regularity said:

If you look at James McNabb’s “Grimes Line”, his interchange/fiddle yard, when brought out into the open, was little more than a loop siding, plus the connection to the branch: just lacking the circular connection on the main.  The Portway Terminal lacks the run-round loop of the industrial track, being somewhat shorter, but still has three spurs. (The Grimes Industrial Track only has 3 active regular customers - denoted in red.)

Thanks for that Simon, I'd seen youtube clips of that layout, but not the plan. Of interest is the distance between the industries, which obviously adds to the time an operating session takes, and that idea of distance comes through even in the writings of Lance Mindheim discussing "small" layouts; his 'one turnout' layout based on a bakery still had a switching lead long enough to pull all the cars from the spots at once. Having to travel a fair way while switching does make even simple moves time-consuming. It's that sense of space we sometimes struggle with in the UK - because we really don't have the space anyway!!!

[F-UnitMad]

I like to think I know my own layout pretty well. I designed it, re-designed it, re-designed it several more times, worked out how many car spots it would have, and over several years built it & laid all the track - by hand, as you're all aware.

Due to the order I laid the track in, I was able to switch the industrial spurs from quite early on in the process, until a few years ago when Silver Spike day arrived, and all the track was laid and all the operations I envisaged could be carried out to my heart's content. 

 

As I say, I thought I knew my layout. 

 

I was wrong!!!  

 

Imagine my surprise the other day when I discovered I had a car spot I didn't know I'd got....

Next to the siding at the Interchange is a patch of cinders/dirt that probably dates back to the early HO days of the layout when this side was the site for my lad's OO station. It's black sawdust paper that was well-glued down, & has faded over time. How was I to know it'd make another unloading spot for my O Scale??!!

Our photographer was too late arriving to capture the unloading itself, but here's the empty bulkhead flat after it's load of drywall was transhipped by the all-terain fork lift to a truck for delivery to a local building site.   

 

Edited April 13, 2022 by F-UnitMad

[Keith Addenbrooke]

12 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

I like to think I know my own layout pretty well. I designed it, re-designed it, re-designed it several more times, worked out how many car spots it would have, and over several years built it & laid all the track - by hand, as you're all aware.

Due to the order I laid the track in, I was able to switch the industrial spurs from quite early on in the process, until a few years ago when Silver Spike day arrived, and all the track was laid and all the operations I envisaged could be carried out to my heart's content. 

 

As I say, I thought I knew my layout.

 

I was wrong!!! 

 

Imagine my surprise the other day when I discovered I had a car spot I didn't know I'd got....

Next to the siding at the Interchange is a patch of cinders/dirt that probably dates back to the early HO days of the layout when this side was the site for my lad's OO station. It's black sawdust paper that was well-glued down, & has faded over time. How was I to know it'd make another unloading spot for my O Scale??!!

Our photographer was too late arriving to capture the unloading itself, but here's the empty bulkhead flat after it's load of drywall was transhipped by the all-terain fork lift to a truck for delivery to a local building site.    

 

Perfectly placed to mess up complicate operations, too.

[F-UnitMad]

Just a quick update, in case anyone was wondering how the fork lift could unload a flat car from just one side - 

Yes, it can reach across.

 

 

Centerbeam flats can't be dealt with at this new car spot. They have to be loaded & unloaded from both sides, not just because the central beams are in the way of course, but to keep the car balanced.

 

Edited April 13, 2022 by F-UnitMad

[JAMO]

What a nice idea you had!

 

And the "bridge" over the two tracks can be decorated: you have a lot of possibilities.

 

About the flat cars: the company has a special "warning" to follow when she provide a car to this entreprise: "only flat cars, no center beams allowed".

 

Another possibility is to make a new short turnout and a curved spur to welcome the Center beams cars. It's only an idea. It's a lot of work to do.

 

 

[Northroader]

Bit long, innit?

[Keith Addenbrooke]

20 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Just a quick update, in case anyone was wondering how the fork lift could unload a flat car from just one side - 

Yes, it can reach across.

 

Centerbeam flats can't be dealt with at this new car spot. They have to be loaded & unloaded from both sides, not just because the central beams are in the way of course, but to keep the car balanced.

Not being funny, but how do your read the unloading instructions when the car is fully laden?  Genuine prototype question.

Edited November 15, 2021 by Keith Addenbrooke