Gerry's Tomytec Bus and Tram Module Planning

[gerryo]

Your right again katoftw.  I got those cut straights with every #4 so I might as well use them.

 

The problem I have with my computer is that Microsoft stepped in today and done an update on it.  Now I am starting all over again.  I have to contact AnyRail to try to get another copy of the program, otherwise it will take another week to get approval for a new copy.  Everything I had in the computer was lost at one time today, but I managed to get most of the things back that were in the computer initially.  Some of the pictures were one of a kind,and cannot be replaced.

 

At least some of my drawing is in my own memory.  Just from working on it so much last night.

 

Anyway, enough crying in my beer.  Onward and upward, AGAIN.

Gerry

[Densha]

Are you sure you lost everything on your computer? Sometimes Windows gets upgraded and things tend to be placed in different places after it. If an update ruined Windows it is also often possible to restore to the point before the update so you can save your files. It's not completely within the range of this forum, but just saying there might be a way to restore important things.

 

Also, you don't need to get a new copy for Anyrail. If you have already paid for it, just download the program from their website and enter the code you got from them. If you lost the code, I expect someone from Anyrail to be able to retrieve your code for you.

[cteno4]

bummer to hear that gerry. winoz is not fun...

 

kvp is correct you dont have to use the straights in there, you can use other curves if you are trying to do a curved ladder. just need to nip off a bit with the razor saw. it does not complicate things, just gives other options to do two curve pieces off of a point if you need to.

 

jeff

[gerryo]

I just now got my program, and my drawing back.  Using the S60's means I am less one yard track, so will have to compensate.  Like Katoftw says, no need to make more work if I don't need to.  I will try to get the drawing into a jpg. file and post it here as an edit

Edited April 25, 2016 by gerryo

[cteno4]

If you need the track they are simple to cut off, just use a razor saw, hand scroll saw or hack saw, takes about a minute to clip off the little bit. Let's you be freer in the track planning for an odder ladder.

 

Jeff

[katoftw]

You get more yard tracks if you decreased the curve radis,  also look like you inner curve is a large radius than the outer curve.

[gerryo]

I changed the Yard Radii from 481mm to 315mm and managed to ad that track back in.  Thanx katoftw.  Sometimes, when the actual building takes place, changes have to be made.  Like space for passenger stops, platform space for baggage and postal service, so you have to roll with the punches.

 

Which inner curve and outer curve do you mean katoftw?

 

I saw somewhere, in another thread, a mention by cten04 about using a cloth cover over the Styrofoam table top, to make the scene more life like.  I have a large piece of green cloth. somewhere near grass colour, that I think I will use.  Seems like a good idea to me.  The buildings can be placed on the green, with sidewalks around.

 

Gerry

Edited April 25, 2016 by gerryo

[cteno4]

Gerry,

 

If you are not planning on jumping into fixed scenery now then a earth brown or grass green cloth works well to give a nice base color and hide wires. You can poke holes in the cloth to run wires. Also check out the local fabric store as you can find reminants that you can buy cheap to cut out other colors to cut out scenery areas of other stuff. Colored construction paper works well for streets and sidewalks as well. You can ecen print your streets with the computer to make quick streets with markings and such and a simple drawing program.

 

Check out Barry lovell's article on scenery with temporary layouts.

 

http://www.japanrailmodelers.org/pages/modelingjapan/tempoary.html

 

Adding some scenery around the edge of your structures (just put them on a base of thin stryene to make a little scenery a rear around them). Also small scenery islands plopped down at strategic places can make a huge difference. Doing scenery in little bits like this has a huge advantage as you can learn and experiment in little bits at a time and thus if anything goes wrong no big waste of time and materials. Really fast way to learn and try new techniques when you come on them. Scenery is the kind of thing that can be really personal which technique works for you well so best to just experiment,mthere a per tons of variation. Also makes adding scenery something that is not a huge, daunting job (it's a point where many folks stall in layouts), but something you can peck away at and each little piece keeps the layout looking better and better.

 

Plus by starting temporary like this you can move things around and try out ideas until you are happy with it them start more permanent scenery if you wish. Small temp bits can always be added into the permanent scenery as well.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[gerryo]

cten04:     Since my layout is designed to be a permanent one, it would be a lot more difficult to do the wiring the way you and Barry describe.  I will be doing it once and getting on with the using of my trains.  Also, the design of my control panel is not done yet, and I do not need to try and design it so that it is removable.  It will be easier, over the long run, to smooth and paint the Styrofoam, cut holes for the wiring, and place them permanently underneath the layout. 

[cteno4]

Gerry,

 

Ok, you had mentioned using the cloth technique there a few posts back so I was just riffing on that. Yes if to be perminant then go the traditional scenery routes. Other parts still apply though if scenery is a ways off or you have not done much scenery production. Doing the scenery boarders on some structures and little scenery islands is a way to go in small bits and learn before going large scale (going to large scale scenery right away is another big layout stumbling point). Also lets you work on the detailed scenery bits on the bench tom more comfortably and in better control than leaning over the layout. All the islands can then later get lightly glued down to the layout and scenery filled in between them and tracks.

 

Cut up Cloth or colored construction paper is a good way to sort of mock up your scenery ideas fast and have something that's not bare wood until you get to doing scenery. Playing with mocked up scenery is really good as another layout stumble is doing some perminant scenery and then looking at it and saying damn I should have done xyz instead as it didn't come out as in your head and then it's the angst to just live with it or tear it out and start over. Mocking things up quickly can really help avoid this.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[gerryo]

Thanx for the ideas Jeff.  When I mentioned about the cloth covering I guess I had not thought it out thoroughly. 

 

I think my layout design is complete now.  There is more work needed to finish the modules, then painting, again, then track laying.  Lots of work yet.

 

Gerry

[gerryo]

     OK.  I have made some changes as per suggestions by others.  I obviously thought they were legit or I would not have made them.  So below is my layout as I see it now.  But I have one major question.

 

Should the Viaduct Station be extended to the right end of the layout?

 

My reasoning is that when I experiment with the storage tracks for the Shinkansens, they are very short.  This is with 5 Station double width platform plates.  This would mean that the straight thru track would be abt. 1240mm long, and shortening down to 744mm for the shortest, if I use #6 turnouts.

By extending the viaduct to the end It would add about 2 feet to the short track (or 600mm in metric speak), so the short track would be about 1200mm.

 

First of all is this necessary, and it would shove the yard into the center portion of the layout. 

Edited April 30, 2016 by gerryo

[cteno4]

Gerry,

 

I think it depends if you want to have Shinkansen storage in the big station. The current plan would only give you about 4 or mauve 5 cars on passing tracks and it would require putting the points just after the viaduct turn which can cause some issues. We had teouble with this now and then on various jrm layouts that did this and we got rid of most of the point picking and can run the trains thru the outside tracks at speed when we put a 124 or 186 between the viaduct curve and points, but in your case this will take widening the viaduct to the full width and only give passing tracks long enough for 6 car trains. To get 8 car trains on the passing sidings you would need to put the points right after the curves one one end and it would just fit 8 car trains, it will be tight and maybe pick the point once and a while.

 

Current station would be 5 plates with is just shy of fitting 8 cars end to end. Each Shinkansen car is about 16cm long (end cars a tad longer) so you get 1.5 cars per 248 track section. 8 car train needs 5.5 to totally fit in the station.

 

Sorry it's always a tradeoff in layouts like this.

 

How long of shinkansens do you have to run? How many shinkansens do you have to run? If only a few and not getting more then maybe you don't need to have storage tracks.

 

Any thought to pushing the layout down to one end of the room so left end is against the far wall and extending the layout like 2, in length? Would get you 2.5 sections onto the viaduct and keep the yard where it is. With an 8 section station you would then have enough room for 124 on each end and after the 2x 186 for the points you have 5.5 left for train storage.

 

Jeff

[gerryo]

Hi Jeff.  The 2 extra feet sure is tempting.  I only have 3 Shinkansens but also have 3 Odakyu which are just about as long.  My reason for the ground to viaduct track is to get the Odakyu up to the viaduct.  Thus the need for long tracks in the yard.

 

My E6 is 6 cars.  My E7 is 7 cars.  I don't know how long my E5 is, because I can't find it right now.

 

Gerry

Edited April 30, 2016 by gerryo

[gerryo]

I have added in 580mm (because I have a piece of Styrofoam that is 580mm wide) not 600mm.

 

This makes it possible to have a Viaduct Station that has 1714mm long with a straight of 124mm before the start at each end.  This ahould be enough clearance after the turn. 

 

Gerry

[cteno4]

Gerry,

 

Are you using the kato viaduct station plates for the station? If so then the station itself needs to be in 248mm sections or you will need to cut them down (this will work, but you won't have S joiner sockets on one end).

 

Are you still thinking of putting in the passing tracks in the station? The 128 before the curves is only to buffer points if you do passing tracks in the station.

 

The longest yard track can only store a 6 car Shinkansen.

 

Jeff

Edited May 1, 2016 by cteno4

[gerryo]

Hi Jeff.

It seems that no matter how I do it on the computer, it can't be done with models.  I'm glad I didn't start to change the size of my layout in reality.

 

I think it's time to think it out again.  I'm NOT making it any larger.  2 extra feet was bad enough.

 

Gerry

[cteno4]

Gerry,

 

Yep always good to play with the track programs with layout ideas as you can find out the limitations quickly!

 

Your around the room design gets you the nice long runs that you just can't have on a smaller center of the room layout.

 

If you have not taken out the old layout is there hope of looking at its track plan to see if moving or eliminating some tracks can give you more room for the castle and trams and busses? Nice thing about the busses is you can do point to point with turnarounds at each end so you don't have to think in ovals so much.

 

You had a lot more overall layout area on the old around the room layout.

 

Jeff

[gerryo]

Yes, there was a lot more linear space on the round the room layout.  What was limiting was the width of the modules at (600mm).  What was also a waste was the unusable 1200mm X 2250mm space in the middle of the room.  Because I am limited by the length of my arms, I could not make the modules wider.

 

I think I will add the extra 580mm to make better use of the Viaduct Station. 

 

The central loop, which is now designated Trams, is to be my Bus System, to and from the castle.  Since the busses and trams use roads of similar dimensions, I used Wide Tram Track, because there is no bus road objects in the AnyRail program, yet.

 

This is a pic of the longer layout.

Gerry. 

Edited May 2, 2016 by gerryo

[cteno4]

Gerry

 

now you have a shinkansen at 9 plates long and thats just enough room if you put passing tracks in the station to get 8 car trains on them or the thru lines. this way you can have 2 platforms and store 4 trains on the viaduct. maybe thats enough to not try to do the run up track to the viaduct (those are always a pain). you will need 18 viaduct plates though, that aint cheap unfortunately. also check the length of the yard tracks against the trains you want to store in there. only a few are going to hold very long trains. i remember your old yard having much longer yard tracks.

 

600 is pretty good width to do scenery on and even trams. if in some areas you could shove the ground train tracks and viaduct to the very back you would still have a good 16" up front for a scene with the castles and bus/tram tracks.

 

also might think about maybe having one area where the modules come out another 12" into the center of the room with a couple of modules that could pop off to work on the standard 24" module behind it. could get you that one section maybe 4' long to do that castle scene how you want. have to engineer it so they could come off and any tracks separate, but might get you that space for the extra deep area you want.

 

many trams can make some pretty tight turn backs so you could also have a double track tram that turns around on each end maybe a bit hidden?

 

i just worry that this island design wont get you quite what you want very well and the main bus and castle will be in a pit in the middle of all the other tracks and viaduct. also the trains just go on a small loop which can get boring (roundy-round). also island layouts just feel smaller unless of quite good size. the advantage of the around the room layout is you have ample length to do many different scenes and have trains running in the background (and bring them tot he foreground here and there) for long trips. no reason you could not have trams and busses in two, three or even four different places around the larger/long around the room layout. also allows for a lot of variety in scenes which are much harder to put in a crowded island layout like this. you will have the one main castle scene and the viaduct station front and the rest of the scenes are going to be little island in the few remaining spots on the layout.

 

sorry its always tough with this stuff its such a tradeoff on tracks you want and scenes, and things like trams and bus system.

 

also keep playing with the bus system on the table to see what bits really look good. the best i have seen are ones that travel a single road and wander a bit and are not really loops. this is why i thought maybe having the bus go in your around the wall layout go along a longer thinner scene as a single 2 lane road (or 2 bus express lanes of larger city streets of 4 or 6 lanes and then do double backs at each end might work better than trying to do larger loops. you could do this on more than one location on the around the room layout and maybe have a windy hill road in one of the more rural corners with either a hidden loop back on each end or return path to the other end.

 

even though matsumoto castle is not up on a hill, one like himeji is so putting it up over all your tracks could make a big scene area to do the castle. usually the castles have a lot of ground around them before you hit streets. could have the buses going up the hill tot he castle and pausing at a parking area and going back down to a town area below.

 

jeff

[katoftw]

Sometimes less is better.  Trying to add one of everything isn't always best.

[gerryo]

You are so right, katoftw.  If I was to delete anything from the layout it would be the Viaduct.  Most problems on here are caused by that big loop.

 

This bears some thinking.  I have the Purple Overhead Station as well as the Viaduct.  Then all tracks would be at ground level.    ??

 

Gerry

[cteno4]

Yep big loop for the viaduct on a layout this size ends up dominating it and it's barely at the size to handle a 7-8 car Shinkansen. Unfortunately it really is a tradeoff. For the smaller area of the island layout you may need to cut back something. That's why I keep asking if the old around the room layout can get modified to bring in the other things you want there as its:

 

A) already built

B) is of such as size that the viaduct will be only a slim bit of it in the background, not the foreground as in the island layout where it blocks view

C) easy to put in a viaduct station that can handle 8 cars and have two passing/storage tracks and have plenty of room for a big station front scene with trams and moving bus

D) you can have a big area for the castle scene with the viaduct behind and the moving bus and tram in front (where it looks best and un obscured by viaduct in front of it) and have the trams and busses running from the station to the castle. Also be able to have a bit of the prototypical grounds etc around the castle as they are usually buffered quite a bit from the rest of the city around them.

E) I think you will have more oppertunites with the longer scene of the around the room layout to do more and different trams and moving busses

 

Moving to the island layout is a big restriction on everything. You are doing like a 1/4 the area for track and scenery you had with the around the room layout.

 

I still think you could move the tracks in the old layout to make the spaces you need to get a great castle scene in there,meet loads of tram and moving bus and get your longer trains a place to run and store them and have loads of space to evolve into as well. It's all built I just don't see going to the island gets you much of anything over what you have already!

 

Jeff

 

Jeff

[kvp]

I would put the viaduct at the back above the normal tracks and bring it down in front to avoid blocking the view. Also only 2 tracks with no turnouts, so the trains could fit into the station.

[gerryo]

I chose something easy to do today because I had surgery on one eye yesterday, for cataract, and was not seeing things properly.

 

So I chose to work out where I would park my trains in the yard.  I have 10 tracks.  5 short straight tracks, and 5 curved tracks.  But I have 11 individual trains, so needed to double up on 1 track.  But that was easy because I received 2 Kitakinki Tango for the price of 1, so won't be running both at the same time.  But the track meant for 1, will hold 2 so both can be displayed.  HA.

 

1.   Long Tram

2.   DE10 80000

3.   Nagano 115-1000 JR Suburban

4.   Nagoya Panorama 7000

5.   Kitakinki Tango  (2 double units)

6.   E6

7.   E7

8.   Odakyu Romance Car 1000

9.   Odakyu Romance Car 7000

10. Odakyu Romance Car 50000

 

So my yard will handle all of my trains including the Shinkansens, which means I do not need the big viaduct, and incumbent big station building.  I just need to make all the curves on the loops large enough to handle them.  This will be worked out in the next revision. 

 

Later.

Gerry