ALLAPATTAH DISTRICT SPUR. MIAMI. FLORIDA

[CYANAMID]

You all must me saying not another miami based layout....but looking through all the options for a new layout I have to admit

that this region does have a lot of potential for a great layout...with a approx room size of 8.6 x11.0 feet I desided to build a

shelf type layout so I could still use my room for other things.

The layout width is 15 inches...

Also tried to incorporate some of the lineside industries in that district...

I would welcome any comments on the layout design. see attached file.....

Edited August 8, 2015 by CYANAMID

[skipepsi]

Looks good to me well thought out and ready to go.

[shortliner]

Must admit that my initial reactions were "Woweee, that'll be a little piggy to switch!" and "Jeezus - there are a lot of switches and it looks awfully crowded!" - However for a switching district in an inner city area, a bit more thought and following the trackplan around, says that it is going to provide a lot of fun building and operating it. Are you intending to scratch the buildings - it's going to be an expensive kit-build job?

[DavidB-AU]

A lot of great operating potential there! My only concern would be difficulty in switching Worldwide Produce when the spot right at the end is occupied. A possible fix:

 

 

That track would also give you 2 more spots to store cars while switching where the yellow one is at the lower left.

 

Cheers

David

[CYANAMID]

HI shortliner /

                      After going online and following google street scenes for this area and down loading practically every building screenshots for the area there are some pretty nice

buildings and architecture in that area. nice design and pastel colors a great combination.

I will be building the buildings from scratch and will post on just how I went about this...mainly using plasticard and brass...also how to scale buildings from google to get a

good finish product that will fit. thank you for your reply...at first I thought it was a little crowded but driving this route the area is full of track and produce buildings. the whole intention

was to design a layout for 2 people to operate the produce industries in that area...thank you... Cyanamid

[Chris Gilbert]

Hi Cyanamid

Looks interesting

I've been in Orlando Florida for the last three weeks and sent sometimes looking round the rail served industrial parks and one thing that struck me was the vast space between everything

Something that Google Streeview doesn't portray very well

Have a look at these two YouTube clips I've uploaded of Bartow Industrial Park and you'll see what I mean

Even the small sidings at the far end where the white tank cars are requires 5 feet in length to model

 

This one was filmed on Thursday

http://youtu.be/FZkv1JN2oYw

 

And this one was 2 weeks earlier

[CYANAMID]

Hi Chris /

              I would love to have the space to model these areas correctly...the references that I am using are...

lance Mindheim books..

1. stucco and pastels

2. how to design a small switching layout

3. how to build a switching layout

4. how to operate a modern era switching layout

plus numerous reference maps of the Hialeah. Palmetto. and Allapattah area maps and references like....

the attached files which show lots of track work and numerous industry spurs along the line...Cyanamid

[CYANAMID]

ALL /

        Redone map with the comments that Davidb-AU kindly pointed out to me...with his amendment... hope you like it Cyanamid

[GP9u]

I think this design has great potential. It might be a bit tight for switching, depending on the operating scheme and how you represent the connection(s) to the "rest of the world".

 

It looks like the Worldwide (left) end of the layout is the end of track. So maybe cars arrive on the layout via the interchange track from the north, and from the lower right where the "main" line seems to head off the layout. It looks like you have about 24 spots on the layout. For realism, I suppose it's highly unlikely that all spots are full all the time, or that all would need to be switched out in a session.

 

So let's say maybe there are 10-12 spots to be switched in a session. You have room for about 5-6 cars in the curved interchange track top left that were set out overnight by the interchanging railroad. Plus a local train of 6-7 cars can easily arrive from the bottom left on the "main".  If there's no room for a staging cassette or extension to the south of that, then the session could start with the local tied up on the outer curved track top right. Maybe the crew outlawed, or they're in the café you'll model trackside. 

 

The session would consist of switching out cars for on-layout spots, swapping cars at the interchange track, and making up a departing train to leave bottom right. Some cars might need to be pulled and re-spotted also. I bet there's at least as couple of real hour's work here which is excellent considering the small layout footprint.

 

However (you knew that was coming, right?!) I would highly recommend running some ops sessions in your head or on paper to make sure it's possible to make all the moves required. I suspect you might need to cut down a little on the number of spots, and give yourself a little more headroom to pull and spot cars at some of the industries. There's a recent thread on MRH that worked through a simialr process on a smaller shelf layout that might be helpful:

 

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/23125   

 

I am keen to see how this evolves as I am a big fan of narrow-footprint, sectional, modern era shelf layouts. That's because I'm trying to do something similar in O scale and I seem to move house every 4-years...  

 

Pete             

Edited August 8, 2015 by GP9u

[CYANAMID]

Hi GP9u

Thank you for your great comments and I will run the OP's switching sequences through a few times and consequence model the results.

and yes after reading some other posts about switching I was aiming for around 10 switches per session. for the moment I was just going

to have the World connected by the interchange track...may re-think that after your comments. I was going to build this as phase 1 with an

additional 15.inch x 8.00 foot wide section to be added at a later date and this would be were the world would link to the layout also it would

have some sort of yard were I would be able to hold ready made consists ready for switching. I have attached a copy of a previous design I

did to show you the idea that I had also some 3D renderings that I had used to get a feel for how it will look.....

Thank you for your kind comments and ideas...this is the time to iron out the possible problems and incorporate those ideas that maybe I had

missed...thanks again...Cyanamid

Edited August 9, 2015 by CYANAMID

[CYANAMID]

HI / just a quick update.

spent this weekend building the first section of my new layout..1/3 of the layout baseboard built...used 100 mm X 15 mm PAR TIMBER support and a 3/8

plywood top.

all the corners are strengthened with 50 mm x 50 mm to provide rigidity and strength. the whole section approx 2500 mm long is supported on the wall

using a well known heavy weight shelving system. the whole thing is strong and robust.  just got to add the back scene wood and we are ready to go...

tried a few items on the surface to gauge how it would look....

also added a few more 3D renders to getter a better feel for what I am trying to do...Cyanamid

Edited August 9, 2015 by CYANAMID

[CYANAMID]

HI FORUM /

                 Update 2.   moving along with the base boards and reviewing every ones comments ...decided today to rename my rail road has at a later date I will wish to run

my own livered locomotive on the line. The name I have chosen is the palmetto short line has it rolls of the tongue quite nicely. also created a couple of logos that reflect the

area ...I hope. also started on my switch list and have incorporated a logo on that to see how it looks..took inspiration again from the much read Lance Mindheim book...

How to Operate a Switching Layout...which has provided me the inspiration to build this layout...please feel free to comment on the logos and switching list...CYANAMID.

Edited August 16, 2015 by CYANAMID

[CYANAMID]

HI FORUM / Update 3

                    I have been working on the presentation for how I am going to build the buildings for my rail road...I have produced a few sample reference sheets to show you some colour schemes

that I have one in preparation for the up and coming builds. as an artist sometimes I have to use a bit of artistic licence to get what I want out of a picture...applying this type of theory to rail roads

and model railroading is what we have to do to make a building fit....So we have to make a few assumptions...

these being...

1.    having surveyed at least 50 buildings in the ALLAPATTAH, PALMETTO and HIALEAH area..here is what I have found...

2.    most warehouse are single story with a varying height from 18 foot to 26 foot.

3.    Colour schemes for the buildings are for the most part white / cream colours.

4.    there are also many that are coloured in for an Englishman quite startling Pastel colours...and it is these that are the most interesting and would make the best models...? 

5.    Freight doors only vary slightly and I am preparing a reference sheet for those.

6.    On the reference sheets I have drawn them to scale and provided a scale rule on the drawing and the basic Dimensions in HO SCALE in the bottom right of the reference sheet.

7.    the DRAWING IS NOT DRAWN TO HO SCALE as in the past I have tried this and given the many permutations of persons computers and printers I cannot guarantee the finish print will be HO scale

8.    the first reference sheet is for a generic warehouse and as you will see I have used a scale boxcar to achieve the Dimensions for the actual building I am going to show you how to build with styrene

9.    given the amount of variances in the warehouses in these areas it should be quite easy to design and build a credible IMAGINED build to fit the space as required and give a flavour of the area

10.  I will deal with how to build a building exactly the dimensions and size using Google earth and street scene at a later date

Next to follow is how to build this building in styrene and brass to fit your space. I will also upload reference photos of like buildings so I can show you how to IMAGINEER a building for your layout and fit

the space that you have.

please feel free to comment on the reference sheet idea.

PS. click on each reference sheet to get a larger version...CYANAMID

Edited August 19, 2015 by CYANAMID

[shortliner]

Looking forward to this - these will be very useful. I'm sure many modellers will be grateful if you put the reference sheets on here to be printed out - I certainly will.

[Prof Klyzlr]

Dear Cyan,

 

As with the paper models from ScaleScenes and the trackwork templates from Fast-tracks,
it's actually quite easy to circumvent the vagaries of machine/printer/file formats to ensure "we all get the same sized thing".

 

Procedure:

- prep your artwork

- save it as an Adobe PDF file

- enforce the instruction 
"make sure printer settings are set for 'NO SCALING' or "Print at 100%'"

 

As long as you keep your PDFs in the A4/foolscap size range, this should allow both metric and imperial countries to print your PDF output files,
and get a consistent-sized result.

 

http://www.scalescenes.com/printing-tips-page

 

http://www.handlaidtrack.com/kb_results.asp?ID=129

 

 

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

[CSX2004]

Looking good!. Any update on the layout?

[brickbuilder711]

OK I'm bringing back a five year old thread, but I really like the renderings! It's crowded, yes, but that's how things were back in the day. Imagine CSX selling out in the 1980s as they originally wanted to... Maybe something like this would have been a reality! Curious to see as well if this made any progress.