102 Realistic Track Plans [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

r ck ula Ba op and p by dem

16-page booklet included!

102 Realistic

SPECIAL ISSUE

Track Plans How to Build Realistic Layouts no. 5

DISPLAY UNTIL FEBRUARY 23, 2010

Small, medium, and large plans for great layouts From the pages of Model Railroader with ALL-NEW descriptions

HOW TO

Design your own detailed drawings Build sectional benchwork Make templates for turnouts Keep grades from becoming too steep

PLUS

Charts for clearances and turnouts in N, HO, and O scales How much railroad fits in your space?

$7.95

56

7

22627 46784

3

EXPAND YOUR KNOWLEDGE WITH THE MODEL RAILROADER’S GUIDE TO SERIES

GUIDE TO SERIES M O D E L R A I L R OA D E R ’ S H O W T O G U I D E the Model railroader’s guide to industries along the tracks ii

Done in a Day

Done in a Day Easy detailing and weathering projects for your model railroad

The Model RailRoadeR’s Guide To

industries along the tracks 2

The Model RailRoadeR’s Guide To

industries along the tracks 3

ETHANOL • CEMENT • SUGAR BEETS • CANNING • TRANSLOADING • PIGGYBACK TRAFFIC

Wilson

Pelle K. Søeborg

More than a dozen easy weathering and detailing projects show you how to add realism to rolling stock and locomotives. Beginning model railroaders will like the well-illustrated, easy-to-follow instructions! 88 pages.

HO and N scale illustrations plus prototype and layout photos introduce modelers to designing, constructing and operating a realistic freight yard. 80 pages.

12248 • $18.95

12458 • $19.95

An overview of North American mining, refining, and agricultural operations served by the railroads, and the specific techniques used to model them on a realistic layout of any scale. 88 pages.

COAL RAILROADING

jeff wilson

Includes overviews of creameries and milk traffic, the paper industry, breweries, iron ore mining and transloading, freight houses, and coal customers. 88 pages.

You’ll learn how to realistically recreate and incorporate industries such as ethanol, cement, canning, and sugar beets into your layouts through prototype photos and modeling suggestions. 88 pages.

12409 • $19.95

12256 • $19.95

The Model Railroader’s Guide to Logging Railroads

The Model RailRoadeR’s Guide To

jeff wilson

12422 • $19.95

THE MODEL RAILROADER’S GUIDE TO

LOGGING RAILROADS

ThE MODEl RAilROADER’S GuiDE TO

PASSENGER EQUIPMENT & OPERATION

Coleman

Tony KoesTeR

A reference for modeling a coal-hauling prototype-based or freelance railroad with information on modeling coal trains, company towns, and coal customers. 96 pages.

MATT COLEMAN

Overview of different types of bridges, trestles, and tunnels, featuring prototype information and modeling projects. 88 pages.

12452 • $19.95

Photos, drawings, and sidebars illustrate how junctions work with techniques for modeling functional ones in any scale. 88 pages.

12408 • $18.95

12453 • $19.95

Explains the business of logging railroads and gives examples of prototype operations. Photos of locomotives, equipment, and structures set the stage for layout design. 80 pages.

12423 • $18.95

ANDY SPERANDEO

Offers insight and instructions for integrating realistic passenger trains and operations into any layout with tips for modeling equipment, structures, trackage, and details. 96 pages.

12244 • $19.95

www.KalmbachStore.com Buy now from hobby shops! To find a store near you, visit www.HobbyRetailer.com Call 1-800-533-6644 Monday – Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. CST. Outside the United States and Canada call 262-796-8776, ext. 661. PMK-ADH-09X1579RH

M2090

Learn, Design, and Build with Classic Toy Trains scene arBor listic h a e r a Build

Every issue is packed with information on the newest trains made by Lionel, MTH, Atlas O, and others!

terfronts Great wa sy p.76 made ea ctric traiNs ww w.class

News Layouts •

ictoytrains.

7 s eLe WiLLiam BachmaNN p.2 soLd to

8 uary 200 com • Jan

• Projects

Guide toL’S

LIONE

BEST ’s rporation Lionel co locomotives – greatestw of its worst fe a and p.52

ire how to w

train tion detec aximum for mn actio onel and

• Learn about track planning, wiring, and layout construction

p.82

$5.95

a legend

ary

72246

0

da

$7.25 Cana

01

1 • Issue

gauge These O two of gems are t from the bes p., p.52. Lionel Cor

•

Vol. 21

s Li HO 50 Loora! W TOinwi core Lionel signal br see the 19 rooms – idge p.74 flyer show ut p.70 yo s La Le a u r Visit r te in nds p.58 where w p.66

46776

3

yout expa hi-rail la

Layouts • News

• Projects

www.ClassicToyTra ins.com •

EXCLUSIVE!

MTH’S NEW BOX CAB DIESEL REVIEW ED

MARCH 2008

p.80

The ‘40s COME TO LIFE

A stunning must see p.38layout you

• Visit the most inspiring toy train layouts - big and small - ever built

MAKING A EAT FLYER RAILGR ROAD EVEN BETTER p.66 4 EASY STEPS Add detail r ultimate refo alismep.50ACCeNTS p.73

Uge VeHICL O gA eASY PER FECT MIX

The steam-todiesel transi tion era is the focus Dave Connolly’sof detailed 22 foot layout. x 48p.38

$5.95 •

$7.25 Canada

03

p.86

com • DeCember

in set From trau yo t to la T RAILROAD

ILROAD pROJECT RA

2008

38

Plus, subscribers have exclusive online access to more than 375 product reviews and over 150 product and layout videos on ClassicToyTrains.com.

HOW TO

ing drive-in th O gauge • BUILD an et p.74 Main Stre

• ADD a workeatre p.52

Issue 9

IN ONe STUNN

12

•

4 pOSTwAR DISINg COLLeCTION p.80

Follow along in coming we months as build this great-looking, layout. p.65

Vol. 21

$5.95

p.46

ssics Focus on Cla pLAY LAYOUTS

• And More!

wIN

A pOSTwAR LIONeL TRAIN page

A 4 x 8-FOO ILD p.65 YOU CAN BU

See a Lionel YOUT DREAM LA FE COME TO LI

3

3

rains. www.ClassicToyT

E BEA0ST7 2 2 4 6 4 6 7 76 BRANCHOLIN gauge BL2 Williams’ iews! pLUS more rev

Vol. 21 • Issue

Spiffy scener operation ony & fun track plan p.64 a room-size

s • Projects Layouts • New

• Learn how to identify and repair old Lionel and American Flyer trains

0

776 72246 46

3

Subscribe Today! www.ClassicToyTrains.com FOR FASTER SERVICE, ORDER ONLINE

1-800-533-6644

CIR-ADH-09X1577RH

Monday–Friday, 8:30am - 4:30pm Central Standard Time. Outside U.S. and Canada, call 262-796-8776 x661. Please have your credit card ready.

A9BM5C

102Realistic

Track Plans

6

Design inspiration

8

Introduction to track planning

2 Page 11

Introduction/by David Popp

Careful measuring and drawing ensure that your layout fits/by Andy Sperandeo

10

Very small layouts

16

Curves, turnouts, and track

18

4 x 8s and a little more

24

Sketching by the squares

26

Layout schematics

24

28

Drawing curves and turnouts

Page 23

32

Compact layouts

48

Figuring grades and clearances

50

Structures, scenery, and aisles

52

Medium layouts

66

Sectional layouts

68

How to convert track plan scales

70

Layouts for large spaces

82

. . . and one more

Short on space? Just starting out? Try these ideas/selected by Steven Otte Setting standards to handle the trains you want to run/by Andy Sperandeo Track plans that start with a sheet of plywood/selected by David Popp Learn the art of controlled doodling/by Andy Sperandeo How to think of your track plan as a railroad/by Andy Sperandeo Careful drafting leads to easier construction and operation/by Andy Sperandeo 33 railroads sized for a spare bedroom/selected by Steven Otte How to plan slopes your trains can climb/by Andy Sperandeo

Layout design is more than just track planning/by Andy Sperandeo

Page 41

Got space to stretch out? Find some ideas here/selected by Steven Otte Build a railroad so you can take it with you/by Andy Sperandeo Simple arithmetic changes any layout design to your scale/by Andy Sperandeo Plans for rec rooms, basements, and barns/selected by David Popp An HO plan for a non-traditional space/by David Popp

ON THE COVER: This compact locomotive terminal and several rail- and river barge-served industries are just a small part of David Popp’s HO scale plan for the Grand River Ry., featured as plan 102 in this book. Illustration by Rick Johnson and Jay Smith



43

102 Realistic Track Plans

96 Page 77

The No. 1 source for railroading news is yours with a subscription

Every issue of

magazine brings you:

• In-depth feature articles • News and analysis • Ideas and insights • Preservation and railroad worker stories

• Subscriber-only online access to locomotive rosters, PDF packages, the daily online News Wire, TrainsTube video interviews • And so much more!

Subscribe today! Call 1-800-533-6644 Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Central Time. Outside the U.S. and Canada, call 262-796-8776, ext. 661

Visit us online at www.TrainsMag.com

CIR-ADH-09X1530BRH

A9BM5T

Celebrate the Golden Years of Railroading! Who designed the first GG1?

Not Raymond Loewy!

GG1

75

4(%'/,$%.9%!23

/&2!),2/!$).'

Summer 2009 UNTIL

DISPLAY AUGUST 5, 2009

YEARS

GG1

Special section on America’s most famous electric locomotive

drawing, engineer’s Photo timeline, cutaway

memories, and more!

Pennsy GG1 4854 rolls east at Hunter Tower, Newark, N.J., in 1955

PLUS

photo gallery All-steam, all-color Rio Grande

www.ClassicTrainsMag.com

Wartime adventure on the h job Milwaukee Road night switc

rn Railway roundhouse Trains to the Indy 500 • Southe

Su bs cr ib e To day!

Every issue covers: • North American railroad scenes from the late 1920’s to the late 1970’s • Proud steam giants, colorful streamliners, great passenger terminals • Down-home local trains, time-worn cabooses, recollections of railroaders and train-watchers • Colorful stories from the men who worked the rails

Order at www.ClassicTrainsMag.com Or call 1-800-533-6644 to order by credit card. Mon-Fri, 8:30am – 4:30pm Central Standard Time. Outside the U.S. and Canada, call 262-796-8776, ext. 661 A9BM5K

CIR-ADH-09X1576RH



www.ModelRailroader.com



102Realistic

Track Plans

Design inspiration When you’re in the process of building a house, at some point you’ll likely look through books of house plans for ideas. Having built two homes now, I’m well aware of what The Home Depot, Lowe’s, and the local libraries in two states have available on the subject. While most of the plans in those books never get built exactly as drawn, I expect that they are, in fact, gleaned for their best features, which end up in new homes all over North America. I suspect that track plans for model railroaders are very similar to house plans for home builders. In talking with people at train shows around the country, it seems that track plans are a favorite feature in Model Railroader

Know plan sizes at a glance Wherever possible in this book, we’ve included two key features to give you an at-a-glance idea of just how big or small a track plan is. First, each plan is set on a grid of 1-foot squares. So, regardless of the scale of the drawing, you can understand the plan’s size based on its grid. Second, we’ve include people with most plans. By adding the human element, we’ve provided a fast way to identify the size of a layout. As an example, here is the same person drawn on a 1-foot grid in several common scales. Scale: 3⁄8" = 1'-0"

Scale: 1⁄2" = 1'-0"

Scale: 5⁄8" = 1'-0"

Scale: 1⁄4" = 1'-0"



102 Realistic Track Plans

each month. From my own experience, I always find it interesting to see how other modelers have attempted to solve the ever-present problems of space utilization, working a railroad around water heaters, doorways, furnaces, and other layout-room items. The modeler’s love for track plans is something that has been around a long time. Case in point, the best selling Kalmbach book of all time is Linn Westcott’s 101 Track Plans for Model Railroaders. The book was first published in 1956, is still in print, and has sold more than half-a-million copies worldwide. Interest in track planning continues to be strong, as well. The track plan Editor Art Director Editorial Staff

Editorial Associate Editorial Intern Graphic Designers Illustrators

David A. Popp Thomas G. Danneman Neil Besougloff Andy Sperandeo Jim Hediger Cody Grivno Dana Kawala Steven Otte Kent Johnson Eric Stelpflug Maria Novotny Drew Halverson Craig Schneider Rick Johnson Theo Cobb

Kalmbach Publishing Co. President Gerald B. Boettcher Vice President, Editorial Kevin P. Keefe Publisher Terry D. Thompson Vice President, Advertising Scott S. Stollberg Vice President, Marketing Daniel R. Lance Corporate Art Director Maureen Schimmel Managing Art Director Michael Soliday Advertising Director Scott Bong Advertising Sales Manager Scott Redmond Ad Sales Representative Martha Stanczak Ad Services Manager Sara Everts Ad Services Representative Amanda Finch Production Manager Annette Wall Production Coordinator Cindy Barder Corporate Circulation Director Michael Barbee Group Circulation Manager Catherine Daniels

database at ModelRailroader.com contains more than 450 plans available to MR subscribers. The database receives an amazing 70,000 page views per month. So, considering the craving for track plans, publishing 102 Realistic Track Plans seemed to be a natural. Whether you find a plan in these pages to build as is, or you simply choose one or more favorite features to work into your own plan, you should enjoy many hours poring over this collection of layout designs selected from the last decade of MR.

Circulation Specialist Circulation Coordinator Single Copy Sales Director

Kristin Johnson Maggie Sketch Jerry Burstein

Editorial offices Phone: 262-796-8776 Fax: 262-796-1142 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.ModelRailroader.com Advertising and Trade Sales Advertising inquiries: 888-558-1544, extension 533 Retail trade orders: 800-558-1544, extension 818 Fax: 262-796-0126 Advertising e-mail: [email protected] Dealer e-mail: [email protected] Customer Service Customer sales and service: 800-533-6644 (Weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT) Outside U.S. and Canada: 262-796-8776 Fax: 262-796-1615 E-mail: [email protected] HOW TO BUILD REALISTIC LAYOUTS (ISBN 978-089024-755-6) is published by Kalmbach Publishing Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Single copy price: $7.95 U.S., $9.95 Canadian and international, payable in U.S. funds drawn on a U.S. bank. (Canadian price includes GST.) BN 12271 3209 RT. Expedited delivery available for additional $2.50 domestic and Canadian, $6 foreign. ©2008, Kalmbach Publishing Co. Reprinted 2009. Title registered as trademark. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

GET MORE

from your magazine online! Register for free at ModelRailroader.com to receive even more great benefits: • Participate in reader forums • Access our live railroading Web cam • Access new product news • Receive e-mail newsletters • Manage your account online

Visit us at

ModelRailroader.com

CIR-ADH-09X1494RH

Get Outdoor Enjoyment from your

Indoor Hobby

SPEC

IAL HO -TO ISSU E MORE PAGES — W MORE STORIES

Subscribe to Garden Railways magazine and learn what it takes to build and maintain a model train layout in your own backyard. You’ll get information on:

O Designing, planning, and maintaining an outdoor layout O Gardening hints

DECEMBER 2009 www.GardenRailways.com

Adve ntu res i n outd oor mod el rai l road i ng

Fantasy ra

oad in minature An imaginative ilr line based on Di sneyland

O Adding drama with structures and water features

—B ONU

11

Subscribe today! Order online at www.GardenRailways.com or Call 1-800-533-6644 Call Mon-Fri, 8:30am-4:30pm Central Time. Outside the U.S. and Canada, call 262-796-8776 x661. Please have your credit card ready.

S—

prod uct revie ws page 10

O Industry news O Plus, you’ll get exclusive online access at www.GardenRailways.com !

NEW SERIES: Make your own figures

4

8 TOHOs:W

Shoot video of your railway Build wood cribbing

Make your own structure plans

Use magnets secure loads to +4 MORE!

Big Thunder engine Nº 4, leaves for another trip into the mines on Dave Sheegog’s Castle Peak & Thunder Railroad. This creative line is based on the railroad at Disneyland.

A9BM5G

CIR-ADH-09X1580RH



www.ModelRailroader.com



Introduction to

track planning

Careful measurement and drawing ensure that your layout fits By Andy Sperandeo One of the most fascinating parts of model railroading is designing a layout. You can build a fine model railroad by following a plan out of a magazine like this one, but to get the system you really want you’ll probably need to make changes or additions. When you understand the basic techniques of layout design, you can make sure that your ideas will work. Some basic mechanical drawing is involved because the only way to know for sure that your modified plan will fit is to draw it accurately to scale. Even if you move on from pencil-andpaper to computer-aided layout-design



102 Realistic Track Plans

software, you’ll still find it helpful to know how to make a scale drawing.

Your layout space

The beginning of any model railroad design is knowing where the layout will be built. Whatever kind of space you use, your train room is probably not exactly like any other. An accurate scale drawing of your space will define the size and shape of your railroad and the obstacles it must cope with or avoid. The example at the top of the opposite page shows a basement with all its features. Notice the distinction between walls that tracks may penetrate and those that may not be pierced. This is essentially a matter of choice – some areas of this basement are reserved for activities other than model railroading. The amount of detail included is also a matter of choice, and you don’t necessarily need to include all the dimensions shown in this drawing.

Drawing track plans can be the first step in re-creating full-size railroad scenes in miniature. Photo by Jim Forbes The heights of stair treads would be useful only if you want to run tracks under or even through them. If you’d like your railroad to pass above or behind any appliances, you need to show their heights also.

Getting it down on paper

Start by making a rough sketch of the room, basement, garage, or other space. Include all the details that will affect the location of your railroad, even if you can’t show them in exactly correct places or proportions. With the help of a friend or family member, use a tape measure to determine the dimensions of your future train room. Measure every wall, wall segment, and offset, as well as doorways and windows. Make two measurements at right angles to determine the location of freestanding columns, pipes, or other such

Typical layout space diagram

Architects’ scale – for drawing and making measurements in scale feet and inches

All sills 641⁄2" elevation 26'-4"

Compass – a sturdy tool with extra divider and knife points is the best all-around choice Drawing board – a portable, tabletop board will be fine

Elevations to top of tread

22'-2"

8" 24" 40" 56" 72" 16" 32" 48" 64"

12'-11"

3'-8"

Sharp pencils – keep the sharpener handy, and use fine sandpaper to make sharp chisel points for drawing fine lines

Bench

Walls may be pierced by track except where shaded

31⁄2" soil pipe Doorway may be blocked if necessary

Straightedge or rule Triangles in various sizes

10'-5"

11'-1"

Erasers 50-foot tape measure

TRACK PLANNING

Drawing tools

13'-1" Gas meter – 60" high at bottom

Water heater

Furnace

T-square

objects. As you take these measurements, write them in on your sketch as a guide to your scale drawing. If you’re having a new home built, you might want to start planning your railroad with the contractor’s drawings, but it’ll be best not to finalize your plan until you can get into the room and make your own measurements. Houses don’t always match the drawings exactly. Likewise, if you’ll be adding wallboard or other interior walls in an attic, basement, or garage, the dimensions after the room is finished are what you need.

Accurately and in scale

Choose a scale for your drawing, one small enough to fit on a handy sheet of paper but large enough to include the necessary details. Generally, it will be easier to produce an accurate drawing in a larger scale. Small layout rooms can be shown in a relatively large scale such as 11 ⁄2"= 12", while medium-size rooms may work better at a scale of ¾" = 12". Avoid smaller scales except for very large plans because at 3 ⁄8" or 1 ⁄4" to the foot it’s harder to maintain accuracy. On the other hand, bigger layouts allow more of a “fudge factor,” so a small degree of error can be tolerated. Start by holding a T-square tightly against the edge of your drawing board or pad and draw a baseline

Fusebox – 56" Elevation 36" high at bottom Top-loading washer (54" to top of open door) Dryer

Washtub

2" soil pipe, elevation 42" at jog

Office – off limits

3" soil pipe

Illustration by Rick Johnson

across the paper. Use the scale to mark off the length of the longest wall on this line. Put the T-square back on the baseline and rest the base of a triangle against it to draw the perpendicular end walls. Make those lines a little longer than necessary, then measure and mark the end wall lengths exactly with your scale. If your layout room is rectangular, draw another line connecting the end walls at the marks and you have the space defined. For irregular rooms you’ll need to draw in intermediate walls, but always use the triangle and T-square to keep the lines square with the baseline. As far as possible, make all your measurements from the baseline as a guarantee of consistency and accuracy.

Adding the details

When the outline of your room is complete, use the measurements you recorded on your sketch to fill in the details. Include everything you think you’ll need to know to fit your railroad into the shape of the room and around

any obstacles or obstructions. It’s better at this point to include as much information as you can because you never know what creative leaps you’ll make once you start designing. When you think you have your space drawing finished, take it back to the layout room and use the tape measure to verify what you’ve drawn. It’s better to spend some extra time checking your measurements now than to waste time later on a good idea that doesn’t actually fit because of an inaccuracy in your drawing.

Using the drawing

You can use the accurately scaled layout room drawing in many ways. One is to make copies to the same scale as a published track plan. Make a copy of the track plan too, then cut it out and lay it over the room drawing to see how well it fits. Cut the copied plan apart, if necessary, and move the parts around to see how the design can be adjusted for your room. Here’s where the fun starts, as you imagine the possibilities. RL

www.ModelRailroader.com



Even the most space-challenged model railroader can find room for a layout like Ted Fritzler’s N scale Great Northern Ry. It appears as plan 13 in this chapter. Ted Fritzler photo Not every model railroader has a basement. Not everyone can spare a bedroom or is willing to give up parking in the garage to make room for trains. These space-challenged modelers don’t have to remain armchair hobbyists, though. Almost everyone can find room for one of the railroads in this chapter. From layouts that store under a twin bed (plan no. 1) to those designed to occupy a closet (plan 6), you’ll find an answer for every space issue here. We’ve even got plans for layouts that fit inside a coffee table (plan 4) or pack up inside suitcases (plan 11). Even if space isn’t an issue, a small layout can be great for a new hobbyist just getting his feet wet, or for an experienced modeler who wants to experiment in a different scale. And some of the techniques used in these compact plans may give you ideas for a bigger layout. RL

Very small

layouts

Short on space? Just starting out? Try these ideas Deep cut

Barlow’s grist mill

Station

Farm

Dorrville Branch, NYNH&H Published: September 2004 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 3'-4" x 5'-0" Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4

S A O LL I

H

H

U

C

C

T

Pasture

Farmhouse

This compact oval was originally built to provide a continuous-running test track in a small space. It’s small enough to store under a single bed, making it perfect as a starter for a child’s room or for a modeler without the space for a permanent layout.

Milepost Seven

Barn

Scale of plan:

102 Realistic Track Plans

Farmhouse Radio shop

Privy

Maintenance-of-way sheds

10

Freight house

S

1

By Steven Otte

7⁄8" = 1'-0",

Curved turnout

12" grid

Freight house

Crossing watchman’s cabin

Illustration by Robert Wagner

Service station

Mill

Station

GN Ashton Station

Brandee River

Havaphew Central Published: March 2005 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 2'-6" x 5'-0" Minimum radius: 93 ⁄4" Minimum turnout: Atlas Custom Line

Central Gas & Supply Scale of plan:

Retail buildings

Theater

7⁄8" = 1'-0",

12" grid

Yard office

Water tank

Illustration by Rick Johnson and Roen Kelly

Sanford & Hawley Lumber

Bike shop

2

In N scale, even a small space is enough for big railroading action. A double-track main allows continuous operation while switching the yard or the flour mill. Spurs extending to the ends of the layout would be a great place to add staging or expand the railroad with additional towns. Company housing

Railroad station

Railroad Hotel

The $500 layout

3

Published: January 2004 Scale: HO Plan size: 4'-0" x 6'-6" Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4

This plan was created in 2004 as a response to a challenge to come up with a good-looking railroad that could be built for just $500. Though inflation has raised that price, George Sebastian-Coleman’s ideas are still worth looking at: simple benchwork, a single-track main line, and inexpensive paper buildings. House

Substation

Water tower

Incline (funicular railway)

Pittsburgh Trolley bridge mural

0"

Car barn

Storage yard

Row houses

Scale of plan: 7⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Signal tower

Store

Small houses

Steel mill

Coke Foundry ovens

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

Scale of plan: 3⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Pittsburgh Area Transit Published: March 2003 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 2'-3" x 5'-2" Minimum radius: 12" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 3.8 percent

4"

Church

Mill City Brewery

Central business district

Coal mine

Illustration by Jay Smith

4

When space is tight, think trolleys. Trolleys and streetcars travel on curves of much smaller radius than steam or diesel locomotives, making it easy to fit a complete working road into a limited space. This dual-track figure-eight was designed to fit inside a coffee table.

www.ModelRailroader.com

11

You can do more in 23 square feet than just a loop of track. Though it has about the same square footage as plan no. 3, this layout unfolds the main line to model a busy urban scene with lots of industry sidings. Switching layouts like this maximize operations in minimal space. Since it’s rare

Federal Street Published: May 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 2'-0" x 11'-6" Minimum radius: none Minimum turnout: handlaid

5

Jones & Laughlin Steel

Brewery

Elevator Mfrs. Canning Furniture Dept. Store

Real Pie Co.

Illustration by Rick Johnson

To PRR 30th Street Yard

for a modeler to have enough space to accurately represent the length of prototype main lines, layouts that focus on industrial switching are about as realistic as a model railroad can get. Also, such a layout can be easily incorporated into a larger layout later by extending the main line.

Phillips Mine & Mill Supply Co.

Southside Coal Co.

Iron City Sash & Door Co.

This layout in a closet models a section of a heavy-duty Class 1 railroad, with plenty of hidden staging to keep operators busy. Switching local industries can be challenging when you need to clear the main several times during an operating session to let hotshot freight trains and crack

Junction tower

Oil

passenger trains through. The staging tracks can be used not just as a source of through traffic, but also as a place for local industries to receive freight from and send it to. Hiding the back of the loop behind a ridge gives the idea that the railroad goes somewhere, while keeping the staging accessible.

Scale of plan: 5⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

To Pittsburgh

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Team track

To P&LE

Pennsylvania RR, Middle Division Published: January 2001 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 2'-6" x 10'-0" Minimum radius: 121 ⁄2" Minimum turnout: no. 6

6

Hidden staging tracks (6)

Factory

Business district

Station

Tower

Factories

To Philadelphia

Illustration by Rick Johnson and Roen Kelly

Log landing

C.W. North Logging Co.

7 12

Published: Great Model Railroads 2004 Scale: On3 (1:48) Plan size: 2 x 16 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4

102 Realistic Track Plans

Latch

Sawmill

A small space need not keep you from considering larger scales. The short-wheelbase rolling stock and tight curves of a narrow-gauge logging line makes this O scale layout practical in four easy-to-handle 2 x 4-foot sections. Keeping the trackwork to a minimum also leaves plenty of room for realistic terrain and foliage.

Ed’s Bog Sand

Coal

Creek Enginehouse

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Rick Johnson

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE The Appalachian Central

2.5"

Published: January 2000 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 5'-71 ⁄2" x 7'-0" Minimum radius: 93 ⁄4" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 4 percent

2 percent up

Lift-out hillsides

Through truss bridges

Searles

93⁄4"-radius curve sections

Burgess Programming track

Bruce Junction

4 percent up

93⁄4"-radius curve sections Interchange track

11"-radius curve sections

2.5"

Enginehouse

Handheld controller jacks

Scale of plan: 3⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

1"

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

9

Mid-Atlantic & Western Published: May 2001 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 2 x 10 feet Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 5

Electro-pneumatic switch control system Jenkins’ Valve

Ninth Street

If you want to run long-wheelbase modern diesels and 86-foot quaddoor boxcars, you need broad curves and gentle turnouts. With a switching layout, you can have those even in a small space. Though this urban, industrial layout was originally set in the transition era, it could be any time up to the present day.

Mid-Atlantic Tea & Spice

Sweeney Mfg. Co.

Team track with traveling crane

Canal Street

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

C.J. tower

Katie Mae Milk

Supply Compressor house building Tower Street

8

Model Railroader’s 2000 project railroad sought to combine modern techniques with the layout design style of former MR editor Linn Westcott. Styrofoam scenery, double-sided backdrops, Digital Command Control, and even N scale itself were new developments since Linn’s day. The result was a great model railroad in just 281 ⁄2 square feet. Despite its compact size, the Appalachian Central offers dramatic terrain, two hidden staging yards, continuous operation, vignette scenery, and a nice, long main line for running those unit coal trains Appalachian modelers love so much. Designer Lionel Strang was inspired by Westcott’s Timberline & Tidewater, which appeared in MR’s January 1950 issue. Who knows – maybe in January 2050, we’ll print a track plan updating the Appalachian Central for maglev locomotives, robotic control, and holographic scenery. – Steven Otte

Tenth Street bridge Section Steel Griffon Cutlery joint water tank Strouse-Adler Co. Griffon Metal

Bulk oil

Coal silos Bayside coal offices

Tenth Rowhouses Street

Illustration by Rick Johnson



www.ModelRailroader.com

13

Blue Canon~

Quarry

Brewery Foundry Auburn

Fiddle/staging track

11⁄4"

Donner Pass Division

2" 1⁄4"

3⁄4"

Published: September 2000 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 3 x 8 feet Minimum radius: 10" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 2 percent

11⁄2"

10

0" Interchange

Sacramento

Roseville

Industrial lead Freight house

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

Published: November 2004 Scale: Z (1:220) Plan size: 2'-6" x 8'-0" Minimum radius: 6" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 4.5 percent

At the small end of the size spectrum is Z scale. The Val Ease Central was designed to travel, being built in sections that packed into three hard-sided suitcases (hence the pun in the name). All three units can be operated independently, or as one layout.

VAL EASE EAST

Station

Scale of plan: 1" = 1'-0", 12" grid

14

102 Realistic Track Plans

This N scale tabletop layout packs a lot of action into a small space. In addition to the twice-around main line, this Southern Pacific-themed layout boasts plenty of industries to switch, a fiddle track, and a large classification yard. Leads that extend to the edges of the layout make this a great plan to expand upon later.

CENTRE VAL EASE

VAL EASE WEST +1.18"

0"

0"

Fuel, coal, Depot Transfer Car shop Co. and water

0"

Old River Yard office lighthouse

Freight house MOW stores, Mine Pacific Grain Terminal water, and coal Illustration by Rick Johnson and Roen Kelly

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Stone arch bridge

Team track

Team track

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Val Ease Central

11

Helper track

Interchange track

Laurel Creek coal loader

Baldwin Forest Products

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger and Rick Johnson

Montandon Branch Published: Great Model Railroads 2002 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 2 x 4 feet Minimum radius: 93 ⁄4" Minimum turnout: no. 5

12

This layout is designed for the modeler who prefers realistic scenery rather than a lot of track. There are still enough sidings for a little local freight work, though. The high mountain ridge down the center of the layout divides it into two distinct scenes, increasing the apparent length of the main line. This plan could be doubled in size to turn it into an HO scale 4 x 8.

Lost Horse Mountain

Great Northern Ry.

13

1"

Kaylee Creek

Published: October 2007 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 1'-9" x 3'-6" Minimum radius: 93 ⁄4" Minimum turnout: no. 6

0"

Mountain and urban scenery share space on this ultra-compact N scale Great Northern Ry. layout. Running the main street between the two diagonal industry spurs leaves plenty of room for a busy town scene. Since it has a single main line without a passing track, switching will be challenging. Like the previous plan, this one would also be a good candidate to scale up to HO.

2"

1"

Maintenance shop Coal Shed Water tank Shed Garage Hotel Loading ramp

3"

2" 2"

Town of Trego, Mont. Allied Manufacturing Co. Station

Meramec Valley RR Published: April 2008 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 2'-4" x 7'-10" Minimum radius: 12" Minimum turnout: no. 6

14

4"

3" Abandoned house

Hiding one side of a loop of track in a tunnel can really improve even a small layout’s realism. Instead of a train set that goes around and around, the layout appears to be a section of a much larger system. If there are no tunnels on the line you’re modeling, send your trains behind a backdrop, a row of buildings, or a dense stand of trees. A main line that curves, instead of paralleling the front of the table, also looks longer and more realistic.

Church

Farmhouse

Scale of plan: 11⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

Gas station

Illustration by Theo Cobb

Water tower

Steps

House

45"

47" 45"

Scale of plan: 7⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Truss bridge

Shed

Storage building

Tower

Miller’s General Store



www.ModelRailroader.com

15

Curves, turnouts, and track

Setting standards to handle the trains you want to run By Andy Sperandeo Among the first choices you’ll need to make in designing or selecting a track plan are the sharpness of the curves and the angle and length of the turnouts (track switches). Curves are defined by radius and turnouts by the number of the frog. Or you can decide on what will be the longest cars and engines you want to run. You pretty much end up in the same place either way because your rolling stock will require a certain minimum radius

16

102 Realistic Track Plans

centers

and corresponding frog size to operate reliably. In fact, your trains will look even better on curves and turnouts larger than the minimums they need. The sectional track in a typical HO train set forms curves of 18" radius. That’s measured from the center point of the curve to the center line of the track. Equivalent N scale track sections have a radius of 93 ⁄4". In both scales these sharp curves are best suited to smaller steam locomotives, older-model four-axle diesels, and cars of 50-scale-foot length or shorter. Nevertheless, many larger engines and cars made in both HO and N are engineered to operate on these extremely sharp curves. Experienced modelers have learned to keep curvature and equipment in proportion for the best operation and most realistic appearance.

Curve radius, turnout size, and track spacings are standards you need to set before selecting or drawing a track plan. Tony Koester photo The box “Curvature by scales” on the opposite page recommends minimum radii based on types of rolling stock in different scales. It classifies curves as “sharp,” “conventional,” and “broad” for convenience, but feel free to use any longer inbetween radius that’s appropriate for your track plan. With flextrack you can make curves of whatever radius you need. Of course, larger curves are always better, if you have room for them.

Turnouts

These are usually specified by the angle of the frog, where the two diverging lines cross – see the “Turnout parts” illustration opposite –

Curvature by scales Radii in inches Broad curves Conventional curves Sharp curves

N 17" 14" 11"

HO 30" 24" 18"

S 41" 32" 24"

O 58" 46" 35"

Matching rolling stock to curvature Broad: almost all motive power including most articulated steam engines, full-length passenger cars, and scale 89-foot freight cars Conventional: medium-size steam engines (2-8-2, 4-6-2), six-axle diesels, full-length passenger cars only with easements and modified running gear, and all freight cars except 85- and 89-footers Sharp: small steam engines (2-8-0, 4-6-0), most four-axle diesels, short (60-scale-foot) passenger cars, and freight cars under 60 feet in length For more-detailed recommendations for matching rolling stock and curves, see National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) Recommended Practice RP-11, at www.nmra.org/standards/rp-11.html

Turnout parts

(Points and switch rod are the switch) Headblocks Points

Switch rod

Guardrail

Stock rail

Closure rails

No. 4 frog angle

Stock rail

Frog

Guardrail Wing rail

No. 6 frog angle

Track centers

Along with the size of curves and turnouts, also decide how close to allow parallel tracks. The minimum must let trains pass without touching and with sufficient clearance for reliability. Tracks can be closest when straight, but when they start to bend they have to be farther apart to allow for rolling stock overhanging both inside and outside the curve. The recommendations in the “Track centers” box are conservative and allow a margin for error in track planning. Railroads might put tracks in a yard as close together as 13 feet on center, about 113 ⁄16" in HO. Parallel main lines might be 15 feet on center or 21 ⁄16" in HO. After experimenting with the equipment you want to operate, you may find you can use closer centers in construction than you allowed for in your drawing. When you’ve decided on minimums for curve radius, turnouts, and track centers, you’ll have the basic information to select or design a track plan for your model railroad. RL

CURVES AND TRACK CENTERS

stated as a number. In a no. 4 turnout, the legs of the diverging angle will be one unit of length apart, four units from the apex, also referred to as the point of the frog. This way of defining angles works best for drawing turnouts on a track plan. “Turnout” is a term we use in model railroading to avoid confusion with electrical switches and because it describes the whole assembly where two tracks diverge. A “switch” is only the moving parts of a turnout. The larger the frog number, the longer the turnout and the broader the curvature of its diverging leg. Longer turnouts are good, but they take up more space by themselves and in yard ladders and passing tracks. Just as with curves, you may have to compromise on the shortest turnouts that will handle the equipment you want to run. Number 4 turnouts are about the sharpest normally used for very small layouts. On larger systems it’s best to restrict no. 4s to industrial spurs where only smaller cars and engines will run. Number 5 turnouts are good for layouts with sharp curves and for yards on layouts with conventional curves. Layouts with broad curves will usually have no. 6 turnouts and may use no. 8s in crossovers to ease S-curves. In “wye” turnouts, both legs diverge equally from the center line. A wye turnout of a given number is equivalent to a standard turnout with a number twice as high.

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Track centers N scale Radius (inner track) Track centers

Sharp 9¾" 1½"

Conventional 13" 17 ⁄16"

Broad 16" 13 ⁄ 8"

Straight

HO scale Radius (inner track) Track centers

18" 23 ⁄ 8"

24" 2¼"

30" 21 ⁄ 8"

2"

S scale Radius (inner track) Track centers

24" 3¼"

36" 31 ⁄ 8"

42" 27 ⁄ 8"

2¾"

O scale Radius (inner track) Track centers

32" 43 ⁄ 8"

42" 41 ⁄ 8"

54" 37 ⁄ 8"

35 ⁄ 8"

1¼"

For more-detailed information about track centers, see NMRA Standard S-8, at www.nmra.org/standards/s-8.html



www.ModelRailroader.com

17

4x8s

Track plans that start with a sheet of plywood

Even a small model railroad can have grand scenery. This HO scale bridge and river scene is on the 2 x 6 foot extension to plan no. 18, the Turtle Creek Central. Bill Zuback photo

and a little more By David Popp The traditional beginner model railroad is a layout built on a 4 x 8 foot sheet of plywood. The easiest explanation for this is that plywood, as well as foam insulation board, is sold in those dimensions. One can simply buy a sheet of 3 ⁄4" plywood, set it on saw horses or an old table, and run trains. For a more stable layout, try senior editor Jim Hediger’s all-plywood benchwork plan shown at right. The plan calls for two sheets of 1 ⁄2" plywood. One is ripped into 13 strips 31 ⁄2" x 96", which are used to make the legs and frame. The other is used for the layout top. From there, you can add the roadbed, track, and scenery materials of your choice. Just because 4 x 8 plans are commonly used for beginner model railroads doesn’t mean you should overlook them as a viable layout option. Depending upon the design, a 4 x 8 layout can offer great scenery and operation in a compact space.

18

102 Realistic Track Plans

Benchwork materials 4 x 8 sheet 1 ⁄2" plywood ripped into 13 strips 31 ⁄2" x 96" (1) 4 x 8 sheet 1 ⁄2" plywood (1) 8 foot 2 x 2 (1) 1 ⁄4" x 1" x 10'-0" molding for cross braces (2) 1 ⁄4" x 11 ⁄ 2" carriage bolts (16) 1 ⁄4" washers (16) 1 ⁄4" wing nuts (12) 1 ⁄4" stop nuts (4) Small box 4d 11 ⁄2" finishing nails Small box 1" panel board nails Adjustable furniture feet (4) Carpenter’s wood glue

Tabletop – 1⁄2" plywood 4 x 8-foot sheet

Table construction diagram 16"

96" 47"

32"

Add a short extension, such as the one shown in plan 18, and you greatly expand the layout’s operating possibilities. Most of the plans shown here have track leading off one or more edges, allowing you to add on to them later and expand your empire. RL

40" Cut to fit 18"

35"

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Curved turnouts

Barn Farmhouse

Deer Mountain

15

Published: June 2004 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 4 x 8 foot Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4

Coal tipple Cemetery Church House

Deer Mountain could be set anywhere from Illinois to Pennsylvania in the mid-1940s to the late 1950s. The model railroad features a large ridge that runs through the middle of the layout, providing scenic interest. The track that runs past the freight station could be used as a starting point for an extension or a staging yard.

Wye turnout

School

Hastings

Handcar shed

Freight station

Water tank Station Warehouse Texaco station

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Curved turnout

Highway overpass

Freight house Warehouse

Curved turnout

House

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Keddie Wye Published: Model Railroad Planning 2006 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 4 x 8 foot Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4

To staging yard or Keddie, Calif. Spanish future expansion Creek 9 Scale of plan: ⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

View block

Winnemucca, Nev.

Depot

Illustration by Theo Cobb

16

The wye at Keddie, Calif., was a junction on the Western Pacific (today Union Pacific) in the Feather River Canyon. A major part of the junction’s charm is the combination of bridges over Spanish Creek and a tunnel that make up the wye itself, which, even when modeled at this compressed size, will make an impressive scene.

Millington Coal & Oil Co.

CB&Q Fox River District

Illinois Midland

17

Published: Model Railroad Planning 2004 Scale: S (1:64) Plan size: 4 x 8 foot Minimum radius: 19" Minimum turnout: no. 5

Depot and freight house

Millington

Backs of stores

Feed mill

Backdrop Piggyback ramp

Storefront flats

Stockyard

Street

Freight house

This plan is for a quintessential granger branchline railroad, and features an off-layout interchange. The layout is designed to use sectional track from S-Helper Service’s S-Trax line. These track sections include molded-plastic roadbed, making it easy to get the layout up and running.

Newark

Enginehouse

Illustration by Theo Cobb

Depot

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

19" minimum radius No. 5 turnouts (S-Trax)

Grain elevator

Bulk oil dealer

Illustration by Robert Wegner



www.ModelRailroader.com

19

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE Turtle Creek Central

18

Published: January 2003 (original) and January 2005 (coal branch) Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 4 x 8 with 2 x 6 foot extension Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4

Though I had liked the Turtle Creek Central when former managing editor Jim Kelly originally built the HO scale layout for Model Railroader in 2003, I was amazed at how interesting the railroad became when he added the coal branch to it. The operation added by the small branch line turned the Turtle Creek from just a nice layout to a functional model railroad. The roots of the TCC came from a 4'-0" x 6'-6" plan by Linn Westcott in

the book 101 Track Plans for Model Railroaders. Jim modified the plan for a 4 x 8 foot table and then later added the 2 x 6 foot coal branch. The key point of interest on this layout is the branch line that splits from the inside of the mainline oval. As shown here, Jim’s coal branch was just one option for expansion, since there are three other points where the layout could be extended from for even more fun. – David Popp

Turtle Rapids

Leg assembly Turtle Creek Mine no. 1

Company houses

31⁄2"-wide boards cut from 1⁄2" plywood, glued and nailed to legs 2 x2 pine legs

Horseshoe pits

2 x 6-foot 1⁄2" plywood top

Benchwork 23"

Bolt to frame joist

40" (or match height of existing layout)

Use one nail every 8"

Glue and nail to frame

13"

General store

31⁄2" frame boards cut from sheet of 1⁄2" birch plywood

Adjustable feet

72" Joists 141⁄4" on center

Clark Mining Equipment

Materials for a 2 x 6 foot extension Trailer home

4 x 8 sheet 1 ⁄2" plywood ripped into one 2 x 6 top and 5 strips 31 ⁄2" x 96" (1) 8 foot 2 x 2 (1)

⁄ " x 21 ⁄2" carriage bolts (6) ⁄ " washers (6) 1 ⁄4" wing nuts (6) Adjustable furniture feet (2) 14 14

Mine Creek Turtle Creek

Mill

Factory

Dairy

Turtle Creek

Scale of plan: 11⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

20

102 Realistic Track Plans

Coal dealer

Gas station

Illustrations by Rick Johnson

23"

Freight house

Pier One Phraelish Brown Lumber Co. Rope Works Box Co. Enginehouse

Deepwater Ry. & Navigation Co.

19

United Shell Button Co.

Swift Meat

Quality Metal Forms 23⁄8"

31⁄2"

17⁄8" City Fruit Co.

53⁄8"

Published: Model Railroad Planning 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 3'-43 ⁄4" x 8'-0" Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: Peco small radius Maximum grade: 5 percent

Super Heat Treat, Inc.

0" 17⁄8"

Public wharf Dock master Fold line Harbor Car ferry While you could build this layout to Bridge levels Service out at 53⁄4" fill a 4 x 8 foot table, the original Corp. Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid intent of its designer was to fold the layout in half and fit it into the back of a station wagon to take it to train shows. As such, the layout is just 403 ⁄4" 16d nails pin front panels in raised position (slip fit) wide to fit between the wheel wells. Strap hinge (one per side) The railroad is filled with waterfront charm and would require several kitbashed and scratchbuilt warehouse Piano hinges along bottom of protective structures to fit the footprints shown Illustrations by Robert Wegner layout-edge boards allow them to fold down for viewing on the plan. A key feature to this railroad is the car ferry, which serves as a fiddle yard, providing a way to move cars on and off the layout. Like plan no. 18, this layout features several points for future expansion.

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE Depot

Water Water column tower

Standard gauge hopper Coal prep plant (loads in/empties out) under prep plant

Colorado & Southern

Team track

Published: Model Railroad Planning 2002 Scale: On21 ⁄2 (1:48) Plan size: 4 x 8 foot Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4

Shed Road Backdrop

20

Industry no. 1

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

Road overpass

Loading chute

Coal tipple (empties in/ loads out)

Depot

Water tower

I’m an unabashed fan of the hobby’s second largest scale, so I was especially captivated by this 4 x 8 layout that features O scale models. But instead of attempting to shoehorn fullsized O scale equipment and track into this minimal footprint, Chris Webster designed his Colorado & Southern plan to use Atlas HO scale sectional track and Bachmann’s line of On2½ (Bachmann calls them On30) narrow gauge equipment. Furthermore, this plan includes a double-sided backdrop that’s situated at the center of the layout to create two unique scenes and areas for railroad operations. – Kent Johnson, associate editor

www.ModelRailroader.com

21

Interchange

Tank rack

Empak cleaning track

View blocks

Rollins-Pearle

Empak repair track

Houston’s Port Terminal RR

21

Published: Model Railroad Planning 2002 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 4 x 8 foot Minimum radius: 10" Minimum turnout: Peco medium radius

Shell Oil Shed with dock

Using a 4 x 8 for an N scale railroad can offer a lot of great advantages, as shown in this plan for Houston’s Port Mirror Houston Deer Park Junction Access Tank car Refinery Storage tanks Terminal RR. Through clever use of Ship pipe bridge (with CTC signals) road and piping docks view blocks and a staging yard buried Channel Jesse H. Jones Lubrizoil loading Lubrizoil (STP) Equipment Equity Grain in the middle of the model railroad, Highway Bridge dock (boxcars) tank rack delivery track the layout is effectively split into Illustration by Terri Field Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid several industrial scenes.

Montreal, Quebec

Windsor Station

Industries

Delaware & Hudson

22"

Published: Model Railroad Planning 2006 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 4 x 8 foot Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4

Willsboro Bay of Lake Champlain Scale of plan:

9⁄16" = 1'-0",

Red Rocks Illustration by Theo Cobb

12" grid

Sedimentation tank

Magarac Steel & Iron

23

Published: Model Railroad Planning 2008 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 4 x 8 foot Minimum radius: 22" Minimum turnout: no. 4

A 4 x 8 layout doesn’t have to have a continuous oval of track with one or two towns on it. Magarac Steel & Iron represents a layout that is a single heavy industry. The plan’s small interchange yard provides a way for cars to come in and out of the plant.

22

102 Realistic Track Plans

Gas supply

22

This layout features two signature scenes on the Delaware & Hudson RR. The first is Windsor Station in Montreal, Quebec (which is actually a Canadian Pacific station). The other is a bit of main line that runs high above Willsboro Bay on Lake Champlain.

Blowing house

Powerhouse

To car-repair shop

Blast furnace

To slag dump

Main office

Test laboratory

Water tank

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Cold blast pipe Gas-supply pipe

Ingot stripper and soaking pit

Rolling mill

Bessemer house

Illustration by Jay Smith

Black River Junction

24

Published: January 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 4 x 8 foot with 1'-6" x 6'-0" extension Minimum radius: 191 ⁄4" Minimum turnout: Kato no. 4

The Black River Junction plan is for a freelance railroad junction town set someplace in Ohio in the 1950s. Here, a Baltimore & Ohio branch line meets up with a New York Central main line. Having an operating junction between two railroads works on this small layout thanks in part to a 1'-6" x 6'-0" Black River New York four-track staging yard that runs House Factory NYC depot Central RR Black River along one edge of the railroad. Both the B&O and the NYC keep active passenger stations in Black River, and the NYC also has a small commuter station on the outskirts of town at East Switch. The original plan was designed for Town Kato Unitrack, but you could easily build it with flextrack and turnouts. And, you could extend the B&O main line through the NYC’s curve at the left of the plan and extend the layout onto another shelf for more staging or another town. Don’t want to set the railroad in Ohio? You could easily adapt the plan for your favorite railroads and region. B&O freight house B&O depot NYC depot The curve radii would work with fourEast Switch Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid axle diesels and 50-foot boxcars.

Team track

Add-on staging yard

B&O NYC Tower

Black River Junction

Factory Illustration by Jay Smith

Grain elevator

Spokane Valley & Northern Published: May 2002 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 4 x 8 foot Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Lumber yard

Interchange track

Illustration by Robert Wegner and Rick Johnson

25

This layout is designed as a modern short line, spun off from a large Class 1 railroad. While it does have sharp curves, four-axle diesel locomotives pulling covered grain hoppers would be ideal for this layout. Like several other plans in this chapter, the Spokane Valley & Northern features several points where extensions could be connected to add more main line or industries or a staging yard.

www.ModelRailroader.com

23

Sketching by the squares Learn controlled doodling and even your rough sketches on fast-food napkins can fit in scale By Andy Sperandeo It’s fun to sketch layout concepts as they occur to you, but it takes a lot of time to try a new thought in a scale drawing. Fortunately there’s a faster way to see if your great idea will fit. John Armstrong, the dean of layout designers, invented a method of controlled doodling that can be used to quickly test track planning ideas. It’s called sketching by the squares.

This method is based on a unit of area called a square, defined as shown in the box below. (These illustrations are adapted from Armstrong’s Track Planning for Realistic Operation, from Kalmbach Books.) First set the size of your square, then use it to divide your layout room into a grid. The example below shows a 12 x 18foot room for an HO scale layout that will have a 27" minimum radius with 2" track centers. That makes a square 31" on a side (27" + (2 x 2") = 31") and

the room size in squares comes out to about 42 ⁄3 x 7. Use tracing paper to lay out a grid over your room drawing, then make copies of the grid drawing for sketching layout ideas. You can always try a different-size square based on a different minimum radius by laying a new grid over your original room drawing. And if an idea comes to you when you don’t have one of those copies, all you have to do is draw a rough grid of squares on whatever paper is handy

12 x 18-foot room divided into 31" squares

Definition of a square S (side of square) C (track center spacing for radius R)

R (minimum mainline radius) 12'-0" 42⁄3 x almost

7 squares

S = R + 2C

31"

29"

(Minimum track center spacing may be obtained from NMRA standard S-8) Squares are of the following approximate sizes: N HO S O Sharp curves 13" 22" 32" 42" Conventional curves 16" 28" 38" 50" Broad curves 20" 34" 48" 64"

31"

19"

18'-0"

24

102 Realistic Track Plans

Illustrations by Rick Johnson

SKETCHING SQUARES

Layout Design Elements

H&H Produce Co.

Seaboard Swimming Pools

Depot

West to Mineola Lincoln Ave.

Roslyn Road

Orchard St.

Schroeter Lumber

Church St.

East to Oyster Bay

Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Bob Wegner

You can design a model railroad using track arrangements based on the real thing. Tony Koester, editor of Model Railroad Planning magazine, calls these Layout Design Elements, or LDEs for short. For a small railroad you can pick one LDE as the focal point and design everything else around it. For a larger system, string LDEs together – a yard, a station, a major industry, and so on – and join them with segments of main line. One advantage of LDEs is that they automatically look realistic because they’re taken from reality. Another is

and start sketching. The grid doesn’t need to be drawn to scale or even be exactly square to be useful.

What fits in a square

Helena Rubenstein

The key to this method is knowing what fits in the squares, as shown below. Keep your sketches within those

that your trains will be able to operate like the big ones because the LDE follows a real-life track arrangement. You can find prototypes to use as LDEs in magazines, books, and railroad historical society publications. Also see Tony’s book on LDEs, Realistic Model Railroad Building Blocks, from Kalmbach Books. When you find something you like, draw it to scale and convert its dimensions to squares. If you know that the large grain elevator complex you want to model needs ¾ x 3 squares, it’ll be easy to work it into your sketches. – A.S.

guidelines and your ideas will work when drawn to scale. Since everything you sketch by the squares is proportioned to your minimum radius, this method assumes that your rolling stock will be proportional also. Aisleways for walk-in or walk-around layouts aren’t included.

That’s because everything in the squares varies with modeling scale, but of course our width doesn’t. For HO layouts a comfortable aisle will be at least one square wide – more if the minimum radius is small. For N scale allow a width of at least two squares and about half a square for O scale. RL

What will go in a square?

Standard (straight) turnouts

Minimum radius Substandard radius

Two concentric semicircles with the inner track of minimum radius will fit in a two-square space. A third track would have to be of substandard radius.

Interlaced single-track main lines will fit comfortably in a two-square width.

A standard turnout centered in the two-square space will not quite fit. Locating it at an angle will make this alignment practical.

2 squares

3 squares

4 squares

11⁄4 squares 11⁄2 squares

B Ten tracks or more will fit side-by-side in one square. However, it takes approximately two squares of length to connect only five tracks with a simple ladder.

A turntable and roundhouse of appropriate size for the class of railroad being modeled will take a space 11⁄4 squares by 3⁄4 to 11⁄4 squares, depending on the number of roundhouse stalls.

C

A

In highly convoluted alignments, length in one direction can be substituted for another (and vice versa) to some extent. To get the narrow waist of alignment A, a length (left to right of diagram) of almost four squares is required. If length of only two or three squares is available, extra width required for alignment B or C must be provided.



www.ModelRailroader.com

25

Layout

schematics By Andy Sperandeo

This small N scale table layout has a continuous main line, but one side of the oval is out of sight behind the scenery, where a hidden storage siding is also concealed. Model Railroader photo

How to think of your track plan as a railroad Most of us start out in model railroading with one of the most basic layout schematics, an oval or continuous loop. That’s a great place to start, but it’s not much like a real railroad. A railroad is a business, and outside of amusement parks and some subway lines, there’s not much money to be made by running trains around in circles. So among the first considerations in planning a layout is devising an arrangement that lets your model main line look

Point-to-point A railroad, some people insist, runs trains from Point A to Point B, then has to turn them around to return to Point A. That’s reality and that’s the way they want a model railroad to work too. If you find yourself agreeing with that, a point-to-point schematic may make the most sense to you. Using a point-to-point schematic, trains run across your layout from one terminal to another, passing through such stations or towns along the way as the layout’s size allows. At the end of the line, they need to be turned around to return the way they came, and probably to be switched as well. Freight trains, especially, won’t usually carry the same cars both ways. The complaint about true point-topoint layouts is that it takes much longer to turn trains in an end-of-theline stub terminal than to run the length of the main line. If the layout represents a slow-paced branch or short line, the share of time spent in switching will be appropriate. If you

26

102 Realistic Track Plans

and act more like a real railroad. That arrangement is what we call a layout schematic. These schematics come in several varieties, and none is, in itself, better than any other. The value of a schematic lies in whether or not it lets your model railroad accomplish whatever it is that you want it to do. This overview touches on only a few useful layout schematics. For more detail, see Track Planning for Realistic Operation, by John Armstrong, published by Kalmbach Books. RL

Point-to-point schematics Point-to-point Yard

Yard Station – can be any number

Reverse loop with storage track

Point-to-loop Yard

Station

Loop-to-loop Storage track

Yard

Station

Storage track

Illustrations by Rick Johnson and Theo Cobb

aim for a busier tempo, however, a true point-to-point will be too slow. One solution is to replace the stub terminal at one or both ends with a reverse loop for faster turning. The pointto-loop schematic lets a train travel the main line once in each direction before having to be turned in the yard. With loops at both ends, a loop-to-loop schematic, trains can run continuously, just as on an

oval. Storage tracks on the loops will support a greater variety of trains. Just as continuous loops are good for open-top-traffic, loop-to-loop schematics favor the operation of passenger trains. The same model consist can represent the east- and westbound versions of the same passenger train more convincingly than is usually the case with freight runs.

The simple continuous loop or oval shouldn’t be an object of scorn just because it’s so basic. Many outstanding model railroads have been built on its foundation, and there are a lot of ways to put it to good use. First let’s recognize that any schematic that lets a train run continuously in the same direction fits this definition. It doesn’t matter if the track crosses over itself like a figure eight or is otherwise stretched and folded. If it supports continuous running in the same direction, it’s a loop. One way to overcome the loopiness of a loop is to hide part of it. The N scale loop layout shown on the opposite page is a good example. The scenic ridge along the back of the table hides the far side of the loop. That ridge also conceals a doubleended siding or passing track, and both the hidden siding and the hidden section of the main line can be used as storage tracks. Suppose a freight train appears from the right end of the layout running clockwise. Let’s stop using terms of circular motion and say this train is westbound. It stops, sets out a car at the lumberyard, and picks up some others from the interchange track. When it’s back together it proceeds west to the siding hidden behind the ridge. Instead of letting that first train run, let’s stop it in the storage track and start an eastbound train that’s been waiting on the hidden main line. It comes through the foreground scene in the opposite direction.

Continuous schematics

Continuous with storage sidings Storage

Simple oval

LAYOUT SCHEMATICS

Continuous loops

View block, high scenery or backdrop

Storage

Figure 8

Station C View block Station B

Twice-around

Station A

Now our simple loop layout takes on the linear characteristics of a railroad. We see a train come from one direction, pass by the place we’re watching, and go away in the other direction. That’s how a loop can give the impression of real railroading. If we had room to make our layout larger we could run trains through two or more scenes. We might even pass through a freight yard or city passenger

station. And let’s add more storage tracks for a greater variety of trains. You can see where this is going. A loop is great for coal or ore traffic in open-top cars. The loads can always go one way and the empties the other. If you can run your continuous main line along the walls of your room or basement, you’ll have the popular and effective around-the-walls type of layout.

Storage yard

Yard Double-faced backdrop separates opposite sides of continuous loop Station C Station A

Combination schematics There are many other possible schematics, and some of the most popular combine features of the continuous and point-to-point. You can always operate a continuous main line as if it ran point-to-point. Or you can add reversing loops to a continuous schematic, so you can run coal or ore trains in the loop pattern and passenger trains loop-to-loop. The key is to choose a schematic that supports the kind of operations you want to model.

Station B

Turning loop

Turning loop

Storage yard

Station B

Double-faced backdrop Yard

Station A Station C



www.ModelRailroader.com

27

Simple drafting tools will let you draw curves and turnouts with great accuracy. Photo by Bill Zuback

Drawing curves and turnouts accurately Careful drafting leads to easier construction and reliable operation By Andy Sperandeo The essence of drawing an accurate track plan is being careful and correct with curves and turnouts. There are a couple of basic techniques to master and a shortcut to help with the most

28

102 Realistic Track Plans

repetitive tasks. Think of these skills as foundations to support your imagination, and you’ll be able to both enjoy the fun of track planning and trust the practicality of your work.

Curves with a compass

Swinging arcs with a compass is easy, and that’s a lot of designing a model railroad. If you’ve sketched your layout plan by the squares, you already know where the major curves will go. Tape tracing paper over your space diagram, trace the outline of the room, use an architect’s scale to set your

compass to your minimum radius, and draw the arcs you’ve sketched. Swing the arcs through more degrees of curvature than needed. That makes it easier to accurately connect them with straight lines. You can erase the excess arc after you’ve located your main lines. To connect curves with straight lines, align your rule so the pencil point barely touches the outside of the arc. This helps make the line geometrically “tangent” to the arc, touching the arc at only one point, and therefore the straight track will meet

DRAWING ACCURATELY

Turnout dimensions

S†

Q: Distance from switch point to intersection of center lines

Q

P†

L

L: Lead, distance from switch point to point of frog P†: Minimum straight section ahead of switch points

X

S†: Overall length of straight leg of turnout

C† Branch curve

C†: Overall length of curved leg of turnout (measured as shown) X: Offset between continuation of curve and straight leg of turnout

Illustrations by Rick Johnson

This table gives key turnout dimensions useful for laying out center-line track diagrams to scale, to ensure that the alignment can be built in the indicated space. To Turnout dimensions

N

HO

4

5

6

Q

13/8

15/ 16

15/ 16

2

21/2

L

23/4

31/8

33/8

47/8

Frog #

actually build turnouts, see NMRA Recommended Practice RP-12, from which these figures were derived. All dimensions are in inches, to the nearest 1 ⁄16".

8

4

S 4

5

O

41/2*

5

6

8

6

8

4

5

6

8

27/ 16

23/8

23/4

35/ 16

31/4

31/8

53/ 16

49/ 16

41/2

43/8

75/ 16

51/ 16

53/ 16

511/ 16

61/4

9

613/ 16

75/8

83/8

123/ 16

99/ 16

103/4

117/8

175/ 16

P†

1/2

9/ 16

5/8

13/ 16

15/ 16

11/2

11/ 16

13/ 16

11/2

11/4

13/8

11/2

17/8

15/8

113/ 16

2

21/2

S†

313/ 16

41/4

411/ 16

61/2

7

9

713/ 16

85/8

12

95/ 16

103/8

113/8

1515/ 16

1213/16

143/8

157/8

225/ 16

C†

33/4

41/4

11/ 16

61/2

67/8

8

73/4

85/8

12

93/ 16

105/ 16

113/8

1515/ 16

1211/16

144/ 16

157/8

225/ 16

X

3/ 16

1/4

1/4

5/ 16

5/ 16

5/8

7/ 16

1/2

5/8

1/2

9/ 16

3/4

13/ 16

5/8

3/4

15/ 16

11/8

† Dimensions given are minimums; for ready-to-use or kit turnouts substitute actual measurements from turnouts to be used. For example, Atlas HO no. 6: P = 11/2", S = 12", C = 10". Most sharp- and conventional-curve N scale ready-to-use turnouts are the curved-frog design, as are Peco Streamline

the curve squarely, without a kink of sharper radius. (Railroaders and model railroaders use “tangent” to mean straight track, because every straightaway on a railroad is tangent to some curve.) Also, if the straight line barely touches the curve there will be room for transition, or easement, curves. These are spirals of gradually decreasing radius that allow engines and cars to enter and leave curves smoothly. Easements not only look nice, they help trains run better by compensating for the extreme sharpness of even the broadest model railroad curves. Easements require an offset between the straight track and the constant-radius curve to allow for the

turnouts in all scales. These can best be laid out as arcs tangent to the straight-leg center lines and the actual dimensions C and P. * Atlas no. 4 HO turnout is actually no. 41/2. L, P, S, C, and X are shown for this turnout in the HO columns.

gradual transition to that radius. The offset is generally some fraction of an inch, however, the width of a pencil line is enough to represent it. (Note that half the length of the easement will extend into the tangent, so allow for that too by not locating turnouts closer to the curve than that distance.) You’ll also need to draw new curves taking off from straight lines. Start by aligning a triangle along your tangent so that the 90-degree corner is at the point where you want the curve to start. Then draw a line along the triangle that will be perpendicular to the straight line – the center of the curve will fall along that perpendicular line. With your compass set to the desired radius, place the point on the

perpendicular line so the tip of the lead barely touches the tangent. Then you can swing the compass to draw the arc of that curve. Don’t fudge on the relationship between curves and tangents. Accuracy here will pay off on your railroad.

Turnout accuracy

Turnouts also call for careful drawing, both to construct accurate angles and to mark off relevant dimensions. The table above gives the information you need based on NMRA Recommended Practice RP-12 (www. nmra.org/standards/rp12.html). Not all turnouts necessarily match these recommendations – nor should they. If you’ll be using turnouts with other

www.ModelRailroader.com

29

Laying out turnouts on track plans - 1 To lay out a turnout at a given location on a tangent, points to be at A: 3 2

1

6 5 4 3 2 1 1 unit

A

Centers of curves joining turnout must lie on perpendicular lines from track center lines through points measured in step 6, or beyond.

Q

1. *Measure point-to-intersection distance Q from “Turnout dimensions” table. 2. *Measure number of units equal to turnout frog number – units may be of any convenient length. 3. *Draw perpendicular and measure one unit.† 4. *Draw line through points 1 and 3. 5. Measure length L from “Turnout dimensions” table – this locates frog.

4

C 1

3 5

S

* A protractor may be substituted for steps 1 through 4, using the angles below: P

L

6. Measure distance P, then S, and then C for turnout type (NMRA, kit, or ready-to-use). This locates rail joints or other points at which curved track can join turnout. † For equilateral or wye turnout, measure ½ unit on each side of straight center line.

dimensions, such as scratchbuilt turnouts following the specifications of your favorite prototype, use those measurements in your track plan. The illustrations on this page and the next show how to lay out turnouts step by step and also give turnout frog angles for use with a protractor. As with curves it often helps to extend straight lines from turnouts longer than they need to be and erase them later. It may allow you to mark the distance for a frog angle in larger

units that are easier to read, and the extended lines can be useful in other ways. To lay out a yard ladder, for example, extend the diverging line from the initial turnout, then draw body tracks parallel to the base line. Where the body tracks intersect the diverging line are points of intersection for the turnouts in the ladder.

Templates

One shortcut for all this drafting is templates. Commercial templates are

Frog number Angle in degrees 3

19

4

141⁄4

41⁄2

121⁄2

5

111⁄2

6

91⁄2

8

71⁄6

easy to use if you’re satisfied with the scale, curve, and turnout choices they offer. But it’s not hard to make your own, as shown in the illustration on the opposite page, with exactly the curves and turnouts you want in the scale you’ve chosen for your drawing. If your compass has a knife blade, it’s easy to cut the required arcs in clear acetate or styrene. You can do almost as well by scoring with a second point in a compass. For the turnout template, use a hobby knife and just score and snap out the wedge across the straight edge of the template. Flip the template over for rightor left-hand turnouts. A deluxe set of track planning templates might include at least three curves: the minimum radius, the radius for the outer track on a twotrack curve, and a radius tighter than the minimum that you find acceptable for branch lines or industrial spurs. Similarly, you can include templates for your minimum turnout and two or three larger sizes you can use to avoid potential S-curve trouble in crossovers or just to look nice. RL The methods explained here will help you lay smoothly flowing trackwork, like that of the Benton, N.M., yard leads on Eric Brooman’s HO scale Utah Belt layout. Eric Brooman photo

30

102 Realistic Track Plans

To join a curve to a tangent through a turnout at a given location on a tangent, with the center of the curve at B and tangent to pass through C:

B

1. Draw curve center lines of radii R and R + X (find X in “Turnout dimensions” table).

Right angle to proposed track

2. Draw tangent from C to join curve R + X. 3. Draw right angle from tangent to B – this locates the point of

R

Proposed track

tangent offset PTO. 4. Measure distance D equal to radius R divided by the frog number –

Curve R PC

this locates the point of curvature PC. Draw line from B to PC. 5. Draw line from PC perpendicular to B-PC – where this crosses tangent is the point of intersection PI.

D

L

6. Measure distances Q and L to each side of PI to locate point and frog of turnout.

Curve R + X

PTO PI

Proposed track

C

Q

Templates for track planning Templates will ease the task of drawing a track plan to scale, and can be especially useful in the cut-and-try process of finding the best alignment for key trackwork. The templates can be of any material, but heavy acetate or clear styrene will let you see your previous drawing through the template.

Cut to exact radius; extra space allowance caused by width of pencil line will be about enough to allow for easements on the actual railroad 41⁄2 units

Joint Points

1 unit

Point of intersection

Joint (curved side)

24" radius Scale 11⁄2" = 1'-0" (1⁄8" = 1")

Joint (straight side) No. 6 turnout (offset 3⁄4") 18" radius Scale 11⁄2" = 1'-0" (1⁄8" = 1")

2" track centers

As you find various bits of information, put them on the templates for ready reference

2p erc e nt

Notch at exact center of curve

at

1 unit

i se

These locations vary with each make of turnout

No. 41⁄2 turnout (offset 5⁄8")

Frog

"r

Joint, curved side 6 units

Length of R-1 4-8-4

Joint, straight side

1



www.ModelRailroader.com

31

DRAWING ACCURATELY

Laying out turnouts on track plans - 2

A trio of Great Northern diesels leads a freight train downgrade through the pines on Ron Johns’ N scale Cascade, Wash., layout (plan 26, below). It’s hard to believe all this scenery fits in less than 64 square feet. Many modelers will find a layout the size of the ones in this chapter to be just right: small enough to build and manage alone, large enough to landscape and operate realistically, but not so big it takes over the house. Some of the track plans you’ll see in the following pages compress an entire working railroad into less than 120 square feet, like the Red Rock Northern (plan 34); others focus on operations around a single industry, like Calumet Steel (plan 45). Some take a freelanced approach, allowing a variety of industries and track arrange­ ments, as in the City of Wauwatoga (plan 39). Others, such as the Valley City Street & Interurban Ry. (plan 33), are representations of real prototypes. Whatever your approach, one of the plans here should fit your style. And many of these plans have options for future expansion, should more room become available. ­Because, after all, is any model railroad ever really finished? RL

Compact

layouts

33 railroads sized for a spare bedroom By Steven Otte Access to hidden staging tracks

Grain elevator

Feed mill

Mine

Down

Orchard

Cascade, Wash. 421⁄8"

397⁄8"

Up 41"

397⁄8" Down

Garage Oil depot Tower

Machine shop

Enginehouse Lumber mill Mill pond 41" Swimming hole

32

Down Up

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Creek

102 Realistic Track Plans

Scale of plan: 1⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Freight Cold house storage

Published: October 2000 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 17'-3" x 8'-9" Minimum radius: 141 ⁄2” (main), 11" (staging) Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent

26

One side of this L-shaped layout centers on rustic scenery, with a creek, sawmill, rock cuts, and tall pines. The other side models a bustling mountain town in the Pacific Northwest. Numerous spur and yard tracks will keep the local operator busy while through trains run on the twicearound main. A hidden staging yard connects to both ends of the main line, allowing trains to enter the layout from either direction.

Oil dealer

Diner

Gas station

Row houses

Feed mill

Tower Factory

House

11⁄2"

Fox River RR

27

Stores

Published: June 2005 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 8'-0" x 10'-6" Minimum radius: 15" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Minimum grade: 2 percent

0"

Crane

Intermodal yard 1 0" 2 ⁄2"

This N scale layout is designed for the modeler who likes contemporary railroading. Long-wheelbase modern locomotives, auto racks, and multiunit intermodal cars would look great traversing the broad 15" curves, and the double-track main can handle plenty of traffic. There’s also a nice mix of scenery, from a high wooden trestle to heavy modern industry.

Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Rick Johnson

Oil refinery

Trestle Dry creek bed

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE 5"

0" Kawala Coal Co. (truck dump) 3 percent up 0"

3"

Published: April 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 10'-0" x 11'-6" Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 3 percent

6"

Christianson Cement Corp.

Swanson Oil Co.

Girder bridge

FULTONHAM YARD

New Lexington

Glass Rock & Eastern RR

4"

Conrail interchange track Truss bridge

Girder bridge

Popp Lumber Co.

South Zanesville

Girder bridge

Glass Rock

3"

0"

6"

2.8 percent up Pony truss Conrail interchange CSX interchange

Grivno Clay Corp.

28

Central Silica (sand pit) Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Rick Johnson

This railroad focuses on hauling raw materials like coal, cement, sand, clay, and oil, so bring your hopper and tank cars. The design looks complicated, but it’s a simple wye, with two legs ending in stub tracks and the third in a reversing loop. The layout is based on the prototype Ohio Southern RR, a 32-mile short line that does all of its work with a single GP7 and freight cars supplied by Conrail and CSX. Operations are centered on the small yard at Fultonham, with traffic entering and leaving the layout via the interchanges at New Lexington and South Zanesville. Each of the layout’s three branches has a different combination of typical regional industries that were served by railroads in southern Ohio. They’ll provide plenty of switching opportunities to keep a single operator busy for many hours. While this track plan was inspired by an interesting prototype, most of the layout’s industries are named for my fellow Model Railroader editors. –Jim Hediger

www.ModelRailroader.com

33

Control panel

Shasta Division

Sacramento River

Highway 80

Golden Empire

29

Published: March 2004 Scale: Z (1:220) Plan size: 7 x 7 feet Minimum radius: 11" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Minimum grade: 2 percent

Table splice

Pacific Ocean

Open center measures 42" square

Sacramento Division

Coast Division

Four regions and four seasons are captured in this Z scale display layout. It’s a perfect example of vignette design, in which backdrops divide a layout into discrete scenes. Here, the scenes represent different stretches of the Southern Pacific RR in California. With no turnouts, this layout was designed for scenery, not operations. But in Z scale, there’s plenty of room to add passing sidings, towns, and industries if you wish.

Removable backdrop on each side

Removable scene dividers at each corner

Table splice

San Joaquin Division

Control panel

Scale of plan: 7⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Rick Johnson and Roen Kelly

Donaldson

Eaglecreek & Northern

10.5"

Published: July 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 7'-10" x 14'-5" Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 6 (main) and no. 4 (yards) Maximum grade: 3 percent

30

Frank Ellison said a layout is a stage, and the trains are its actors. With the large window providing a view of this railroad from the living room, the comparison is apt. Though mountain scenery is the focus, a town, yard, engine terminal, industries, and staging make it fun to operate, too.

B

B Butte

Removable access panel

(UP staging)

Long Neck Creek

Station 3-track fiddle yard on 32" transfer table

0"

Clark A 0" Mount Shadow

4"

Elk City

Silver Spur Mine

Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

(E&N staging)

Engine terminal Control panel

Union Pacific staging

0"

Reverse cutoff

Eagle Creek

D D

7" Viewing window

Hogback Junction C Raymondale

C

Sawmill

A

6" Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

34

102 Realistic Track Plans

31

Metro Belt & Terminal Published: April 2001 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 8'-6" x 11'-9" Minimum radius: 22" Minimum turnout: no. 6

Interchange track Commerce St.

Old stores

WEST JUNCTION

Industrial gas distributor Lumber sheds

3.25"

Up

Scrap yard 14th St.

This railroad packs a lot of main line 1.0" into a small space, thanks to the S 4.25" curve on the center peninsula. As the A name indicates, it represents a busy Beer distributor city switching district, which means Obtuse Saloon lots of industrial sidings to keep the local freight’s engineer on his toes. A Franklin Street two-track staging loop hidden under 4.75" Team track Franklin Street allows for continuous operation. If space permits, the shelf at the bottom of this plan Scale of plan: 7⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Tall brick warehouse could be extended around the corner along a second or even Old depot foundation third wall. (in weeds) Two-track staging below Franklin Street (not to scale) Up to A Up to B 0"

Depot

Produce terminal

Grocery Supply

Edge of scenery

Slackjaw

57"

Depot Farmer’s Trotwater Co-op Esmeralda Junction Recessed Mining Co. control panel

Swadfly Creek

Bogg’s Landing

53"

Depot 53" Removable section

53"

Consolidated Sludge Inc.

12" grid

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Illustration by Rick Johnson

32

53"

Flying Dutchman Navigation Co.

Wharf

Scale of plan:

24th St.

Munchie Mill

Published: June 2001 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 8 x 12 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 4 percent

54"

53"

3⁄8" = 1'-0",

Clinton St. Foundry sand

Bogg’s Landing & Trotwater RR 54"

Miracle Machine Tools

Tall double-sided flats (viewblock)

View block

Backdrop

57"

Baker’s Inlet

City Lumber

4.75" Interchange tracks

Criminini’s Fresh Fish

B

FABCO Steel Fabricators Sweetener distributor

Produce St.

Edge of scenery

2.0"

Dunn-Wurpt Wood Products

Though there’s a lot of track in this room, the designer avoids the ­“spaghetti bowl” effect by using several tunnels long enough to hide an entire train, keeping sidings to a manageable number, and using elevation changes to separate tracks vertically. The removable section by the entry allows continuous operation, but without it, the layout can be run as a more prototypical point-to-point or point-to-loop railroad. Depending on the scenery and structures chosen, the mine-to-dock operational scheme could fit in the Appalachians, around the Great Lakes, along the Pacific coast, or even in rugged Alaska.



www.ModelRailroader.com

35

33

Valley City Street & Interurban Ry. Published: November 2002 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 5'-6" x 10'-9" Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Sneakoff between tree-covered hills

Like many roads of the early 1900s, the prototype Valley City Street & Interurban Railway was founded to serve a town bypassed by the Class 1 carriers. It was an electrified short line that handled interchange traffic from the Soo Line and the Northern Pacific in Valley City, N.D. Both railroads are modeled on this plan as Backdrop with hills and sky

Soo staging

House flats

First Avenue

branches leading into hidden staging. This layout might be expanded with more staging or a visible addition to the interchange lines. A modeler might choose to run his trains off current from the overhead wire, or make the wires purely decorative. Then again, the layout could be built freelanced, and run with diesel or steam engines.

Low backdrop

Freight platform Track with overhead wire

Grain elevator

Coal and fuel yard

Stockyard NP High Line (mainline viaduct)

Gravel pit City limit

Miller Fibre Co.

Soo Line

Roosevelt NP Avenue Curtis Olson Oil Co. VCS&I shed

Russell-Miller Milling Co.

North Valley City

Sixth Avenue

Second Avenue Commercial Fifth Avenue buildings

NP staging Houses on backdrop

Smith Lumber Co. Sneakoff through low backdrop

Station Sheyenne River Northern Pacific Front Street

Scale of plan: 1⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Valley City

Station

Fourth Avenue

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Granite Creek

Yellow Jacket Mine

Liftout (duckunder height 40")

Red Rock Northern

1"

Lumber Team supply track 0" Granite Creek staging

Depot

Freight house

Feed store

George’s Gorge

Oil dock

1⁄2"

A

Staging hidden below Summit main line Staging level not to scale

Main Street

A

A Summit

0"

Red Rock staging Main Street

Engine service

Depot

31⁄2" 0"

A Big Bug Mine Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Rick Johnson

36

102 Realistic Track Plans

Red Rock

Iron King Mine

Published: June 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 9 x 11 feet Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 2 percent

34

This twice-around shelf layout took second place in Model Railroader’s 2007 layout planning contest. Though it’s depicted as being set in the American Southwest, a simple change in landscaping and industries could transplant it to the Appalachians or northern Rockies. A tunnel conceals two staging tracks and a continuousrunning cutoff, and the engine terminal is cleverly situated to serve both ends of the line.

Passenger station

Pennsylvania RR, Bald Eagle Branch

35

Published: December 2001 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 6 x 8 feet Minimum radius: 9" Minimum turnout: no. 6 (main), no. 4 (sidings)

An aisle and a backdrop separate this small N scale layout into three distinct scenes, allowing the operator to simulate a railroad that really goes somewhere. Though it’s designed as a folded dogbone, sending the return tracks through tunnels preserves the prototypical appearance. An engine terminal and a good-size yard also add to the feel of this layout being a branch of a big-time railroad.

This railroad started out as an oval on a rectangular table, but it didn’t stop there. The 12-square-foot engine terminal and yard addition, attached to what was originally a freight house spur, greatly increases the oval layout’s operating interest. And Tunnel no. 2, added on to represent the lead to an unmodeled branch of the railroad, is an obvious place to

Freight station

Schaefer Paper Mill

Tyrone

Backdrop

Bald Eagle

Keystone Laurel Creek tipple no. 2 Metals

Laurel Creek

Reading interchange

Mill Hall

Engine terminal Tower Yard office

Cabin tracks

Visible staging

Scale of plan: 1⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Rick Johnson

continue adding on – maybe a logging branch or an interchange to another railroad. There’s also growth potential in the tracks heading left from Hastings or off the end of Hastings Yard. Look at some of the other plans in this section and note tracks that lead up to the edge of the layout. A similar addition could make one of those track plans just right for you.

Kanawha Creek Ry. Published: November 2000 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 7 x 13 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 2.5 percent

36

Enginehouse

Lee Farm Supply

Station

Hastings

HJ Tower

Freight house

Hastings Yard

Tunnel no. 2

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Kanawha Creek

Station

Genesee Lager

East Falls

Maple Valley Coal



www.ModelRailroader.com

37

Excel Electronics

Abandoned

Warehouse

90 degrees

Industrial scene backdrop

Lee Street

Staging track 1

Three-story building

Used Retail Thacker car lot stores Avenue Telephone shanty

Upstate Beverages Distribution warehouse

Retail stores

Quality Clean Industrial Uniforms

Alliance Appliances

Fenced yard with guardhouse

Interlocking tower (abandoned)

Republic and Wright Distribution warehouse

Pike City Belt Line

Pike Furniture Co. four-story factory with six doors on this side

Hardy Moving & Storage The Laurel Building (offices)

37

15 degrees

Crestwood Arms Hotel

Alliance

Fred Frigid Frozen Foods

Published: September 1998 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 8 x 12 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: Peco large radius

25th Street Yard Oakton

By moving one leg of an L-shaped shelf layout away from the wall, you turn it into a peninsula. A backdrop divider and several tall, shallowprofile buildings separate the peninsula into a classification yard and a small industrial switching district. Trains starting in the 25th Street Yard must make two switchback maneuvers to reach some sidings, making operations challenging.

Abandoned crossover

Best Choice Auto Parts warehouse

Pocket track

Pike City Eagle newspaper

Scale of plan: 5⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

Conan Powder Co.

Houses Coal

Houses

Depot

Freight house 18" radius

20" radius

Central RR Co. of New Jersey

19"

20"

West Pittsford

22"

Illustration by Rick Johnson

DoubleAB sided backdrop

18" Tower and yard office

16"

16"

Overpass

Low-relief Silk structures mill

Huber

Innishowen

Sand house Water tower

1"

5"

Church Automobile headlight factory 0"

Staging, not to scale

Enginehouse East Ashley Junction engine terminal Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

38

102 Realistic Track Plans

A

B

Gas station

3"

0"

Four-loop helix, 4" between levels

Published: March 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 9 x 10 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 3 percent

38

Want to run lots of trains on a small layout? Tuck a staging yard underneath. On the other side of those tunnel portals is a four-turn helix, a staging yard, and a return loop. The helix connects the lower deck to the main with a manageable grade, while making sure it’s far enough below the upper level to be easily accessible. Plenty of industry sidings, a freight house, a stub-ended yard, and a small engine terminal mean there’s lots for those trains to do topside, too.

Eastbound staging 0" 3½" 0"

City of Wauwatoga

39

Published: December 2006 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 8 x 14 feet Minimum radius: 24" (main), 18" (spurs) Minimum turnout: no. 6 (main), no. 4 (spurs) Maximum grade: 4 percent

Westbound Covered staging bridge (viewblock) 0"

Derby Meat Packing Building flats

Chair Co. Building Coal tipple Water tower flats Sand Ash pit RIP track

3½"

18"-radius hidden curves Mine

Track swings behind backdrop to pass through a window recess

6" 9"

5" 5"

6"

0"

A

Wye Junction

Flour Mill

Turntable 6"

9"

0"

0"

Meat Packer

Baxter’s 6"

A

3"

1"

0"

Niess Tool & Die

3½"

Acme Fast Freight Team track

0"

Produce Exchange

Freight house

Passenger Piggly station Wiggly Wholesale Grocers

Western Pacific RR Published: November 2006 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 10'-6" x 10'-6" Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 3.5 percent

40

Unable to find a satisfying 10 x 10-foot track plan, this railroad’s designer combined two 4 x 8 plans instead. By extending a few spurs, elevating others with overpasses, and connecting them in a wye arrangement, he ended up with a layout with lots of operating potential. Despite the large number of sidings, this layout still has room for some spectacular scenery.

1"

Brewery 7"

Badger Mfg.

4"

Big Lou's Grill 0"

9"

Quick Flash Oil Co.

Backdrop

Childhood railfan trips inspired this urban layout, which is designed with Icing heavy freight and passenger movedock ments in mind. The basic design is an Pigsville outer loop surrounding a twicePassenger Dairy Caboose Water Engine pocket track column platforms around main line, and includes an industrial branch that has its own Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid hidden staging. Despite its small size, Illustration by Dick Skover this layout can keep several operators busy. While the yardmaster breaks down, services, and assembles trains, a local turn can switch industries. Two more engineers can run the hotshots on the main lines.

18"-radius hidden curves

Downtown Wauwatoga

Welding Co.

2"

8" 20"-radius visible curves Junior Canyon Scale of plan: 7⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Piers

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger



www.ModelRailroader.com

39

Loup Creek Branch

41

Published: May 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 9 x 11 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 6 (main), no. 4 (sidings) Maximum grade: 3 percent

Don’t have much room to spread out? Consider expanding vertically. A hidden helix links the two levels of this Chesapeake & Ohio-based, mining-themed railroad. The helix adds some running time between the mines on the top level and the city yard on the bottom, making operations more realistic. A branch off of the lower level leads to hidden staging

wrapped around the helix. When planning a multi-level layout, try to avoid stacking towns and yards in the same part of the room. This will keep your operators out of each others’ way. Note how, in this plan, the main industrial area of Thurmond, W.Va., is below Loup Creek, and Glen Oak’s industries are above the dead end of Thurmond Yard.

3 percent down to staging 18" R

A

59"

Southside Junction

Loup Creek Junction

Rend Branch Mine New River No. 1 Depot Dummy track

No. 3 wye

Mine No. 4 Loup Creek

A

36" 18"

Caboose track Backdrop Post office

Mine No. 2

Thurmond, W.Va.

57" 58"

18"

20" Access 40"

Staging level

Engine service Derelict concrete coal tower

Cal’s Lumber & Hardware

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Upper level Post Glen Oak Café office Bank Market

Lower level Outbound loads track Inbound empties track

Mine No. 3

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Ninigret Cove Branch Six Principle Brook Ninigret Cove passenger station

Kettlehole Marine

Freight house Team track and pillar crane

Lumber Whip-Poor-Will Biscuit Mix

Published: September 2004 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 11 x 15 feet Minimum radius: 38" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent

42

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Exchange track

Ninigret Cove Shellfish King Tom Fish Oil

40

102 Realistic Track Plans

Illustration by Robert Wegner

This railroad models a freelanced segment of the New York, New Haven & Hartford RR. The main focus here is switching, with only a portion of the main line modeled. Staging is done off-layout and moved onto the railroad via the exchange track. Having several industries share a single spur track makes switching challenging.

Farm

Mine

Lumberyard

Freight house

Garage

California & Comstock RR

43

Published: June 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 8'-4" x 9'-4" Minimum radius: 18" (main), 16" (sidings) Minimum turnout: no. 4 Saloon

A curved turnout allows the addition of a spur leading to a locomotive service yard, a turntable, and a roundhouse, greatly adding to this layout’s operating interest. The hidden tracks in the tunnel can be used to stage trains for off-layout movements. The concept of this railroad is an isolated Western town that receives most of its supplies by rail. With a few changes to structure choices, it could be set anywhere from the 1880s to the transition era.

Cattle pens Scale of plan: 1⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Depot

Signal tower Team track

Maryville

Coaling tower

Caboose track

Sand house Water tower Engine terminal Fuel oil Turntable

Roundhouse

Illustration by Jay Smith

Dummy tracks

Allen Junction

Designed for railfanning, this is a freelanced railroad with a sense of Rearden Metal history. The layout is set in the Conrail Products era of the late 1970s and early ’80s. Enginehouse The setting is a fictional New Jersey or Conrail main line Pennsylvania city that was the former Sand battleground of two rival railroads, as Spano Recycling is evidenced by the many abandoned and pulled-up tracks. Restore those Coal tracks and you can back-date the Water layout to the transition era. Pennwell

Ashes Diesel fuel Station Tower

James River Dam Station

White River & Northern Published: Great Model Railroads 2000 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 7 x 10 feet Minimum radius: 12" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent

44

Scale of plan: 5⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Rick Johnson and Roen Kelly

Main line Secondary lines Abandoned track Abandoned, track removed Newton Industrial Abandoned CNJ main line Branch

Leslie Falls Tanna Hill Branch Santman Cement

Berry Lumber

White River

B Newton B A Leslie Falls White River

A Bearcamp Abandoned elevated branch line with mirrors under bridges

Hidden automated staging yard under farm and town

Pond



www.ModelRailroader.com

41

Calumet Steel

45

3"

Published: January 1999 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 10 x 14 feet Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 1.5 percent

31⁄2" Coal staging (in closet)

This track plan models a modern steel mill. Raw material moves from the coke plant to the blast furnace, then steel moves to various mills for final shaping. Ore arrives at the blast furnace from an off-layout source at the other end of the high line. The overall design has broad curves to handle the length of modern cars and locomotives. For two other looks at a steel mills, see plan 53 (also in this chapter) and plan 23 (in the 4 x 8 foot layout chapter).

Carbon Junction

Coal dumper Quench tower Coke plant

2" Soaking pit building and rolling mills Basic oxygen furnace Hot and cold Wire mill strip mills Painted backdrop to separate scenes

Empties in– loads out

To staging concealed under coke plant Blast furnace Hot metal High line to blast furnace loading

Mirrored backdrops

Concrete overpass Structural shape mill

1"

Pipe mill

31⁄2"

Lakeshore Yard

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Terri Field

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Six-stall roundhouse 120-foot turntable Crew room and roundhouse office Ashes Coal Sand RIP track Water column Engine supply track

Car shop

Towns on a model railroad are inevitably unrealistically close to each other. A switching layout is one way to circumvent the problem, but if you want mainline operation, consider a layout with only one town. That’s the theme of Andy Sperandeo’s N scale Ozark Lines – one division point, chock-full of action, plus an out-ofsight staging yard. This layout could easily keep three operators (main line, yard switcher, and hostler) busy, and you could even have another working the staging yard. With pickups, setouts, engine servicing, classification, passenger operation and industries, it packs a lot Team track

Diner Freight house Backs of industrial buildings

Caboose track

Ozark Lines, Division Point at Oldburg Published: July 2002 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 8'-6" x 12'-0" Minimum radius: 15" (visible track) Minimum turnout: no. 6

into barely more than half a bedroom in N scale or a two-car garage in HO. – Terry Thompson Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

Optional crossover

Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Hubbard Street Backs of city buildings Access to staging

Drill track Staging tracks

Elevated walkway

Passenger station and division offices

Platform Alley Express

Optional transfer staging track

Backdrop just higher than eye level

24" minimum

City buildings along backdrop face away from railroad Railroad Avenue Industries

42

102 Realistic Track Plans

46

Bob White Coal Co. Eau Claire Plumbing Supply Co.

1" 2"

Roberts Wholesale Burns Supply Co.

Published: August 2007 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 9 x 10 feet Minimum radius: 93 ⁄4" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 2 percent

No. 6

Shawtown

Ice house

0"0"

Half Moon Lake

Elevator Phoenix Furniture Nagle-Hart Caterpillar Elevator Eau Claire Sand & Gravel Team Chippewa River track Key:

Two railroads compete on this layout, representing Eau Claire, Wis., in the transition era – the Milwaukee Road and the Chicago & North Western. There’s also an interchange with the Soo Line. But that’s not the most interesting thing here; the switchback halfway down the C&NW route, and the lack of runaround tracks on that line, makes switching challenging, to say the least.

0"

Chippewa River

Team track ramp

2"

Scale house Omaha (C&NW) Milwaukee Road Soo Line

0"

Milwaukee Road freight house

Wabasha (staging) Gillette Tire Co. Eau Claire (staging)

Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

C&NW depot

GambleRobinson Co.

2"

C&NW freight station

Cotton mill

Church

0"

Illustration by Rick Johnson

47

Shawtown Subdivision, Eau Claire, Wis.

Scene divider

Warehouses

Industry

Georgia Southern

0"

A

Published: April 2001 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 8 x 8 feet Minimum radius: 24" (main), 18" (sidings) Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 4 percent

3"

Down

48

Calhoun’s Gas 1"

Mid-Georgia Fuel

2"

Ed’s Gas and Grocery Depot

Louisville

Freight house

4"

Depot Cotton platform

Wadley Access to hidden staging

Up

Tourist cabins 1"

Boggy Gut Creek

Terminal Hotel

Memorial Park

Fooling the eye is the goal of this layout. Using a smaller-scale church in the top corner is a technique called forced perspective, which makes the church look farther away than it is – thereby making the layout look bigger. Hiding half of one of the loops in a tunnel helps disguise the fact that this plan has a twice-around main line. And there is enough room to hide several staging tracks in the tunnel, too, making this layout seem like part of a larger system.

4"

0" 3" North Branch, Little River Scale of plan: 9⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

A

Lumber and farm supply unloading

Harrison’s Hardware

Illustration by Rick Johnson



www.ModelRailroader.com

43

Big Bend 1 percent down

Team track

Station

Smoky Valley Ry.

49

0" 3"

Published: February 2008 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 9 x 11 feet Minimum radius: 20" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent

1" Station

Car ferry

Building flats

Scale of plan: 7⁄32" = 1'-0", 12" grid

The West Side Lumber Co. is a popular prototype for narrow-gauge fans. The railroad operated until 1961, meaning that there’s a lot of prototype information available for modelers. This plan is split into two scenic divisions, the town of Tuolumne, Calif., and the woods, just as the real railroad divided its operations and train crews. Jiggs Tools

Published: February 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 9'-6" x 10'-6" Minimum radius: 20" Minimum turnout: no. 4

One way to extend the operating possibilities of a shelf layout is to extend the shelf. Even if you don’t have room for more scenicked area, a small staging yard – or even a single-track switching pocket on a 1 x 3 wood plank – frees up more of your railroad for industry tracks and scenery. It also gives you a place to shuffle trains to and from. Staging turns a shelf layout into a working railroad.

44

Medical Supply

Berrigan Bottling

Meek’s Fuel Jiggs Tools Stores Marshall Mattress Plumbing Supplies Phidias Furniture Co. Railroad bridge Moving and Storage

Test track

Scale of plan: 7⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Rick Johnson

102 Realistic Track Plans

Ozark, Ouachita & Red River Published: February 2000 Scale: Sn3 (1:64) Plan size: 10 x 10 feet Minimum radius: 30" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 2 percent Therrien Ontario Foods Ltd. Meat Packers

Overbrook

50

Scoddy Industrial complex

Car shops

Ontabec Central

51

Crane

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Theo Cobb

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Warehouses

Building flats

4"

Dock

Cookhouse

Tuolumne

0"

4"

Landing

Camp Reynolds

1 percent up

Topton

Port

Donkey engine Buffalo Water

Enginehouse

Horseshoe viaduct

Dublin

Sawmill 1½ percent up Oil Lift-out B Planing mill Station 1" Coal Walton Logging railroad 0" Station Lift-out A Building flats

This railway truly can be all things to all people. It’s designed around two lift-out sections, one containing an industry, and the other bearing a natural resource operation to supply it. A few options include a sawmill and a logging camp, a cement plant and a limestone quarry, or a smelter and an iron mine. Many other paired industries are possible. The car ferry provides a link to the outside world.

Slash burner

Ridgeway 1 percent up

Tank platform

Pinecone

Wood Products

1. Lumber

Team track

Oil

Storage

flex 0" 2"

Sawmill

2. Marble

Houses 4 percent up 1" 0"

22"

Odom

3"

Coal Surfacing building

Planing mill

22"

0"

Polishing

1. Lumber

2. Marble

Marble quarry

Wexford

33⁄4" flex

Ann Arbor RR interchange

Maximus D&B Container Cannery Corp. Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid All curves 18" except as marked Enginehouse and fuel tank

Logging railroad

Team track 33⁄4"

Pulpwood yard

There is much to learn from this compact layout. It uses a center aisle to lengthen the main line and create two distinct switching areas, making the layout look – and operate – like it is larger. An interchange track gives the road a link to the outside world, expanding the variety of cars and industries to be serviced. The steeply

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Benedict

Cement

I.A.N. Tool Corporation

graded overpass both adds visual interest and operating interest, perhaps making helper service necessary for some trains. Grouping industries together on sidings cuts down on the number of turnouts while making switching more challenging. And designing the layout in sections makes it easier to move, if necessary.

Food Distributors

Benedict & Wexford Published: December 2000 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 8 x 10 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 4 percent

52

Pittsburgh Steel

53

Published: January 1999

Scale: HO (1:87.1) PLEASE PROOF: Title MR5 Illustrator Rick Individual illustrators, Plan size: 10 x 12 feet Issue 2008 Designer designers, art directors,Minimum radius: 18" Job # MAG-MR5-NOV08 and editors must proofMinimum turnout: no. 4 Art Dir. and sign this form. Code MR5-K1108 Maximum grade: 2 percentStory Ed. Proof 2 Copy Ed. Date 08-11-08 Man. Ed. Return Editor Big industries like steel mills depend on rail service to move their product within the plant throughout the production process. Some may have switch engines and cars permanently assigned to them by a railroad; others own their own fleet of cars and switch engines to keep their 24-hour assembly line rolling. Moving the specialized cars used by the steel industry – including ingot buggies, slag pots, hot metal cars, and insulated flats – would make for interesting operations.

Cold strip mill Scrapyard

Structural shape mill

Hot strip mill

River Yard Pipe mill 2"

1"

A

High line to blast furnace Tube mill

31⁄2"

Hot metal loading

31⁄2"

Blast furnace Mirrored backdrop

31⁄2" Ingot stripper and soaking Basic pit buildings oxygen furnace Engine service

3"

Empties in- A loads out Coke plant Quench tower Coal dumper

Valley Yard

31⁄2"

Illustration by Terri Field

Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid



www.ModelRailroader.com

45

Sawmill cold deck

Locomotive service

Sawmill

Warehouse

Broak & Kantifordit Tie & Timber Co.

54

Published: Great Model Railroads 2002 Scale: On3 (1:48) Plan size: 11 x 11 feet Minimum radius: 22" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 7 percent

51"

48" Clarke Meadow

It takes a lot of switchbacks for the diminutive geared locomotives of the Broak & Kantifordit Tie and Timber Co. to ascend from the lakeside dock to the Pennyless Mine, two feet above. The short wheelbase of narrow gauge engines and rolling stock make the switchbacks practical. They also allow the use of the tight curves needed to fit an O scale layout into an 11-footsquare space.

Logging camp (cabins on skids)

59"

Steam donkey construction

Enginehouse

Shoestring Flats

Clarke Creek Lake

Pennyless Mine

Dock

41"

53"

65" Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Charity Creek

Clune Creek

Illustration by Terri Field

59th Street Branch Background flats

5" 5"

5"

2.5"

Team tracks Upper interchange track

Cold storage Industry roofs with details

RIP track Yard office

Hidden staging tracks Public warehouse

5"

5"

Engine service

0"

0"

59th Street Yard 5"

0"

Bottling and loading

Ballantine Brewery complex

5"

Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

46

Coal and oil dealer

Twin-span through truss bridge Fuel track (liftout section) Delivery tracks

102 Realistic Track Plans

Lower interchange yard Mirror

0"

Illustration by Roen Kelly and Stan Sweatt

Published: July 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 9 x 11 feet Minimum radius: 23" (main), 15" (spurs) Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 5 percent (ramp track)

55

The “urban canyons” in a photograph of the Milwaukee Road’s brewery branch inspired this bedroom-sized track plan. Most operations involve moving cars from the staging tracks on the upper level to the interchange yard on the lower, a job complicated by the steep grade of the ramp between them. The buildings that conceal most of the tracks on the upper level also provide switching spots on the lower. When hiding tracks like this, be sure to make the buildings removable, in case you need to retrieve a derailment.

Fort Myers Ry.

56

Published: September 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 1'-6" x 22'-0" Minimum radius: 32" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Orange juice processing plant

Fiddle yard

To fiddle yard

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

This 22-foot-long plan may not fit into a bedroom as is, but a narrow shelf like this could easily round a corner to wrap around two or three walls of a bedroom. Trains look better going around curves than straightaways anyway, and the railroad will look bigger if a viewer can’t take in the Marks indicate benchwork sections

Double-slip switch

Highway overpass

Public viewing side

entire layout from one vantage point. A sectional layout like this would be easy to expand with a port, a sugar processing plant or maybe a phosphate mine. Many circus companies also winter in Florida, making this one of the few layouts that could actually justify a circus scene. Everglades Warehouse boat rides

Station

Interchange yard

Illustration by Jay Smith

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE

40" Backdrop

Stove Pipe Wells Published: December 2006 Scale: Nn3 (1:160 proportion, 3-foot gauge) Plan size: 4'-1" x 9'-0" Minimum radius: 10" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 5 percent

Fiddle yard sector plate

413⁄4"

57

Turntable

This deceptively simple plan for a narrow gauge railroad in the Mojave Desert offers plenty for hobbyists of 421⁄2" all stripes: continuous-loop or pointto-point operation, a branch line, Rendall 421⁄2" hidden staging including a second Panamint Mine turntable, and connections to adjacent 421⁄2" modules. And, as an Nn3 scale layout 40" 40" (N scale trains using track, wheelsets, Tonopah Enginehouse Stove Pipe Wells Princess Nn3 Alliance and mechanisms from 1:220 proporMine Nn3 Alliance Turntable To Ntrak Standard Stamp Mill module module connections tion Z scale trains) there’s no question extension gauge spur connection that this layout stands out in a crowd. 1 Scale of plan: ⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Jay Smith – Neil Besougloff

Cunningham’s Gap

58

Published: December 2003 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 10 x 11 feet Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no.6

Freight house with loading ramp Company Interchange Depot houses for mine Stores and Company store commercial Fuel depot buildings Mining company tipple

Church

More than 80 percent of the ­Virginian Ry.’s freight traffic was coal. If you want to model coal trains at reasonably realistic lengths, you’ll need a lot of track. This plan, based on a freelanced town along the Virginian, seeks to accomplish that with an around-the-walls loop and plenty of staging. Running the coal tipple tracks into staging allows operators to shove empty cars in and pull out loaded ones, just like on the prototype.

Curved turnouts Ridge hides staging from the center of room Three-way turnout Farm Liftout or duckunder section

Staging yard

Entry Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Terri Field



www.ModelRailroader.com

47

Figuring grades and clearances How to plan slopes your trains can climb By Andy Sperandeo Even as you draw in two dimensions you can start thinking of your model railroad as three-dimensional. To have a track cross above another track or over itself, you need to plan a reasonable grade. Or you can build grades for scenic and operating reasons. In the hilly or mountainous country so popular with modelers, trains have to operate up and down grades. You may even want a grade steep enough to require helper or pusher engines. You also need to provide enough separation so that trains on the lower level can pass under the supporting structure of the upper level track. That supporting structure may be your usual subgrade and roadbed, or it may be a model bridge. The distance between the rails of the lower track and the bottom of whatever supports the upper track is called the clearance, and it must be sufficient for the kinds of trains you want to run.

Measuring steepness

Railroad grades are expressed in the number of units climbed or descended in 100 units of travel. A slope that rises one unit in 100 is a

48

102 Realistic Track Plans

1 percent grade. One that rises two units in 100 is a 2 percent grade, and so on. On model railroad track plans we often show the lowest track elevation as zero and give elevations above that in inches. Starting from your zero point, measure 100 scale inches along the track and mark the elevation in inches at that point to establish the grade. Or lay out a line climbing to a desired elevation and measure to determine the grade. Determine the track distance in scale inches between your lowest and highest points, divide the difference in elevation by that distance, and move the decimal point in the answer two places to the right.

The 3.5 percent grade up to Mahoosic Notch on Jack Ozanich’s HO scale Atlantic Great Eastern Ry. adds to the fun by requiring pusher locomotives to help heavy freights make the climb. Craig Wilson and Jack Ozanich photo

Suppose you have a rise of 41/2" over a distance of 11'-3". Multiply 11 x 12 to convert to inches, add 3, and divide 4.5 by 135. That equals .0333, and after moving the decimal point you can read the result as a grade of 3.33 percent. That’s pretty steep, and to reduce the grade the railroad must gain less elevation over the given distance, increase the distance, or manage some combination of the two.

Measuring distance

So how do we measure distance on a track plan? Since our tracks are often more curved than straight we’re faced Upper track railhead level

R

Clearance H: NMRA S-7 clearance* R: Recommended railhead-to-railhead separation

table N

HO

121/32"

3"

41/8" 51/2"

27/32"

4"

51/2" 73/8"

*For more details see www.nmra.org/standards/s-7.html

S

O

H NMRA S-7 clearance diagram

Railhead level Illustration by Rick Johnson

Overhead clearance

Requirements for each scale are given in the clearance table opposite. These are from National Model Railroad Association standard S-7 and represent the ideal prototype clearance of 22 feet above the rail. (In HO scale, 22 scale feet is approximately 33 ⁄64".) Real railroads don’t always have this much clearance, and you don’t need to either. But if you’re going to skimp you should know the scale height of your rolling stock and maintain enough clearance for it. Be aware that some models are taller than they should be. Remember to allow for the structure supporting overhead tracks, whether it’s a scale-model bridge or simply the plywood and roadbed combination under your trackwork. Either way it needs to be included in the railhead-torailhead measurements indicated by track plan elevations. (Where one hidden track crosses over another, you can use short lengths of a thin, stiff material like Masonite hardboard to support the upper track.)

Characteristics of grades

GRADES AND CLEARANCES

with the problem of measuring the length of twisting, turning lines. But your compass can do this if you replace the pencil point with a second metal point, turning it into a pair of dividers. Using your scale, set the dividers to some convenient measurement, then use them to step off the distance along the track. If you set the dividers to a scale 10", ten steps equal 100" and you can mark an elevation at that point to set the desired grade. Or set the dividers to a scale foot and step off the given elevation in feet. Multiply the number of steps by 12 to convert feet to inches and divide that distance into the elevation to find the grade. There’s a degree of error in measuring curves with dividers, but all that means is that the grade will be a small fraction of a percent steeper than indicated. Usually close is good enough, or you can deliberately plan a slightly gentler grade than you want to build. For greater accuracy, a simple length of soft copper wire makes a useful measuring instrument. Bend it to follow the line of your track, put sharp bends at each end of the distance to be measured, then straighten the wire between the sharp bends and measure the straight-line distance with your scale. Or you can use a measuring wheel called an opisometer that you steer along the line of your track. Usually these have scales in inches that you’ll have to convert to your drawing scale. Some digital versions do this for you.

Railroads would avoid grades if they could because climbing them increases operating expenses by limiting the length of trains and requiring more and heavier locomotives. In reality this is impractical. Even flat-looking country has some slope, and of course there are hills and mountains that have to be crossed. Railroads often follow watercourses to find the easiest path through the terrain, but the streams and rivers wouldn’t be flowing if they weren’t moving downhill toward sea level. On a model railroad we may need grades to achieve a desired routing, and we may also use them to help portray particular types of railroading. The descriptions below relate grades to the kinds of railroads that use them. 0 to .99 percent: Except in the flattest terrain, grades as gentle as .3 or .5 percent often require heavy earthwork, extensive bridges, and greater length of run. These expenses may be justified only if traffic is unusually heavy. The former New York Central advertised its New York-Chicago main line as “The Water Level Route” because most of its grades were less than .5 percent (with the notable exception of the Central’s 1.6 percent climb out of the Hudson River Valley at West Albany Hill). 1 to 1.99 percent: A grade of 1 percent, such as on the former Western Pacific line through California’s Feather River Canyon, is a moderate grade for crossing mountains. The former Pennsylvania RR climb through the famous Horseshoe Curve is on a grade of 1.86 percent. 2 to 2.99 percent: When Congress passed land grant laws to subsidize 19th-century railroad construction in the West, it specified that grades on the new lines could not be steeper than then existed on the Baltimore & Ohio. This required the builders of the original Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines to maintain grades of 2.2 percent or less. 3 to 3.99 percent: Mainline railroads on grades this steep are unusual and found only in rugged terrain. The former Santa Fe line over Raton Pass on the Colorado-New Mexico border was built on a grade of 3.5 percent, leading the railroad to later build a second route farther south to carry the bulk of its transcontinental freight traffic on grades not exceeding 1.25 percent. 4 percent and steeper: The steepest mainline grade in the United States is the former Southern Ry. line over Saluda Mountain in North Carolina, at 4.7 percent. Grades that steep are more common on cheaply constructed backwoods logging and mining railroads. Seven percent is about the practical limit for normal adhesion (smooth wheels on smooth rails) and in steam days required special gear-driven locomotives like Shays, Heislers, and Climaxes.

Sand on the rails and the smoke plume from the 2-8-8-4 show what hard work was required to lift Baltimore & Ohio coal trains up the 2.4 percent Cranberry Grade at Terra Alta, W.Va. Gordon R. Roth photo

A bridge deck structure can range from about three to more than six scale feet deep, depending on the type and length of the bridge. In HO three feet is 13 ⁄32", and code 83 flextrack is 3 ⁄16" thick. If you plan for 3" from railhead to railhead where a track

passes under a bridge, you’re really allowing at most 213 ⁄32", or a scale 17'-6". That’s too little for the biggest modern cars, although older, smaller rolling stock may be OK. The clearance table gives recommended separations for track planning. RL

www.ModelRailroader.com

49

Structures, scenery, and aisles

Layout design is more than just track planning By Andy Sperandeo There’s more to a model railroad than just the track, and typically you’ll want a track plan to indicate the locations of at least the most important structures and scenic features. There also has to be room for people to build and enjoy the layout, or the plan won’t be much use. It’s easy to account for all this as you’re designing a layout – just leave room for other things besides track.

Drawing structures

To show a building on a track plan you need to know the size and shape of the building’s footprint, and you need to keep it far enough away from the track. The first piece of information is often available from kit makers in their catalogs or on their Web sites. Kit reviews in Model Railroader usually specify the footprint also. For a scratchbuilt struc-

Space was at a premium on Blair Kooistra’s HO scale Walla Walla Valley Ry. shelf layout. He nevertheless allowed room for the roads and structures that place the railroad in the midst of its urban industrial setting. Blair Kooistra photo ture, use the dimensions from the prototype plan. Draw a building to scale and you know it will fit – as long, that is, as you allow sufficient clearance from the track center line. It’s a trap to cheat on this or simply not to consider that the track represented by a center line is wider than the pencil trace. Trains are wider still. Allow for this as shown in the “Structure clearance” diagram on the opposite page. You’ll need to provide even greater clearance along curved track or where the building is to be set back from the track.

Room for slopes

Realistic slopes can be the key to believable scenery. This requires separation between tracks at different heights. Except when modeling elevated roadbeds through cities, The sloping banks of this creek on Marshall and Mike Skibbe’s N scale Chicago Great Western layout help make their rendition of Iowa countryside convincing. Andy Sperandeo photo

50

102 Realistic Track Plans

Two ways to put a layout in a 9 x 12-foot room

Possible extension

24"-deep 8 x 10-foot shelf layout along two walls

A

Center line of track Loading platform P

4 x 8-foot table layout in center of room 30" aisles along 8-foot sides of table layout

Gauge side of rail



N

From center of track – A* 19/ 32"

HO

S

O

11/32" 113/32" 17⁄8"

For loading platform – P* 15/ 32" 13/ 16"

11/8" 11/2"

* Allow additional clearance along curved track; for more detail see NMRA standard S-7 at www.nmra.org/ standards/s-7.html

avoid extensive lines of retaining walls between stepped-up tracks. In open country, allow room for the cuts and fills the railroad uses to maintain a steady grade across undulating terrain. Slopes are also needed along streams. Outside of very rugged terrain, the banks of a river or creek should have mostly gentle slopes. Streets and highways can also take more space than you might think. A scale 20-foot width may look okay for a two-lane model roadway, but that’s tight for modern vehicles. A 25- or 30foot width will be more realistic for two lanes. And don’t forget city sidewalks. When possible allow for scenery and structures between the track and the layout edge. This puts the railroad in the scene instead of in front of it.

Room for people

You and your visitors are important too. As the 9 x 12-foot room diagram shows, a typical 4 x 8-foot table layout can dominate such a room and restrict the passageways around it. That 4 x 8foot sheet of plywood or insulating foam can be split down the middle to

30" door

Possible extension

24" aisles along 4-foot side of table layout

Illustrations by Rick Johnson

form an along-the-walls shelf layout that leaves much more free space in the middle of the room. For walk-in layouts, try to maintain 30" aisles where possible, and allow more width at frequent intervals to make it easier for people following

their trains to pass each other. Aisles of 36" or even 42" width will make building, viewing, and operating the layout much more comfortable. Still wider aisles can be a good idea at yards and other places where operators tend to congregate. RL

Suggested reading for layout designers (from Kalmbach Books*)

Realistic Model Railroad Building Blocks, by Tony Koester The Model Railroader’s Guide to Freight Yards, by Andy Sperandeo The Model Railroader’s Guide to Industries Along the Tracks, Vols. 1, 2, and 3 by Jeff Wilson Track Planning for Realistic Operation, by John Armstrong Trackside Scenes You Can Model, by Jim Kelly * Ask your dealer, call 800-533-6644, or go to www.ModelRailroader.com.

www.ModelRailroader.com

51

STRUCTURES AND SCENERY

Structure clearance

Medium layouts Got some space to stretch out? Find some ideas here By Steven Otte

It’s always winter in the town of Phil’s Church on Bill Henderson’s Coal Belt RR (plan 59, below). A medium-sized layout space gives you room to experiment with techniques like a railroad that travels through all four seasons. The modeler lucky enough to have more than a bedroom for his railroad has some choices to make. Now that space is not as much of a constraint, the issue becomes what to do with that space. Fill it with enough main line to enable long runs and trains of prototypical length? Build a big yard or add a bunch of industries for lots of switching action? Stretch

out the track between cities to make more room for scenery? There are as many approaches to layout design as there are spaces in which to build. For example, compare the Wisconsin Central, plan 61, with plan 73, the Dakota Northern. Both are N scale, have a similar footprint, and occupy rooms close to the same size. But while the Dakota Northern’s

plan emphasizes continuous running and yard switching, the Wisconsin Central’s single-track main allows for more realistic scenery and localfreight operations. Take a look through these plans. You may find one that’s just right for you. But even if you don’t, you’re sure to find something that will inspire a unique plan of your own. RL

Hinged section folds upward for entry

Coal Belt

57" 54"

56"

59

Published: Great Model Railroads 2002 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 8 x 20 feet Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2.5 percent

53"

Walnut Gap

52

102 Realistic Track Plans

Port Carbon

53" Three staging tracks

Pennsylvania RR Autumn Park interchange Phil’s Church Water column Stone arch bridge Girder bridge 55"

54"

57"

Scale of plan: 7⁄32" = 1'-0", 12" grid

As your train runs counter-clockwise around this layout, you will be moving not only through scenery depicting Northeastern coal-mining territory,

57"

Treskova

but also through the four seasons of a year. Spring is always in full bloom in Port Carbon, while it’s always winter in Phil’s Church. Many modelers pick

55"

56"

55"

Illustration by Rick Johnson

summer or fall for their layouts because it’s easy to landscape, but a well-done winter scene can have a beauty of its own.

Bay Point & Diablo

60

Diablo Oxidizer Amulite Mill unloading

Published: May 2005 Scale: On21 ⁄2 (1:48) Plan size: 11 x 12 feet Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 4 (yard), no. 5 (main) Maximum grade: 5 percent

Closet Water General tank store

Entrance

Diablo

Water tank

58" 563⁄4" Freight depot

Narrow gauge railroading appeals to a lot of modelers for different reasons. Some like the look of the intricate steam engines and rugged terrain that characterize many such lines. Others like that the smaller rolling stock and tighter curves allow them to pack more railroad into a smaller space. Modelers who want the size and detail of O scale, but don’t have an empiresized space for their layouts, often find a compromise in narrow gauge. This On21 ⁄2 plan models a short line linking mine country to a port city.

52" Freight dock

Clyde

Minnetti Machinery

Diablo Creek

Hastings Slough Bay Point Amulite plant Oxidizer loading

Bay Point Sierra Stoneworks 531⁄2" yard

Water tank Enginehouse

491⁄2" Rock loader

RIP track Oil tank

48"

503⁄4"

61"

Cowell Junction

Backdrop

Window Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Butterfield Road

To lower level staging loop

Aptakisic

0"

1"

Feed mill 7"

6"

Cedar Lake

8" 8"

Evanston Fuel & Material

Wolohan Lumber Hicksgas Super Fuels Signal house

State Route 83

2"

6"

Lake Villa Water tower

Mundelein

6"

Metra station

7"

Leithton

Parade Packaging

Wisconsin Central

Grayslake Oil tanks

Medline Industries Seigle’s Home & Building Center Boarded-up interlocking tower

Olympic Packaging 3"

5"

Cedar Avenue North Shore Gas U.S. Route 45

5"

4" Team track

Alan Josephson Recyclers

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Robert Wegner

Metra/CP Rail sneakoff

Published: October 2005 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 11 x 13 feet Minimum radius: 14" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 4 percent

61

Just because your trains are small doesn’t mean your scenery has to be. This plan models the broad vistas of Midwestern farm country in 1995. The modest space requirements of N scale means room for big industries, forested hills, farm fields, a working interchange, and even a stretch of suburban commuter line. Doubleended staging looped under the central peninsula allows realistic point-to-point operations.

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger



www.ModelRailroader.com

53

Station

Onion Valley Mining & Lumber

62

Published: July 2005 Scale: HO and HOn21 ⁄2 (1:87.1) Plan size: 14 x 20 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 4 percent

Mining Co.

Brewery

Stockyard 61"

61"

61"

Lone Pine

Traverser

Turntable

Water tower

Freight dock

Manzanar

Independence

Tub Springs Inyo Mine

Another Southwestern mining railroad like plan 60, the Onion Valley is two layouts in one: the standard gauge main line in the valley, and the narrow gauge mountain line that delivers ore to the stamp mill. The line is designed to fit around two walls of a garage. If the layout is mounted high enough, a modeler could suspend the end of the peninsula from the ceiling, leaving room for a sports car to park underneath. Staging on a traversing table represents connections to the outside world.

Mining supply building

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Standard gauge Narrow gauge

Mining supply Freight house building

Seven Pines stamp mill

54" 70"

57" Oudama Mine

Howe truss bridge

Deck bridge

Water tower

Grays Meadow

Trestle

Atlas bridge

Great Balsa gold mine Lumber storage

54"

Onion Valley Onion Valley Sawmill

Freight and passenger station Water tower Turntable

Future extension

Prokhorovsk

63

Published: November 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 11'-4" x 13'-8" Minimum radius: 30" Minimum turnout: Peco large radius

Kearsarge Pass Tower Main line to St. Petersburg (used as staging) Diesel shed Window (partially covered by backdrop)

Prokhorovsk

Open staging

Building flats

Rather than focusing on industry switching or mainline operations, this layout models a passenger terminal at the end of a branch line or division. Terminal operations involve receiving incoming trains from various offlayout locations, breaking them down in the coach yard, and making up new trains for other destinations. Though this layout is based on Russia’s Soviet October Ry., it could easily represent an American or European prototype.

Local arrivals and departures Mainline arrivals and departures Baggage/mail platform Prokhorovsk station building flat Folding closet doors Illustration by Jay Smith

54

102 Realistic Track Plans

Double-slip switch

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Jay Smith

Staging tracks hidden behind hill

Western Maryland’s Thomas Sub.

64

Depot

Town building flats

11" radius

Elkins

Engine terminal

Car shop leads

Published: July 2008 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 12 x 12 feet Minimum radius: 11" Minimum turnout: Peco medium radius

Parsons

Depot

Cutoff track hidden behind hills

Shaver’s Fork, Cheat River

Elk River Junction

To Webster Springs

To Durbin

Sometimes, the prototype scene that inspires a layout isn’t a yard, an industry, or a city, but simply an interesting track formation. This plan’s inspiration is the Western Maryland’s river-spanning triple junction in the Shaver’s Fork Branch valley of West Virginia. Backdrops isolate scenes, lengthening the run.

Cheat Junction

Gould Tannery Sector plate serves all staging tracks

Cumberland and Webster Springs staging Greenbrier

60 degree crossing

Junction

Scale of plan: 1⁄4 " = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

Hevonkuusi Ry.

65

Published: November 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 9'-2" x 13'-9" Minimum radius: 23" Minimum turnout: no. 6

Industries Scale of plan: 1⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Although this plan was designed to represent a prototype in Finland, it’s versatile enough to stand in for a line along America’s Eastern seaboard. The streetcar line circling the urban blocks adds interest. Hiding the back of the dogbone under elevated terrain makes the railroad look more realistic. Double-slip switch

Factory

Footbridge Loading dock Boat dock

Hevonkuuski Roundhouse

Woodshed

Station

0"

5"

Illustration by Theo Cobb

Water tower

Tramway

Staging track under scenery



Backdrop

www.ModelRailroader.com

55

Central New Mexico Ry.

66

55" Mining supply company

Published: July-December 2006 Scale: On3 and On21 ⁄2 (1:48) Plan size: 11'-3" x 17'-2" Minimum radius: 28" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 8 percent

Mine 583⁄4"

Coaling dock Water tank

Transfer track 55"

On3 On21⁄2 Tipple Handcar shed

What is it about the Southwestern United States that fascinates so many model railroaders? Maybe it’s the stark, rocky terrain, the interesting narrow gauge rolling stock, or the importance of the role the railroads played in the development of the West. This plan hits all the high points. Though not much On3 equipment is commercially available, manufacturers sell kits for converting On21 ⁄2 rolling stock to On3.

Team track Rio Seco Boardwalk Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

63" Falls Creek Steel Falls viaduct Creek 55"

Illustration by Theo Cobb

Ozark, Ouachita & Red River

Kendel County Creosote Co. Oil

Gravel pit Fisher’s Meats

Diana well Junction

Oil distributor

Oil well Lumberyard

Feed mill

Diana

Cherokee Paper Mill

Lafayette Tilghman

Future industries Smith Lumber Co. Sawmill To St. Louis Southwestern interchange

To OO&RR main line

Closet Staging

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

102 Realistic Track Plans

Published: April 2004 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 10 x 14 feet Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 4

67

Future industries

Tilghman Textiles

56

661⁄4"

Illustration by Jay Smith

The designer of this layout drew inspiration from a track plan published in Model Railroader in February 1980. Starting with senior editor Andy Sperandeo’s San Jacinto District plan, the designer broadened the curves, extended the staging into the closet and added a lift-out bridge for continuous operation. He also moved the locale from California to Arkansas. However, this plan could be set anyplace from Alaska to Virginia.

Dead track

Denver, Rio Grande & Southern

68

Closet Snowshed Ridgway depot

Published: Great Model Railroads 2001 Scale: Sn3 (1:64) Plan size: 11 x 14 feet Minimum radius: 30" Minimum turnout: no. 6

Ash pit Office Bunkhouse Tool shed

Ridgeway

S scale, popularized in the United States by American Flyer toy trains, is gaining favor with modelers looking for more detail than HO scale without the space requirements of O. Modeling narrow gauge further reduces the space needed for curves and right-ofway, making a room-sized layout like this one practical.

Miracle Farm Machinery Co.

Roundhouse Jacks Cabin water tank Sheep pens

Burnside Stamp Mill

HOn3 track

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Rio Verde & Western

Mt. Michael (removable for access to helix) 4 percent up Track maintenance shed

69

0" 0"

9"

Nn3 layouts like this one use Z gauge track and mechanisms to represent three-foot-gauge railroading. Z gauge track actually works out to about 40" between the rails in N, but the convenience of being able to use ready-made motor mechanisms outweighs the four-scale-inch discrepancy. Unlike many mixed-gauge layouts, on this one the narrow gauge is the main line, and the electrified standard gauge line plays the secondary role.

Published: Great Model Railroads 2001 Scale: N and Nn3 (1:160) Plan size: 10'-8" x 15'-4" Minimum radius: 7" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 5 percent

Engine shed 5"

Rio Verde

8"

Station Freight depot Big O Cereal Co. Tri-state Distributors 0" 0"

Cattle pens

Engine shed 2 percent up 4" Rio Verde River

Electrified standard gauge Narrow gauge

Staceyville

Yardmaster’s office Freight house Coal and lumber

Mesa Grande

Depot Warehouse 5 percent up Engine servicing Freight depot Station Furniture factory 6"

6"

8"

9" Deadman’s Gulch trestle

To staging loop under Mesa Grande

Scale of plan: 7⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Jay Smith



www.ModelRailroader.com

57

Open mountain top for access

Rudy

Arkansas & Missouri

70

4

Published: February 1999 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 9 x 16 feet Minimum radius: 10" Minimum turnout: no. 8 Maximum grade: 6 percent

3 1

6 0

Arkansas Fort Smith Steel trestle no. 2 River (Visible staging) Steel Union Pacific trestle interchange Winslow no. 1

Springdale

Depot Backdrop

This railroad climbs a steep grade as it ascends through the Ozarks. High ridges and trees act as view blocks for most of the steepest grades. There are enough operating possibilities to keep two or more engineers busy at once.

Cyclone Fence Co.

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Robert Wegner

Miller Beer distributor

Los Angeles & San Fernando Valley RR

Strongheart Dog Food

Published: Great Model Railroads 2006 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 9'-6" x 23'-0" Minimum radius: 48" Minimum turnout: no. 6

Coast Division

Burbank Branch Highway overpass

Burbank Junction

Burbank Freight Depot

Sunland Boulevard

Burbank Tower

General Water Heater Co.

5

4

48" radius

Burbank Boulevard

1

3

Future extension Tradewater Oil Co. Citrus packinghouse Scrapyard

Passenger depot Enginehouse

2

Van Nuys

North Hollywood

5 0

Los Angeles Division

71

Highway Sun Valley San Joaquin Division overpass

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Theo Cobb

This layout began as a 5-foot-long, 1-foot-wide shelf with a single stretch of track. That shelf was followed by another, this time with turnouts, then

The Schuylkill Iron Works

72

Published: May 2008 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 4 x 21 feet Minimum radius: 15" Minimum turnout: no. 4

If your industry is big enough, like an iron works, you might need a whole layout to depict it accurately. There’s a

58

102 Realistic Track Plans

another and another. Building a layout in sections has advantages: sections can be built on the workbench, maintenance and cleaning are Forge Machine Coal Machine shop Coal preparation shop annex bin building

simplified, and pieces can be photographed outside in natural daylight. It also simplifies transporting the layout, should moving become necessary.

Open hearth

Maintenance Storage Oil Pump Power Forge building building tanks house substation power house Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Pennsylvania RR main line on this track plan, but the focus of this 1920sera layout is on the movement of cars

Headquarters offices

Stripper building

Elevator Water tower Stoves Cast house

Furnace boiler house

Blower house

Furnace stock house

Illustration by Theo Cobb

laden with ore, coal, coke, hot metal, slag, ingots, and finished product from building to building.

30" radius

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE Milwaukee transfer

Cement track

Pekin

Dakota Northern RR

73

Published: April 2000 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 12'-0" x 13'-6" Minimum radius: 15" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 1.5 percent

Depot Northern Seed & Feed Warwick Cargill elevator

Mill track

Sheyenne

Valley City Red River Feeds Farmer’s Depot Cooperative Freight house

Soo Line transfer

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Gamble Robinson

RIP track

Since I’m originally from the part of the country this layout is based on, it should be no surprise I selected the Dakota Northern as my Editor’s Choice pick. This layout features grain elevators, fertilizer plants, and feed mills, all common industries in eastern North Dakota. There are also passenger depots, interchange tracks, and a large classification yard at Lakota to add operating interest. Though this model railroad is based on the Burlington Northern, it could be adapted to represent numerous granger railroads. – Cody Grivno

Devils Lake

Farmers Union grain

Fairview

Depot

Fertilizer Texaco Oil Pillsbury elevator

Soo Line transfer

Elevator track 2 Elevator track 1

Sand & Gravel

Caboose track

Freight house

Lakota

Soo Line staging

Depot

Grand Forks staging

Minot staging

Marvin Windows Power plant Illustration by Theo Cobb

CB&Q

Doorway

A A

0" Mississippi River

To return loop

East Hannibal Scale of plan:

Open access area

5⁄16" = 1'-0",

12" grid

4"

Depot

Bluffs

Wabash RR, Decatur Division, 10th District Published: December 2000 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 12 x 13 feet Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent

74

Hulls

Illinois Grain Co. CB&Q Keokuk District

CB&Q depot

Valley City Baylis

Depot

Purina

Wayne Feeds

To Meredosia (11th District)

4"

Illinois River Signal

2"

This layout captures the last hurrah of the Wabash, just before its identity was swallowed in a merger with the Norfolk & Western in October 1967. It’s designed for out-and-back operation, with trains originating in the yard at Bluffs, Ill., making their way across the Mississippi River into Missouri, turning on the hidden loop there, and returning.

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger



www.ModelRailroader.com

59

MODEL RAILROADER

Jim Robbins Seat Belt Co.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Ford Vinyl & Paint

Grand Trunk Western, Romeo Subdivision

75

Ex-NYC interchange Great Lakes Tractor

Published: October 2003 Scale: O (1:48) Plan size: 11 x 15 feet Minimum radius: 36" (main), 24" (staging) Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 2 percent

Lumber

Stoney Creek GTW shops

Armada

Romeo

Purina Service Romeo depot Armada Co-op

Converted NYC depot

Yates Siding

Growing up in the 1980s, I watched Grand Trunk Geeps haul locals behind my grandparents’ farm in Armada, Mich. Modeling a line that features four-axle diesels, short trains, and slow train speeds is a great way to get the most operation out of a limited amount of space. Richard Cooke’s clever track plan fits several industries, an interchange track, a branch line, and a staging yard with a turntable into a modest space. – Dana Kawala

South Central Minnesota RR

76

Published: November 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 7'-6" x 22'-6" Minimum radius: 26" Minimum turnout: no. 4

Pontiac

Staging yard in closet Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Robert Wegner

Who says you have to settle on only one prototype? Many cities, even small ones like Owatonna, Minn., were served by two or more railroads. This HO scale layout depicts the Chicago & North Western and Milwaukee Road lines through that farm town. Plan-

Milwaukee Road Gandy Co. Sampson Hwy. Chicago & North Western Dairy 218 Substation Houses Drop-hinge Union Baggage Depot house bridge

ning the sidings on the two railroads so that the industries and yards they serve overlap as little as possible keeps engineers from getting in each other’s way during an operating session. And the continuous ovals allow one road to run unattended during solo operation.

Feed Owatonna Metal shop Canning Co. store County Grain Feed Quonset building Rd. 45 Straight River elevator mill Gravel pits

House Freight house Gas station

Lumberyard Farm

Malt-OMeal plant

Medford depot

Canning company Cemetery

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Theo Cobb

60

102 Realistic Track Plans

Scodras Grocers

Phillips Furniture

Boston & Maine: Western Route, North Dover, N.H.

77

Wingate Wholesalers

Holy Spirits Distilleries

Published: Great Model Railroads 2004 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 11 x 13 feet Minimum radius: 31" Minimum turnout: no. 6

Meek Tunnel

Freight Depot Marshall Inbound Outbound station (to Boston) Creamery (from Boston)

North Dover

New England River

Haney Fuels Boston & Maine Maine Central

When a viewer pops up in the control pit of this railroad, he is surrounded on all sides by scenery, giving this layout the appearance of a real railroad. Curved backdrops separate scenes from each other, allowing more locations to be modeled in less space and making the layout seem longer. Broad curves improve the operation of streamlined passenger equipment, as well as leaving room for access hatches in the corners.

F. B. Hamer & Sons

Conley Lumber Mitchell and Coal Creek

Salmon River Tower

B&M staging

MEC staging Door and Tower duckunder

Hidden staging

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

N.A.S.A. Mining Co.

Illustration by Theo Cobb

J.F. Machine Shop

Montreal & Northern Ry. Published: January 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 10'-4" x 12'-6" Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 11 percent Pont Saint Kevin 39" level 36" level

Bob’s Hot Dogs

Bed & Breakfast Control panel G.L. Bicycles

78

The two loops of this urban plan connect only with track concealed behind buildings. This allows a single operator to let one train run unattended on the upper level while switching the local on the lower. Tall, densely packed structures combine with partial buildings, background flats, and a photo backdrop to give one end of the compact layout the look of a truly massive city.

Dan Corp. J-P Printing Co. Furlow Center Milwaukee Beer distributor Warehouse

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Photo backdrop Mirror Illustration by Rick Johnson



www.ModelRailroader.com

61

West stub

View block

Ash Grove Subdivision

Depot

Structures used as view block

Springfield, Mo., on the Frisco

79

Passenger yard

Published: December 2003 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 12'-6" x 12'-6" Minimum radius: 10" Minimum turnout: no. 5

Springfield Subdivision

Nichols Junction

Commissary

Industry

Springfield Yard

Sleeper set out track

West staging

X marks the spot at Nichols Junction, where four subdivisions of the St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. intersected. This track plan models Frisco operations in and around Springfield, Mo., in the 1950s, when sleek passenger trains shared the rails with through and local freights. Business blocks and wooded hills hide the fact that the four legs of the X form a figure eight, as well as disguising the staging yards at both ends of the shelf.

Memphis main line

Station

Depot

Freight house

Oil tanks

SPRINGFIELD

Republic

Industry

Dock East belt line

Printing plant

Willow Springs East Structures used Subdivision staging as view block

Lebanon Subdivision

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Carm Fabric Mill

American Shoe

Joshua Fishman’s Mattress Co.

Valley Tool

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Derby Foundry

Waterbury Branch of the New Haven Brewery

Short wall

Burke Industries Elevated station Brass City Diner (below) Hotel Waste Treatment

Computer table

Lift bridge Yankee Manufacturing

Collett’s Cannery

Sprague Gutter Co.

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

102 Realistic Track Plans

80

WestfieldKlein Co.

E. L. Woods Manufacturing

62

Published: January 1999 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 10 x 13 feet Minimum radius: 23" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: 3 percent

This railroad’s designer sought to make his small layout look like a big city. Layers of tall structures, kitbashed to fit between adjacent tracks, create the look of a much larger urban area. He also doesn’t let track overwhelm the layout, keeping the main to a single track and hiding some tracks under hills and behind buildings.

Lift bridge

Olympic & Puget Sound Ry.

81

Published: March 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 15'-0" x 16'-4" Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 2.5 percent

There’s a lot of main line in this track plan, but it doesn’t look crowded. Linking distant parts of the layout with track hidden in tunnels maximizes the mainline run while leaving lots of room for realistic scenery, from urban blocks to rugged mountains. Keeping hard-to-reach track, including most hidden tracks and those on the far side of a shelf from the operator, to single track without turnouts reduces access problems and reduces the chance of derailments.

Puyallup River

50"

46"

Lighthouse

Canning Co.

46" American Boathouse

Kent Coal Co. Enginehouse Depot

Duckunder

Depot

TACOMA

Wyman Lumber Co.

Yakima Fruit Growers

Puget Mills

Lake Quinault

Sawmill Access hatch

46"

46"

Icing platform

50"

Foundry

Coal tower 46"

50"

46"

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Duckunder Illustration by Rick Johnson and Roen Kelly

Georgetown

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE

48"

New Haven’s Cape Cod Branch

82

Union Freight RR

Published: October 2006 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 12'-6" x 20'-0" Minimum radius: 26" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 1.5 percent

Maybe it’s because I grew up around water, but I’ve always been fascinated by seaside railroads. The interchange of cargo between ships and trains, the visual interest of bridges and trestles, and the many different ways to model water also add to the appeal. This plan has all of those elements, from Boston Harbor to the lift bridge over the Cape Cod Canal. That bridge’s 544-foot span was a record-setter at the time it was built, and is almost mandatory for a layout like this. When that bridge was built in 1933, its weight limits prevented its use by heavier engines developed later. Similar restrictions can be used to add to the operating challenges of any railroad. – Steven Otte

Workbench

Boston

Boston yard

Passenger platform

Provincetown

105-foot turntable 90-foot turntable

Hyannis

49" Cranberry bogs

49" 48"

Buzzards Bay

Cape Cod Canal bridge

Orleans

Yarmouth wye

48"

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Roen Kelly



www.ModelRailroader.com

63

Black Rock & Marmot

83

50"

A

Published: December 1999 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 14 x 14 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 8 Maximum grade: 2.5 percent

49"

A Marmot Able Pottery Oil City Distributors Manufacturing Station Center Marmot Stern Peak 47" Center Creek Meek’s Supply Chad’s Chairs Pete’s Produce Black Rock Industries

Summit

This freelanced railroad is set in the mountains of northern California. Judicious use of tunnels keeps the track from crowding out the terrain, which stretches from the forest to the high desert. The tunnels also disguise the mainline loop, making the track seem like a more realistic point-topoint operation. Stopping a train briefly in a tunnel can also increase the virtual distance between stations.

50"

Black Rock

Westen

End of scenery

Black Rock Lumber

Summit Ridge

48" Meg’s Mine

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Closet door removed

48"

47"

Staging and Southern Pacific interchange

Kabinett

Santa Fe, Needles District

84

Published: September 2002 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 9'-8" x 20'-0" Minimum radius: 151 ⁄2" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent

Shell Oil refinery

Illustration by Rick Johnson

This railroad is designed for the modeler who has a lot of motive power and wants to show it off. Big yards at both ends, backed up by staging in an

Komo’s Scrapyard

NEEDLES

Lee Way Desert U.S. Trucking Cement Rt. 66 Transfer

Anne’s Diner

Engine tracks

50"

adjacent room, means the ability to run plenty of trains. Gentle curves on the double-tracked main line show off long trains to their best advantage.

Station Fuel and sand Needles roundhouse

Garage door

Highway bridge 3 UP staging tracks (elevated) 14 AT&SF staging tracks

UP to Salt Lake City

Daggett

Dry wash Santa Fe Service Diesel diesel house shed fuel pads

40-foot trailer storage

UP 4-track staging under peninsula Highway bridge BARSTOW Station

Duckunder

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Illustration by Kellie Jaeger

64

102 Realistic Track Plans

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE Maryland & Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Division

85

Published: December 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 8'-8" x 22'-0" Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 2 percent

Peach Bottom Branch to Slate Hill

This track plan depicts a layout built by modeler Stan White. I had the pleasure of operating it a couple of times, so I can attest that it was faithful to its prototype, a well-known Eastern short line, and a lot of fun. The main line ran from the stub-end terminal at York, Pa., to a reverse loop with storage sidings hidden beneath York, representing the “Ma &Pa’s” bigcity terminal in Baltimore. Besides the off-stage loop, interchange tracks at York provided additional beyond-the-

layout connections to other railroads. Despite its short mainline run, the layout supported realistic operation. Stan’s layout design satisfies many of my own criteria for a successful model railroad, including walk-in access, representation of an interesting prototype, and a realistic operating scheme. The layout’s sharp curves, 18" radius in HO scale, were no hindrance to the Ma & Pa’s small locomotives and short passenger cars. – Andy Sperandeo

Red Lion, Pa.

Depot

Removable staging for Pennsylvania RR and Western Maryland interchange

Depot

Delta, Pa.

38"

Relay, Pa.

York, Pa.

Coal To Baltimore Cardiff, Water Slate Md. Ash pit (staging) Hill, Pa.

Depot

45.5"

Depot Scale of plan: 3⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Illustration by Robert Wegner and Rick Johnson

Farmhouse and barn

Backdrop

Oak Grove, Ill. on the Missouri, Kansas & Quincy

86

Published: June 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 6'-9" x 16'-0", plus off-layout staging Minimum radius: 30" Minimum turnout: no. 6

Santa Fe depot

Hatch B Abandoned quarry

Hatch C

Hatch D

Hatch A Field

MKQ/Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe double track to Link, Colo. CSX

Field Farm shed

CSX (B&O)

CSX (ex-B&O) depot

Tractor Babe’s Diner dealer Grain elevators CSX (B&O)

The interchange between two Class 1 railroads at a Midwestern town is the focus of this plan. Grain elevators and other agricultural-themed businesses help place this railroad in Illinois. This plan could be part of a larger layout, although it provides plenty of operating interest on its own.

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

To Sedalia, Colo., MKQ/ATSF

Illustration by Robert Wegner



www.ModelRailroader.com

65

Sectional

layouts

This scene of mainline action on the HO scale portable layout of the Midwest Valley Modelers club shows that scenic effects don’t have to suffer because of sectional construction. There’s no reason a home layout built in sections couldn’t look just as realistic. Ken Patterson photo

By Andy Sperandeo

Build your railroad so you can take it with you A friend of mine was hosting an operating session, and as we were about to get started he apologized to the group. “Sorry, but this layout is only temporary,” he said. Someone else pointed out that all model railroads are temporary, it’s just that some are around longer than others. If you know you’ll have to relocate in the future, or even if you just want to be prepared for that possibility, you can build your layout in sections that you can dismantle, move, and reassemble. When it’s time to move, a sectional layout lets you save much of the time, skill, and money invested in your model railroad. With sectional flexibility you can adapt what you’ve previously built to a new layout space, and sectional construction lends itself

66

102 Realistic Track Plans

to expansion and redevelopment. You can even take advantage of sectional construction to do wiring and switch motor installation with the sections on their sides or ends instead of always having to work up from below.

Think sections, not modules

To some extent Ntrak and other modular layout groups offer great examples of sectional construction, but there’s an important distinction between modular and sectional layouts. Modules fit together with standard track connections at the ends, but builders can construct any kind of scene on a given module. This leads to stereotyped track arrangements and frequent mismatches between adjacent terrain.

With sections you don’t have to follow any standard track pattern because the pieces need to fit together only one way. The scenery can maintain continuity from section to section following the theme of your railroad. Assuming you don’t have to take your show on the road very often, you don’t even have to leave breaks in the track and scenery at section joints. When it’s time to move, simply cut the rails and slice through the terrain. As long as you have some extra track and scenery materials on hand, you’ll be able to “heal” the scars at the section joints when reassembling your railroad. Here are two ways to build layouts in sections. They don’t exhaust the possibilities, but they’ll introduce you to thinking in terms of sections. RL

David Barrow devised a sectional construction system using standardized rectangular layout segments. He likes to lay out track plans by fitting these sections together end to end and forming 90-degree corners, so the comparison to the game of dominoes was obvious. He’s described his domino method in both Model Railroader and Model Railroad Planning articles. The illustration shows the basic form of domino layout sections. David likes a section two feet wide by four feet long but doesn’t mind building them narrower, in widths down to 18" or even 12" when the situation calls for it. He sticks to a 24" maximum width to maintain a comfortable reach-in distance. He’s built longer sections, but prefers the four-foot length for easy handling. The concept calls for four legs supporting each section, which adds up to a lot of legs for a layout of any size. David finds the legs convenient both for rearranging sections and for supporting a plywood or hardboard skirt. The two levels of framing shown at the right in the illustration allow space for power supplies, switch motors, and electronic gear inside the

Subroadbed: two layers of 1⁄4" lauan plywood or one layer of 1⁄2" lauan or Homasote 3⁄4" 3⁄4"

plywood edge boards

31⁄2"

x birch plywood track board

birch plywood top in towns and yards

48"

Layout height as desired

3⁄4"

391⁄2" to top of lower framing (recommended), or height as desired if single level

x 31⁄2" plywood risers to suit layout height and grades

If extra height isn’t needed, plywood top and subroadbed can be attached to lower framing

48"

2" x 2" pine legs with one flathead bolt into end framing

Yards and towns: If two layers of plywood, top layer may be cut away for drainage ditches, contours, and other features

3⁄4"

x 31⁄2" brace 6" from floor

Legs may be set back 6" if skirt is desired

3⁄16"

x 3" roundhead bolts for height adjustment

Open country: contoured side boards vary up and down to suit terrain

framework. As the drawing indicates, the upper framing could be dispensed with if not needed. The section at the left in the illustration shows a domino frame for scenery extending below track level.

Grids on girders Some find standardized sections like dominoes too confining and look for greater freedom in planning and building sectional home layouts. A solution that’s often overlooked is included in Linn Westcott’s landmark book, How To Build Model Railroad Benchwork (Kalmbach Books). As shown at right, Linn’s idea was to use L-girder framing to support layout sections constructed as simple box grids. The width and length of the sections can vary, as long as they have a reasonable chance of fitting through the doorways of both the current and any future layout rooms. Linn showed lengthwise cleats under the sections to fit along the girder flanges, but I’m not sure these would be necessary. The sections could simply be secured with screws up through the flanges from below. The L-girder framing itself could be unbolted for easy transportation and later reassembled at the new site.

12", 18", or 24" 3⁄4"

This also allows track to be built on grades for hilly or mountain railroads. For more on domino construction, see David's “Domino planning basics” in Model Railroad Planning 1999, on sale at www.ModelRailroader.com.

Nothing projects above girder tops

Carriage bolts used to attach legs to girders

Permanent keeper joist below girders Layout section

Box grid framing L-girder frame

Lengthwise cleat under layout section Legs and braces detach for moving

All legs have lag bolts for height adjustment

Illustrations by Rick Johnson



www.ModelRailroader.com

67

SECTIONAL LAYOUTS

Dominoes

How to convert track plan scales Simple arithmetic changes any layout design into your modeling scale

Proportions of popular scales Z 1:220 N 1:160 HO 1:87.1

S 1:64 O 1:48

(For others see National Model Railroad Association Standard S-1.2 at www.nmra.org.)

By Andy Sperandeo Whatever modeling scale you use, chances are you’ll find that a track plan for some other scale appeals to you. Just because you model in “X” scale doesn’t mean you have to automatically ignore plans drawn for “W” or “Y.” With some simple arithmetic and a little understanding of layout design you can quickly tell how much bigger or smaller a given layout will be in the scale you use. HO to N. Consider a plan drawn for a larger scale that you might want to build in a smaller one. Plan 94, representing the Chesapeake & Ohio’s Alleghany Subdivision, was designed for HO, but there’s no reason an N scale modeler couldn’t use it. First, look at the layout’s overall size, 22 x 24 feet. We can quickly reduce that in half to 11 x 12 feet. In fact, N scale is really 54 percent the size of HO, since HO’s scale proportion of 87.1 divided by N scale’s 160 gives .544. However, it’s easier to reduce the plan by an even 50 percent, and the small difference will be accounted for in the next step. The Alleghany Sub is a walkaround style layout with internal aisleways. We know that modelers who build N scale layouts are just as wide as those who model in HO, so aisles half as wide as on the original design will be too tight a squeeze. The tightest fit on the HO plan is at the end of the aisle between Ronceverte and White Sulphur Springs, 17". Half of that is only 8½", but if we add 12" it’ll produce an 18½" width, tight but acceptable for such a cul de sac. Overall, however, there are three lengthwise aisles on the plan and two across. That means we need to add three feet to our estimated width and two feet to the length, resulting in a square footprint of 14 x 14 feet. Checking some other passageways we find that the N scale plan will have

68

102 Realistic Track Plans

Santa Fe Needles Sub 9'-8" x 20'-0" in N scale 19'-4" x 40'-0" in HO scale Access problems outlined in red

C&O Alleghany Sub 22 x 24 feet in HO scale 14 x 14 feet in N scale Extend at red lines

31½" at the entrance next to Lewis Tunnel, a minimum of 27½" between Alleghany and Hinton, and 23" at the other dead end at Prince. If you’re happy with those widths, good, but if not you can add a few inches to the aisleway factor and accept a correspondingly larger footprint. Reducing the HO minimum radius of 34" in half gives 17" for N scale. That’s pretty generous for 1:160 proportion and will be fine even for the C&O’s 2-6-6-6 articulateds. N to HO. Going the other way introduces other considerations. Suppose you wanted to build N scale Plan 84, the Santa Fe’s Needles District, in HO scale. If you simply double the 9'-8" x 20'-0" dimensions of that plan, you get a footprint of 19'-4" x 40'-0". The aisles of course get wider, which usually is all to the good. In this case a couple of 15" squeezes at Needles and Barstow become 30" passages, with even more generous aisleways to either side – no problem. The minimum radius goes from 15½" in N to 31" for HO. That’s

acceptable for the pig flats and Superliner cars this railroad is meant to run, especially as viewed from inside the curves at Daggett and the Shell refinery. If you can allow a little more width and use it to increase the radius of the turnback curve on the central peninsula, so much the better. But when enlarging a plan, you have to consider access within the layout. For example, in the N scale plan the turnout behind the Needles roundhouse is a reachable 18" from the front edge of the layout, but in HO it would be 36" back, beyond arm’s length for most. The staging area would be 7'-8" wide. Some redesign to allow access for construction, maintenance, and operation will definitely be necessary. “Architectural” issues. Once you convert a plan for another scale, you need to consider the specific features of your railroad room. Look for the entry to a walkaround or around-the walls layout to see if it can be adjusted for your doorways or other entry points. If access is necessary outside the footprint of the layout itself, you’ll need additional space for that. Some layout rooms have odd shapes or include household utilities, and those may require further adjustment. Still, with this simple approach you should find it easier to imagine how a track plan drawn for models of any proportion would work in your own modeling scale. RL

Get more

Layout Realism

WITH THESE OTHER HOW-TO SPECIAL ISSUES

TO ALL NEW HOW-

D INFO AND RAILROA

ALLNEW HOW-TO AND RAILROAD INFO

RealisticRealistic Realistic Realistic LayoutsLayouts Layouts Layouts 4 s Industries you Freight yard can model Model the trackside scene 11 ciTrtyacscksenidere toy stworn aniesd ALL NEW how-to and railroad info

ISSUE SPECIAL

How To Build

ALLNEW 8HOWTO STORIES:

•Ballast and weather track •Add bridges and culverts •Install lineside signs •Build your own Waterbury Yard p’s on David Pop structuresNew Haven layout •Place trackside signals and more!

ight terminal Evolution of a fre rds PLUS: delers’ freight ya mo top m •Freight yard buildings Learn fro •Interlocking towers

6HOWTO STORIES

Soybean elevator • grocery warehouse propane bulk plant • kraft-paper mill automobile dock • signs for industries

DETAILED INFO

NEW CIT Y SCENERY HO

To order, call 1-800-533-6644 or order online at www.ModelRailroaderBooks.com and click the Model Railroader Magazine Special Issues link.

W-TO FEATURES

How To Build

DISPLAY UNTIL JULY 24, 2007

HOW TO

• Detail a station sce ne • Build a general store • Model an intersection • Make your town look bigger

AND MORE!

PLUS

Lumberyard scene on the Model Railroader club layout

Freight house operations • hauling livestock Inspiring urban sce nery shipping citrus • loading points in HO, S, and O scales PLUS Drawings of city A giant HO industry and prototype drawingsand town structures

www.ModelRailroaderBooks.com

CIR-ADH-08X1613RH

SPECIAL ISSU E

How To Build Realist ic Layouts 4: Towns and Cities

PLUS

DISPLAY UNTIL AUGUST 23, 2006

PRESENTED BY MODEL RAILROADER MAGAZINE

er • Build a yard tow tail tracks • Ballast and de es from photos • Model structur And more!

BO How To Build

ONLI N U S ! NE PAGE VIDEO 15

How To Build Realistic Layouts: Industries You Can Model

PRESENTED BY MODEL RAILROADER MAGAZINE

6GPRROEATJECTS

How To Build

How To Build Realistic Layouts

Yards uts: Freight Realistic Layo How To Build

Experts show sign, you how to de d an build, detail, yard operate your

30%#)!,)335%

30%#)!,)335%

Expanded city scene s on an HO club layou t

If you’ve got the room, you can effectively double the size of your model railroad by adding a second level, as shown here on Cal Winter’s HO scale Florida East Coast Ry. Cal’s layout is plan 101. Paul Dolkos photo

Layouts for

large spaces Plans suitable for rec rooms, basements, or barns By David Popp Got the room to think big? Though smaller plans have a lot of advantages, some people find that they have the space to build a big model railroad. In this case, you may have part of a rec room or most of a basement you can work in, or you may have a garage or an outbuilding (such as a barn) at your disposal. With room for a long main line, towering scenery, and large industries, big layouts have a lot of appeal. And these layouts generally have the capacity to run a lot more trains, which means you can keep a fair

70

102 Realistic Track Plans

number of people busy during an operating session. Add a helix and one or more extra levels (sometimes called decks), and now your trains really have some ground to cover as they travel across the layout. Though all model railroads need careful planning, designing and building big layouts requires even more attention to detail, especially considering the time and investment a large layout represents. You also want to be sure you get the most out of the space you have. This doesn’t necessarily translate into filling every square

inch with trains, which is often a temptation with a big model railroad. Instead, keep in mind that your layout room still needs to have space for people to run trains, view the finished scenes, and work on your empire. For those planning really big layouts, I’d suggest reading Track Planning for Realistic Operation, by the late John Armstrong. The material John covers in his book builds upon the material the Model Railroader staff has presented here to get you started. Consider that book the advanced course in layout design. RL

Central River

Farm

Central River Subdivision

87

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Published: November 2006 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 12 x 14 feet Minimum radius: 17" (main), 13" (staging) Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 1.38 percent

This plan was designed to provide room to run long N scale trains. It’s accessible from three sides, allowing operators to follow their trains in either direction around the layout. The fourth side is anchored on a wall, and a curved backdrop hides the inner staging yard loops. If you set the layout height at shoulder level, operators would require only minimal bending to get to the staging yard. The plan also features a branch line that interchanges with the main. The branch could easily be extended to add more towns around the outer walls of the room.

Farm

1" 0" S&S staging loop Hansel Grain Elevator

0"

FS Farm Supply Co.

Ben-Hur

Junction City Depot

Prairie View

Feed mill Depot

Plexiglas fence protects staging tracks

11⁄2"

Stock track Backdrops

2"

Secondary & Southern staging

Grivno Oil Co.

0" Tower

S&S Ry. Depot

0" 2"

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Bieber (staging) To workshop

Scale of plan: 3⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid Duckunder

Spanish Creek

Keddie Wye (steel trestle)

High Line to Bieber

Town buildings Sand house Water Office

KEDDIE Station

Double-sided backdrop

Fascia rises to valence

Machine shop Oil

Backdrop

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Freight house

PORTOLA

Station

Oroville (staging)

88

Station Water

Railroad buildings Feather River Water

Published: September 2001 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 20 x 20 feet Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 6 (main), no. 4 (yards)

Blairsden

East Keddie

Merlin

Western Pacific Third Subdivision

To future sawmill

The Western Pacific Third Subdivision plan was designed to fit in a rec room and features some signature scenery of the WP’s Feather River Canyon route. The design uses backdrops as view blocks to create several distinct scenes. One staging yard is set in an adjoining room, while the other is neatly tucked behind a low backdrop, so that the tracks may be reached by standing on a step stool but are not visible to a viewer standing on the ground. Like plan no. 16, the Western Pacific Third Sub features Keddie Wye, but this time with the needed room to connect all three legs to the rest of the layout.

www.ModelRailroader.com

71

89

FELTON Elevation 54"

Miller’s Crossing

The San Lorenzo Southern Published: June 2000 Scale: HOn3 (1:87.1) Plan size: 13 x 22 feet Minimum radius: 24" (main), 24" (branch) Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 3 percent

San Lorenzo River

Control panel Control panel 1

Doublesided backdrop

The San Lorenzo Southern was designed to fit inside a garage. The layout is based on elements of various narrow gauge railroads in the Colorado Rocky Mountains and would include dramatic vistas. One of the key features is that the layout room is divided into separate scenes by double-sided backdrops that run down the center of each peninsula. This creates the illusion that the layout is bigger than it really is. If you don’t have room for the staging yard outside the layout room, you could place it on a lower level under Black Bear Siding.

ZYANTE

Double-sided backdrop

Black Bear Creek

Black Bear Siding

lift-out section Junction has 57" Switch elevation

Boulder Creek Branch Doorway Staging yard on a shelf in the garage

Illustration by Rick Johnson and Kellie Jaeger

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Greenbriar River

C&O’s Alleghany Subdivision

90

57" 543⁄8"

Station

53"

56"

Station

D

White Sulphur Springs

Staging for four trains 48"

Freight house

RIP track

Coal dealer 58" Alleghany Tunnel Hidden tracks

49" NI Cabin

Ash pit Powerhouse Freight house

12" grid

D

Laurel Creek

Coal dock

Station

Prince

45"

New River

Staging for four trains 52"

52"

3⁄16" = 1'-0",

Clifton Forge, Va.

Piney Creek

Coal unloading barn Yard office Ice dock Appalachian Power Station 53"

Scale of plan:

Hidden track (not to scale)

51"

Station

Ronceverte

HINTON

102 Realistic Track Plans

Raleigh 50"

Alleghany

58"

Freight house

55"

72

Crab Orchard Mine

Mill

Published: February 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 22 x 24 feet Minimum radius: 34" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 1.67 percent

The setting for this plan is the Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. in West Virginia’s Allegheny Mountains. The design includes the C&O’s historic yard at Hinton, W.Va., and other key elements of the line from Alleghany to Prince, W.Va. The layout is set in the late 1940s, so the C&O’s big 2-6-6-6 steam locomotives and early diesels will look right at home running side by side here. Like many of the other plans in this chapter, the staging yards are placed on a separate level below the main layout, making the most out of the available space.

A

Lewis Tunnel

A

C

B

Stretchers Neck Tunnel

47" Cranberry Mine

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Hadley, W. Va. B C

o

The Pacific & Idaho Northern RR

E SAN LORENZO

91

ction

This is another split-level plan, with a small upper deck covering a corner of the main layout and leading to an along-the wall extension. You could add even more to the extension if you have the space to accommodate it. The layout also features a lower-level staging yard that is not illustrated, but the entrance to which is denoted by the letter B on the track plan. The staging yard could be built as a loop on a shelf below Diamond Springs.

Published: April 2005 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 12'-0" x 15'-4" with 2'-10" x 8'-4" extension Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: 5 percent

way

General merchandise

Upper level extends into adjoining room Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Hotel

Outline of upper level

Walker Supply Co.

0"

Meadows Restaurant 0"

Stock pen

Weiser River

Freight house

Water tank

B

To lower-level staging

Tiger Hotel

Coal dock

Weiser

Backdrops

Main level

Water tank Pump house Sand house Oil tank

23"

Silver Queen ore bin Stock pen

Alta Mine Sample mill B Sample mill A

A

Enginehouse 19" Drop bridge

Station

0"

4 percent down

Diamond Springs

Ajax mill 113⁄4"

81⁄2"

Mine tram Upper level

Station

Backdrop 11"

19"

B

Closet 14"

A Cuprum & Seven Devils RR staging siding

Yankee-Standard ore bin

Tiger ore bin

Cottonwood Creek

Reverse loop

Illustration by Rick Johnson and Jeff Nepper

Backdrop

To lower-level staging



www.ModelRailroader.com

73

Water tank

Southern Pacific Bakersfield Subdivision

92

Caliente

Residences

46"

Tunnel 1⁄2

Published: January 1999 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 9'-0" x 30'-6" Minimum radius: 21" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent

Oil tank Stock pens Caliente-Bodfish Road

To hidden staging

Tehachapi Creek

52"

48"

Tunnel 1 Ilmon siding

If you have a big space, you can do amazing things with scenery in N scale. This plan features the famous Tehachapi Loop (all of it), and has the room to model the scene effectively. The yard at Bakersfield serves as visible staging. The layout was originally built by Les Combs, and he designed to fit in an authentic Southern Pacific caboose. How cool is that!

Bealville

Helper spur

Building material warehouse

Quantico

Warehouse Factory

Edison

Packing houses

Herder’s shanty

Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Icing dock

Pacific Fruit Express

48"

A

UP’s Daneville and Donner River Subdivisions

A

To staging Duckunder

Plastic pellet transfer

The 48" Narrows

Published: November 2006 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 11'-6" x 22'-4" Minimum radius: 33" Minimum turnout: no. 8 (main), no. 6 (staging) Maximum grade: 2.6 percent

Tunnel no. 2

2.5percent grade

Staging yard hidden below Daneville

54"

471⁄2"

Warehouse

DANEVILLE

481⁄2" Cement plant 56"

Donner River Canyon

Depot

Mills Brother Lumber Co.

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid 49"

B

74

102 Realistic Track Plans

B

Illustration by Robert Wegner and Roen Kelly

Donner River

551⁄2"

n

tio

Sta

46"

2.6-percent grade Tunnel no. 1 (to staging)

93

Featured in many Model Railroader articles and several books, the Union Pacific-themed layout built by Denmark’s Pelle Søeborg is an inspiring model railroad. The design for the layout features a hidden staging yard under Daneville and provides space for both rugged mountain and urban/ industrial scenery through the use of a backdrop that runs down the center of one portion of the layout. For more information on how Pelle built the layout, see his book, Mountain to Desert: Building the HO scale Daneville & Donner River, available from Kalmbach Books. Though Pelle models the present day, this layout could be set in any era. Add a few simple details, such as water columns, and the plan would work for the steam era.

Auto repair garage

5th crossing

Hidden staging below

Tunnel 10 52"

lie Ca

nte

k ee Cr Walong siding Loop Hill

De

De sk

sk

53"

To hidden staging

Dispatcher's control panel

Staging access Bealville Road

Staging access

Monolith

Hidden staging control panel

Tunnel 9

Relay box

Monolith Cement

50" Yard Maintenance- control panel of-way Interchange track Depot

Kern Junction tower

Santa Fe Team track tracks

Agriculture business Oil Junction warehouses

47"

Bakersfield Ice

Oil storage tanks

49"

Oil tank Warehouse

48"

plant

Caboose Roundhouse track

Engine service, 4 ready tracks

Freight house

Famoso Oil unloading

West Bakersfield

spurs

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Pleasant Valley Branch

Soldier Summit

94

Published: November 2003 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 14 x 15 feet Minimum radius: 14" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 3 percent

Yard for staging Pleasant Valley Branch trains

Colton

Abandoned wye

60"

Soldier Summit

UPPER LEVEL

To Gilluly

Kyune

Castle Gate

Kyune To Castle Gate

Section A-A

Illustration by Bernard Kempinski and Rick Johnson

If you want a modern (well, late 1980s to be exact) main line layout, Bernard Kempinski’s design for this Denver & Rio Grande Western line through the Wasatch Mountains in Utah may be for you. This large N scale layout increases its main line run by adding a second level over half of it. There is also an option for a branch line and one or more off-layout staging yards, if you have the space. Equipping the layout with Digital Command Control would add to the fun, since you could easily use helper engines and crews to push trains up and over Soldier Summit, the layout’s high-elevation point. And, during this time, Amtrak’s California Zephyr still ran daily on this line, giving you an option for passenger traffic.

Lower-level backdrop

Upper yard (visible staging)

To D&RGW staging (optional) To Utah Ry. staging (optional)

48" Engine terminal

HELPER Sand Station Panther Junction (Utah Ry.)

Castle Gate Coal Co. Start 3 A percent grade

To Kyune

To Soldier Summit Thistle Tunnels

Narrows Price River

Kyune A Tunnel

Nolan Tunnel

Castle Gate

Rio 50"

LOWER LEVEL Gilluly

54"

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid



www.ModelRailroader.com

75

Quarry

Water

Sand

Coaling tower

Dock office

Cabin Creek

Lake Erie coal dock

Business block

Depot

Lake freighter Pierce McLouth

CABIN CREEK JUNCTION Machine shop

Stiff leg derrick

Concrete arch bridge

Lighthouse

Lumber yard Handcar shed

Scale of plan: 5⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

C&O main line

Section house Spar log loader 140-foot Howe truss bridge

Sharon

Republic No. 3 tipple

Republic company store

Abandoned mine buildings

Log unloading boom Powerhouse Shay enginehouse Turntable on hillside

Gulch Creek

Machine shop Abandoned farm

Coke ovens with overhead tram

Coal office

Blacksmith shop

Imperial Carbon Co. tipple

Abandoned powerhouse

Company houses

Wooden water tank Company store

Bunkhouse

Cane Forks

Carbon Fuel Co. No. 9

Slash burner Sawmill Handcar setoff Seng Creek Illustration by Rick Johnson tunnel Abandoned track and tunnel

C&O’s Cabin Creek Branch

Powerhouse

Dacota Old caboose bunk house

Water tank

DA Cabin

Powerhouse

Bunkhouses Covered scales

Section storage house

Superintendent’s house Retail coal dock Company houses

Eskdale

Depot

Powerhouse

Consolidation Coal Co. tipple

76

102 Realistic Track Plans

Published: December 2001 Scale: O (1:48) Plan size: 19 x 30 feet Minimum radius: 38" Minimum turnout: no. 6

95

Company store

Lumberyard

ED Cabin

CRANE’S NEST

Standard Oil Co.

O scale layouts are very effective in a large space. The Chesapeake & Ohio Cabin Creek Branch plan is set in the Kanawha coal fields in the mountains of West Virginia during the late 1940s. This is a coal and lumber-hauling railroad, and its numerous tipples and large sawmill will provide hours of switching work. If you have more space, you can complete the connection between the C&O main line and the branch at Cabin Creek Junction, which will provide an interchange point for freight to move on and off the layout.

If you have room in your garage, or a large spare room, this plan could be for you. The Minnesota & International can be built around two walls of the layout room, and the lobe at Bemidji could be moved (depending upon your available space) by extending the layout beyond the siding at Walker. Also, you could expand the staging capacity by adding tracks to the return loops on the lower level.

Minnesota & International

96

Published: January 2006 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 15 x 18 feet Minimum radius: 27" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2.5 percent

Station Coal yard Feed mill Bulk oil

Liquefied-petroleum To reverse loop Concrete batch plant (International Falls) gas terminal Warehouse

A

Land O’ Lakes warehouse NP/Soo Line station

6"

6"

Pulpwood loading

Walker Leech Lake

Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid Concrete overpass Station

Lake Hubert

Hubert Lake

6"

Narrow gauge NP wood- lines for treating tie plant Lift-out section plant Main line to Staples

Sawmill

Mississippi River Lake Bemidji

BEMIDJI

Round Lake

Mississippi River Lumberyard

6"

Minnesota Plywood warehouse

Retail stores Station

Station

Feed mill

0"

1"

Liquefied-petroleum gas terminal

LITTLE FALLS

0"

INTERNATIONAL FALLS

BRAINERD

Pine River

0" Warehouse

Fence post storage Pulpwood loading Fence Pulpwood post Jenkins loading plant Station

Coal yard Feed mill

3"

1"

B Staging

(not to scale)

Bulk oil

Sawmill

Pulpwood unloading and storage

A

NP station

Utility pole storage Coal yard

5" 0"

3" 0"

Brainerd Hide Co.

Soo Line freight station

Warehouse

B 4"

Feed mill

6" 5"

To reverse Stored parts Paper warehouse loop (Little Falls) and scrap

NP Office Boiler house shops

Main line to Duluth Maintenanceof-way siding

Illustration by Rick Johnson



www.ModelRailroader.com

77

TOP DECK – ELEVATION 57"

People’s Avenue Yard Baggage Union Passenger and express Terminal (NOUPT)

Coach yard

U.S. Post Office Desk

Backdrop

Mississippi River

Staging concealed in warehouses

Riverfront wharves

Down

MIDDLE DECK – ELEVATION 40"

Television Courthouse Square

Hines Lumber Co.

Desk Down Up Jourdan River

Garlett’s Farm Pearl River

STAGING DECK – ELEVATION 30"

Passenger train staging

Southern staging tracks Helix – outer loop reaches all three decks, inside loop connects staging to top deck

Desk

Up

GM&O staging tracks

Removable bridges Entrance Scale of plan: 3⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

78

102 Realistic Track Plans

Illustration by Theo Cobb

Central River Subdivision Published: Great Model Railroads 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 14 x 32 feet Minimum radius: 27" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 1.8 percent

97

The plan for this layout makes use of three levels, providing three times the amount of railroad to model and operate in the same space as one. The upper two levels are set at 57" and 40", making them easy to see and work on. The bottom level, set at 30", has no scenery and used for staging. However, if you wanted to make one or more of the yards on the bottom level active or model a town at the passing siding, you could do this comfortably from a rolling office chair.

Midland Continental

98

Published: November 2007 Scale: N (1:160) Plan size: 14'-9" x 31'-3" Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 4

James River

Jamestown Junction

Section house Ash pit Coal

Crossing gates Soo Line Jamestown Terminal Elevator Interchange track Section houses

Northern Pacific

Milwaukee Road

Wimbledon Wye to Milwaukee Road enginehouse

Team track

Edgeley

JAMESTOWN Loading ramp Depot

Granger railroads tend to be flat and straight, and this plan has both of those features in spades. While this layout is designed for the Midland Continental RR, a North Dakota short line, it could easily be used to represent more than a dozen other railroads. Its predominantly shelf design means that sections of the layout could be built elsewhere and then installed once the messy construction work is complete. Operating the line involves making up trains in the yard at Jamestown, then running along the walls to switch industries at the towns en route. Once the work is complete, the train can be turned on the wye at Jamestown Junction for the trip back to the terminal at Jamestown.

Coal dock Through track Co-op storage shed

Depot passing track

Enginehouse

Elevator Grain bins Depot Loading ramp

Water tank Stockyard

Depot

3rd Avenue South Warehouse

Proposed line to Cooperstown Freight house Otter Tail Power Co. powerhouse Passenger platform

Lift-out section

Creek Pile trestle Coal Dock

Frazier

Farmers Elevator

Illustration by Theo Cobb

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid



www.ModelRailroader.com

79

Pandora & San Miguel RR

99

60"

Published: October 2002 Scale: Sn3 (1:64) Plan size: 15 x 19 feet Minimum radius: 28" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 3 percent

The Pandora & San Miguel RR is a fictional bridge line between the Denver & Rio Grande Western and the Rio Grande Southern railroads. As a result, equipment from either railroad would look right at home on the P&SM. The layout is designed for Sn3, which doesn’t require much more space than a typical HO layout. An Sn3 minimum curve radius can be as tight as 22", though 28" or greater is better. If you don’t wish to model in Sn3, you can use the same plan for an HO layout.

Vance Junction

Black Bear Mine

58"

Ore ramp

PANDORA

Three-way turnout

Post Office

Depot

“Almost” Ophir

Cour d’Alene Mine

Oil storage

Entrance

Illustration by Terri Field and Roen Kelly

Scale of plan: 1⁄4" = 1'-0", 12" grid

New Haven Shore Line

Drawbridge

Mystic Bay

Published: Great Model Railroads 2000 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 21 x 28 feet Minimum radius: 36" Minimum turnout: no. 6

100

Mystic, Conn.

Boston coach yard

Boston, Mass. Pond South Station Double-slip switch

Southhampton St. roundhouse

Rocky’s Beach

102 Realistic Track Plans

Lift-up section

Ball Mill

Mystic River

80

Depot

52"

Hillsgrove Tower

Scale of plan: 3⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid

56"

The Pit (liftout section)

LINDBURG

dock area

Freight yard

Raymond Falls

Sorting Avalanche Gold Hope Mine House

South Boston

Double-slip switches

Lizard Head Pass

Illustration by Rick Johnson

The New York, New Haven & Hartford’s main line between New York and Boston (called the Shore Line) was a hotbed of passenger train activity in the first half of the 20th century. This plan depicts the railroad’s Boston terminal in the center of the room, and it uses shelves around three of the walls to provide a lengthy main line with gentle curves suitable to run big steam locomotives and long passenger cars. While trains simply loop back to Boston on this plan, you could use the open fourth wall to build a staging yard, representing many of the New Haven’s destinations west of that city.

MODEL RAILROADER

EDITOR’S CHOICE Stock pen

Upper level Duckunder

Florida East Coast Ry.

101

Published: February 2001 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 16 x 24 feet with 2 x 11 foot staging Minimum radius: 30" Minimum turnout: no. 6 Maximum grade: 2 percent

This plan is a great example of getting the most out of your railroad space by building a two-level layout. Note that to keep from having more than one operator trying to work in the same location of the room at the same time, the towns on the railroad are not positioned in the same places on the two decks. Also note that the helix is completely hidden from view, eliminating the need to try difficult scenery work to disguise it. This is a staging yard-to-terminal (essentially a point-to-point) railroad. The line starts in hidden staging and ends at Key West on the upper level. If you didn’t have space to put the staging yard outside the layout room as shown here, you could build a third level under the town of Glades. Also note that there is a hidden staging wye behind the sky backdrop at Key West. This makes it easy to turn a complete train if you don’t want to spend the time to do the work in the yard. The design for the layout is set in winter of 1930 at the height of the tourist season, making for a lot of interesting operation. – David Popp

Freight house

Icing platform

Office

Trumbo Yards

Stock Island

Wye for turning KEY WEST Car ferry trains and engines Export/pineapple dock

Bahia Honda bridge

Station

Fish loading platform

Helix

Marathon Store Pigeon Key

Lower level

Staging in garage

Miami trolley line Lift-out section Flagler Street

MIAMI

Water columns for tank car loading

Glades Long Key

Passenger station

Station Helix

Railway Express Agency N. W. Fifth St.

Long Key Viaduct

Scrapyard Ice house

Buena Vista

Roundhouse

Leg of wye in bedroom

Illustration by Rick Johnson

Scale of plan: 3⁄16" = 1'-0", 12" grid



www.ModelRailroader.com

81

...and one more An HO plan for non-traditional spaces

Grand River Ry.

102

Freight house

Grand River

By David Popp While we’ve explored a lot of plans designed for open spaces or spare rooms, that isn’t always the space you have available for a layout. I saved this plan for last as an example of what you can do when designing a model railroad to fit the space you have. In this case, the HO scale Grand River Ry. is made to fit around a basement stairwell and wrap around a support post and a furnace. By keeping the area between the post and furnace open, you can still use the space under the stairs (and river) for storage. Also, the furnace remains accessible from three sides, making routine maintenance tasks easy. The Grand River Ry. itself is set in the steam era and serves a terminal town along a navigable river. The industries on the river’s banks, such as the grain elevator and coal yard, are served by barge as well as rail, making for some interesting operating traffic and modeling projects. Because of the layout’s 24" curves, smaller 2-8-0 and 2-8-2 steam locomotives, 40- and 50-foot freight cars, and short 60-foot passenger cars would work best on this railroad. You can use an 0-6-0 or an early diesel for a yard switcher. Despite its size, the layout could provide plenty of operation to keep three people busy for an entire evening. RL

No. 6

No. 7 curved Scale of plan: 1⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid

Cold storage

No. 6

No. 61⁄2 curved

No. 8 RH Station Street No. 71⁄2 curved

Furnace

Depot No. 7 curved Backdrop No. 61⁄2 curved Sugar Creek

Illustration by Rick Johnson and Jay Smith

Narrowed Walthers swing-span bridge This section under stairwell

Passenger yard track

Coal trestle Storage space under layout and stairwell

Sugar Creek Yard

Coal yard

Caboose track

No. 7 curved No. 6 No. 6 Oil dealer 30-degree crossing

Furniture factory

East Bank

Water column

Shoe factory

Coal tower Staging tracks behind backdrop

Published: September 2007 Scale: HO (1:87.1) Plan size: 9'-2" x 16'-2" Minimum radius: 24" Minimum turnout: no. 5 Maximum grade: none

Benham Street No. 6

Flour mill Grain elevator

82

102 Realistic Track Plans

Backdrops

Start building

your dream layout!

Every issue of Model Railroader includes intriguing articles that take you on a tour of the world’s finest layouts and introduce you to the hobby’s experts. You’ll discover: • A wealth of prototype data • Detailed how-to instructions • Product reviews • Tips & techniques • New product announcements • And so much more!

C R N DC ODEATIO C LL 74 E D TA GE S IN PA

N scale shelf layout pla n New 4-12-2 in HO tes ted

Dream it. Plan it. Build it.

November 2009 • www .ModelRailroader.com

Two ways to make great-looking trees Store-bought? Garden plant? Both work!

HOW TO

• Build a laser-cut wo od • Kitbash two SD38 diesel

kit

locomotives

PLUS

• LED basics for model rail roa • Guide to track-planning soft ders • How prototype railroads ware

operate extras

Learn how to make trees like these from natural sedum plants and ground foam. See page 32

Plus, you’ll receive exclusive online access to product reviews and a database of more than 400 track plans! Order online at www.ModelRailroader.com Or call 1-800-533-6644

Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Central Time. Outside the U.S. and Canada, call 262-796-8776 x661. Please have your credit card ready.

CIR-ADH-09X1670RH

A8BM5M

PROTOTYPE RAILROAD THEMES • REALISTIC TRACK ARRANGEMENTS

A SUPPLEMENT TO MODEL RAILROADER MAGAZINE

Railroads 6 you can model

• ROOM-SIZE PLANS FOR BOTH HO AND N SCALES • TIPS FOR MODELING HEAVY-INDUSTRY OPERATION • EACH PLAN INCLUDES DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT THE LAYOUT 618201 2009

Big Blue rolls on in the Motor City The modern auto industry and a Conrail Shared Asset area highlight this N scale track plan By Dana Kawala

P

rototype railroad track charts can offer great inspiration for a model railroad track plan. While doing an internet search for railroads that served the auto industry, I found track charts for the Detroit District of Michigan’s Conrail Shared Asset area. In this district, as in other shared asset areas, Norfolk Southern and CSX jointly control former Conrail property, and many of the diesels are still in Conrail’s blue livery. Part of the Detroit District is the Sterling Secondary in my hometown of Sterling Heights, Mich. Reviewing the charts, I imagined a switching layout that could fit into a spare room. After all, two of the main customers of this part of the line, a Chrysler assembly plant and a Chrysler stamping plant, were only a couple of miles apart. Then I went to Google Earth, a Web site that provides satellite views of most places on the planet, and received a dose of reality. Automotive plants are massive and often connected to a mainline classification yard. In addition, a network of industrial track serves inter-plant

2

operations and connects the plants to outside vendors. It was clear that I had to make some adjustments if I was going to design a track plan for a relatively small space. I ended up with this N scale plan that fits around the walls of a 10 x 12foot room on a 2-foot-wide shelf.

Running “just in time”

Although I designed the track plan primarily for switching operations, I used wide-radius mainline curves and made the yard body tracks long enough to handle the maximum length of an eight-car train of 89-foot auto racks led by a pair of road diesels, such as SD70s or Dash 9s. The main line runs between semihidden staging at Livernois Yard to Sterling Yard, and it’s connected to the loading docks of the Chrysler assembly plant. The double-track main line turns into a single track just before entering the curve into the staging yard. This turnout lets the main line double as a runaround during switching moves at the stamping plant.

Six Railroads You Can Model • www.ModelRailroader.com

The Chrysler plant looms behind Sterling Yard. The auto industry inspired this track plan. Ray Sabo photo Although the main line is short, following the prototype’s operating rules helps lengthen the run. Along the Sterling Secondary, the maximum speed limit is 10 mph. Industrial track serves the stamping plant on the outside of the main line and smaller industries located in front of the staging yard. The track plan isn’t designed for through trains. As on the prototype, Sterling Yard is the end of the line for most of the large diesels originating from out west. Most of the action involves classifying trains that enter the yard into locals that deliver loaded cars and empties to their destinations. Road engines that bring trains north lay over in Sterling Yard until the yard accumulates a full train of cars to take back to Livernois Yard. Industrial track that connects to the main line provides access to online industries. In addition to the Conrail Shared Asset local freights departing from Sterling Yard, industrial switchers make inter-plant runs. The fun of operating an automotivethemed railroad comes with following prototype industry practice of “just-intime” delivery. Auto companies don’t want to pay for warehousing, but they also don’t want to pay for workers sitting idle. The schedule of the entire

Power plant

Scrap loading

Chrysler stamping plant

15" radius 19" radius 22" radius

Holding tracks 15" radius 17" radius

Yard office Coal dock Coal track Engine track

Chrysler assembly plant

TRW

Conrail Sterling Secondary N scale (1:160) Layout size: 10 x 12 feet Scale of plan: 1⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid No. 6 turnouts

Scrapyard Livernois Yard (staging)

Low-relief structures Detroit Plastic Moulding Detroit News printing and packing

Sterling Yard Auto rack loading

Illustration by Rick Johnson

supply chain is important. From trainloads arriving at Sterling Yard to locals setting out empties and picking up loaded cars to plant switchers delivering parts into the docks, everything needs to be done on time.

A variety of modern rolling stock

This track plan’s setting allows for a variety of motive power. Although pairs of modern six-axle road diesels, as well as SD40-2s and SD60s, are primary power for mainline trains, four-axle GP15s and GP38-2s switch the yard and handle local freight traffic. Local power is in either Conrail, NS, or CSX livery, but the larger mainline diesels can also come from BNSF or Union Pacific. An industrial switcher makes inter-plant deliveries, such as moving cars from holding tracks to the docks.

For rolling stock, the auto industry relies on more than 89-foot auto racks. Typical freight cars include 50- and 60foot hi-cube boxcars, 50-foot gondolas for scrap metal, coal hoppers, and covered hoppers for plastic pellets. For even more variety, I added a non-automotive customer that I found on one of the track charts. The railroad delivers newsprint boxcars to the Detroit News printing and packing plant. For most of the structures, I planned low-relief buildings along the walls. You don’t need to model an entire milelong factory, just the parts relevant to the railroad, such as loading docks. Low-relief buildings between the staging yard and south industrial tracks would defi ne the scene in the front, yet still provide an operator with access to the yard in back.

▸▸ The track plan at a glance Name: Sterling Secondary Scale: N (1:160) Room size: 10 x 12 feet Theme: modern auto industry Period: 1999 Mainline run: 24 feet Minimum radius: 17" main line, 15" industrial track Minimum turnout: no. 6, turnouts set at no. 5 angle in Livernois Yard Maximum grade: none For fans of urban railroading, the Sterling Secondary provides plenty of switching with enough mainline action to keep a few road diesels busy. MR Six Railroads You Can Model

3

A ‘plug-and-play’ industry Raw materials storage silos Rough roll furnace Grinding and polishing

Yard

Ware room

Office

By Henry Freeman

L

ike many young model railroaders, I started with a basic loop of track on a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. Years later, as my friend Bill Chapin and I worked on designs to add a major industry to my large HO scale layout, we realized the best approach to solve my space problem was to return to the 4 x 8 layout concept. As a twist on the traditional plan, however, our self-contained industrial plant is made to “plug in” to the rest of the layout when needed and be moved out of the way when it isn’t.

A plug-and-play layout

By itself, my 4 x 8-foot Pittsburgh Plate Glass Works No. 7 plant is a selfcontained industrial switching rail-



road, complete with a small interchange yard. The layout can provide hours of fun for a switch crew moving cars of time-sensitive raw materials in and around the glass factory. In fact, the plan only varies in two ways from a traditional 4 x 8 design: It has a threefoot single-track tail, which serves as the drill track for the plant, and there is no loop for continuous running. When plugged into my B&O Cumberland Division during an operating session, the PPG plant always provides a steady stream of incoming and outgoing traffic for the rest of the railroad thanks to a connecting track at the end of the interchange yard. When the session is over, I unplug the 4 x 8 plant from the layout and store it under the railroad, freeing up valuable floor space in my layout room for working on other projects.

Six Railroads You Can Model • www.ModelRailroader.com

This is how Pittsburgh Plate Glass Works No. 7 plant in Cumberland, Md., looked in the late 1950s. At this point in its history, the float glass system has yet to be installed. Most of the plant could be kitbashed using various manufacturers’ stock kits and styrene shapes. Photo courtesy of PPG Industries

The prototype and the model

Pittsburgh Plate Glass started construction on the Cumberland Works No. 7 plant in 1954, installing a rough roll, flat glass furnace with a chemical polishing system. In 1963, PPG introduced to the world the first float line furnace, starting a new era in plate glass manufacturing technology. Once the furnaces were fired, plate glass production went on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and consumed huge amounts of raw material. PPG closed the Cumberland plant in the 1970s.

for your railroad

An HO layout doesn’t have to be a loop of track

Pittsburgh Plate Glass HO scale (1:87) 4 x 8 feet

Scale: 3⁄4" = 1'-0" 12" grid Grinding and polishing

Ware room

Minimum curve radius 18" No. 4 turnouts Power house

Office building

3foot tail

Switch lead

Rough roll furnace

Shipping docks

Batch house

To rest of layout

Lehr building (annealing oven)

Interchange yard

Float line bath

Raw materials

Float furnace Illustration by Jay Smith

A glass plant receives its raw materials by rail and stores them in a series of silos. An intricate system of conveyers automatically gathers the materials from storage, weighs each to a specific formula, mixes them in a batch, and carries them to the melting tank. Timing and continuity of the railroad shipments are of vital importance to keep a glass plant running. Soda ash, limestone, and sand are all delivered in covered hoppers. Salt cake, needed in the manufacturing process, rouge (iron oxide) and felt necessary for the polishing process, and packing material for outbound loads are all shipped in standard boxcars. The Cumberland plant made plate glass from 1 ⁄8" to 3 ⁄4" thick and shipped it by truck, boxcar, and flatcar to customers for installation in store fronts and office buildings, processing by mirror manufacturers, and fabrication into automobile safety glass. Though most of my PPG plant would involve scratchbuilding or kitbashing structures, you could apply this con-

Making glass At one point in its history, Pittsburgh Plate Glass Works No. 7 plant was the only factory in the United States producing plate glass using both the traditional flat process and the new float technology side-by-side. The major steps in traditional flat glass production begin with mixing and melting raw materials into molten glass. The molten glass is then rolled into a continuous solid ribbon, ground to a uniform thickness, and polished. The final steps include cutting, inspecting, and packing for shipment. In the float glass plant, raw materials (largely sand and soda ash) are melted in a gas-fired furnace at over 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The molten glass flows out of the furnace as a continuous flat ribbon that floats on a bath of molten tin (which has a much lower melting temperature) until cool enough to hold its shape. Final processing further cools the ribbon, then it is cut into uniform sheets which are trimmed to sizes specified by customer orders. Unlike the flat process that uses rollers to shape the glass, the float system produces glass with a perfectly flat surface. – H.F. cept to other heavy industries that have large plants. Recently there have been plastic structure kits available for automobile plants, paper mills, and steel mills, so you would have a good starting point for the buildings.

Perhaps a plug-and-play industry is just what you need for your existing layout. Or it could be the starting point of your first model railroading adventure with plenty of room to grow as your modeling skills advance. MR Six Railroads You Can Model



Naugatuck Valley in N An apartment-sized New Haven layout with room to grow • By David Popp

A

s the last of the benchwork for my 11 x 30-foot HO scale Soo Line layout was unceremoniously shoved to the back of the storage unit, I figured it would be a while before I built another one. A recent move had caused my wife and I to temporarily downsize to a small apartment while we built a new house. Sensing my loss, however, she donated part of the living room for a small layout, and my plans for an N scale apartment-sized railroad were born.

I designed the layout in two pieces. The benchwork for the main part is a 32" hollow-core interior door covered with 2" foam insulation board. It has a completely independent loop for display running. For support, you can set the layout on an inexpensive folding table. Frame assembly 48" 461⁄2"

A prototype with modelers in mind

Looking for something different to model than the Midwest, I sought out the New York, New Haven & Hartford for inspiration. After some research, I focused on the New Haven’s Naugatuck Line, following the Naugatuck River Valley in Connecticut. This area was once rich with mills and factories and would provide some nice industries to switch. In addition, a devastating hurricane in 1955 caused the New Haven to rebuild most of the original double-track main line as a single-track one, making it ideal for a modeler with limited space. The region also included some picturesque scenery as the New Haven wound its way north to Waterbury. Its dramatic, near-water-level route was surrounded by tree-covered rocky hills between towns and included some interesting bridges to model. And by the late 1950s, daily traffic on the line was ideal for a small layout. It included a north and south through freight, a local serving the towns, and four passenger runs each way with Budd Rail Diesel Cars (RDCs).

The layout plan

Because of my space limitations, I knew my layout couldn’t be an exact representation of the New Haven. With that in mind, the modeled towns of Seymour and Naugatuck exhibit the flavor of 1959 New Haven railroading in Connecticut but aren’t accurate reproductions. Most of the structures can be easily kitbashed for the New England look.

Legs

16"

6"

Two 1⁄4"-diameter dowels cut 13⁄4"long for centering pegs

141⁄2"

1⁄4" x 2"

carriage bolt with 3⁄4" washer, lock washer, and wing nut

22"

131⁄2" cut with beveled ends

Extension construction diagram Staging side

12" x 40" .060" styrene backdrop sandwiched between foam and curved to follow tracks 2" foam insulation board 1⁄4"

plywood top

1⁄4"

hardboard fascia

1⁄4"

hardboard fascia

Legs cut to match table height

1 x 2 frame glued and screwed together

1⁄4" x 2"

carriage bolt with 3⁄4" washer, lock washer, and wing nut

Nail-in 3⁄4" nylon furniture glides

1 x 2 legs with a 13" spacer and triangular plywood cleats

Moving freight on the Naugatuck Clamp attachment Late in the New Haven’s history, the railroad would run a single freight north to Waterbury, Conn., each day. The train would have three locomotives, typically Alco RS-3s. In Waterbury, the crew would break up their train into three locals, sending them off in different directions to switch the main back to Naugatuck and the Torrington and Forrestville branches. In the evening, the three locals would return to Waterbury, where the crew would reassemble the train and then take the whole thing back south to Cedar Hill. By using the staging tracks as a fiddle yard, you could simulate this operation on this smaller version of the Naugatuck Line. Or, you could easily adapt the layout and its operation for your own railroad. – D.P.

1⁄4"

hardboard fascia

2" foam board 1⁄4"

dowel with tapered end

Hollow-core door 13⁄4" thick

1" from edge

1"x11⁄4" hole cut in bottom of door

Small Quick-Grip clamp (2) Illustrations by Jay Smith



Six Railroads You Can Model • www.ModelRailroader.com

Track and roadbed

Depots by John D. 6004 country station

Peco code 55 track 387 no. 8 curved right-hand turnout (2) 388 no. 8 curved left-hand turnout (3) 393 20-degree crossing (1) 1791 no. 4 right-hand turnout (1) 1792 no. 4 left-hand turnout (4) 1795 no. 6 right-hand turnout (3) 1796 no. 6 left-hand turnout (2) 1797 no. 7 wye turnout (1) 5801 36" flextrack (25)

Design Preservation Models F. 506 Gripp’s Luggage (furniture factory) G. 660 Woods Furniture (kitbashed to fit backdrop)

Six-lane staging

Midwest Products 3019 cork roadbed (25)

6 Staging, south to Cedar Hill

Model Power I. 1572 Jackson Meat (kitbashed into a textile mill) J. 1509 brewery (kitbashed into lumber mill) K. 1546 Holland Iron Works L. 1547 U.S. Customs (kitbashed into warehouses to fit backdrop)

Structure key

Atlas A. 2548 plate girder bridge Bar Mills B. 304 low boy trestle (coal dock) E. 912 Whistle stop depot American Model Builders C. 617 barn (used as fuel dealer shed)

L M

Walthers M. 3246 Gold Flame coal dealer (modified to fit backdrop)

Minimum curve radius: 12" All turnouts No. 4 unless marked 12" grid Store

Highway bridge

Naugatuck

Staging, north to Waterbury

6

K Scale: 1" = 1'-0" N scale (1:160) 23.5 square feet

12"-high styrene backdrop with building flats

G

Micro Engineering Co. H. 75153 40-foot ballasted-deck bridge (3 – cut to fit curve)

6

8

8

G 6

Shed A

B

8

C

Tree-covered scenic divider with tunnel to hide loop track

wye

6 D

Church

I

Houses

F J

H

E 6

8 Naugatuck River

Shed

Seymour

To gain a little more space and add some operating interest, I added a 16" x 48" removable extension. This piece allowed me to include a six-track staging yard (three tracks at each end of the railroad) and a 6"-wide industrial park for the town of Naugatuck. When in use, the extension clamps to the layout with two Quick-Grip clamps and is supported by a removable leg. (To build the extension, see the construction diagrams.)

Fun for two

I designed the small layout with two operators in mind, and it would be a good candidate for an entry-level Digital

8

Stores

Command Control (DCC) system with walkaround control, either tethered or wireless. For an operating session, using a simple timetable, one operator would run the local and switch the industries at Seymour and Naugatuck. The other operator would handle the through freights and the commuter passenger trains. The commuter trains would make station stops at both Seymour and Naugatuck. Despite the Naugatuck Valley’s small, apartment-living size, the plan has a lot of potential for expansion. Since completing the layout as shown here, I’ve added on to it three times, tripling the railroad’s size. MR Six Railroads You Can Model



Rails to the harbor

This 121 ⁄2 x 17-foot HO scale track plan features the National Docks Ry. during World War II

By Howard R. Lloyd

A

fter spending 20 years working on my HO scale Arvern Bay Terminal layout, I was ready for a change. Though I enjoyed scratchbuilding structures and modeling urban scenery on my old harbor layout [featured in the April 1991 and March 2000 issues of Model Railroader. – Ed.], I’d maximized the model railroad’s potential in terms of detail and operation. Still, I wanted to model a harbor scene, but on a slightly smaller layout. I finally settled on the track plan shown here for the 12'-6" x 17'-0" HO scale National Docks Ry. When designing the track plan, set near my hometown of Jersey City and nearby Hoboken, N.J., during World War II, I had a few goals in mind. Tops was finishing the layout in five to seven years. The Arvern Bay Terminal (ABT) was a fun model railroad, but I wasn’t ready to devote 20 years to another layout project. I also wanted a highly detailed layout. By selecting industries that lent themselves to detailing, such

as an export elevator and oil tank farm, I could achieve that goal. With the industries selected and the track arrangement set, I’m ready to get started on my new layout.

Prototype history

The section of Jersey City and Hoboken, N.J., that fronts the Hudson River is about six miles long. During the early 1940s, most of this old marshland was crowded with railroad yards, terminals, piers, and rail-marine industries. The Central RR of New Jersey (CNJ), Erie, New York Central (NYC), and Pennsylvania RR (PRR) operated extensive yards devoted to handling, storing, and shipping cars either across the river to New York City or to other destinations. A latecomer to the harbor railroad scene was the Lehigh Valley (LV). The railroad wound up with slivers of leftover marshland and had cramped access to the water. The railroad built and acquired three small terminals: Claremont, Jersey City, and Black Tom.

After studying the prototypes, I found Black Tom the most interesting of the three terminals. At one time, Black Tom was a small island in the Hudson River. Then, in the late 19th century, thousands of yards of fill were dumped into the river to connect the island to the shore. The resulting peninsula was nearly 4,500 feet long and about 300 feet wide at its narrowest dimension. The newly created land was then developed into the National Storage Co. freight terminal. There was a series of brick warehouses, open docks, a grain elevator, and an oil tank farm with harbor frontage on the peninsula. National Storage Co. was even served by its own railroad, appropriately named the National Docks Ry. The Lehigh Valley eventually bought the National Docks Ry. and expanded it several miles north and south, renaming it the National Docks Branch. The branch linked the LV’s three terminals and provided connections to the CNJ, Pennsy, and Erie.

Operating a harbor scene

Though operation wasn’t my overriding consideration, I designed the plan so there would be a mix of transfer runs and switching. I could have expanded the layout to fill

Lehigh Valley Claremont Yard Standard Oil Grain elevator

Warehouses

National Docks Ry. Black Tom Terminal Not to scale



Six Railroads You Can Model • www.ModelRailroader.com

New York Bay

Half section of freight shed

20" radius

Bayside Park Apartment flats

View block

Freighter

Brick warehouse (access hatch)

National Docks Ry. Black Tom Terminal

Lehigh Valley (LV) main Central of New Jersey

HO scale (1:87.1) Room size: 12'-6" x 17'-0" Scale of plan: 1⁄2" = 1'-0", 12" grid All curves 18" radius except as noted

Wooded bluff

Terminal grain elevator

Engine servicing track

Grain barge

Coastal tanker

Tank farm Duckunder

Single-track staging (elevated)

the 12'-6" x 17'-0" space, but I preferred to leave about a third of the model railroad room available for other uses. Since my previous layout was pointto-point, I wanted to give continuous running a try on my new model railroad. To do this, I had to design the terminal around a loop of track. I used a view block to hide the fact that trains were operating in what would be the Hudson River on the prototype; that side of the loop is concealed in a long freight shed along the backdrop. Because of the model railroad’s relatively small size, I had to selectively compress the scenery and rearrange the tracks. For example, I left out the broad expanse of marshland between Van Nortstrand Place and the National Docks Ry. Black Tom terminal. With curves 20" or less in radius, I’ll use small steam switchers and fouraxle diesels to serve the terminal, and I’ll operate 50-foot or shorter freight cars. All of this equipment is appropri-

▸▸ The track plan at a glance Name: National Docks Ry. Scale: HO (1:87.1) Room size: 12'-6" x 17'-0" Theme: New Jersey harbor scene Period: World War II Mainline run: 39 feet Minimum radius: 18" Minimum turnout: no. 4 Maximum grade: none ate for the World War II era (1941-1945) I’m modeling. The railroad will be at sea level, with the only elevation change (and a minor one) being the wooded bluff rising above the CNJ tracks up to Garfield Avenue. I plan to set the benchwork height at 58".

Two-track staging with dummy turnout to tracks off stage

Illustrations by Jay Smith

Selective compression

According to my version of history, the National Docks Ry. is jointly owned Six Railroads You Can Model

9

Howard’s HO scale Arvern Bay Terminal RR was featured in the March 2000 issue of Model Railroader. Scenes similar to this could be modeled easily using the National Docks Ry. plan. George Hall photo by the LV and ABT (which, in turn, is owned by the CNJ) and, for tax reasons, operated independently. All three railroads have trackage rights over the National Docks Ry. Both the CNJ and LV main lines are depicted on the track plan, though the former tracks are purely cosmetic. The LV main, on the other hand, serves as a one-track staging yard for the National Docks Ry. In addition, I included two staging yard tracks at ground level that represent LV’s Claremont Yard. With only a 12'-6" x 17'-0" space to work with, I couldn’t possibly include

all of the actual industries from the Black Tom terminal in my track plan. Instead, I selected three key areas from the prototype. Tops on the list was the Standard Oil tank farm. This was a distribution point for lubricating oils that arrived by tank car and left by harbor craft. Fortunately, I’ve already modeled the coastal tanker that will be tied up at the Standard Oil dock. I also included a terminal grain elevator. This large, concrete structure received grain by boxcar and shipped it by barge. One of the elevator’s major customers was Schaeffer Brewery in

Sabotage at Black Tom Terminal During World War I, Lehigh Valley used Black Tom terminal in Jersey City, N.J., for the storage and shipment of munitions. Despite a city ordinance, the LV kept explosives within city limits. That was until July 30, 1916. On that date, a fire of suspicious origin spread to a barge loaded with dynamite. The barge exploded, obliterating most of the warehouses and leaving a large crater and smoking ruins. It was widely suspected that the explosion was the work of German saboteurs, a suspicion that was confirmed many years later through an examination of German records. Although the destroyed warehouses were never rebuilt, the other damage was repaired, and the terminal continued to operate with LV moving record levels of traffic to support the war effort. – H.L.

10

Six Railroads You Can Model • www.ModelRailroader.com

Brooklyn, which received grain shipments directly by barge. Other barge loads of grain would be positioned next to ocean-going vessels loading cargo elsewhere in the harbor, and a floating grain elevator would transfer the grain from barge to ship. Other items I added include a ship basin with an open dock, a brick warehouse (concealing a lift-out access hatch), and a half section of a large, corrugatediron storage shed. A three-island freighter, stick lighter, covered lighter, and a tugboat resting between assignments will be tied up in the basin. War materiel waiting to be loaded on ships to be assembled into convoys destined for Europe will be crammed on the docks.

From plan to reality

My HO scale National Docks track plan gets a lot of harbor modeling into a modest space. From ships and barges to big industries to switching and transfer runs, there are many opportunities to add details and run trains. I hope this plan will inspire you to give waterfront modeling a try. Having completed one harbor layout already, I can’t wait to start work on the National Docks Ry. MR

Ahead

of its time

A forward-thinking 1950s John Armstrong layout design inspired these two plans By Robert L. Warren

I

’ve often thought that one of John Armstrong’s best track plans is his Montana & Puget Sound (M&PS) design, fi rst featured in the December 1959 Model Railroader. This 12 x 18foot S-shaped layout featured Pacific Northwest railroading set in the Cascade Mountains and incorporated several layout design ideas that we take for granted today, but which were innovative in 1959. John’s plan made economical use of a 16 x 22-foot room thanks to its clever walk-in, no-duckunder design. The fact that operators could follow their trains around the perimeter of the entire layout, coupled with John’s decision to use a scene-dividing backdrop, makes the M&PS seem much larger than it really is. Also, John gave the layout a three-track staging loop at one end for easier point-to-point operation. Because of these attractive features, I’m surprised more people haven’t used the plan for their own layouts – perhaps it’s because John’s design really was ahead of its time and model railroading had some catching up to do. A lot has changed in the hobby in the 49 years since the M&PS plan fi rst appeared. Digital Command Control (DCC), wireless throttles, N scale, multi-level layouts, and vast staging yards have become commonplace items. With all of these improvements in the hobby, the time is ripe for the M&PS plan to be revisited and updated.

New twists on an old theme

Using the basic shape and walk-in feature of the M&PS design as a starting point, I drafted two new plans – one in N scale, the other in HO. Both plans use the same 16 x 22-foot room, but I made several modifications to enhance the layout’s operation. The first variation was to shorten the upper-right end of the railroad so I could expand the benchwork to run along the top wall. The second modification was to add an upper level, creating space for a major yard and more staging. To do this I used the mushroom design, a concept popularized by John in his later track plans and fi rst featured in his October 1987 MR article, “Meet the Mushroom.”

Plan 1: A granger railroad

The Montana & Puget Sound. John Armstrong’s 1959 track plan featured many innovative ideas, including walkaround design, a linear main line, and some hidden staging. Those concepts are now common in modern layout designs.

Since John’s layout already explored mountain railroading in the Cascades, I wanted a different theme for mine. I selected a granger railroad, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific (CRI&P), setting it in the 1950s. The Rock Island served a number of major cities, including Chicago, Memphis, Minneapolis, Six Railroads You Can Model

11

Map area

To Twin Cities

I O W A ALBERT LEA Glenville To Fort Dodge Minnesota Iowa CRI&P rights: on M&StL, Albert Lea to Northwood, on CGW, Manly to Mason City M&StL rights: on CRI&P, Northwood to Manly IC rights: on M&StL, Glenville to Albert Lea

SYSTEM MAP Not to scale

To Twin Cities

Lyle

Gordonsville Northwood

To Chicago

Kensett

MANLY To Cedar Falls, St. Louis

MASON CITY

To Fort Dodge

To Des Moines

Minneapolis & St. Louis Chicago Great Western Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Illinois Central Illustration by Robert Wegner

and St. Louis, and extended as far as Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Also of interest is the fact that the CRI&P railroad owned one of nearly every firstgeneration diesel locomotive made by Electro-Motive Division (EMD) and Alco, making for a varied roster. For the track plan, I chose to represent parts of the Rock Island’s line from Manly, Iowa, to Albert Lea, Minn. As shown in the map above, the Rock Island shared this 30-mile stretch with the Minneapolis & St. Louis (M&StL), and the Illinois Central (IC) used a portion of it too. Just north of Manly, Iowa, was a major junction. Here, the CRI&P and the M&StL split. The Rock Island continued southeast on its own tracks to places such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and St. Louis. The M&StL’s main line continued south to Mason City, Iowa. The Chicago Great Western (CGW) crossed the CRI&P’s line at Manly, and the CRI&P used the CGW’s line to get to Mason City, before returning to its own tracks heading south to Des Moines.

Modeling the line in N scale

By working in N scale, I was able to fit a good portion of the Manly-toAlbert Lea main line into the original plan’s 16 x 22-foot room. This right-ofway saw a number of colorful daily passenger trains on the CRI&P, so to

12

The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific owned a colorful fleet of locomotives in the 1950s, as shown by this pair of EMD GP7s in red, white, and black passing through Stockton, Iowa, on a sunny afternoon in 1952. Charles H. Kerrigan photo accommodate them I used 22"-radius curves on the main line and the helix (the staging loops use 18" curves). Though the plan offers a loop for display-running, I designed it for pointto-point operation, using a DCC system and wireless throttles to take full advantage of its walkaround features. I also included plenty of staging. In addition to the main yards on the upper and lower levels, there are other staging tracks on the layout representing the various connecting railroads, including the IC and the CGW. The second track on top of the helix provides staging for the M&StL branch line to Fort Dodge and doubles as the Albert Lea yard lead. The plan’s only major compromise is the IC connection, which should be at Glenville, Minn. I had to push this junction over the border into Iowa to take advantage of staging space for the IC train under the helix.

Operating the line

During a typical operating session the Rock Island would see one manifest freight in each direction and two locals. Most of the switching on the modeled portion of the line was handled by the M&StL, but the CRI&P had industries to work at Glenville. An additional Rock Island train operated each way between Minneapolis and Cedar Falls as well. The CRI&P ran two daily passenger trains out of the Twin Cities through this region. The Twin Star Rocket ran to Houston as train 507, with its counterpart, 508, running north. Train 509, the Kansas City Rocket, ran to Dallas, with 510 being its northern side. The trains made station stops at Manly and Albert Lea, and according to the 1959 timetable, 507, 508, and 509 called at those

Six Railroads You Can Model • www.ModelRailroader.com

towns during the day within six hours of each other. The M&StL also ran a daily manifest freight and a local each way over the line. The locals would handle the switching duties at Northwood and Kensett. An additional freight ran from Minneapolis to deliver cars at Albert Lea and then return. The Albert Lea job would have a yard crew to handle local switching and sort the interchange traffic with the IC. An additional M&StL train worked the Fort Dodge branch line. The M&StL also had a daily local passenger train in each direction, consisting of a gaselectric coach and trailer. An operating session would see one IC train running up the branch from Chicago via Waterloo, Iowa, (staging) to interchange cars at the Albert Lea yard. The train would then return to home rails via Glenville. The Chicago Great Western would run one daily train in each direction as well, switching the industries in Manly as needed.

Plan 2: Climbing mountains

If you’re looking for a coal-hauling mountain railroad to model, the Western Maryland’s line northeast out of Elkins, W.Va., is hard to beat. Heavy unit coal trains with long strings of engines on the head end, mid-train helper action, and rugged scenery are all part of the WM’s charm. That’s why I chose it as the subject for this HO plan. I’ve designed an HO scale layout for the same size room and based it on the Western Maryland’s Thomas Subdivision running from Elkins to Thomas, W.Va. Like the Rock Island plan, I used the principal shape and walkaround features of John Armstrong’s M&PS design as a starting point. I also carried over several elements from my Rock

Access Twin Cities staging

Upper level Milwaukee Road interchange

North lead

16"

Lower level

Meat packing plant

Access Low backdrop

Freight house Team track A

M&StL staging

Fuel oil dealer

A

MANLY CRI&P

Ready Mix plant

staging

CGW (CRI&P) CRI&P CGW staging

ALBERT LEA

M&StL Caboose track

A Low removable city scene to hide track

16"

Section A-A

North Manly

Lower level

A Grain elevator

4" 1"

CRI&P (M&StL)

Ice track

Backdrop

Glenville

Team track

Team track Backdrop

0" Grain Elevator

CGW to Twin Cities

Grain elevator

Grain elevator Fuel oil dealer

Passenger station

Gordonsville Freight house

0"

Team track

Kensett

Northwood

M&StL (CRI&P) 0"

Team track

16"

A

M&StL Branch to Fort Dodge (staging)

Four-turn 22"-radius helix with 8" straights each side, 2 percent grade

A

Meat packing plant IC to Lyle

Fuel oil dealer 3"

Lumberyard

Grain elevator 1" Quarry

Rock Island and Minneapolis & St. Louis Scale: 3⁄8" = 1'-0" 12" grid N scale (1:160)

All turnouts no. 6

Illustration by Rick Johnson and Robert Wegner

Six Railroads You Can Model

13

Operating the Thomas Sub

A trio of WM Alcos leads an eastbound coal train out of the yard at Elkins on its way to Thomas. The WM collected loads of coal from various mines and brought it to Elkins. There, crews weighed and sorted the cars into outbound trains such as the one shown above. Frank E. Shaffer photo Island plan, including staging tracks along the west wall and the multi-level design, to give more yard space. However, this time I didn’t need a helix. Since my Western Maryland design was made to haul coal up big hills, I used a steeply graded main line (just over 5 percent on Black Fork Hill) to connect the yard at Thomas on the upper level to the rest of the layout. As it was not uncommon for the WM to use two to four locomotives on the head of a train and three to six mid-train helpers, I felt the steep grade was justified. And, thanks to Digital Command Control (DCC), you can easily add helpers to a train.

A look around the layout

My Thomas Subdivision plan starts on the lower level at Elkins. This is the biggest town on the layout, and it includes a yard, passenger station, and engine terminal. There’s also a scale

14

track for weighing loaded cars, a small car shop, and several industries. The staging yard for all points west is hidden behind the passenger station. Going east from Elkins, the main line starts a 1.4-percent climb, passing through Montrose, on its way to Parsons. Because of the small yard and the number of industries in Parsons, I made the tracks in town level. The town also has several industries, including the largest on the layout, a Kingsford Charcoal plant. Continuing east from Parsons, the mainline grade kicks into high gear, requiring mid-train helpers through Black Water Canyon and up Black Fork Hill to Thomas on the upper level. I’ve included a small coal loader and fourtrack yard at Thomas, but the yard could be bigger if you have the space. From Thomas, the main line continues into the upper staging yard, representing the rest of the WM east.

Six Railroads You Can Model • www.ModelRailroader.com

Traffic on the line is fairly simple: coal moves east, empty hoppers come west. The Western Maryland had three branch lines west of Elkins, and the railroad collected coal loads at Elkins, weighed it, and blocked it for shipment. Normally three daily freights were dispatched from Elkins. The first one, called the East Local, was actually a through freight. To keep the yard at Elkins fluid, the East Local often left town overloaded and would set out cars at Montrose to reduce tonnage. The second train out of Elkins picked up the loads set out at Montrose and continued up to Thomas. On the model, I’d make up the East Local at Elkins with excess cars on the head of the train, mid-train helpers behind them, and two cabooses. At Montrose I’d have the head-end power set out the cars while the helpers held the rest of the train on the grade. The siding would need to have some sort of brake to prevent the setouts from rolling away. When the train reached Thomas, the helpers would take their caboose and return to Montrose to assist the second train up the grade. The second train would carry general freight from Elkins and Durbin and any additional coal traffic. At Montrose, the train would pick up the East Local’s setouts and cut the helpers into the middle of its train. Once the train arrived in Thomas, the helpers would then return to Elkins. The local industries between Elkins and Parsons are worked by the Parsons Turn. Though Parsons has a tannery, team track, and the Kingsford plant, I added a sawmill at Montrose to provide more work for the turn. Elkins would have its own yard crew to sort and weigh loads coming in from the mines, make up outbound trains, and switch the local industries, including the car shop. A daily westbound passenger train would also run from upper staging and terminate at Elkins. This train would then be turned around and sent back later in the day. The consist on the Western Maryland generally included a Railway Post Office (RPO) and a coach; the train was pulled by a “hammerhead” Alco RS-3. (There was a steam generator under the taller-than-normal short hood, giving the engine its nickname.)

Lessons from John Armstrong

John Armstrong was a master when it came to getting the most out of an available space. Whether you consider building either of my two plans or de-

Staging 16"

0"

Tracks to wall 0"

Car shop

Freight house Oil company

Passenger station

Cold storage

Low removable backdrop

Western Maryland RR

Caboose track

All turnouts no. 6, except two no. 4s in Elkins staging yard

HO scale Room size: 16 x 22 feet Scale of plan: 3⁄8" = 1'-0", 12" grid Sawmill Montrose

ELKINS Thomas Yard

1" 16" Elkins Yard Floor elevated 6" for viewing and operating upper level A

Section A-A A

Gould Tannery

10"

A

Upper level

Lower level Blackwater Canyon

THOMAS Backdrops

8"

12"

Team track

Scale track

Edge of lower level

Parsons

6"

12" turntable Double-sided backdrop 0" Black Fork Hill 14"

Truck dump 4"

Engine terminal Yard lead

Down to Blackwater Canyon

16"

Kingsford Charcoal

Edge of upper level

2" Up to Thomas Yard

To purchase more John Armstrong plans, see the four-volume Information Station downloadable PDF series The Best of John Armstrong. Click on “Downloads” at ModelRailroader.com

Cha

WEST

rles

ton

Web ster S V I R G I N I A prings

KY.

Th Pars omas ons ELKI NS

wn Ha

ge r

st o

rla Cu m be

rg ks bu ar Cl

OHIO

rk

cide to design your own model railroad from the ground up, there’s a lot you can learn about layout design simply by studying one of John’s plans. MR

er

sb

ur g

nd

Illustrations by Robert Wegner

Pa

A

2"

To Baltimore To Washington Modeled area

VIRGINIA To Richmond Western Maryland Chesapeake & Ohio Baltimore & Ohio

Six Railroads You Can Model

15

Start Benefitting Now! C R N DC ODEATIO C L 4 DE TAL GE 7 S IN PA

N scale shelf layout plan

New 4-12-2 in HO tes ted

Dream it. Plan it. Build it.

November 2009 • www .ModelRailroader.com

Every issue of Model Railroader includes:

• • • • •

Two ways to make great-looking trees Store-bought?

Intriguing articles Examples of layouts

Garden plant? Both work !

Product reviews Detailed instructions Expert tips and techniques

• And much more Plus, as a magazine subscriber, you’ll also receive exclusive online access to product reviews and a searchable database of more than 475 track plans.

Subscribe Today!

HOW TO

• Build a laser-cut wo od • Kitbash two SD38 diesel

kit

locomotives

PLUS

• LED basics for model rail roa • Guide to track-planning sof ders twa • How prototype railroads ope re

2 levels on a shelf

Drawbridge

Acme Manufacturing

dump Boiler house Coal

New England Screw

Machine Co.

Learn how to make trees like these from natural sedum plants and ground foam. See page 32

Main line Royal Mill

Valley Distributing Co.

rate extras 2¾"

cement transfer Team tracks Bulk

Pillar crane

Freight house

Fast food restaurant Bedford B&M depot

0"

Fuel track

Car float (barge)

Acme Engineering

Team track

Bristol Ferry

y per siding, I wanted one industr textile mill that looks busy is on large multiple an industr ial district cluttered. Filling with an emphas buildings. I know ng too without becomi and and factory ers sometimes share a industr ial spurs custom the space with my op- small very common res maximized but they aren’t siding, railroad structu forego ies. However, one l, but I had to around larger industrteam track and a s. erating potentia es a and city building location combin most of the scenery system similar to bulk cement transfer my youth. from Feature choicestransfers have always one I remember Rail-to-water s By Brad E. Smith the car float provide planning intrigued me, so cars Full-size Photo by the author Terminal RR plan ce new freight My Bristol Ferry Mouna a way to introdu HO scale Iron barge serves as is based on the the railroad. The the July ns held my onto yard, so other cars from my col- tain Line that was published in ainline operatio der. The IML prooff the railroad years, but fiddle and Railroa on many for Model cycle can 1967 and interest idea that I revised that switch- lection operating sessions. vided the basic lately I’ve found scale. between two d satinclude most I , the proportion for N ing has become For added interest nge adjusted the took shape, I transfer red my s that intercha plan ght fun part of the railroad As t downri and alI differen isfying of paper so I could ramp track. This With that in mind, to a full size sheet cars via the steep model railroading. my favorite it begun construction include both of designed and have railroad that pro- lows me to New Haven & s, the New York, My railroad of a small N scale Maine. & switching activand the Boston vides as much realistic The Hartford ly led to a my limited space. of prototy pes natural layout. ity as possible in be ex- choice for the with can easily New England setting plan I came up in other scales. panded for use is 18" wide and The N scale layout able size that’s manage eight feet long, a portable. I still and for construction approach to design used a conservative

A pair of railroads scale serve this busy N industrial district

M

RR scale Bristol Ferry Brad Smith’s N for two levels contrack plan calls grade, typical of nected with a steep locations in New many interchange countryside. England’s rolling

Diner

NH Depot

Water tank

actual track compotest fit some of the final adjustments. any nents and make revisions, I quickly As I did these final of the to kitbash most realized I’d have available spaces. buildings to fit the cars on the track Then I set a few menclearances and plan to test the each move. If things tally envisioned aligntrack the d didn’t work, I modifie s until I had all turnout ment or shifted of the track plan. of the bugs out track with a each over Next, I went g drew in the buildin black pen and a red marker. footprints with

6.5-percent grade up

Wonderful Woolens

Main line to Boston

Bristol Ferry Terminal RR

N scale (1:160)1 1'-0", 12" grid Scale of plan 1 ⁄2" = 8'-0" Layout size: 1'-6" x photo locations Numbered arrows indicate New Haven tracks Boston & Maine tracks

to allows specific cars y more cars. This at each industr be spotted and remainoperating cycle. one for more than simulevel’s rear track Since the upper drawI added a Faller lates a main line, to inraised position, bridge, set in the continues on beyond dicate that the line

Valley fuel Illustration by Theo

at
 The track plan

Cobb

a glance

Terminal RR Name: Bristol Ferry Scale: N (1:160) Size: 1'-6" x 8'-0" & York, New Haven Prototype: New & Maine RR Hartford RR and Boston Locale: New England Era: Early 1950s Style: Island feet Mainline run: 8 22" Minimum radius: : no. 6 Minimum turnout 6½ percent Maximum grade:

this be in the clear for switch job has to arrival. Then switchit’s first-class train’s This layout offers using the layout. can continue until kitbashing. I’m ing operations ties for structure return to Boston ial systems made by time for the RDC’s Operating potent the modular building Models (DPM) B&M yard and indus- (back into the tunnel). ation the for Preserv water Except Design owns maintains a also used some , the New Haven The railroad still and Walthers. I’ve s tries at Bedford track on this layout. so an occasional at Bristol Ferry, of the larger Walther and serves all the of Bristol tank serve as the New Cornerstone build- The car float slip in the town locomotive can steam locorotated Haven. switcher. The NH ing kits as raw ma- Ferry is served by the New m, the Haven’s ct outlying yards terials to constru space is at a premiu cars motives from its small termina ls for nal Since track three-d imensio must pull its inboundthem back to the major engine I and switch crew inspections. Thus, distribute structures, flats, the float, sort, and picking up the monthly federal a differgs. Since off excuse to operate low relief buildin the same time they’re industr ies in have a good my collection each m, I elimi- at d cars from the of ent locomotive from space is at a premiu all the outboun nt this rotation from represe to docks ,” of “month Bristol Ferry. nated the loading along the front for the largest. Instead, the motive power. railA storage track new waiting the industries except the in cars outbound at freight doors As the photo shows,its track is now the layout holds is a I spot the cars and Next to the slip g. road is under way, running for the car float. walls of each buildin that receives tank nal. I’m already laydual purpose track the railroad tug- fully operatio ly operating the nt size ’s trains and regular loads of fuel for Enhancing appareapparen t size of the car and locomotives. The rest of this out as I continue work on the railroad To enhance the cabooses. . MR struc- boats locomotives and the streets and structures and scenery railroad, most of of the track stores switcher or road edges the yard from Haven has A New From tures angle away hobby veteran who many of the build- unit is stationed at Bristol Ferry. Brad Smith is a New disapfavorite layout. Additionally, his with of Boston models line to etrical shapes under been building ent in many scales for d here, the main ings have asymm square. I designe equipm a tunnel that passes aren’t into Haven workthat pears corners When he isn’t the layout visually the B&M in Bedford. more than 30 years. has my plan to make open project, he also local RDC (Rail congested, yet on this N scale The New Haven’s scratchinteresting and in this tun- ing e HO layout, and r to easily reach car is concealed at an extensiv enough for an operato cars Diesel Car) Brad and his wife, ed arrival time s and uncouple builds in 1½" scale. kee. nel until its schedul its manual turnout depot. This arrival Sherrie, live in suburban Milwau tool. the Bristol Ferry the with a uncoupling 8 to 10 freight ng operations, as 57 r The car float carries has spots for can tie up switchi • Model Railroade 11/o9 layout cars, although the

res Fitting urban structu many opportuni-

Visit www.ModelRailroader.com Call 1-800-533-6644

Outside the U.S. and Canada, call 262-796-8776 x 661 Mon.–Fri., 8:30 a.m.– 4:30 p.m. CST. CIR-ADH-09X1682RH

XXXXXXX

A8B8M

A69MHXXXX XXXX