Staging: Discovering a Design Flaw

[davefoxx]

Lee,

I can't exactly remember the elevations of the staging yard under Luke, but it seems to me that the end of the yard coming from North Junction has a significant grade while crossing the duckunder.  Is there enough room under there to stack two reversing loops (with multiple tracks) and figure a way to connect between them for the run-through staging?  I know this would be a nightmare to build under a fully constructed layout, but I wouldn't hesitate because benchwork and trackwork are my favorite parts of model railroading.  I'll even offer free labor for your effort.  I've seen pictures of you building complete sections and later installing them on the layout.  Perhaps, somehow, the staging yards could be done the same way, i.e., build the plywood subroadbed and install the track before sliding them into place under the layout.

Just some crazy brainstorming,
Dave

[wm3798]

Free labor, eh?  Mmm.  That gives me an idea.  To give you plenty of quiet solitude to think about how you would approach the work, I'll let you sit up on the scaffold on the side of the house, peacefully scraping paint.  It's really very therapeutic... ;D

Lee

[Iain]

Free labor, eh?  Mmm.  That gives me an idea.  To give you plenty of quiet solitude to think about how you would approach the work, I'll let you sit up on the scaffold on the side of the house, peacefully scraping paint.  It's really very therapeutic... ;D

Lee

Better with a nice, powerful pressure washer so that you can blast the wasps.



Anyway, does your operating scheme require that you reuse cars more than once during an ops session?  It seems to me that cars going off the layout wouldn't come back on again during the same day.

[davefoxx]

Free labor, eh?  Mmm.  That gives me an idea.  To give you plenty of quiet solitude to think about how you would approach the work, I'll let you sit up on the scaffold on the side of the house, peacefully scraping paint.  It's really very therapeutic... ;D

Lee

Well, if I get an hour of operation on the layout for every five minutes scraping paint, I'll take you up on it.     Similarly, I also scrape for beer. ;D

Dave

[John]

Free labor, eh?  Mmm.  That gives me an idea.  To give you plenty of quiet solitude to think about how you would approach the work, I'll let you sit up on the scaffold on the side of the house, peacefully scraping paint.  It's really very therapeutic... ;D

Lee

Well, if I get an hour of operation on the layout for every five minutes scraping paint, I'll take you up on it.     Similarly, I also scrape for beer. ;D

Dave

heck .. i will let you have an hour of operation for every hour of trackwork you do here

[davefoxx]

heck .. i will let you have an hour of operation for every hour of trackwork you do here

Sold!  I also lay track for beer.   ;D

Dave

[John]

not to steal Lee's thread .. but I am doing wiring right now on the new section .. then I gotta rough in some scenery forms to keep stuff from hitting the ground ..

[sizemore]

John,
I'm applying for a job over at Meade...  Any foreclosures in the neighborhood I can pick up cheap?  Hooray for BRAC!

I'm 15 mins from Fort Meade and have a relatively empty living room as a result of never being home...heh (really I'm crying on the inside).

[wm3798]

I scrape for beer too... maybe that's why it's taking so long!

Some trains do make repeat appearances during a session.  This is mostly due to the limited staging space.  This mostly applies to Alpha Jet trains.  Eastbound AJ-2 becomes westbound AJ-1, AJ-12 becomes AJ-3, WM-6 becomes BT-1 etc.  There's also a grain train that heads east as loads, then reappears later as westbound empties.

Coal gets tricky, because there were trains that headed to Baltimore to the export piers, trains that went over the Reading to Allentown to Bethlehem Steel, westbound hoppers reloaded with ore headed west to Pittsburgh, some westbound coal headed to the steel mills along the Ohio Valley.  A lot of the coal came from West Virginia along the Thomas Sub, but there were also loads that originated in Fairmont, WV then headed up to Connellsville to head east, and a lot came down the B&O Johnstown branch to Rockwood Jct., plus a big operation called Blue Lick near Meyersdale, just off the Salisbury Viaduct.  (Neat aerial viewing on Google Maps, by the way...)  There was also a lot of B&O coal that moved over the WM to Harrisburg via the Reading as well.

So in a nutshell, the black stuff came from every direction, and moved in every direction.  I figured out that I could roster nothing but coal hoppers, and still have a 4 hour ops session.

But I digress.  The WM was configured like an elongated sideways X..., or really like this... >-<  Northwest was the Connellsville Sub, southwest the Thomas Sub, northeast the Lurgan line to connect with the Reading, and southeast the East Sub to Baltimore.  The Alpha Jet traffic ran primarily NW to NE, with connecting trains to Baltimore and York by way of the East Sub and the Dutch Line (which split off of the East Sub east of Hagerstown, and rejoined it at Emory Grove northwest of Baltimore.  Everything moved over the Cumberland Extension, which connected Cumberland and Hagerstown.  If I was just running a schedule of trains, that line would be the thing to model, but there was little or no industry there, so while it would have spectacular scenery, it would be dull for an old car bumper like me.

My layout is designed to capture the essence of the railroad from Cumberland west, with Connellsville represented in staging, and Elkins planned to be part of the layout.

There isn't much vertical clearance under the layout to add another layer of staging, unfortunately, unless I made it more difficult to access than it already is.  I'm wondering if I changed the configuration to allow for two "balloons" under there if they could be made long enough to both solve the present dilemma, as well as allow for longer trains to be staged...

But then again, if I don't make a house payment or three pretty soon, the whole question may be moot...

Lee

[davefoxx]

I scrape for beer too... maybe that's why it's taking so long!

Now that's just damn funny.

But then again, if I don't make a house payment or three pretty soon, the whole question may be moot... 

Oh crap, that's not funny at all.

Dave

[davefoxx]

There isn't much vertical clearance under the layout to add another layer of staging, unfortunately, unless I made it more difficult to access than it already is.  I'm wondering if I changed the configuration to allow for two "balloons" under there if they could be made long enough to both solve the present dilemma, as well as allow for longer trains to be staged...

Lee,

That's what I had in mind in my previous post- the two "balloons."  If built with the center open, so that you could crawl under and get in there when things go awry- hopefully, not often with carefully built trackwork.  I would think the pros would outweigh the cons.  That is, hidden staging is better than little or no staging.  By the way, how often have you had to go in and rescue something with your current hidden staging?

Dave

[John]

I bet you could get a small 1-2  loop helix under the temp yard fed from the potomac module, then put staging over Andy's head on the bed ..

[wm3798]

Crawling under the layout really isn't an option.  It's chock-a-block with storage crap under there, so any maneuvers needed to clear a wreck would require a massive effort.  I'm thinking more along the lines of turning the west end loop to the right to go over the workbench area.  (the plan is to ultimately move the workbench out into the crew lounge in the next room)

It's already designed to come in at a lower elevation than the Elkins line, so that wouldn't be an issue, plus, I haven't started building that part of the layout yet.  Then there's the possibility of building a connecting track between the existing staging yard and the new one, to allow for those ever flowing eastbound coal loads...  Just thinkin' out loud, here.

Lee

[John]

I am lost on this .. need a picture

[wm3798]

Maybe this will help...


The yellow shows the current configuration with the return loop under the peninsula.  I would revise that to the blue route, providing four tracks that run along under the peninsula and loop back to the existing westbound tracks.  This would greatly increase the capacity of the yard,  allowing for longer train lengths, and for two shorter trains to occupy the same track.

The red line would be the new west end staging yard, connecting to the end of the Connellsville line at the point it dives under the scenery.  It would then split into 4 tracks, and loop around below Cumberland, and tying back in at the west end of the scenery.  The table is 3' deep at that point, but with the attic ceiling, I probably have another 6 to 8" along the back edge to help deal with what appear to be pretty sharp curves.  I don't want to do anything that will eat 6 axle power...

The Elkins line would be above the red line, emerging at the Potomac River crossing as shown.

The worst part of the construction would be reworking the yellow line where it was originally going to tie into the Connellsville route, but all of that is under the "temporary" scenery at Ohiopyle, and once it's daylighted, it should be pretty accessible.

Whaddya think?