Erie Railroad Mahoning division HCD

[Lemosteam]

Dude, will you make that 20 minute video of you doing that next time?  I gotta see that in real-time. Awsome.

[DKS]

And about 20min later:

And some people call me a machine... You ought to go into business. In one evening you could have a month's salary in RTR handlaid turnouts.

[Chris333]

Believe me the only reason I build them is because I pretty much have to. 

[crrcoal]

And some people call me a machine... You ought to go into business. In one evening you could have a month's salary in RTR handlaid turnouts.

8-O  Jaw dropping work!!!  Gotta agree with Mr Smith- you should seriously consider going into production!! Or make a how-to video/DVD, you 'd make quite a few bucks.

[DKS]

Believe me the only reason I build them is because I pretty much have to.

Necessity can be the mother of... income.

[CodyO]

Chris any hope of saving all your templates?

I plan on copying your design in a few months and will also be hand laying the turnouts.

[Chris333]

Templates are printed from Fasttracks website. If you mean this last one, I used the same piece of paper to glue the wood filler ties to. So it is embeded in my roadbed with a sandwich of glue right now.

[CodyO]

My bad must have missed you got them from there!
Thought they where all custom sized.
Thanks Chris.

[Chris333]

3 are custom. This one and the 2 at the B&O interchange. The other 2 are 13.5" radius. The rest are either #6 or #5 or wyes.

[OldEastRR]

Coming late to the party... your original post asked for comments on various parts of the plan and I assume they have all been settled?
Love the plan. It looks very authentic, with streets and industries laid out as conforming to the railroad. The landforms look pretty good too -- a large rock outcropping with a river nearby. Though a small stream flowing from the rock face to the river would re-inforce the visual of a flat floodplain, it's not needed (obviously it would flow into a culvert before it reached the town section, and open out just before the edge of the river)
Did you say the B&O tracks were just for show? So are the diamonds on and turnouts to it functional or dummies? If working it seems like a shame to waste all that track just for show ... it's probably too late for you to do this now but if you made the connection from the Erie curve to a track parallel to the B&O main all the way to the backdrop, you'd have a plausible and usable interchange track there. You already know  lengthened connector tracks between railroad junctions were used for interchange p/u and d/o.

[Chris333]

I thought about curving the Erie track to the B&O and have it run parallel to the back drop to make it look like a true interchange track. But I was thinking about when I'll put a whole bunch off trees at the backdrop to hide the dead end. I would not want to draw attention there. As it is now those 2 turnouts are non-working.

Now if I get crazy I might add all the interlocking rods to the turnouts and semaphores 

[OldEastRR]

If this is your new layout thread, why not put a "Gone Out of Business/Moved" sign on your thread of the "Other" industrial layout, for people to follow the evolution from that one to this?
Again, I really like the landforms on this new layout .... some of the ones on the "other" layout were not quite believable in real life. And is it my imagination or have you skewed the roads and some trackage to be a few degrees off from being completely perpendicular or parallel with the edges of the layout? Because they MIGHT be but don't quite look parallel or perpendicular. Looks good.

[Chris333]

I'm still building the other layout, just working on this one now 

Most of the track is not parallel to the edge. Even the straight side is off by about 1.5" to give more room for the coal trestle. As for everything else still a long way to go.

As for now I only have one more turnout and then the track should be all "down". After that I will work on the wiring and getting things running.

[OldEastRR]

The subtle effect of only slightly moving the usual objects out of alignment with the layout edge is very interesting. I've always been a fan of this method for roads, buildings, etc. but usually use an extreme angle of 20-50 degrees. The idea of using very small angles is one I will add to this concept.
As for the "other" railroad, I see you've cannibalized lots of scenic and building structures off of it for this one, which is why I wondered if it had been decommissioned. Chopping out the coal dock was pretty major.
I suppose you could make it into a abandoned Rustbelt industrial area with a single decrepit track still in place, all the rest being torn out. Just joking.

[Chris333]

2 layouts 2 coal trestles:


I had another 4x11 layout that I tore the trestle out of for the door.

And I played around with the creek area. We'll call the high line the NYC ex. Lake Shore & Michigan Southern RR


Will be a through girder on the left over the Erie and a deck plate girder over the creek.

Oh and I think I'll put a mirror under the creek bridge