12-20-2009, 02:49 AM
Btw - a friend in a different forum asked me if I had reconsidered my operating plan since I had decided to move my yard from the aisle of the top part of the layout to the rear at the lower left corner/lower wall and dropped my hidden staging, where transfer runs from other railroads could have hidden.
He also asked me what industry I was going to have at the aisle side along the top of the layout, and why I wanted to to have the bridge across the door opening tying together the layout along the right wall and along the lower wall, despite those two areas supposedly being far apart.
I had to think a bit about that. After thinking about it for a bit, this is what I came up with:
My very first staging idea was to just use a plain cassette there to bring short trains (an engine and five cars) in and out of the layout. Like this:
![[Image: DSCN4390.JPG]](http://home.online.no/%7Esteinjr/trains/modelling/forum/warehouse/DSCN4390.JPG)
Dropping that cassette in favor of a bridge gets me nothing operationally, and the bridge is not a core scenic element for me.
Actually, as my friend point out, scenically it is a distraction rather than an enhancement. The scene on the right of the door (milling district) is supposed to be on the same side of the river (and quite a bit upstream) from the scene on the left of the door (barge terminal).
OTOH, having a cassette there gives me far more operational flexibility. It gives me a place to have trains (and cars) enter and exit the layout.
I have room just outside that door for quite a few shelves of staging space, if I transfer cars (and short trains) from staging to layout using that cassette (or several cassettes like it).
I'll replace that bridge scene with a staging cassette again. It kills several birds with one stone - it allows me to get trains from other companies in and out, and it allows me to replace cars with a minimum of handling when getting ready for an operating session.
By not being scenicked (sp?), it also encourages me to not leave the cassette in, except when I need to get cars on or off the layout, or if I am just running trains round and round in loops (which is what my youngest kid likes to do).
The main reason why I wanted to drop the yard at C-D was that it feels like it is way too small to have cuts of cars being dropped off or picked up there by a second train - the place can barely fit 10 cars on the two yard tracks (if I cram them), without filling up the double ended siding as well.
If I use the three tracks in the bottom left hand corner as a yard, max capacity for the yard is on the order of 20 to 30 cars (depending on whether I consider the main to be a yard track sometimes, when I am running the layout in point to point mode - cassette not used - instead of continuous run mode - cassette used).
I could feed in trains on the cassette heading counterclockwise around the layout, possibly dropping off inbound cars at the double ended siding along the aisle in the top part of the layout, then continue counterclockwise to go get outbound cars from the yard at the lower left hand corner before heading back clockwise to the staging cassette (and then off layout).
As for the industry along the aisle side along the top, I was thinking more something along the lines of a team track, with various types of unloading equipment, like some of those old portable conveyor belt thingies, maybe an end ramp and such things.
My friend also suggested that I needed some way to get trucks into the barge terminal area, so I am thinking tracks embedded in concrete, and maybe an access road for trucks and cars under the yard tracks along the bottom wall.
That leaves me with a track plan that looks like this:
![[Image: warehouse63.jpg]](http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/pp124/steinjr_1965/warehouse/warehouse63.jpg)
Smile,
Stein
He also asked me what industry I was going to have at the aisle side along the top of the layout, and why I wanted to to have the bridge across the door opening tying together the layout along the right wall and along the lower wall, despite those two areas supposedly being far apart.
I had to think a bit about that. After thinking about it for a bit, this is what I came up with:
My very first staging idea was to just use a plain cassette there to bring short trains (an engine and five cars) in and out of the layout. Like this:
Dropping that cassette in favor of a bridge gets me nothing operationally, and the bridge is not a core scenic element for me.
Actually, as my friend point out, scenically it is a distraction rather than an enhancement. The scene on the right of the door (milling district) is supposed to be on the same side of the river (and quite a bit upstream) from the scene on the left of the door (barge terminal).
OTOH, having a cassette there gives me far more operational flexibility. It gives me a place to have trains (and cars) enter and exit the layout.
I have room just outside that door for quite a few shelves of staging space, if I transfer cars (and short trains) from staging to layout using that cassette (or several cassettes like it).
I'll replace that bridge scene with a staging cassette again. It kills several birds with one stone - it allows me to get trains from other companies in and out, and it allows me to replace cars with a minimum of handling when getting ready for an operating session.
By not being scenicked (sp?), it also encourages me to not leave the cassette in, except when I need to get cars on or off the layout, or if I am just running trains round and round in loops (which is what my youngest kid likes to do).
The main reason why I wanted to drop the yard at C-D was that it feels like it is way too small to have cuts of cars being dropped off or picked up there by a second train - the place can barely fit 10 cars on the two yard tracks (if I cram them), without filling up the double ended siding as well.
If I use the three tracks in the bottom left hand corner as a yard, max capacity for the yard is on the order of 20 to 30 cars (depending on whether I consider the main to be a yard track sometimes, when I am running the layout in point to point mode - cassette not used - instead of continuous run mode - cassette used).
I could feed in trains on the cassette heading counterclockwise around the layout, possibly dropping off inbound cars at the double ended siding along the aisle in the top part of the layout, then continue counterclockwise to go get outbound cars from the yard at the lower left hand corner before heading back clockwise to the staging cassette (and then off layout).
As for the industry along the aisle side along the top, I was thinking more something along the lines of a team track, with various types of unloading equipment, like some of those old portable conveyor belt thingies, maybe an end ramp and such things.
My friend also suggested that I needed some way to get trucks into the barge terminal area, so I am thinking tracks embedded in concrete, and maybe an access road for trucks and cars under the yard tracks along the bottom wall.
That leaves me with a track plan that looks like this:
Smile,
Stein