11-28-2011, 12:26 AM
Howdy! And welcome to the best model railroad forum on the Internet!
Here's a plan I threw together in HO scale, based on your drawing. The plan is 11 feet wide, but I had to guess at the width at the right side. I must be fairly close figuring it at 36in wide with a removable staging track that I have running out to a length of 4 feet.
Plan is using a 15 inch radius curve, but that tight radius will of course limit you pretty much to 40ft length cars and short locomotives on the order of EMD NW, SW or ALCo S series switchers, assuming you're going to use diesel power. Since the tight curve will be pretty much hidden and operating at scale speeds of 10mph or less, you could probably get away with using 50ft cars though. The spur going to the oil dealer is 22 inch radius, but you might go down to 18 inch for that one.
That is certainly an interesting industrial spur and I love the way the track goes between those structures, with very little clearance. Wish there was room to model that, but of course we all have to make concessions. The plan is using two (2) Peco Medium Radius right hand and one (1) left hand and 50ft cars look and operate just fine with those. The Peco turnouts are very reliable and do not require the use of ground throws or other methods to throw them. As you can see, the plan will work in HO scale in the space you have and captures the look of the prototype fairly well.
I'm assuming that a typical train would consist of at most 4 cars and there is ample room on the plan to work the industries. Maybe two gons in and out of the scrap dealer and a car or two for the other two industries. You could either have one crew work the spur, pushing and pulling cars as necessary or have two crews work the spur, with one working the trailing point industries and the other working just the scrap yard. Lot's of prototypical possibilities here.
Doing the plan in N scale would of course give you a lot more space to work with and even allow you to duplicate the track running between the structures; but I understand you wanting to go with DCC and SOUND equipped HO locomotives! I've never heard an N scale sound equipped model, but I'm sure it doesn't compare to the same model in HO scale. I've actually had to reduce the sound output on a couple of my HO locomotives so I wouldn't have to wear ear plugs like on the prototype!
Incidentally, I drew this plan using the trial version of AnyRail http://www.anyrail.com/. It's a very easy to use program with many features, including accurate templates for most of the better track available. The trail version does limit you to 50 items on a plan, but I've rarely hit that limit designing track plans to fit a length of 18in X 20-26 feet. Give it a try.
Oh yes, if you get the AnyRail program - contact me via private message and I'll send you the AnyRail track plan file for you to work with. It will show you the track lengths, etc., if you go with the plan.
Here's a plan I threw together in HO scale, based on your drawing. The plan is 11 feet wide, but I had to guess at the width at the right side. I must be fairly close figuring it at 36in wide with a removable staging track that I have running out to a length of 4 feet.
That is certainly an interesting industrial spur and I love the way the track goes between those structures, with very little clearance. Wish there was room to model that, but of course we all have to make concessions. The plan is using two (2) Peco Medium Radius right hand and one (1) left hand and 50ft cars look and operate just fine with those. The Peco turnouts are very reliable and do not require the use of ground throws or other methods to throw them. As you can see, the plan will work in HO scale in the space you have and captures the look of the prototype fairly well.
I'm assuming that a typical train would consist of at most 4 cars and there is ample room on the plan to work the industries. Maybe two gons in and out of the scrap dealer and a car or two for the other two industries. You could either have one crew work the spur, pushing and pulling cars as necessary or have two crews work the spur, with one working the trailing point industries and the other working just the scrap yard. Lot's of prototypical possibilities here.
Doing the plan in N scale would of course give you a lot more space to work with and even allow you to duplicate the track running between the structures; but I understand you wanting to go with DCC and SOUND equipped HO locomotives! I've never heard an N scale sound equipped model, but I'm sure it doesn't compare to the same model in HO scale. I've actually had to reduce the sound output on a couple of my HO locomotives so I wouldn't have to wear ear plugs like on the prototype!
Incidentally, I drew this plan using the trial version of AnyRail http://www.anyrail.com/. It's a very easy to use program with many features, including accurate templates for most of the better track available. The trail version does limit you to 50 items on a plan, but I've rarely hit that limit designing track plans to fit a length of 18in X 20-26 feet. Give it a try.
Oh yes, if you get the AnyRail program - contact me via private message and I'll send you the AnyRail track plan file for you to work with. It will show you the track lengths, etc., if you go with the plan.
Ed
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"
"Friends don't let friends build Timesavers"