HCD trackplan - make MR's Red Oak better!

[Erik PRR]

MR's new project layout Red Oak Route got me interested, and several of you seem to have opinions on this too (see https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=34608.0 )

The idea of adding a branchline with staging of it's own, or maybe an interchange, on a HCD certainly adds operational interest. But I think this could be done better than on Red Oak.

What do you suggest? Making the branchline exit in the opposite direction, making it run inside the mainline turnback loop? Something else?

[jwb]

I would have the branch continue in the same direction to cross the "main" on the other side of the layout on a diamond, then push on to some sort of layout extension. If the main line oval can be offset so as not to be basically parallel to the layout sides, this might make getting the branch off the door easier as well. What you sacrifice to do this is the hidden staging. The area formerly used for staging would be changed to a smaller, on-scene town.

[randgust]

If you really want to start chewing on this, start from this observation:  Look at the photo that shows the BACK of the layout in the 'staging' areas.

It looks a lot smaller and shorter in the real world than it does on paper.   It looks to me like the tail track for the 'branch' only clears 4 cars, or a locomotive, caboose and 2 cars.   The length of the 'staging' tracks is similarly short.   Really short.   The turnouts are not maxed out for staging track length at all.

So first priority is to do everything you can humanly do to increase that:
   1)  Move the curved turnouts for the 'main line' staging further up, you may get a couple cars that way.
   2)  Sharper turnout on the staging track to branch may get you a car
   3)  Lengthen the tail track on the branch by elevating the entire branch and branch staging up so that it clears the main below, go over top of the main to at least the table edge on the staging side and possibly beyond it.   That rather defeats the entire HCD concept and puts you back to a cookie-cutter table approach on a grid.

Generally I like the concept a lot, but I'd drop the 'main' staging yard in elevation to the point where I could clear the branch activity over top of it.  All kinds of things could happen if you did that.

[mark.hinds]

<snip>
   3)  Lengthen the tail track on the branch by elevating the entire branch and branch staging up so that it clears the main below, go over top of the main to at least the table edge on the staging side and possibly beyond it.   That rather defeats the entire HCD concept and puts you back to a cookie-cutter table approach on a grid.

Generally I like the concept a lot, but I'd drop the 'main' staging yard in elevation to the point where I could clear the branch activity over top of it.  All kinds of things could happen if you did that.

Not sure this would work.  It takes 100 inches of 2% grade to obtain the minimum 2" rail-to-rail clearance this would require.  Even if you split the grade between the mainline and branchline, even 1% is quite noticeable.  Is such a grade prototypical for the Red Oak area?

MH

(EDITED:  From the plan, it looks like the off-scene branch line could handle a 50-foot locomotive, 4 40-foot cars, and a caboose (about 21 inches).  That might be good enough for a small local.)
(EDITED:  The main thing I'd do is improve the backdrop.  It needs to be a darker blue at the top (maybe a few clouds as well), and it needs better transitions between the solid blue sky and the 3D foreground.  You don't want to see that blue going down to ground level, as it does in several places.  Since the viewing angle is above track level, you would at least be able to see the treeline beyond the next field, and such things could be depicted on the backdrop to better hide the transition.)

[wcfn100]

Is such a grade prototypical for the Red Oak area?

MH

Maybe.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Red+Oak,+IA+51566/@41.0010876,-95.2404499,579m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x8794a551a515c649:0x4a9d84880743e185

Iowa is actually very hilly.  You learn this very quickly pulling a 27' travel trailer up I-35. 

Jason

[ArtinCA]

Looking at Google Maps one could make an interesting shortline with where the line ran to, between Atlantic and down to the MO/IA border, either modern or 1950's.

Might have to go out there this spring and shoot some photos.

[kalbert]

Honestly there is only so much you can do on a door. A loop with a couple sidings and a spur on the front side and a couple sidings and a spur on the back (or a viewblock and staging on the back). I don't mean this to be condescending or disrespectful to the door people, I'm a door person and am more than pleased with with what I have. What I mean is, the track plan isn't generally the interesting part of a door size layout. It's what you do around the track plan that makes it a good layout. Setting the time and place with the scenery, structures, and rolling stock is the key to a good layout, and those things also influence the operating scheme.

I do think the branch line staging is an odd choice, but you have to give them credit for doing something different and not going for the obvious reverse loop or worse. I could see them revisiting this again someday and implementing some off layout staging or another scene altogether on a shelf that ties into the branch and crosses the main behind the viewblock. I'm looking forward to seeing the last installment where they usually discuss operation and see how it comes together. Is there power assigned to the branch, or does part of the mainline job power break off and make the run up the branch, or something else?

[randgust]

The more I study the photos vs. the plan, they are off a bit.   The plan isn't really drawn to scale, not exactly.   If you look at that photo of the backdrop, there are clearly only four 50' or so cars on the end of the interchange track between the points and end of track.  Look at the length of the F-powered freight on main staging as well, it looks adequate on the plan but the photo, wow.   Something almost seems amiss.

Also because of the lack of a scale, it's a bit more difficult to determine just how many inches of running track are where.   When I'm doing a 'tight' design I'll go for 1 3/4 clearance above top-of-rail unless I'm running doublestacks; that's still 23'.  You squeeze that by using styrene under the track on the top level instead of conventional roadbed and dropping out roadbed on the bottom, every little bit helps, would gain probably another 1/4".    If you consider the high point of the main line must be the interchange switch, and start to drop off a consistent moderate grade to both sides, and also raise the branch as well, I'm pretty sure you'd make clearance OK without severe grades, should be about 2.5%.   But designing in that kind of feature is a lot more complex for a beginners layout, which this is intended to be.       

One of the real PITA's on my own first door layout was designing in the grades on a second 'cookie cutter' layer of thin plywood above the door level.  That was OK until I had to run wires from that level to the underneath and have to go through the hollow space between the two, threading wire through two sets of holes for everything.  Never again.   Went  to a cookie-cutter on grid system and have never gone back.  When I tried to relocate the layout, putting it on edge to transport it loosened the two levels and virtually destroyed it as the top layer was glued and lightly nailed on the bottom, that structurally failed.   You learn from mistakes!

I can't criticize their finishing, it looks pretty good, some backdrop material on the sky panel would help and not cost much. 

On that same layout I had a staging yard across one entire side of the 6' door on the first level.   On the longest track, I could get 2 units and 18 cars, completely hidden, and had three other staging tracks as well.  It can be done, but everything has to be optimized.  I also used curved switches, at the time, from Trix.   This was the layout that was shown in RMC in the 70's, between 1972 and 1983.

[Erik PRR]

Honestly there is only so much you can do on a door. A loop with a couple sidings and a spur on the front side and a couple sidings and a spur on the back (or a viewblock and staging on the back). .... What I mean is, the track plan isn't generally the interesting part of a door size layout.

... but you have to give them credit for doing something different and not going for the obvious reverse loop or worse.  I'm looking forward to seeing the last installment where they usually discuss operation and see how it comes together. Is there power assigned to the branch, or does part of the mainline job power break off and make the run up the branch, or something else?

This is exactly what I'm after too. It'd be great to see this idea with a branch really work out. That would certainly add a lot to the operation and long-term fun of such a layout, but maybe that's too much to ask for from a door!

The two things that bother me are:
1. The length of the tail track for the branch line staging. Could it be made curved  so that it ends on the other side of the backdrop, under the road by the overpass?
2. If a train arriving from the mainline bound for the branch line would do some switching in Red Oak, it'd have to be left on or back out on the mainline before entering the branch (unless it's a very short train). Is that a secure procedure?

[tom mann]

I think that is a "flaw" of drawing the track with a single line:  it makes for an illusion that the sidings are much longer than what they actually are. 

[Chris333]

I keep thinking those curved turnouts could be pushed further apart, like throw bars right at the backdrop hole, to make the staging tracks longer.

[sirenwerks]

I'd run the branch along the backside of the backdrop, across the mainline on the left, and then off the layout to a separate staging extension or a cartridge load-out.  And use the saved space on the backside of the layout for more mainline storage tracks.

One flaw I see of trying to portray the Q on such a small layout is its mainline trains were much more significant, for the most part, than what is allowed.  Two HCDs end-to-end would resolve this, of course, and give more running room and storage on the backside.

[tom mann]

Can anyone explain why one would need that much staging for such a small layout?  Each of the industry sidings can handle 2-3 cars...

[Denver Road Doug]

EDITED:  From the plan, it looks like the off-scene branch line could handle a 50-foot locomotive, 4 40-foot cars, and a caboose (about 21 inches).  That might be good enough for a small local.

+1

I know everyone wants to get caught up in modeling huge industries and super long trains, but the reality is that that isn't ALWAYS the case. (and, for a model railroad, we have to selectively compress reality)

So, I don't think it necessary to beat up MR too much.   A lot of this might be "proof of concept".   I've studied the track and plan and while I questioned the staging for the branch early on, it DOES actually have merit.   If afforded a *little* more space it really would be an interesting concept.  As it is, only a short train can make it work but honestly I think that still gives the impression of what they're trying to represent...a branchline local that probably serves a handful of small industries along a few towns spread out over a hundred miles.   (similar sized trains operated on the Wichita Valley branch off the FW&D into the 80's...wasn't terribly unusual to have a train that would fit the Red Oak staging especially near the end.)

I'm not saying there's not value in improving the track plan.   I think it's a great exercise.   But I just hope we don't "bury the lead" here.....we got an N-scale project layout!  Yay!   :

[Erik PRR]

Can anyone explain why one would need that much staging for such a small layout?  Each of the industry sidings can handle 2-3 cars...

Two track for freights (one for each direction) and one for the Zephyr. And the branch line staging for a local and maybe some extra cars. That's how I'd do it.