Gavino200s new layout

[cteno4]

1 hour ago, gavino200 said:

is that something that can be cut with a jigsaw?

 

Yep good task for a sabersaw/jigsaw. You are talking about the hand held one with the like 2” thin blade sticking out the base that goes in and out like a 1/2”, right? Best thing for straight cuts is a circular saw, but those I know you avoid!
 

saber saws work well for freeform cutting and with care you can do straight cuts, just have to take it slow and easy. Using a wider wood blade helps when doing straight cuts If it came with one. The skinny ones are for doing tight curves. Practice some on a scrap piece of the same ply or just start cutting off roughly like 1” back and practice on the waste corner piece until you do your final corner cut. Actually not having a huge piece of corner hanging off when trying to do your final cut is good and not a huge piece to hang onto or try to support. It’s one of those things of a little practice helps. Also pretty safe saws, hard to be really stupid with them (but some have I’m sure!).

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

5 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Yep good task for a sabersaw/jigsaw. You are talking about the hand held one with the like 2” thin blade sticking out the base that goes in and out like a 1/2”, right? Best thing for straight cuts is a circular saw, but those I know you avoid!

 

Yeah, it was recommended to me by a tool pusher on an internet forum! 🤣

[cteno4]

Who? Moi? No!

 

quick YouTube can show how all the basics work. They tend to want to drift with the vibration and blade at times hitting variations in the wood/grain/plys so you just need to get the feel of how that works and how to correct gracefully for it.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Also practice on the diagonal as going diagonal on ply is different that with or against grains.

 

jeff

[chadbag]

One thing I was thinking of was to have a backdrop of a station and your real station extends out of the backdrop.  Make your station look bigger by having it disappear into the backdrop.

[MeTheSwede]

I think shortening the station was the right call. Shortening the trains gives more of a sense of travel and the station itself doesn't dominate the layout so much. I'm unsure myself whether it was a good idea to cram in a 7 car long station onto my layout. Maybe something shorter had been better for the size of my layout.

 

 

Since you seem a bit unsure what you want to achieve with your layout and how to achieve it, I'm writing down some things that came to mind when I saw your track planning sketches and read what you've been writing. Maybe you'll find something useful here. Otherwise just ignore everything. That's the privilige of building one's own layout. And you know best yourself what you want from your layout.

 

 

When I see your sketch I can't help but thinking that you're focusing too much on the track itself (like many people do). With a station to the left, an intermodal yard in the center and trams to the right, supposedly near all of the layout is going to be urban. That means buildings all over of the place and every building need road access if you want to create a believable city scape. Streets need to connect to eachother, preferably without a lot of weird angle level crossins, and streets can take up quite a bit of space, especially if there are going to be trams on them and trams also severly limits the geometry of the street network. Lots of things can change during the building process, but I think it's a good idea to make sure there is atleast ONE reasonable way to fit everything non-track related together before deciding on a track plan.

 

Since you've expressed interest in a fishing port, I'd say make sure to make room for one. You don't want to find out later, after the track is fixed, that the only place for it is next to a pond in the middle of the layout. 😆  And I'd advice you to think about other special areas or scenes you'd like to see on your layout and make room for them.

 

Then there are other things to consider such as visibility calling for high rised buildings (served by wider streets) in the back and lower buildings (possibly served by narrow alleys) in the front. Mountains obviously go into the back for the same reasons. As stated by others, I'd say allow for staging under/behind mountains, even if you can only fit a couple of extra sidings. I've never heard of anyone who regretted they built too much staging. Mountains also work well as a backdrop.

 

For the things I've mentioned, track planing software is hard to use. Track planning software is great for getting the track geometry right in a limited space, but not so much when it comes to making a vision for the other aspects of the layout. Since your layout table already exists, I suggest you put down track on it, move around buildings, make roads from paper, put down mock up houses and so on. The kind of stuff cteno4 always recomends. 🙂   When I ran out of track pieces to test with during this stage, I just put a track piece on a piece of paper and cut out paper track pieces and used those. At various points I had cardboard boxes, pieces of foamboard and paper for buildings.

 

A larger question is how much of an urban landscape do you want to have? This can also be stated as "how many light fittings for buildings and street lights would you like to make?"  🙂 Rice paddies and some tree cover are generally a lot quicker to cover big areas to a reasonable modelling standard with. Painting the ground green and calling it a field works fine as a temporary solution for rural areas, but not so much for an area filled with tram lines. 🙂

 

The "subway track" looks uncessesary complicated to me. Why not just a simple loop with a through station? That would be easier to build a city around and easier to automate too I guess. Does it need to be connected to the upper main line? Are there trains you want to drive from one line to the other?

 

Anyway, making the track go under a freight station doesn't seem like a good idea, neither when it comes to easy access for track cleaning, nor for realism.
 

If you put your tramways and subway station that far from the railway station your subjects are going to think you've been bribed by the taxi companies... Just saying. You do want your subjects to love you, right? 😉

 

Finally another thought that just popped into my head. If you find the thought of modeling a small subway station at some point in the future to be intriging, you don't actually need to plan a loop or other large track network for it. All you need to do is to reserve a narrow strip of land at the front of the layout with the lenght of a bit over twice the lenght of a station. When the train leaves the station it just moves in behind a panel out of view where it stops. A couple of minutes later your automation makes your train come back for another stop at the station. And so on. 

 

 

 

 

[gavino200]

16 hours ago, chadbag said:

One thing I was thinking of was to have a backdrop of a station and your real station extends out of the backdrop.  Make your station look bigger by having it disappear into the backdrop.

 

Ah, yes. I'm not a huge fan of backdrops. Also, I'm learning from mocking up little scenes that the, scenes look better when they don't dominate the layout too much.

 

My layout is very long but it's not very deep. With an average depth of 4 feet it has the same limitations as most small layouts. I need to take that into account.

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

I think shortening the station was the right call. Shortening the trains gives more of a sense of travel and the station itself doesn't dominate the layout so much. I'm unsure myself whether it was a good idea to cram in a 7 car long station onto my layout. Maybe something shorter had been better for the size of my layout.

 

Definitely the smaller station is better for my layout. I've toyed with the idea of going one platform shorter still, but I think a bit of wiggle room is good.

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

 

 

Since you seem a bit unsure what you want to achieve with your layout and how to achieve it, I'm writing down some things that came to mind when I saw your track planning sketches and read what you've been writing. Maybe you'll find something useful here. Otherwise just ignore everything. That's the privilige of building one's own layout. And you know best yourself what you want from your layout.

 

Thanks, Swede. I appreciate all your ideas. Thanks for taking the time to make so many well thought out suggestions.

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

 

When I see your sketch I can't help but thinking that you're focusing too much on the track itself (like many people do). With a station to the left, an intermodal yard in the center and trams to the right, supposedly near all of the layout is going to be urban. That means buildings all over of the place and every building need road access if you want to create a believable city scape. Streets need to connect to eachother, preferably without a lot of weird angle level crossins, and streets can take up quite a bit of space, especially if there are going to be trams on them and trams also severly limits the geometry of the street network. Lots of things can change during the building process, but I think it's a good idea to make sure there is atleast ONE reasonable way to fit everything non-track related together before deciding on a track plan.

 

Yes, the original plan was all urban. I am leaning more toward making it a little more sparse or suburban. I think some less clutter will be welcome. The most townlike areal will be on the right. The rest of the layout will be some little scenes. Freight depot, construction area, cop station, fire dept, shopping area, with restaurants, temple etc

 

But primarily the layout is for running trains and having fun with them. So I want to have an way of running many trains at once, even at the expense of realism. But yes, I'll seek a balance.

 

My main goal with track planning is to create an illusion of complexity. Some layouts look like a collection of loops. Others, while not to much more complex, sort of trick the eye, and it's not that obvious what's going on without really deconstructing it mentally a bit. I'd like to go for that a bit. It's very hard to make a plan, without seeing how things work out in space.

 

My layout is fairly giant in terms of length, but it's only four foot deep. Those dimensions are sort of the result of some back and forth with my wife. Otherwise I would have simply used the entire space. I made my previous layout in the way you describe - just building and changing things. This time I'm going to do it with software first, for many reasons.

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

 

Since you've expressed interest in a fishing port, I'd say make sure to make room for one. You don't want to find out later, after the track is fixed, that the only place for it is next to a pond in the middle of the layout. 😆  And I'd advice you to think about other special areas or scenes you'd like to see on your layout and make room for them.

 

Yeah, I think I decided that after seeing yours. I was thinking ships at first, but just like the large station, they would dominate in an aesthetically unpleasing way. Also the fishing boats are just so cute.

 

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

As stated by others, I'd say allow for staging under/behind mountains, even if you can only fit a couple of extra sidings. I've never heard of anyone who regretted they built too much staging. Mountains also work well as a backdrop.

 

Definitely.

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

For the things I've mentioned, track planing software is hard to use. Track planning software is great for getting the track geometry right in a limited space, but not so much when it comes to making a vision for the other aspects of the layout. Since your layout table already exists, I suggest you put down track on it, move around buildings, make roads from paper, put down mock up houses and so on. The kind of stuff cteno4 always recomends. 🙂   When I ran out of track pieces to test with during this stage, I just put a track piece on a piece of paper and cut out paper track pieces and used those. At various points I had cardboard boxes, pieces of foamboard and paper for buildings.

 

For me I know that the track plan has to come first. In a space like mine, it's not working out the track geometry. It's also about finding out what kind of ideas will remotely fit in the space. I've built before the way you're talking about. And I plan of doing plenty of that when I move to the next stage of building. But definitely doing design work beforehand will be helpful, I have no doubt.

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

 

A larger question is how much of an urban landscape do you want to have? This can also be stated as "how many light fittings for buildings and street lights would you like to make?"  🙂 Rice paddies and some tree cover are generally a lot quicker to cover big areas to a reasonable modelling standard with. Painting the ground green and calling it a field works fine as a temporary solution for rural areas, but not so much for an area filled with tram lines. 🙂

 

How many buildings and LEDs? As much as possible. I love those suckers. Actually, I'd be fairly happy with just a layout with gray painted foam, to run my trains on. But I've also discovered that I LOVE doing miniature modelling. Each building is fun. Interiors, figures, modifications, LEDs. etc. The layout is also an excuse to do this stuff. I'm in no hurry. After the layout is up and running to play trains on, I'll slowly add the rest, one scene at a time over the next few decades. It's really two hobbies thrown together.

 

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

The "subway track" looks uncessesary complicated to me.

 

It is. I agree. But I love subways and tunnels. It makes zero sense.

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

 

Why not just a simple loop with a through station? That would be easier to build a city around and easier to automate too I guess. Does it need to be connected to the upper main line? Are there trains you want to drive from one line to the other?

 

Nope it doesn't need to be. However myself and my son like to goof around on the layout playing cops'n'robbers and stuff, so a connection is just fun. Also out of laziness I can swap out trains to the yard with less painful re-railing.

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

Anyway, making the track go under a freight station doesn't seem like a good idea, neither when it comes to easy access for track cleaning, nor for realism.

 

Agree. But I like the idea. It would likely be a combination of "lower track in a gully" and "lift out sections". None of this is definite. But as for realism. It's not prototypical, but sometimes things that trick the eye can add to a sense of realism even if they're not logically realistic. Anyway, it may or may not work.

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

If you put your tramways and subway station that far from the railway station your subjects are going to think you've been bribed by the taxi companies... Just saying. You do want your subjects to love you, right? 😉

 

Good idea. I'll try to make a connecting line. All of that is in the early stages.  But my subjects don't need to love me. I'm actually building an n scale militarized police force (I have a thread about it somewhere). So if they revolt they'll get the jackboot. 😂 They'll probably suspect the taxi driver lobby anyway. I have tons of taxis.

 

1 hour ago, MeTheSwede said:

 

Finally another thought that just popped into my head. If you find the thought of modeling a small subway station at some point in the future to be intriging, you don't actually need to plan a loop or other large track network for it. All you need to do is to reserve a narrow strip of land at the front of the layout with the lenght of a bit over twice the lenght of a station. When the train leaves the station it just moves in behind a panel out of view where it stops. A couple of minutes later your automation makes your train come back for another stop at the station. And so on. 

 

 

That's a really good idea. But I know an "off-stage" subway station wouldn't satisfy me. The station will be something of a place-holder for a long time anyway. It's gonna take decades for me to complete this thing.

[gavino200]

I added a triangular piece to the inside corner on the West. I had to up my woodcutting game a bit to handle the angled cuts but it came together ok. I bolted it on pretty redundantly and it's solid. I don't think I need to add a leg. It'll be plenty strong as long as I don't stand on it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gavino200]

I starting to get the hang of RailModeller. I hoped to spend more time on it, but as usual the woodwork took about three times longer than expected.

 

This is a bit of a breakthrough for me. I realize that when I try to plan on paper of just imagining, I imagine in a much smaller scale. It's a sort of wishful thinking that the layout is bigger than it is. It's so refreshing to just know immediately what will fit and what won't. What it'll be more important for will be trying to design different elevations.

 

Below are just a few pieces. The only thing close to definite is the station. I cut/pasted part of it to perhaps make an elevated station on the East on the same line.

 

The 90 degree turns for a hidden yard is almost certainly a bad idea, but it wold even leave roome for a second hidden yard just east of it  in a second "mountain" with an open valley separating them.

 

The blue "on layout" yard looks like a bit of a monster. I'll have do do some measurements to see if it can be smaller. The turnout ladder causes it to become very long if you want to keep the tracks of equal length.

 

Next up, I'll rebuild a 'run for fun' DC loop on the east, and continue with RailModeller until I have something I like.

 

[cteno4]

Nice, you could do a jig on that corner!

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

7 hours ago, gavino200 said:

The 90 degree turns for a hidden yard is almost certainly a bad idea, but it wold even leave roome for a second hidden yard just east of it  in a second "mountain" with an open valley separating them.

 

It should be fine to have a curve in a yard, just make sure you limit the speed on them in iTrain, and make sure you don't set acceleration and deceleration to decent values.

 

 

7 hours ago, gavino200 said:

The blue "on layout" yard looks like a bit of a monster. I'll have do do some measurements to see if it can be smaller. The turnout ladder causes it to become very long if you want to keep the tracks of equal length.

 

Have a look at my yard's turnout ladder. I did the turnouts slightly different which saves quite a bit of space and doesn't look terrible either 🙂

 

[Wolf]

8 hours ago, gavino200 said:

I realize that when I try to plan on paper of just imagining, I imagine in a much smaller scale. It's a sort of wishful thinking that the layout is bigger than it is.

I totally felt that.

[chadbag]

You have a walk way behind the table, right?  

[Madsing]

14 hours ago, gavino200 said:

This is a bit of a breakthrough for me. I realize that when I try to plan on paper of just imagining, I imagine in a much smaller scale. It's a sort of wishful thinking that the layout is bigger than it is. It's so refreshing to just know immediately what will fit and what won't. What it'll be more important for will be trying to design different elevations.

This is so true!

[gavino200]

8 hours ago, chadbag said:

You have a walk way behind the table, right?  

 

Yes, there's two feet of space around the layout on all sides. Its enough room to comfortably walk around. You can play with the layout from any position. You can walk around with the trains and take action shots which I kind of like doing.

 

The depth of the tables was chosen based on twice the length of my comfortable reach. I wanted to be able to get to everything with minimal hassle. I've now violated that principle, so I'll have to be creative about reaching to the middle of this new area after the layout has been set up.

 

I was thinking about this after seeing your post today. A possible solution would be to make a lift out section to stand in if necessary. See below. Like how you get into an attick by pushing up the door piece. I could go back and do this later. The best time to do it would be now, but I'm currently all woodworked out for a while. When I make the section for the opposite end of the layout, I may try to incorporate a lift out section.

 

 

 

 

 

[chadbag]

13 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

Yes, there's two feet of space around the layout on all sides. Its enough room to comfortably walk around. You can play with the layout from any position. You can walk around with the trains and take action shots which I kind of like doing.

 

Yeah, that is what I plan on doing.  Making things 4' deep and having both sides free.  I will have a backdrop around but it will be easily removable (short sections with pegs into the side boards).   The inside corner pieces kind of muck that up so I am interested to see how you get on with it.  I would like to put corners in as well but maybe smaller ones to keep a better reach...

 

Thanks

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by chadbag

[gavino200]

3 hours ago, chadbag said:

 

Yeah, that is what I plan on doing.  Making things 4' deep and having both sides free.  I will have a backdrop around but it will be easily removable (short sections with pegs into the side boards).   The inside corner pieces kind of muck that up so I am interested to see how you get on with it.  I would like to put corners in as well but maybe smaller ones to keep a better reach...

 

 

I went down under the table. That triangular piece is too small to fit through comfortably. You could squeeze through, but it wouldn't be pleasant. But I like the concept. I think I'll build it into the other corner piece on the East side. That one will probably be bigger so it'd be more necessary anyway. I won't get that far for months though.

 

 

On 3/13/2022 at 9:14 PM, cteno4 said:

Nice, you could do a jig on that corner!

 

Actually, out of curiosity I did get up on it. It's rock solid. Wood is pretty impressive stuff! I didn't do any jigs, though!

[cteno4]

1 hour ago, gavino200 said:

I went down under the table. That triangular piece is too small to fit through comfortably. You could squeeze through, but it wouldn't be pleasant. But I like the concept. I think I'll build it into the other corner piece on the East side. That one will probably be bigger so it'd be more necessary anyway. I won't get that far for months though.

You could probably move that cross brace back like 3 or 4” to make the lift out easier to fit thru. But the big issue for any lift out is having an area big enough with no track over it. Making a lift out that would properly align track would be tough. You would need to taper the opening and cover to work well. Lift outs are also a challenge as to what you do with the lift out once you lift it out worming out the hole with the lift out over your head.

 

1 hour ago, gavino200 said:

Actually, out of curiosity I did get up on it. It's rock solid. Wood is pretty impressive stuff! I didn't do any jigs, though!

Yep looks very sturdy! Make one up!

 

jeff

 

[Wolf]

Just as a way of thought, what about a slide out rather than a lift out? Like a drawer and a retractable leg (when slided out)?

 

In the club they just cut the tracks on the sections and soldered small tubes onto them, just fitting small metal rods to be pushed through to guarantee align on the tracks, but make it easy to remove a piece. Could do a picture close up at the club tomorrow if curious.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Wolf
Just spelling

[gavino200]

17 hours ago, cteno4 said:

You could probably move that cross brace back like 3 or 4” to make the lift out easier to fit thru.

 

Ah, yes that would be a possibility.

 

17 hours ago, cteno4 said:

 

But the big issue for any lift out is having an area big enough with no track over it. Making a lift out that would properly align track would be tough. You would need to taper the opening and cover to work well.

 

Yes, I should wait until I have a track plan before deciding. My skills are probably not up to a task like that.

 

 

17 hours ago, cteno4 said:

 

Lift outs are also a challenge as to what you do with the lift out once you lift it out worming out the hole with the lift out over your head.

 

 

Worming it out would probably be the best. What ever scenery that goes on top would have to be super reinforced and strong. Else tears would soon ensue.

 

An alternative would be a short telescoping pole with a pivot, so the lift-out piece could be pushed up, locked, and rotated out of the way.

[gavino200]

12 hours ago, Wolf said:

Just as a way of thought, what about a slide out rather than a lift out? Like a drawer and a retractable leg (when slided out)?

 

In the club they just cut the tracks on the sections and soldered small tubes onto them, just fitting small metal rods to be pushed through to guarantee align on the tracks, but make it easy to remove a piece. Could do a picture close up at the club tomorrow if curious.

 

All of this is probably beyond my skill range to achieve, but out of curiosity I'd love to see it.

[cteno4]

I think you underestimate your skill range gavin!

 

jeff

[Wolf]

12 hours ago, gavino200 said:

All of this is probably beyond my skill range to achieve, but out of curiosity I'd love to see it.

I fear I made it sound super advanced and complicated, I assure you, it is not. I send pictures later (at least for the connections on the rails, I am not sure I can take some of the drawer. - Then again, its really just a plain ikea drawer misused)

[Wolf]

As promised, here the picture. Its just a soldered tube to the rails, with a pin inserted to fixate it in place. Works well, although not the prettiest of all solutions.