RobinofLoxley

But that Moor St, it looks a pretty good layout. You have even liked it! I dont know if its possible, but the objection to the return loop might be overcome if the circular running lines were inside the fiddle yard/return loop, so that the return loop itself could be 'hidden' in one corner, possibly with a removable scenery element on top of it. I haven't checked at all to see if its feasible.

Be careful @riddler as hasty mods can introduce issues that werent present in earlier versions. I hope you have saved the earlier ones! What you have now is that arriving trains cant access the lower platform and parcels except by going down the departures line. Go back to the very first plan you posted, and position the turntable on that one without adjusting any other feature. As far as understanding railway operations goes, prototypical working existed because it was economical in terms of vehicle movements (and surrounding infrastructure such as signalling) and safe. So when you are close to prototypical you will also have a good working model. I have made a small example. The top drawing is your starting point. Your issue is turntable location, but you know its going to be reached via point B, one way or another, and in the top diagram, a loco released from any line has to make its way to point A in order to drive up to the turntable access, but for the top three of those lines, this involves driving (reversing as its steam locos and they are going to be turned) towards the acess slip down the arrivals line. Now its a movement within the station and you can accept the hindrance, but it does force arriving traffic to stop before the slip, and really it would be stopped earlier, before the first turnout. If you compare it with the slight alteration below it, with an extra slip, locos still move through a slip to get to A, but this movement can now take place without stopping any traffic going up to B, because its parallel movement. I advised this change indirectly a it earlier but the resulting plan had other changes, and my view is the original should be your starting point. I'm no expert btw, I have learnt from this forum, as well as building a large layout, which has one or two complete howlers on it! (There is a slight defect in the lower drawing even so).

Its very well thought out. There's always a however, in this case it relates to the amount of separation needed between the two levels. Although you only need 5cm for a bridge for example, when you have a fiddle yard with a running line right at the back, you need to be able to get your hand in and be able to manoevre properly for example to place and remove stock. I dont think there's a hard and fast rule but I estimate 15cm of clearance would be sensible. Probably someone operating a layout in N like this will give feedback. What such a clearance will do is make things a bit odd looking I think, hopefully there's a way round it. Someone will mention a helix.... Its then about gradients, at 2% you need 7.5M of track to get 15cm. I think a small tweak would be needed in the fiddle yard but I wouldnt mention it pending resolution of the 'gap' issue. A very good thing the whole plan was exposed, though.

Visit the webpages of Brian Lambert, very well known on here, and read the DCC sections.

While you are thinking, see below a template for the layout size, firstly reduced from your gross measurements to allow for insulation, and secondly showing boards of 80cm depth all round the perimeter as you have indicated. I use 80cm becaue the reach into the corners is much more than that, and standing in the corner stretching at an angle isnt as easy as facing front on. Remember you are going to be building stuff at that dstance not just leaning over to rerail something. Included in the drawing is an allowance for a door, and then showing where bridging sections as mentioned might be placed. The bridge over the doorway depends on whether the door opens in or out, a typical subject that comes up for closed room layouts. The yellow bridge can be in various places, it can cross at an angle too. The lift out part doesnt have to be full length, but the fixed part will be in the way at times, although it opens up a lot of possibilities. Last is the section of third radius code 80 setrack which shows at 80cm boards that theres room to turn but not much else, in the corners. Again , as has been said elsewhere, would be looking to create changes of level on this plan, no question.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why you are so preoccupied with the goods shed shunting. As you originally drafted the plan, there was a runaround loop with the shed in the centre, with enough space at the head for several wagons at a time. The presence of the runaround to me suggests that wagons were processed through the shed from left to right and then picked up in batches by the yard pilot from the shunt at the end. You could just pull the wagons through using a pole with a hook, not so bad. I think it's a great plan.... kiss of xx In the latest plan there are 2 turnouts back to back that surely would be a slip?

That is the problem with advising people to look on the net for track plans! U-shape sounds good and very practical. My loft layout is like that, and I offset the long curved sections at the ends in order to accommodate larger radius curves. After all I only needed a gap of 30cm or so to squeeze through. I also recommend, assuming a station will be included, that you find a prototype and use it to steer your design, otherwise you will find 20' length in N overwhelming.

I can see why, going back to the first posted plan, why relocating the turntable would be a good idea; it gets the plan inside a reasonable rectangle. I did criticise the location because of the labyrinthine moves, including wrong line running, required to get a freed loco turned. However, with a bit of surgery to the station approach, I feel sure that problem could be sorted out. Actually I take it all back. I was looking at the layout on my phone, and whatever i thought that I saw/didnt, isnt a problem on the actual plan. As you were!

Ok! While that is a funny location for a turntable the moves required to reach it are simpler because there is in effect a dedicated track from the double slip, for locos to use after being released by a departing train.

Ask a mod. @AY Mod can you move this thread please?

However:- The position of the turntable leaves something to be desired. Sometimes it can be fun to increase the number of moves required but that is going a bit too far.

This topic should be in layout and track design section.

Have you got a link for that? I cant find it on a Search. Johnson's ?

Again Dan, how trains change tracks has evolved over time. You would sort of expect that a train would drive forwards to do it but that entails driving across a facing turnout - meaning that the turnout can face 2 ways and to generate the deflection to the other line the point blades must be 100% correctly positioned. So what is more common is that a train runs past the turnout which is facing the opposite way (designated trailing) and reverses back in order to use the crossing. There are places where crossing moving forwards is necessary though.

Can't agree more. On my old DC layout block power feeds all required individual switches. Power to point motors (SEEPS or Hornby surface mount) was routed through a single CDU with two long power wires and possibly a shorter common return wire. Even if i used multiple CDU's I would still have to run the power from the auxiliary output of the DC controller, or do something equivalent. Now i have accessory decoders for different clusters of point motors with a maximum run of 2M and many less than 1M. All layout power is via a single bus, so the accessory decoders have a pair of wires about 30cm long, to power them. What I did improve was reliability by use of more droppers to individual track elements where previously I had relied more on fishplates to carry power. So more wires but short ones from track to bus, typically no more than 0.5M. Layout is folded but 22M long. Still to come is detection, again with short cables to a detection module on one side of the bus only. Short cables connect the module to the power bus, 30cm or so. Summary - DCC, shorter cables distributed around the layout; DC, very long cables to whereveer the controller was. I would never go near DC again.

If the siding is a dead end then a pulling loco is trapped at the head. Just as an example if you look at my drawing there is a headshunt - the loco draws into it then shunts the wagons back into the sidings. The usual method of entry into sidings evolved somewhat over time. But in relation to my drawing, a train would drive directly in from the inner loop which would normally be running anticlockwise but be shunted (reversed) in from the clockwise outer line, so it could use the sidings on the right. Trace the movement. To remove stock from the sidings, for example a light engine travelling clockwise on the outer, would reverse up the headshunt then move into the sidings on the left, pick up stock, pull it back into the headshunt then use either exit. For this kind of system the headshunt should be at least as long as the longest siding.

Conceptually this is much better, compared to where you started, but still has problems, mostly derived from the track plan, although to be fair the plan is a bit of fun, per the nuclear waste sidings. The trouble is with Setrack, it is designed as @dungrange says for a constant gauge, but as soon as any tiny bit of non-linear is introduced it all falls down, into a heap, rapidly. But that doesnt mean you cant do it, its not one of the ten commandments. What is important is that reasonable railway operations can take place otherwise whats the point? Otherwise, this is just two concentric loops with sidings off each. I think the station/goods shed/lumber yard area needs work, as does the Diesel TMD area. But does it meet your original criteria Dan? And @MichaelE, I'm sure you are right about wiring for Cab Control (I have no experience), or powered turnouts, but the OP didnt say he wanted to, it was another poster. The proposal can run with two power feeds, one per loop, with some sections having isolation switches, and interior sidings such as the loading area requiring an auxiliary power feed from either loop or a third DC controller.

Ive done a doodle - I see these things as being like puzzles, how to get the right bits in the right places. You need a station to provide a focus, its asking a lot in the plan size to have a fiddle yard as well. (May as well confess i'm not a fan, I like to have stock on the layout). There are two ways to go here, either just suggest alterations to the originalplan, or table a different alternative in order to produce new ideas. The odd shaping bottom right is to try and take the form of the layout away from having four right angled corners. With Setrack this tends to introduce issues of alignment, which you can see on the plan. Its designed to run two trains with the possibility to operate the storage yards independently. I couldnt verify the size of the operating well, that may mean tweaks are needed.

Crossed my mind as well.

Just one thing then, presumably you are ging to operate the points manually, just pushing the tie bars across by hand? If they would be motor operated then a plan of the position of the cross bracing etc is needed so that it can be avoided on the track plan. They can be motor operated on the board as well of course.

Dan, what kind of access will you have to the right hand side of the baseboard? As drawn its pushing 4' and you wont be able to reach anywhere near the corners from the well. The practical limit is 75-80cm.

We advised another poster recently with an overcomplex layout - it happens with Anyrail or other drawing packages, and cutting back to an efficient plan is usually quite straightforward.

You can also see that a vast proportion of the beach visitors haven't moved very far at all from the station exit. And its said that aversion to walking further than you can throw a lump of coal is a modern phenomenon.

Subject to checking, as i have only just done it, but basically I interchanged the position of two turnouts on the long sequence, but based on my copy of that sequence, into Anyrail. Now I edited the original without saving a copy as in my opinion the edit was superior on the criteria I gave. (Never thinking someone might ask for the 2 versions, lol). The interchange actually shortened the number of turnouts on the long sequence by one. I also looked at the distance on the original plan drawing from the first turnout (The Minories 'Eye' end) and the last which is the headshunt turnout, compared to the platform track lengths. Even comparing the distance from the eye to the last platform turnout the length seemed too great in proportion, to me at least, but better after my changes. That was without changing the turnouts from long to medium, where that was an option, which would have got about 15cm more off the length. @simon bAdded the plan this morning. The difference is that the turnout for P1/P2 is off the main sequence; the track length to P2/P3 is shortened as a result. I used long turnouts, because when curved turnouts are used as they are to 'turn' the plan, they need the long ones to complement them. To be honest I think that @Chimer of this parish drafted something like this about 50 pages of thread previously......

The funny thing is that having mocked it up in Anyrail, as i tend to do to give myself a ready made library of classic layouts, I found that the throat section was over long and the platform roads laid out so that there would be some gaps between the likely end of a platform and the first turnout, that didnt sit so well with the idea of a compact layout. It's possible to compress things substantilally without losing anything of the flow, while still using longer spec turnouts on the main lines. This could be important if space is at a premium, as it usually is.