The Transcontinental PRR

[eric220]

At the risk of invoking groans of "there he goes again,"

*groan*  There he goes again...

Actually, David, I very much appreciate the time that you have taken to help.  Thank you.  If I didn't want feedback, I wouldn't be posting these.

I fooled around with the west terminal throat a bit and came up with this:



All curved or #7 turnouts and 15" minimum radius (and that's only on the diverging routes of the curved turnouts).  In messing around with this, just as a reminder, the staging yard is below the level of the terminal tracks.  There is enough room there to stack them on top of each other.  The only caveats are that there can't be any turnouts on the terminal tracks directly above the staging yard (need room for tortoises), and the obvious access issues.

[davefoxx]

Eric,

I'm not sure if this will help, but one idea to perhaps clean up the left end of the small yard (I'm referring to the four tracks between the mainline at the bottom of your plan and the passenger station) would be to replace the yard ladder as designed (all of the straight sides of those turnouts line up) with a ladder where the next turnout is connected to the reverse (curved) side of the prior turnout.  I believe that is called a pinwheel ladder, and you would use the same right hand turnouts as in your plan.  That would allow you to partially make the right hand turn with the throat and quite possibly lengthen the yard bowl.

DFF

[DKS]

Still having trouble getting switch geometry to agree in Anyrail with your renderings, especially with the ladder for the staging yard. I'd recommend arranging them in a fan, rather than a pinwheel, as the curves leading out are much smoother, and avoid a couple of slight S-curves.

As for the passenger throat, looks like only one curved TO is needed. All other switches in this version are #7.

[eric220]

DKS- I was in a bit of a hurry when I posted the last rendition, so I didn't have a chance to mess with the staging yard throat. What you've got there looks good. One other thing, I'm going to be doing the upper staging yard in code 80, so those turnouts are actually going to be #6's.

What are the radii of those curves in the terminal throat?

DFF- I'll give the pinwheel ladder a try there and see if I can scoot the whole yard over a bit.

[DKS]

What are the radii of those curves in the terminal throat?

Refresh the page to see a rendering with a minimum radius indicator. The one highlighted spot is 13 inches; the rest of the curves are 15 or more. The plan can probably be tweaked to bring everything up over 15.

[DKS]

Done. Didn't take much to push all of the curves over 15. Also swapped out the staging throat switches with Code 80 #6s.
 

[eric220]

More construction this afternoon.  The Gandy Dancers came over and we got the supports for the passenger yard built and installed.





We also made a pretty good dent in wiring up the staging yard.  A few quality hours with a soldering iron, and I should be able to test that bad boy out under power.

My next task on the upper level is to build the cookie-cutter for the return loop around the yard.  I'm going to use that to mark the one support that I have left to notch.  Once that's done, the cookie-cutter gets installed on a nice, constant 1% grade, and the rest of the subroadbed for upper staging goes in.  Then, it will be time once again to lay track!

[davidgray1974]

Holy Cow Eric!  You guys weren't playing around! 

[eric220]

OK, enough stagnation here.  As I mentioned in Weekend Update, the Gandy Dancers came over last weekend.  Along with some electrical work, we got cork installed for upper staging and laid out the yard.  This afternoon, I began laying track.  I managed to complete the west ladder and one yard track.



Due to the way that I cut the cookie-cutter, we were not able to fit in DKS's compound ladder.  We wound up moving the third switch past the curve.  It's in the upper right hand corner of this photo.



I did take the advice regarding rerailers.  Here they are installed just prior to what will be the east ladder.



I also discovered that failure to be careful while drilling feeder holes at the end of a piece of flextrack may cause a Craftsman drill motor, in a split second, to create modern art.

[M.C. Fujiwara]

I've drilled too close and had the rail pop out of the clips, but it looks like you really took it for a spin!

[eric220]

I was happily drilling away, and all of a sudden the drill punched through and stopped.  It took a few moments for me to realize what the "collar" that suddenly appeared around the drill bit was.  I'm trying to figure out how I might incorporate the "sculpture" in somewhere.

[packers#1]

Put it in the town square and say "modern interpretation of not knowing"  Nice trackwork btw

[Bob Bufkin]

Find a small watch to place in the middle and hang it on one of your stations.

[GaryHinshaw]

There is something very profound going on here.  In keeping with your multi-era theme, I think you've just created a rail version of The Time Tunnel:



Locos enter as Dash-9's and emerge as K4's... 

[eric220]

I've been playing around with an idea that I had ever since my trip to Steve King's Virginia Midland in July.  He uses small (one or two turn) helixes to lengthen several tunnels between scenes so that trains don't just pop right out, with the engine in one scene and the tail in another.  Almost as soon as I saw it, I started pondering going something similar in the Newark/Panther Creek area.  I see a couple of reasons to do this:

• It allows me to raise Newark and Morrow to a better height for operating.
• That increase in height further separates the lower level from the staging level immediately below it.
• The time required to travel through the tunnel from Panther Creek to Newark will be increased, separating the two locations.
• I will get the vertical separation between the four-track mainline coming off of Horseshoe Curve and the mine in Panther Creek that I have been looking for a way to achieve.
• The Panther Creek branch line looks more like a branch line, and the scene will be less cluttered (more of the mainline will be in the tunnel.

Here's what I have come up with so far:



There are minimal changes in Newark, and the helix does not pass directly under any turnouts.  The only problem that I see is the spot where the branch crosses over the helix at the end of the peninsula.  The grade required to lift the mains up to meet the tracks in Newark (which are at the same altitude as Panther Creek) would be prohibitively steep.  I can probably fix that by swinging the mains more toward the aisle, giving more room for the scene and allowing the branch to double back without crossing over the helix, but I haven't tried it yet.  Other than that, the grades are 2% or less, the curves in the branch are 15", and the mains are 18" or more, all within my designs standards.  Thoughts?