Weekend Update 1/6/19

[nkalanaga]

Many Midwest and Western towns were originally laid out by the railroad, often on railroad-owned land, so naturally the streets there align with the tracks.

In other cases, both the railroad and the streets follow nature, such as a river, or the bottom of a valley, so they are parallel, but not actually following each other.

And, yes, if the town is a railroad junction, with tracks going in multiple directions, it's hard for the streets to follow the tracks.

[chuck geiger]

http://www.rxrsignals.com/Signs/Railroad/Other/

This is cool...Don't know if this has been posted.

[Wardie]

Mark,

Nice job cranking out more 3D printed items.  Just curious - what are the dimensions on the IBC's?  The ones in the photo appear to be rectangular.  The ones I'm used to seeing are appear to be square to my eye.  We have these type of IBC's where I work, so I should be able to get dimensions pretty easily.  I've seen different styles of these type of IBC's with the plastic bladder in a steel cage.  Some on a wood pallet, some on a metal frame base and some on a plastic base.  I've also seen ones with a sheet metal box around the plastic with an opening at the top. 

Good idea on using a silver sharpie.

Scott

The IBC’s I work with, which look a lot like those, are  40” x 48” the same as a typical pallet. I have encountered some square ones that are 48”x48” and all plastic without an exterior cage, but they were problematic to load and unload in trucks when they got older and started to swell a little.

[LARGEdrop]

Awesome modeling everyone, very inspiring!

[wm3798]

Many Midwest and Western towns were originally laid out by the railroad, often on railroad-owned land, so naturally the streets there align with the tracks.

In other cases, both the railroad and the streets follow nature, such as a river, or the bottom of a valley, so they are parallel, but not actually following each other.

And, yes, if the town is a railroad junction, with tracks going in multiple directions, it's hard for the streets to follow the tracks.

I think the point has been missed...  Obviously any town that grew up around the railroad will have streets parallel to the tracks.  That's not what's been discussed.  It's the alignment of the track with the EDGE OF THE LAYOUT.  This has nothing to do with prototype street grids.  On a model railroad, it does help the visual illusion if the majority of the track isn't lockstep with the edge of the "stage" it's on.

Just sayin'
Lee

[DKS]

I think the point has been missed...  Obviously any town that grew up around the railroad will have streets parallel to the tracks.  That's not what's been discussed.  It's the alignment of the track with the EDGE OF THE LAYOUT.  This has nothing to do with prototype street grids.  On a model railroad, it does help the visual illusion if the majority of the track isn't lockstep with the edge of the "stage" it's on.

But the smaller the layout, the harder this is to accomplish. So, to compensate, it helps throwing the streets at all odd angles--assuming it follows the style of the area modeled.

[Dave V]

I think the point has been missed...  Obviously any town that grew up around the railroad will have streets parallel to the tracks.  That's not what's been discussed.  It's the alignment of the track with the EDGE OF THE LAYOUT.  This has nothing to do with prototype street grids.  On a model railroad, it does help the visual illusion if the majority of the track isn't lockstep with the edge of the "stage" it's on.

Just sayin'
Lee

I agree 100% with what you're saying...  Visually it's more interesting not to have everything parallel to each other and the layout edge.  But the statement was made:

Railroads in almost every case have had to accommodate themselves to the street grid and to how industries are placed or will be placed according to their own designs, not vice versa.

I believe that the preponderance of evidence isn't strong enough to back this statement up past only the oldest towns in the East...  The frontier was still pretty much the Appalachians when railroading was just getting started in the US, and so beyond that a great many towns followed the railroad rather than vice versa.  Now, another thing that often happens (such as in central Pennsylvania) is that the tracks and the roads parallel each other because they're lying in a river valley rather than as a result of a chicken/egg debate.

I agree with almost everything else in @OldEastRR 's post.  Just that I've encountered entirely too many towns that look like model railroad shelf layouts IRL to believe that they're as rare as suggested.  I've been to all 50 US states and lived in quite a few of 'em.

[nkalanaga]

Another issue is narrow shelf layouts.  The track in a town almost has to be parallel to the edge/backdrop, or there won't be anyplace large enough for a reasonable industry.  It's hard to fit large buildings into triangular spaces.

Now, if the layout is a couple feet deep, it becomes a lot easier, and angling the track, and town, can work.

[C855B]

[FWIW]

For several years I had a business generating maps from USGS and Census data, so similar to @Dave V 's life experience my direct knowledge of grid layout is pretty broad. As far as the issue of railroads determining street grid orientation, it's a big, fat, whopping "it depends". There are certain truisms, and a boatload of exceptions. The Appalachia observations are somewhat valid, that RRs had to work around existing communities, but, also with Western Expansion across the mountain range geography played a big role. (Eastern city maps were a big pain in my butt especially, because, generally, early growth was ad hoc, with few straight lines to be had, so data density broke my software on many occasions.)

Midwest and West are interesting. If the RR was the first settler or nearly so, the initial street grid was oriented to the tracks. Notice I said "initial". In many instances, the RR-oriented grid only applied to the RR's land-grant area - frequently a square mile with the station somewhere near the middle -  and expansion beyond that shifted to a strict NSEW classic grid with oddly-shaped lots and cuss-worthy nonsense street intersections where the orientation shifted. (I lived in two such cities.) In other communities the expansion continued the RR grid.

There came a point, very roughly early in the 20th century, where in "new" communities NSEW orientation frequently prevailed regardless of RR direction. There are several grain elevator towns in Nebraska, for instance, where the main highway parallels the tracks, but the town is built NSEW, again creating odd-shaped lots adjacent to the shift.

So the rule is, basically, there is no rule. What you do on your layout is up to you, although I agree with the avoid-parallel-to-benchwork-edge school of thought, if only to dodge the toy train effect of crowding a loop or loops onto a sheet of plywood. That has been a primary design criterion on my layout, although it doesn't work in some spots and I have to grit my teeth and "go parallel".

[/FWIW]

[cbroughton67]

I think the point has been missed...   It's the alignment of the track with the EDGE OF THE LAYOUT. 
Just sayin'
Lee

Thank you, Lee @wm3798 . This was exactly the point, but the conversation immediately went into the weeds and stayed there.

Chris

[tehachapifan]

My layout is a 6' x 17', rectangular, table style and I still find it difficult to place a trackside building, or even the track alignment that runs closest to the edge, on an angle from the layout's edge. While I agree it may be more visually appealing, it's amazing how much more space gets quickly eaten up trying to do that....especially when you're trying to maximize your curve radii (in my case 20" min. on the main).

Let's say you're going to add a trackside warehouse but want it at an angle from the layout's edge. You need to account for the approach and departure curves along with the straight run of track by the warehouse. Oh, and maybe there needs to be a siding or spur for the warehouse too. Even more space eaten up! Add to all this is a common need to add an "S" curve back out towards the layout edge before the big turn at the end of the layout.

[Blazeman]

[
 (Eastern city maps were a big pain in my butt especially, because, generally, early growth was ad hoc, with few straight lines to be had, so data density broke my software on many occasions.)

'Round my way, tradition is roads followed paths the native Americans made through the woods, hence hair-pin turns an very short straightaways. When the internal combustion became more widespread, these paths were paved over.

[C855B]

'Round my way, tradition is roads followed paths the native Americans made through the woods, hence hair-pin turns an very short straightaways. When the internal combustion became more widespread, these paths were paved over.

Exactly. A famous example is Peachtree Street in Atlanta. Very frustrating in that it is N-S through downtown and gradually curves to nearly E-W in the northeast quadrant. Plus, the planning-unfriendly political environment and free-wheeling developers added to the spaghetti-bowl road (and RR) layout.

[wm3798]

Wait, I see the horse is still twitching.  Better give a few more whacks...

@tehachapifan said "My layout is a 6' x 17', rectangular, table style and I still find it difficult to place a trackside building, or even the track alignment that runs closest to the edge, on an angle from the layout's edge. While I agree it may be more visually appealing, it's amazing how much more space gets quickly eaten up trying to do that....especially when you're trying to maximize your curve radii (in my case 20" min. on the main)."

My reply is, you don't have to run your track parallel to the edge EVER, even on a smaller layout.  Even if you take your straight oval and cock it an inch, it vastly improves the illusion.  And those longer edges of the oval can be bent into a broad arc to make an even more realistic appearance as described by @Dave V where tracks and roads tend to follow a river valley.


In this case, you can see the straight track on the bridge fades away from the edge about an inch after it emerged from the tunnel.  It doesn't take much, and the curvature in the tunnel was the maximum that would fit (32" diameter on a 36" platform as I recall).

Even on the narrow shelf shown below, while I had the main line parallel to the edge out of necessity, I added a junction and a shipper closer to the edge to help blur that line.


And on an even narrower shelf shown below, I simply bent the main a wee bit to give it a slight variance from the edge.  That shelf was only 4" wide, if I recall.


 
Obviously, your layout is your layout, but these simple tricks can help with the overall presentation.
Lee

[DKS]

My layout is a 6' x 17', rectangular, table style and I still find it difficult to place a trackside building, or even the track alignment that runs closest to the edge, on an angle from the layout's edge. While I agree it may be more visually appealing, it's amazing how much more space gets quickly eaten up trying to do that....especially when you're trying to maximize your curve radii (in my case 20" min. on the main).

Let's say you're going to add a trackside warehouse but want it at an angle from the layout's edge. You need to account for the approach and departure curves along with the straight run of track by the warehouse. Oh, and maybe there needs to be a siding or spur for the warehouse too. Even more space eaten up! Add to all this is a common need to add an "S" curve back out towards the layout edge before the big turn at the end of the layout.

Wait, the layout is N Scale? 6' x 17' is hardly a mini-layout; it should provide all sorts of opportunities for non-parallel track and lineside structure alignment. Care to present the track plan in the Layout Engineering thread? I'm certain several of us can offer no end of suggestions.